I was Mistaken as a Monstrous Genius Actor [EN]: Chapter 385

The perspective of ‘Pierrot,’ or rather, ‘Henry Gordon,’ or Kang Woo-jin, shifted. It was no longer the shabby bus where the gruesome ‘Pierrot’ had rampaged. Now, he was somewhere in bustling New York, around midday. It was his past. Woo-jin was walking along the sidewalk, but his steps lacked energy.

He was just dragging his feet.

The manic look he had in the shabby bus was nowhere to be seen. His inner and outer selves were the same. The current ‘Henry Gordon,’ or rather, Woo-jin’s state of mind, was like a damp rag—soggy. His body felt heavy, and his heart was soaked in muddy water. He felt like all the energy in his body had been extinguished.

“······Hoo-”

Kang Woo-jin let out a small sigh as he walked down the street. Among the many people passing by, a few glanced at Woo-jin strangely. They were all dressed in neat suits or clean attire. Kang Woo-jin noticed their gazes but didn’t pay any mind.

-Swoosh.

Woo-jin, who had been walking, stopped in front of a convenience store and looked at his reflection in the glass window. A worn-out zip-up hoodie, jeans, shoes with worn-out soles, messy, rather long hair, slightly hunched back and shoulders, and an overall emaciated physique.

This was his current form.

Soon, the door of the convenience store opened, and a plump man who seemed to be the owner came out. He was bald but had a thick mustache. As soon as he saw Woo-jin standing idly in front of the store, his eyes turned suspicious, and he frowned.

“What is it?”

Startled, Woo-jin’s hunched shoulders drooped even more.

“Ah, no. I’m just…”

“Okay, just go on your way.”

“Misunderstanding…”

“Get lost!”

The plump owner’s shout made the people walking nearby turn their heads, and Woo-jin, who had been hesitating for a moment, barely managed to move on. Glancing back, he saw the plump owner still glaring at him.

Scorn.

This clearly upset Kang Woo-jin, but as he walked on, he ignored the feeling. It was a common occurrence.

“It’s okay, I just need to erase the thoughts.”

In that moment, his own emotions echoed starkly within Woo-jin. It was meaningless. The world he saw, and everything in it. Perhaps even the plump man behind him.

It was indifferent.

Kang Woo-jin’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and feelings as he dragged his feet—nothing was right. At this point, Woo-jin felt an indescribable sense of loss. It was neither hot nor cold, neither comedic nor tragic. It was simply meaningless and indifferent.

Woo-jin, walking down the street, entered an alleyway.

There was a small pizza place right there. It was where he worked as a delivery guy. Woo-jin, with his hunched back, stared at the pizza place for a moment, then sighed and opened the door.

At the same time.

“Hey!!”

A shout echoed from the kitchen inside the pizza place. A burly man with a flour-covered apron yelled as soon as he saw Woo-jin. It was the pizza place owner.

“I got a call from a customer!! They said you were 7 minutes late?? Why are you doing your job like that!!”

“I-I’m sorry!”

Woo-jin, overwhelmed by the outburst, immediately apologized, but the pizza place owner didn’t seem to be in a forgiving mood as he stood in front of Kang Woo-jin, huffing.

“What about the pizza money?”

“I… I couldn’t get it.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Th-the customer who ordered gave the wrong address.”

“What? Are you blaming the customer? Are you saying you did a good job?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

The pizza place owner, glaring at Woo-jin as if he wanted to kill him, gritted his teeth.

“Damn it, I was crazy to give you a job just because you begged so much. Fine, get out.”

“Huh?”

“I said get out.”

“I-if you suddenly do this!”

“Get lost!!”

Sharp contempt spread like a scream. Woo-jin endured it. His shoulders and back were hunched, but he clung to the pizza place owner with all his might. He was so desperate that he even stuttered.

“I-I-I’m sorry! I-I’ll never let this happen again, I’ll work really hard!”

“Are you going to leave when I tell you to, or are you going to get something broken before you get lost?”

“······”

Hope had just been extinguished. Woo-jin was barely making a living by working at this pizza place. He, who had become as small as he could be, spoke again with difficulty.

“…Then, at least the money I’ve earned so far…”

-Thwack!

The pizza place owner threw a few bills and coins at him. Of course, it was far from enough.

“The money you didn’t get today and the mistakes you made are deducted! Get lost now!”

Woo-jin, looking down at the money scattered at his feet, slowly reached out his hand. His pride told him not to pick it up. His self-esteem was at rock bottom. But reason and reality corrected him. Pride and self-esteem wouldn’t give him money. When he reached his hand to the floor, he was filled with irritation, but as soon as he picked up the scattered bills, a great sense of emptiness washed over him.

