I Became A Gigachad The Villains Are Obsessed With

༺ 𓆩  Chapter 3  𓆪 ༻

「Translator — Creator」

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

Then, Gigachad saves the world!

It was a plan so ludicrous it could only exist in a world equally absurd; that this was the only way to stop the world’s ruin made it painfully clear how broken this world truly was.

“I suppose I understand, at least roughly, why that plan is the sole option we have to avert the world’s ruin. I hate to admit it, but after spending a few weeks living with Gigachad… I’ve found he’s actually helped me, emotionally. Even those rippling muscles grow oddly tolerable over time.”

And yet—
Canaria didn’t ridicule the plan for its ridiculousness.
She didn’t waste time pushing for some better, more dignified alternative.

She was bold, yes—but also wise.
She knew how to separate what could be changed from what couldn’t.

Which was why, in seeking to understand the situation, she asked the question that truly mattered—
A question about me.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Hmm?”

“If what you say is true, then failing means we all die, doesn’t it?
And yet… Duke, you look like you’re genuinely enjoying this.”

“Do I?”

Was I smiling?

Apparently so. When I reached up and touched the corners of my mouth, they were drawn up far higher than I realized — stretched into a grin so wide I must have looked like some giddy red-masked ghost.

Ah.

Of course I was enjoying it.

“How should I put this… imagine, for a moment, that you’ve been sentenced to push a boulder up a mountain.”

Sisyphus.

The image that came to mind was the tragic figure from Greek myth, doomed to roll a stone up a hill for eternity.

And so, I projected the image through telepathy:
Gigachad (feat. Sisyphus)

A grotesquely muscled Gigachad, grunting and sweating, struggled to push a massive boulder up a slope; despite the horror of those twitching muscles, he stumbled repeatedly, losing his grip again and again — but each time, he pushed forward with tireless determination.

The scene accelerated like a fast-forwarded film, endlessly looping.

Every time he reached the summit, the boulder would simply roll down the other side.

“When he finally reaches the top, the boulder tumbles helplessly down the opposite slope.
And he’s left with nothing but emptiness, misery, sorrow, and futility… as he trudges down to start all over again.
Over and over. Hundreds of times.
And do you know what happens to a person when they repeat that for long enough?”

“…They go mad?”

Canaria didn’t say it outright, but the look in her eyes said, ‘So that’s why you’re grinning like a lunatic.’

I shook my head.

And then, with the ever-persistent Gigachad enthusiastically pushing his boulder in the background, I gave her the real answer.

“You grow indifferent.”

“…Pardon?”

“Eventually, even when the boulder rolls back down, you don’t feel despair or sadness.

You just think, Ah, last time I pushed it right—maybe this time I’ll try the left. Even though no matter how you push it, it’ll fall again once it reaches the top.

So you keep looking for the tiniest difference, over and over again.

Push. Fall. Repeat.

Not because you still have hope…

But because it would be a waste to quit now, after everything you’ve already done.”

In Endless, I had gone through hundreds of game overs chasing that elusive “possibility where the world doesn’t end.”

I tried every single option.
Logged over a thousand hours.
Past a certain point, it wasn’t about fun, or even the ending.
It became something else entirely.

Just chasing new routes.
Just investing dozens of hours into each run, for the slim chance of uncovering something new.

“I forgot why I even began this punishment in the first place.”

The Gigachad in the vision never stopped.

Over and over, he strained toward the summit, pushing that massive boulder forward; toward the sharp, jagged peak.

Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t even pushing a boulder—
Maybe he was just using it for muscle training.

From the side, it all looked so… foolish.

“Then, one day, I gave up. Sat down at the peak instead of chasing the boulder back down. And… huh?”

Perhaps it was because of the constant, unrelenting weight pushing against the mountain.

The peak, once razor-sharp, now looked—just a little—blunted.
Minutely, infinitesimally so.

“Looks like the summit’s gotten a bit rounder, huh?”

It had been shaved down.

“Goddamn it. I was really about to quit this time—”

Gigachad, sweat glistening on his grotesque musculature, grinned from ear to ear.

“But now it’s getting fun again.”

Honestly, I hadn’t really cared if the world went down and took me with it.

What was the point of surviving long-term in a world without the internet?
Living recklessly, burning bright and dying fast—it sounded way more appealing.
Hell, I could’ve just taken my transmigration perks, grabbed some Grade-S traits, built a harem, and crowned myself king.
Probably could’ve coasted for a few decades, too.

There was no reason to cling to this idiotic, low-success-rate Gigachad Project.

“But seeing a new possibility with my own eyes… God, it’s euphoric.”

Still.

At least when it came to Endless, I couldn’t let go.

Sure, Endless was trash.

A game only masochists would willingly play.

But it was my trash.
The trash I had devoted my life to.
To me, it wasn’t just a trash game. It was a god-tier game.

Trash—but delicious trash.

I just couldn’t bear the thought of this game remaining trash… all the way to the end.

