The Player's Secret Identity

A horror game called Ghost School, Lost Friends had recently become a hit. You played it day and night, reached a bad ending, and died of exhaustion. Then you transmigrated into the game as a hardworking student.

That student was the game's protagonist, about to be kept after class for getting questions wrong on a test. There, he would encounter a wandering ghost and become haunted by it. His mental health would deteriorate, he'd suffer auditory and visual hallucinations that affected his classmates, and eventually he'd be forced to leave school, sent to a psychiatric hospital, and die by suicide in despair.

You discovered you had a game System that let you create secret identities and change the story's course. You decided to focus on surviving first, but...

To avoid being chosen by a ghost, you made your new art teacher secret identity stay with you attentively during detention. A teacher passing by was shocked: "Isn't that the new art teacher? Why are they sitting together? That's far beyond the proper distance between a teacher and a student! Did they wait for everyone else to leave so they could have the classroom to themselves?"

To avoid being stopped and shaken down by delinquents on your way out of school, you had your secret identity as the neighboring school's bully follow you. The delinquents, who had been about to demand money, were shocked: "Isn't that the famous bully who was forced to transfer after accidentally disabling someone? He rushes out of school every day to act as someone's bodyguard?"

To avoid getting beaten by your drunken father, you had your secret identity as a newly arrived, retired underground boxing champion, injured and forced out of the ring, knock on the door after you got home. Your drunken father, who had been ready to beat you, was shocked: "When did this brat get mixed up with someone that powerful? Did the little punk set up a honey trap and get caught?"

To avoid being used as bait to summon a ghost by a wicked practitioner, you had your secret identity as a rising celestial master expose the scheme just before you accepted something that was supposedly meant to help you but would actually drive the ghost berserk. The wicked practitioner, who had been ready to lure you in, was shocked: "How did they see through something so well-hidden? Could they have been so smitten with us that they planned to use us as a stepping-stone to get close to someone they adore?"

To avoid being swallowed whole as an experience boost by a fox spirit, you threw yourself into the arms of your secret identity as a shapeshifting giant python, who had pretended to pass by, at the very last moment before you were killed. The fox spirit, which had been about to feast, was stunned: "That kid threw himself into the python's arms and wasn't shoved away, scolded, or killed? Could he be the reincarnation of the python's beloved from a past life?"

You survived in the end, but why does it feel like you can never shake off the rumors you started just to stay alive...

Theme: Study hard and make progress every day