I stared at my phone screen.
An illustration of a girl appeared; the heroine, dressed in a sexy outfit, was sitting in the middle of the classroom.
From the image, her cleavage and thighs were clearly exposed.
As the character I was playing knelt in front of the heroine, a menu appeared:
[1. Give the Sun God Ring to propose to your love interest.]
[2. Give the Sun God Necklace to confirm that you two are a couple.]
I swallowed hard and rubbed my eyes.
No other options? Seriously?
The system is really forcing my character to be a sycophant, huh.
[The options that appear reflect the desires of the character you're playing.]
"Thanks for the explanation."
It's a rule of dating sims that each character is equipped with their own artificial intelligence.
My hands clenched into fists.
"Fine," I muttered.
I chose the first option:
[Your love interest accepts your gift.]
[Current relationship status: Engaged.]
"Finally! Is it the end? Is there finally a main character who gets a happy ending in this game?"
Then—fade to black.
Red text slowly appears in the center of the screen:
Bad End: Supernatural creatures attack the school until it's destroyed, and because the character you're playing only focused on chasing women, the world is also slowly heading toward destruction.
Game over.
I stared at the screen… for a long time.
'Isn't the point of a dating sim for the character we play to end up with their love interest? Why, just as they're about to be together, does the world end up destroyed?'
I feel like I want to slap the person who created this game!!!
If in my imagination, I want to slap someone else, in my real life, it's the opposite. I'm the one who's always getting slapped by others.
"Looks like I'm going to get beaten up again today."
A dating simulation game titled *The Bad Ending is the Only Route*. That's what I'm stuck playing right now.
It's not that I like playing dating sims.
I'd also like to play physical sports like most people, but I can't.
The reason is simple: my hands. They're the only part of my body I can move reliably. Ever since I was a child, I've been like a broken doll.
At the orphanage, the volunteers used to move my body from my wheelchair to a regular chair just to take pictures of me wearing a funny hat. They laughed, saying I was cute. If I fell, they'd call the nurse. I could never stand up. I could never protest.
Then, when I left the orphanage and got government-subsidized housing, I became a doll for the gangsters around my new neighborhood.
Since I was 9 years old, I've always been their toy.
Take today, for example, when I was turned into a gameplay machine.
One of the gangsters who lives on the block behind my house forced me to finish a dating sim that he said was popular.
He often says, "You just need to press buttons on a smartphone. Even a cripple could do it."
That's my status: A cripple.
I'm just a disabled person living in a cramped room with a half-paralyzed body.
I look at my face in the mirror—pale, weak, and able to do nothing but sit in a wheelchair.
I look down. My breathing feels heavy. Every breath feels excruciating.
'Should I… suici—'
Tap, tap, tap!
The sound of heavy footsteps echoes closer in the hallway outside my house.
Bam!
I drop my smartphone as the front door is kicked open from the outside.
Three thugs walked in. Their faces weren't unfamiliar. One was carrying a plastic bag of beer, another was chewing gum, and the last one—who looked absolutely hideous with all those pockmarks—immediately placed his hand on my shoulder.
"Have you completed my order?"
His hand was rough; his black fingernails gripped the collar of my shirt and pulled me closer.
"Don't tell me you haven't managed to get a single happy ending? All you had to do was press a button. You weren't told to run a marathon, you worthless cripple!"
Another thug grinned at the smartphone lying on the floor. "Look at this. It seems we'll have to teach him a lesson so he takes the game you ordered him to finish more seriously."
Thud!
The gangster's foot connected with the wheel of my wheelchair with a loud thud.
My body jerked violently. My back slammed against the wheelchair's backrest. The force of the impact sent me hurling to the floor, and my cheek smacked against the dirty ground.
Their laughter erupted loudly in my small room.
Laughter that… I've been used to hearing it since I was nine years old.
To me, the sound of adult laughter was a warning sign that pain was coming.
Pow!
See? I was right!
One after another, kicks rained down on my stomach. My chest felt empty. I could barely breathe. I opened my mouth like a starving fish, trying with all my might to catch my breath.
"How about we kill him right now?" They grabbed the welfare money from my small table and stuffed it into their pockets. "Besides, he won't be getting any more welfare money anyway since he's an adult now."
"Hey. Wait a minute!" The ugliest gangster stopped them. "You can kill him after he gets a happy ending for each of the main characters in this game."