‘Yeah. This is probably right.’

He endured it. Woo-jin accepted the constant, quiet oppression as he always had. After picking up all the money, he left the pizza place. He heard the sound of the pizza place owner spitting on the floor behind him. He pretended not to notice.

Kang Woo-jin walked again.

After walking a few steps, he saw a store with several TVs on display. A woman in a suit on TV was giving a speech.

-[“Control your anger, the indiscriminate explosion of anger is a disease. You need to get treatment. Anger is the root of many problems.”]

The woman in the stylish suit seemed to be a psychology expert. And it sounded like she was speaking to Woo-jin, to ‘Henry Gordon.’ Woo-jin, filled with a sense of loss, walked on and muttered to himself.

“That’s right, if I had gotten angry, I wouldn’t have gotten the money.”

Suddenly, it started to drizzle. People on the street without umbrellas ran. But Woo-jin.

“······”

He just pulled the worn-out hood over his head. A bus stopped in front of him at the crosswalk. A child was visible through the window. Smiling brightly. Woo-jin forced a smile, following the child. It didn’t last long. Because the mother covered the child’s eyes with her hand. Soon, the smile disappeared from Woo-jin’s face.

It was because he had adapted to the repeated excessive prejudice.

Various words churned in his head. Endure, bear it, ignore it, pass it over, close your eyes.

Suppress your anger.

“I need to… find a job.”

His mentally unstable younger sister was waiting for him at home. There was no time to rest. Soon, frustration welled up.

The rain intensified.

-Swish!

Kang Woo-jin picked up a newspaper from a trash can in front of him. He was about to use it to cover his head, but he paused. Because of the headline on the front page of the newspaper.

『Bank robbers who had been missing, found unconscious and abandoned in front of the police station! Who is the hidden hero?』

‘Hidden hero.’ Recently, these kinds of articles had been appearing frequently. Soon, Woo-jin snorted quietly and threw the newspaper into the trash can.

Hero. It sounds good. But a hero only exists if there’s a villain, right?

Come to think of it, how many villains has Kang Woo-jin met today? But Woo-jin couldn’t eliminate any of them. Why? He arrived home. A small, cramped room and a bathroom were all there was. His younger sister was sleeping on a worn-out bed. Woo-jin covered her with a blanket and went into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror.

“······”

He tried to smile again. But for some reason, anger surged up. His expression was smiling, but his chest was burning. I didn’t do anything. But why? Why only me? The kindness he had shown to the world all day was a defense mechanism to survive.

Woo-jin clenched his fist.

He was about to break the mirror with his fist, about to explode with anger. But he endured it again. Instead.

-Thwack!

He threw the soap on the floor. It was the limit.

A few days later.

Kang Woo-jin’s perspective shifted once again. Now, he was jumping around at the entrance of a parking lot, holding an advertisement board for a large supermarket. He had found a new job.

However, his appearance and attire were peculiar.

Lightly reddish hair, a face painted white, two eyes with sharp, red squares drawn on them, and thick lips painted in a wide, torn smile. His clothes were that of a clown.

The ‘Pierrot’ was shaking the advertisement board.

While he was shaking it, a familiar male voice came from behind him.

“Hey—Henry.”

‘Pierrot,’ ‘Henry Gordon,’ or Kang Woo-jin, turned his head. A burly man was chuckling. It was the owner of the pizza place he had quit.

“Hehe, is that you? Hey, Henry. You’re a bit hunched over, so this look suits you well?”

“······”

“Or is it because you’re so skinny? Dance, dance. ‘Pierrot’s are supposed to impress the customers.”

Scorn, oppression, discrimination, prejudice, contempt. Perhaps even more. Foul things swirled around Kang Woo-jin. Anger surged. But what could he do? In the end, Woo-jin just stood there dumbly. The pizza place owner chuckled for a few minutes before disappearing towards the supermarket.

The ‘Pierrot,’ who had lowered the advertisement board, just stared at his back.

“······”

His expression was strange.

And then, on a rainy night.

The burly owner of the pizza place was alone, watching TV and drinking beer. It seemed like he had finished his business for the day.

-Rumble!

Thunder mixed with the sound of rain. At that moment, the door of the pizza place creaked open. Slightly startled, the pizza place owner turned his head. A rain-soaked stranger. No, a ‘Pierrot’ was standing there. As soon as he saw him, the pizza place owner immediately recognized who the ‘Pierrot’ was and jumped up, shouting.

“Henry?! You bastard, why are you here!”

At the same time, thunder and lightning struck.

