"Fucking dissatisfaction. It's too small to satisfy any lady, yeah!" a fat boy yelled, scowling at the small sized pizza he had ordered for guys' night.
Two other boys sat with him on the ground, also staring at the pizza with visible dissatisfaction. One had a lean build, dark hair, and a gaunt face, wearing a pair of round glasses, while the other appeared more athletic with smooth skin, though all three of them had heavy eye bags beneath their eyes as they had not slept since the previous night, studying for their final exams, which were tomorrow.
The fat boy looked at the athletic one with growing irritation.
"Dennis, did you fucking forget to order the mid sized one?"
Dennis glared at him.
"No, you damn pig. I was scammed by Doorknock, or whatever they call that stupid delivery service."
The scrawny one wore a look of disappointment as he watched the two argue endlessly over what had already arrived. There was certainly no return policy for food delivery.
Fed up with their incessant complaints, he slammed his hand on the ground.
"Let's just eat it, guys. Our final exams are tomorrow. We can't afford to waste time arguing about food and other nonsense."
The two other boys paused briefly, then began digging into the pizza, each taking a slice for himself. The fat one immediately grabbed two, pushing Dennis closer to planting a fist squarely in the middle of his chubby face. The three were friends who had shared the same dorm from their first year to their final year at the university, all under the same Engineering major.
While they ate, rain suddenly began drumming against the window without warning. The sky darkened, and within seconds, it grew even heavier, drowning out every other sound. The three of them glanced at the window in confusion.
'That's strange. I thought the weather forecast predicted there would be no rain today…' Dennis thought, rising from the ground and moving closer to the window.
He didn't open it. The young man looked toward the sky and saw cracks of light running across it before disappearing, then colliding with each other again like lightning, yet he was certain the lights were not that.
They were entirely different, like pure light behaving… unnaturally without being emitted from any source. The beams did not fade with distance nor scatter in the rain, and they moved as though they possessed intent.
Without looking back at his two buddies, who seemed far more focused on how to divide the last piece of pizza, Dennis asked in a low tone:
"...Guys, is there any possibility of pure light traveling through the sky?"
There was no response from the two. Only then did he realize they could not hear him over the rain, despite how close he stood to them.
However, he did not bother to repeat himself, because he was certain there was no way such a thing could occur naturally.
Unlike thunder or lightning, this light defied all known physics.
Just as he was about to ignore it, a loud bang resounded through the air, forceful enough to leave a crack in the window. The three of them clutched their ears and dropped flat to the ground with shocked expressions. Instantly, the rain ceased.
"Argh. What the fuck was that? My ears are aching!" the fat boy exclaimed, slapping his ears repeatedly.
Dennis went deaf for a moment as a distant ringing surged through his ears, sending waves of pain through his head. He held them tightly and shook his head, trying to rid himself of the persistent sound echoing through his hearing. On the other hand, the scrawny boy was already hiding under his bed in fear.
"...T-that reminds me of the event in the first chapter of the novel, Place Holder. It can't be possible, right?" Skyler, the scrawny boy, muttered loudly while trembling.
The fat boy, Simon, glared at him and dragged him out from under the bed, gripping him by the collar of his clothes.
"Hey, what the heck are you talking about!? Did you read too many webnovels or what? Why are you trembling so much!? What event!?"
Regaining his hearing, Dennis yelled,
"Calm down with the damn questions, idiot! That might have been a bomb blast too."
He stood up from the ground and slowly crept back toward the window, while Simon continued pressing Skyler about what he was trying to say. The scrawny boy, however, had suddenly undergone a shift in demeanor. He was far too frightened, as if struck by the recollection of a traumatic experience.
The rain that had been pouring heavily just minutes ago had suddenly stopped as though it had never been present, and on the ground of the dorm building, Dennis caught sight of multiple shadows darting across the field faster than the eye could follow.
'What are those things?' Dennis thought while watching the scene below.
All of a sudden, about two of them burst into the ground floor of the four story building, causing another loud noise. In an instant, the students on the ground floor began screaming, and it seemed as though chaos had erupted just below.
Skyler's eyes widened with even greater fear upon hearing the uproar.
"S-shit… it can't be. It really is the event from Place Holder. There's no way t-that can be possible, no, no…"
Without wasting another moment, Dennis and Simon scrambled to find whatever they could to block the door, not even bothering to leave the room to assess the situation. The chaos and screams were enough to tell them it was terror beyond, not to mention what Dennis had seen. Everything was supernatural.
After successfully blocking the door with everything they could find, Simon switched off the light and closed the curtains on the window. They then turned back to Skyler, who was cowering on the ground in fear.
"Explain what's going on. Right now," Dennis said in a stern tone.
Skyler was a natural coward who could not even brush shoulders with a girl, and also an exceptional bookworm. However, he was addicted to webnovels and webtoons, which Dennis and Simon considered nothing more than trash. He was the kind of person who would rather bury himself in an imaginary world and admire the harem of fictional characters, indulging in all sorts of fantasies.
But claiming that the world of a novel had suddenly come to reality, just because of a few supernatural events, seemed like the most absurd conclusion possible.
The scrawny boy slowed his breathing, then looked up at his two friends. Occasionally, they heard the shattering of glass, along with more screams and loud bangs, though none matched the first.
Fortunately for them, the chaos had yet to reach the top floor where their dorm room was, and accordingly, no one on the floor dared to step outside their rooms.
Skyler began explaining in short bursts after steadying himself:
"T-the Place Holder is an unpopular novel that fell into obscurity due to its weak premise, and only a few readers made it to the end. I couldn't get past fifty chapters because it was genuinely terrible, but I'm certain that what's happening right now is exactly a reenactment of the first event in the opening chapter. A sudden heavy downpour followed by the most deafening sound the human ear has ever perceived, then… the appearance of deadly shadow-like monsters and different mythical creatures… There's no way…"
Dennis and Simon exchanged glances in complete confusion.
"So what you're saying is that the event that happened in the—"
Before Simon could finish his words, a red screen appeared before each of them, floating at eye level.
"A system?" Skyler questioned rhetorically.
Dennis tried to touch the floating screen, but his hand passed straight through it. He looked at his two friends, who were also staring into empty space.
"Are you guys seeing this?"
"…Yeah," Simon answered slowly.
[The Milky Way Dimension has been chosen as the Next Holder of Destruction. Roles have been assigned to every entity within this Dimension. The First Great Event has begun. Survive.]
[Citizen ###: Dennis Sunderland]
[Role: Final Villain]
[Role Category: Fate]
[Congratulations. You have been chosen as an important figure in this storyline. Your enforced fate is to bring the final ruin to this world and die at the end of it. You shall fulfill your role accordingly.]
Dennis' expression darkened.
'What the fuck is this thing saying?'
Before he could finish the thought, a winged creature burst through the window, glass scattering in every direction.
It was about the size of a mini fridge, its body shaped like a giant beetle and covered in thick, armor-like plates that resembled hardened shadows. Its wings spread wide like torn sheets of darkness, beating heavily as strands of shadow clung to its form like fur. Its jagged limbs stretched out unnaturally, ending in sharp hooks, and its head resembled a distorted beetle, with mandibles that split open into a hollow void.
Simon found himself directly in front of it, and before he could even react,
his head was consumed whole, torn clean from his body, blood splattering across Dennis and Skyler's faces.
"Shit…!"