"Why are you so obsessed with this game?"
"Don't you know how popular this game is? Even though it's super popular, they say no one in the world has managed to get even a single happy ending yet."
They left after placing a smartphone in the palm of my hand, leaving the door open.
I lay on the floor, silent for quite a while. It was as if the world had gone completely silent.
Slowly, I wiped away a bit of blood from the corner of my lips with a hand that was still trembling.
People who don't understand my situation would gossip about me. They often talked behind my back, wondering why I didn't work. Times have changed, they say—we can work even if we're paralyzed and stay inside the house all the time.
You know, I've tried doing all sorts of things: becoming a writer, a painter, a web designer, and so much more. But every time I take a single step, those thugs destroy what I've done.
Night falls.
The glow of streetlights seeps through the window cracks.
Slowly, I crawl to set up my wheelchair, then climb onto it.
I pushed my wheelchair out of the house.
Even though I'd only been out for a short while, I could already feel a few pairs of eyes fixed on me. They were watching from behind the alley. 'Look all you want!'
The edge of the street felt cold at night. The air, mingled with the scent of freshly fallen rain, clung to my face.
My wheelchair creaked softly along the sidewalk. The front wheel snagged on a crack in the broken concrete, but I pushed through.
At the intersection, a red light temporarily halted the flow of cars. A crosswalk stretched out before my eyes, wet and gleaming, reflecting the streetlights.
And there, a young girl stood right at the far end from where I was. Flawless white skin, glossy black hair, and a well-proportioned figure. The reason I went out as night was falling was to meet her.
A name tag on her chest read, Aria Winters.
I know my life won't have a romance plot, but it's okay to admire her, right?! Is it wrong to love someone without expecting to be loved in return?
The world, which had been gray, suddenly burst into color as I gazed at her.
But the arrival of a man beside her shattered the blossoming thoughts in my mind. The man was chatting with her until she laughed.
"Who is that?"
This was the first time I'd seen that man.
"Is he her friend?"
The man's face slowly drew closer to hers.
"Does he want to kiss her?"
So, is that man her boyfriend?
My hands clenched into fists.
I didn't know if the traffic light had turned green or was still red, but I pushed my wheelchair toward them without realizing it. I wanted to muster the courage to ask Aria directly.
SCREEEECH!
Just as they were acting out that romantic scene, the sound of a truck's brakes screeched through the air.
The truck's red headlights stretched out, heading straight for the crosswalk even as they snaked like a snake's head across the asphalt.
"Is the truck driver unconscious?"
The truck driver looked limp, his head flung back.
Time seemed to freeze suddenly.
All sound was sucked out of this world.
The truck was heading toward me, but suddenly swerved toward Aria because of the slippery road.
I saw that Aria wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. Aria smiled at the man. Her eyes were fixed only on him. She didn't see the truck. Didn't see the commotion in the middle of the night. Didn't see me, who was about to pop my eyeballs out of my head.
'I have to save her!'
Whether it was because I was too tired of being a puppet in this world, or because of my own foolishness driven by love, the fact is, I immediately sped up my wheelchair.
My hands gripped the push handles so tightly that my skin was cut and bleeding.
The wheels of my wheelchair screeched against the asphalt, leaving a straight trail.
My heart was pounding wildly. Cold sweat streamed down my forehead.
I didn't have time to shout "watch out."
All I did was crash into Aria's body from the front.
The impact flung her out of the path of the collision.
It turned out it wasn't just Aria; the man beside her was also pushed by me.
They both tumbled, fell silent, and were startled.
Aria's eyes, which had initially been filled with annoyance at being shoved by me, filled with horror when she realized I was trying to save her.
"N-No!!" Aria's eyes widened instantly as the light from the truck's headlights illuminated my face.
'Ah, finally… I'm free.'
The smell of asphalt and the smoke from the approaching truck signaled the danger closing in on me.
The last thing I did was open my mouth, "I—"
But I didn't get a chance to speak, so I just smiled. Hoping that she would live happily with her partner.
Then—
BOOM!!
The truck's front end slammed into my wheelchair, completely crushing my body.
The world felt like it was shattering into pieces. Until finally, darkness engulfed everything.
[You have been selected as one of the crossing candidates.]
[Do you accept?]
'What is that? If it means I have a chance to live comfortably. Of course.'
[You have agreed.]
[Starting the trial.]