Prologue: The Trinity of Betrayal and the Truck of Providence
Kaito Yamashiro was an extremely normal guy.
An electrician, to be specific, but more than that, he was a man who secretly wondered if life had wired him for disappointment.
He knew how to fix a short circuit, but he had absolutely no idea how to handle the short circuit that his love life had become.
Once one of the best students in the school, with a bright future, now a completely normal electrician living an ordinary and boring life, feeling the weight of lost potential and unfulfilled dreams.
Despite this, Kaito had almost everything: a quiet life, a beautiful European girlfriend named Lucy, and a home.
Yes, "Almost" everything, because "Luck" wasn't part of his life.
His entire daily routine had become too monotonous and boring, to the point of non-return...
Wake up-Go to work-Eat-Go home-Sleep-Repeat.
Although he was starting to hate everything, Kaito perfectly knew that he couldn't go back. He had a dream to fulfill
-.
That day... that painful day... it was raining.
Of course, it was raining.
You don't get dumped under the scorching sun since the unwritten rule of sad stories demands at least 90% humidity and a sky the color of wet cement.
Kaito had just found out about his girlfriend's cheating, and that day, he caught both of them, ready to confront her with her lover.
“So,” Kaito said, gripping his tool bag. “How long?”
Lucy gasped.
It was sudden and perfectly timed.
Her grip on Nick loosened, her shoulders trembled, and her eyes filled with tears so fast it was almost impressive.
“K-Kaito… I’m sorry!” she sobbed, covering her mouth with trembling fingers. “I didn’t want this to happen! I swear! It just… happened! I-I-I...”
Her voice cracked on command.
She then took a step toward him, rain mixing with tears that might—or might not—have been real.
“I never meant to hurt you! Please believe me! I was confused! Nick was just there, and I was vulnerable and—”
Kaito stared at her, feeling a mix of numbness and rising anger, his mind racing through the absurdity of the scene.
Not at the tears or the shaking lips.
He was staring at the fact that, between sobs, she kept glancing sideways—probably checking Nick’s reaction, adjusting her posture, making sure she still looked fragile enough, like a performer sticking to her script.
Nick, for his part, looked mildly uncomfortable, like a man watching an unskippable cutscene.
Lucy noticed. Of course she did. Her crying had intensified almost immediately.
“I hate myself for this!” she cried, even as her fingers instinctively tightened around Nick’s arm again. “But feelings aren’t something you can control, right? You understand, don’t you, Kaito?”
That was the moment Kaito understood that she wasn’t apologizing because she felt guilty; she was apologizing because that’s what the script said she should do.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kaito wondered if she’d practiced this in front of a mirror as he tightened the grip around his tool bag, to the point of feeling pain.
Suddenly, Nick cleared his throat.
That was the sound of a man about to deliver a motivational speech he’d practiced in the shower.
“Hey, man,” he said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Let’s all just calm down, okay?” He added, before stepping forward slightly, and placing himself—very deliberately—between Kaito and Lucy.
Protective.
Dominant.
Performative.
“I get that you’re upset,” Nick continued, his tone smooth, rehearsed. “But hey, these things happen, you know? Feelings change... people grow. It’s just… natural selection, you know?”
He smiled. Confident. Warm. Absolutely punchable.
“I didn’t plan this,” he added quickly, even though every fiber of his posture screamed that he absolutely had. “It’s just the law of the jungle. The stronger connection wins.”
Lucy sniffed loudly behind him, her lips parted slightly, probably wanting to say something, with waterfalls tears still flowing from her eyes.
Despite her cries, Nick didn't turn around. All he did was rest an arm around her shoulders anyway, casual and possessive, like he was claiming territory.
For an instant, Kaito saw Lucy's body twitching.
“Look, buddy,” he went on, lowering his voice as if sharing wisdom. “I can see that you’re a good guy, but you’re… comfortable, maybe too much.”
He gestured vaguely at Kaito’s tool bag.
“Lucy wants more than comfort," He said, a grin appeared on his face, "She wants ambition. Vision. A future people can believe in,” Nick added, tapping his own chest. “And I can give her that.”
Kaito's eyes became red from all the rage he felt inside his heart.
Nick wasn’t really talking to him: he was talking to an invisible audience. A real narcissist.
That guy was even wearing a shirt unbuttoned down to his navel despite the rain, and he didn't feel the cold.
