Role-Playing a Dual Personality as a Background Character in a Manga

[A request for readers who bought the full novel: please leave a rating now that it's complete!]

[Currently serializing Can a Socially Anxious Shut-In Become a Popular Character? The blurb is at the very bottom~]

Ji Qing, an S-rank freshman at the Esper Academy, was on his way to register when he got bound to a manga forum System. Comparing the manga with the school's brochure, he realized that the manga's protagonist was a classmate in his year.

Ji Qing: Interesting.

At this point, the protagonist was still an F-rank weakling, while Ji Qing was already at the top of the freshman class.

While the S-class students provoked the protagonist, he daydreamed in the library. While they dueled with the protagonist, he fed fish in the pond. While they suffered a crushing defeat at the protagonist's hands, he ate in the cafeteria... Looking at the manga's stale, awkward plot, Ji Qing was profoundly bored.

Meanwhile, the System, which had vanished as soon as it bound itself to him, suddenly returned. Looking at the manga in front of him, Ji Qing had a flash of inspiration

Ji Qing (excited): Let's make the story more interesting from here on!

System (bewildered): ...What are you planning to do?

*

Esper Academy: The Hunt is a mediocre shonen manga about an esper academy.

The story starts and stays at the academy, with readers following the protagonist through all the academy's stale, awkward plotlines. Just as the readers grew tired of it, the appearance of a new character set the forums ablaze

He was arrogant and acted like a madman.

His origins were mysterious, yet he had the same face as the freshman valedictorian.

He walked between the worlds of light and darkness, helping the protagonist time and again, only to put him in danger just as often. The manga became an enormous hit, with endless shipping wars and plot discussions everywhere. Just as readers had built hundreds of forum threads debating his relationship with the freshman valedictorian and the protagonist, the story finally revealed his identity and past.

Manga forum:

[Waaah, the whole "after you left, I became you" thing.]

[Revenge, except I'm the only one taking revenge.]

[Who actually died? Whoever it was, I want revenge, aaaah!]

[Protagonist, stop standing there like an idiot! Hurry up and convince him to return to S-Class!]

Ji Qing: Well? Isn't the story a lot more interesting now?

System (coldly): ...What do you mean, well? You took a perfectly good hot-blooded shonen manga and completely overhauled it into a revenge manga, aaaah!!!

[Coming soon: Can a Socially Anxious Shut-In Become a Popular Character? Please add it to your reading list~]

Chu Chi was on the verge of death when he got bound to a manga forum System.

The System required him to become the manga's No. 1 most popular character, or his life would end the moment the manga concluded.

The good news: Any setting believed by over 80% of readers would become reality in the manga.

The bad news: The mangaka said the manga would only cover half a year in its world. In other words, Chu Chi had to get enough spotlight in the next six months to claim the No. 1 spot in popularity.

Another piece of good news: He could have a forum account all to himself.

All right, here's the problem

How was he, a guy who could barely get a word out in front of strangers, supposed to stay alive in this manga world inhabited by ghosts, evil spirits, and monsters, and claim the throne of No. 1 popularity within the next six months?

Chu Chi: ...I'm so doomed.

*

The socially anxious Chu Chi simply went all-in on cultivating the image of a "cool, taciturn, masked handsome guy," but for some reason, manga readers always saw through the social mask to his real self

[I'm fucking dying laughing. Who even is the cool guy in the protagonist's mind? Our Xiao Chi has to go through three rounds of inner monologue every time he talks to the protagonist, hahaha!]

[I'm desperate to know when the protagonist will see the real Xiao Chi.]

[They talked past each other the whole way, and neither of them understood what the other really meant, hahaha... Are they each other's worst social experiences? Hahahaha...]

[Hahaha, do you guys just like arguing with thin air?]

Chu Chi sighed dejectedly. "System, is my acting really that hard to watch?"

System, coldly: ...As long as you survive in the end.

Chu Chi: But what if I don't? QAQ

Theme: Never betray the friendships of youth.