“Honestly, I didn’t even hate the world’s ruin all that much. If you thought of it as a kind of time-attack roguelike, it wasn’t such a bad deal. It’s not like stopping the end was the only goal. There was so much content—
Becoming a Hero to conquer dungeons, becoming a demon lord to manage them. It was fun.”

For a 19,800-won game, squeezing out thousands of hours of playtime?
I’d call that more than a fair deal.

There were few games with this level of cost-performance.
Anyone who clocked that many hours and still dared to ask for more content—now that was just a soulless bastard.

“But even then… I really wanted to see it. What those damn doomsday buttons would look like if they actually survived.”

And me?
I wasn’t just a soulless bastard.
I’d nailed my conscience shut in its coffin and buried it six feet deep.

Thousands of hours poured into Endless had turned me into this.

“Canaria.”

“…Yes.”

“You were going to kill Duke Nosferatu… and then kill yourself, weren’t you?”

In the future I knew, Duke Nosferatu was assassinated by a maid, and the noble house collapsed; the maid who killed him took her own life immediately afterward.

That was all I’d ever known about the maid named Canaria.
Her name didn’t even appear in the actual game.

“I’ll make a prediction. You would have succeeded.
You would’ve assassinated the Duke, taken your own life, and the House of Nosferatu would’ve crumbled, having lost its center.
That’s the future I knew.”

But now, I knew her name.
Her voice.
Her past.
Her obsession with gold—how she had become a miser after losing her family and nobility.

And in this altered course of events, the Duke hadn’t died to a maid’s blade.
He had been dethroned by his own bastard son.
And the maid hadn’t killed herself—she’d become that bastard’s subordinate.

To be honest, it was exhilarating.
I wanted to dance, high on the thrill of content I’d never seen before.

Our game is a true God-tier game.

“So, how about now?”

“..............”

“You completed your goal—with someone else’s help, sure—but still.
Do you still want to die?”

“.............”

A silence settled.

It swelled in her throat like a lump of unspoken words.

For all my bluster, Canaria remained composed. Calmly, she tapped her cheek with a finger—tap, tap—deep in thought.

And then.

As if scooping up the silence that had spilled between us, she opened her mouth slowly. Gently.

“…The me from when I first infiltrated the mansion would have.
I had nothing left—not my family, not my name.
All I had was revenge.
I had no reason to live, no attachment to life.
But now…”

Canaria glanced at the Gigachad still rolling his boulder in the distance.

And for the first time—she laughed.

A wide, toothy, exhilarating grin.

“Giga Chad says it’s pussy shit to settle for mere revenge. Aim high. Set your goals higher. He says I should act like I want to save the world, at the very least. And besides, I’ve got myself a wealthy employer now who promised me a gold coin per job.  It’d be a damn shame to die and leave all that gold behind in my pocket.”

That wasn’t my telepathy speaking.

That was her—her true voice.

“You’ve changed.”

“Yes.
The Fucking Lion inside me has awakened.
I think Gigachad changed me.”

— No, that’s not quite right. I am your inner self. I just gave you a little push. I don’t have the power to change you.

I couldn’t change the ending of this world.

Endless only ever had one conclusion—the world's ruin.
This world was as fragile as a coffee-flavored cookie.

But

Even if I couldn’t change the end of the world—

— You’re the one who changed yourself. My daughter.

People could change.

Like a vengeful soul who, after achieving her revenge, chose to live instead of die; even the so-called doomsday buttons could change.

— And you can keep on changing, endlessly. Because you are limitless.

And me?

I would just keep pushing their backs.

That’s what Gigachad was made for.

.

.

.

As our long conversation came to a close, Canaria tilted her head, as if something had just occurred to her.

“By the way, Duke—does that spell work regardless of distance?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll respect your privacy.”

For the record, Canaria was the type to wash her hair first in the bath.
Then her face, and after that, she used her right hand to wash under her left armpit and below her chest, following the curve of her neck.

How do I know this?

That is a secret.

“So then, theoretically… you could use Gigachad to peek at someone’s cards while I’m playing a game, right? Could I ask you for a little help next time?”

“…Are you saying your salary isn’t enough?”

“Friends and gold coins—can never have too many of either, can you?”

“Pfft. Kana, I really do like how consistent you are.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

Yeah, that’s my Canaria.

I pulled a gold coin from my coat and tossed it to her.
She caught it mid-air in her mouth, pulling off a little aerial somersault in the process—like a well-trained circus seal. Or a monkey.

God, this was kind of entertaining…
Dangerously so.

“Duke, what’s your next move?”

“My main objective is still to redeem the Doomsday Buttons using Gigachad… but before that—”

I began to sift through the trash heap of characters I remembered from the game.

Those bastards.

The ones who, if left unchecked, would one day press the button out of curiosity, plunging the world into ruin and ending your run without so much as a hint why.

Players had a nickname for them.

The Clickers of Doom.

“—first, I think I’ll start by removing all those dumbasses who push the doomsday button just for fun.”

Sure, it might seem unfair to them.
Unjust, even.

But they needn’t worry.

Just like what happened to players in the game—

They won’t even know why they’ve been removed from the story.

END σϝ CHAPTER