-Rumble!

The sound was drowned out by a gunshot.

-Bang! Bang!

The ‘Pierrot,’ or Kang Woo-jin, was standing there. He had a gun in one hand. The pizza place owner was sprawled on the floor. Blood was slowly spreading on the floor. At this moment.

“······Ah.”

Kang Woo-jin regretted it. At the same time, he felt the anger he had been holding back explode at once, and strangely, his hunched shoulders straightened out. So did his back.

At that moment, there was a flash.

Thanks to the lightning outside, the ‘Pierrot’s’ dark face was clearly visible. It was still a ‘Pierrot’s’ face, but thanks to the rain, the red color around his eyes was streaming down.

A face that looked like it was weeping bloody tears.

Kang Woo-jin laughed.

“Hehehe! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!”

It wasn’t forced. Then, something caught Woo-jin’s eye. It was one of the things that had fallen to the floor as the pizza place owner collapsed. One of several cards. Kang Woo-jin picked up the blood-stained card.

“Hmm-”

A clown, or ‘Pierrot,’ was drawn on the card.

-‘JOKER’

How much time had passed?

Kang Woo-jin, who had been living in the world of ‘Henry Gordon’ within ‘Pierrot,’ had returned to reality, inside the van. It was still snowing heavily outside the window. As always, nothing had changed from the moment Woo-jin entered the subspace.

However.

‘Hoo—am I a bit stiff?’

Woo-jin, who had lived a tumultuous life, had directly experienced and done extraordinary things. Or rather, should he say he had gone through a ‘birth story’ as a villain? If it wasn’t for the concept, Woo-jin might have been grinning from ear to ear right now.

It was because the afterglow of the clown, of ‘Pierrot,’ remained.

But Woo-jin, a veteran of the subspace, erased the madness, the frenzy he had felt. Then, while maintaining a poker face, he looked down at the ‘Pierrot’ scenario on his lap.

‘It’s like—the scenario is interesting, but experiencing it directly is on a different level?’

It was because countless emotions were hidden within the scenario itself, and ‘subtext’ was scattered everywhere in the lines and stage directions. Subtext was like a hidden landmine that the writer or screenwriter had secretly planted. It felt like the true meaning of the lines or stage directions was implied.

The protagonist, ‘Henry Gordon,’ himself was also unique.

In the beginning, he was weak, had low self-esteem, and was a model of the weak, but the anger and rage that accumulated within him were more intense than anyone else. But as he progressed, ‘Henry Gordon,’ who was filled with madness and pleasure, had no anger or rage.

Woo-jin, who had read (experienced) ‘Henry Gordon’ several times, thought.

‘I might be able to use ‘freedom of role’ or ‘role synthesis’—‘beastification’ too.’

He was talking about unleashing the villain within ‘Pierrot’ into reality.

‘Or other abilities too. Hmm, that’ll be fun.’

Of course, in an upgraded state.

Meanwhile, in LA.

It was morning in Korea, but it was afternoon in LA. In Hollywood, which was several times more bustling than Korea, Director Ahn Ga-bok and his interpreter were sitting in a medium-sized conference room at ‘Columbia Studios,’ which was hot with ‘Pierrot,’ and across from them were executives from ‘Columbia Studios.’ Four in total. Director Ahn Ga-bok had been working on a nearby set or stage when he was suddenly called in.

Therefore.

‘What is it? Their expressions are a bit—serious.’

He observed the expressions of the ‘Columbia Studios’ executives, including the bald man across from him, who were highly involved in the movie ‘Pierrot.’ They were all serious. It was almost like a secret meeting.

It was around this time.

“Director.”

The bald man among the executives who had been talking handed a transparent file to Director Ahn Ga-bok.

“There’s something you need to know.”

“······”

Ahn Ga-bok, the director of ‘Pierrot,’ picked up the transparent file without saying anything. At the same time, the bald executive said.

“There will be a change in the title of ‘Pierrot’ before its release.”

“…The title?”

“Yes. It’s similar but slightly different. As you can see, it will be changed to ‘Pierrot: Birth of a Villain.’”

The bald executive, who had been reciting the new title ‘Pierrot: Birth of a Villain,’ continued.

“And the movie ‘Pierrot: Birth of a Villain’ is the starting point of a large-scale project that we are secretly planning, a project we have been preparing for quite some time. A hero series where several movies are organically connected. In other words, a cinematic universe. The male lead of ‘Pierrot: Birth of a Villain,’ ‘Henry Gordon,’ will be.”

He spoke calmly and firmly.

“He will be the first villain character to introduce our cinematic universe to the world.”