I Killed The Readers

"Ever imagined your favorite character or one you created suddenly appearing behind you one night?" "No? Look behind you…........Just kidding." "Or am I? Go on, check again." "Alright, alright. Stop twisting your neck. Nothing’s there. But just imagine it..." --- I was the original author of a popular fantasy novel titled "The Last Villain Falls," a follow-up to my earlier hit, "The Last Villain Standing." Just when it seemed like I was finally basking in another career-defining moment, an unhinged rival author, the same one who murdered our editor, killed me. All because he couldn’t handle losing first place. I died, but fate, or maybe life itself, decided that death was too merciful. Yes, I got isekai’d. But this isn’t your typical power-fantasy isekai. I wasn’t reborn in some majestic world or as a hero blessed by the gods. No, I was reincarnated into the worst possible place… my own novel. “Oh, cool....he knows the plot, right?” Wrong. The story was unfinished. The last thing I remember writing was the hero watching him die, and that's the 20th chapter. But instead of dying, he...I survived. And with survival came something unexpected, a system, not the regular type...with loots and missions into dungeons. I woke up with something called the Reader Judgmental System, and a journal. I didn’t fully understand what was happening until I was shown their comments. “Haha, L take! Shoulda just sold his sister, bro.” “He needs to suffer more so the MC can get a proper revenge arc.” “Deadbeat dad arc hit hard. Peak fiction.” They joked about pain they didn’t feel. All written in my inbox, flooding in nonstop, because I had done exactly what they wanted. And that was my real crime. I followed their suggestions. I wrote what they asked. I became their puppet. “Readers make or break an author and their novel,” they say. But what about the characters? Ever think they might be real? I was also given names and their parts played: #Daoist234w78 — Top Commenter #Zart — Highest Fan Value | 5 Super Gifts Per Week #UnbeatableBookworm — Highest Read Count #Negativity — Ghost/Beta Reader And the other 150,000+ readers across my works? They’re all targets now. Call it selfish, sure. But I was a slave to their whims. I enjoyed it once… but this is my life now and I don't want more pain. My name is Han Xueling... Ignore the name. ...and I’m going to kill all the readers. Including you.