Yeah, because hot guys don't have thermal receptors.
'Oh, he's been cucked.' Some of you are gonna say. And you're probably 100% right.
“Tell me. Six months?” Kaito did a quick calculation based on when he noticed Lucy's different behavior. “So I basically paid for the birthday dinner where you two met. Fantastic.”
”Kaito… I… I swear… it’s not what you think-“ Lucy mumbled between sobs.
Nick, meanwhile, sighed, clearly bothered by this whole situation.
"Oh come on, chill out, time doesn't matter here!" Nick said.
Then Kaito looked at the two of them.
The scene was so perfect, so bleakly cliché, that he felt like a stranger in his own life.
It felt like being inside one of those trash-tier NovelFires that Jean, his best friend, read compulsively.
'So that should be the part where I run away with a broken heart, train myself for one year, and then get back to have my revenge, right? Is that what people want?' Kaito thought, feeling the crushing weight of his powerlessness.
Speaking of Jean, he was standing nearby, motionless, mouth agape in shock, watching the scene with the look of someone who had just watched the finale of a TV series they despise.
“Kaito... I... I didn't know...” Jean tried to say, before clutching his chest.
His heart, weakened by years of a diet based on energy drinks and instant ramen, began to beat irregularly.
The time seemed to freeze around them until a sound of tires screeching on wet asphalt tore through the air.
A white truck, license plate missing and likely driven by a divine entity seeking entertainment, appeared, swerving toward the sidewalk.
Truck-kun had arrived, and as soon as Kaito saw it, he stopped thinking.
'Destiny is on my side.' He thought.
He saw the headlights' reflection in Lucy and Nick's eyes, and he could have pushed them away and become the hero.
But Kaito was a tired electrician who overworked himself to the bone; that's why he knew that when a circuit is compromised, the only solution is to pull the plug.
“You know what?” Kaito said with supernatural calm. “You’re right. This scene is too basic to end with crying.”
Instead of running, Kaito lunged forward, dropping his tool bag on the ground.
With a strength he didn't know he possessed, he grabbed Lucy by the waist and Nick by the collar of his stupid open shirt.
“If I’m going to hell,” Kaito snarled as the truck grew massive before them, “I’m taking you with me as carry-on luggage. Let’s see if your ‘global vision’ includes the physics of blunt force trauma, Nick!”
“WHAT?! KAITO, NO—!”
SPLAT.
In that moment, darkness swallowed everything.
The last sound Kaito heard was the thud of Jean hitting the ground, dead on the spot from the cardiac shock of watching his best friend turn into a martyr/murderer on live broadcast.
Then, the void. And that damn blue light is starting to shine.
[WELCOME, TRAVELER.]
[Tutorial Completed: "The Electrician’s Betrayal"]
[Calculating Karma... Result: Extremely Vengeful.]
"Eh? What's this?" Kaito asked, after a big blue screen appeared in front of him. "Where am I?!" he thought.
He took a look around, but the only thing he could see was nothing more than darkness.
"Shit. Shit. I died. And now? What the fuck is happening?!?"
Kaito’s internal screaming was interrupted not by a divine voice, but by a progress bar.
[LOADING NEW LIFE... 15%... 45%... 99%...]
“Loading?” Kaito blinked, his panic shifting rapidly into annoyance. “I just committed a double homicide-suicide involving a heavy goods vehicle. I shouldn't be loading. I should be fading to black or burning in a lake of fire. Why is there a User Interface?”
[DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.]
[Welcome to the System, Hero Candidate #442.]
[Current World Status: Apocalyptic.]
[Mission: Save the Realm of Aethelgard.]
“Save the realm?” Kaito floated in the void, crossing his arms. “ Absolutely not. I just died. I’m off the clock. Send Nick. He loves being the center of attention. He has a ‘global vision,’ remember?”
The System ignored him. It was, after all, a pre-programmed script designed to ignore logic.
[ANALYZING SOUL COMPATIBILITY...]
- Subject: Kaito (Electrician).
- Primary Traits: Spite, Pragmatism, High Tolerance for repetitive tasks (Grinding), Deep-seated hatred for social norms.
- Karma: Pitch Black.
Kaito stared at the floating text. His eyebrow twitched.
“Necromancer... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? AM I GOING TO REINCARNATE ?!?! LET ME FUCKING DIE IN PEACE!" He screamed... but...