“So I’m the one who has to do the work of the Protagonist in this life?”
...
Mateo Estes was never supposed to be anything special. 
He was an orphan abandoned by his shelter at seventeen, and a young man who floated between one miserable job to the next, he had learned very early that life would not hand him miracles.
Stability came only after years of grinding, after sharing rooms with strangers, after budgeting every cent until he could finally afford a cramped one-bedroom apartment. 
His biggest achievement was not glamorous, but it was his: a career as one of FaceLive’s most ruthless anime and manga reviewers, a voice that could destroy or crown a series with a single stream.
By the time he turned twenty, Mateo had built a loyal following through a single, brutal principle: honesty. 
If a story was trash, he said it. 
If a heroine was written like a cardboard prop, he mocked it. 
If the worldbuilding fell apart, he tore it limb from limb. 
His latest target was a manga with a famously long title…「Ore wa shujinkō dakara, mochiron utsukushii hiroin-tachi o sukuu！」, a series recommended endlessly by viewers who insisted he would love the setting. 
And he did… at first. 
The Crest power system had potential, the academy concept was refreshing, and the political tension of the Great Clans gave it weight. 
But everything collapsed under horrendous execution: heroines who fell in love because the protagonist breathed near them, plot armor thicker than steel, and a President’s daughter powerful enough to defeat an A-rank monster getting kidnapped by a C-rank rookie. 
It was, in Mateo’s words, peak stupidity.
He rated it a 3/10 on stream, roasted it for several minutes, and logged off feeling lighter than he had all week. 
Even a $10,000 donation couldn’t compare to the satisfaction of honest critique. He slept peacefully that night, unaware that the universe had taken his rant personally.
When Mateo awoke, nothing was familiar. His apartment layout had shifted, the cheap furniture replaced, and when he reached the bathroom mirror, a stranger stared back… a six-foot blond hunk with defined muscles, sharp features, and the exact face of the protagonist.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he got his System shortly after 
「Role Assigned: Protagonist」
「Mission: Save the Heroines」
「Failure: Erasure」
He was cooked…

'It was a fake?' Shion's eyes widened as she looked forward at the tab floating above the meeting table.


It had actually been the Shapeshifting Impostor all along and because of that revelation, they were now down to six people and among these six remaining players, three of them were the Impostors.


Shion's hand trembled as well as she stared at the notification. She was confused with her mind racing through the implications.


Had the Impostor known that they would fall for the bait? Had this entire thing been orchestrated from the very beginning… the kill, the camera footage, the perfectly executed frame job?


Now with Koji gone, they couldn't get readouts of the suspicion level of at least one of the remaining players each round and that crucial advantage was gone forever.


'They really played their game well…' Shion thought as she looked around the table at the remaining faces.


Chapter 166 - Impostors Among Us [V]