The Retired Hero is an Extra

A rhetorical response was all he could mutter as he buried the truth within.

He didn\'t mind waiting a week, but what bothered him was that Andrew had already left.

\'At least he will come next week to check on me again,\' Jash consoled himself.

However, he didn\'t plan to train or do anything different this week.

After a brief chat with his mother to reassure her that awakening was his own wish, Jash returned to his room, changed to get comfortable to laze around.

Before the memories, he considered increasing his power and training a tiring task; he rather liked just using his brain to ace tests and play around.

Naturally, he was smart enough to know that being weak was not a great thing in a world where the strong ruled. So he decided he would start his awakening and training when he turned 15 before joining the World Academy.

A mocking smile crept his lips as he recalled his previous thoughts and he couldn\'t help but mutter, "How naive..."

As if to prove his thoughts incorrect, a rather dark past of his resurfaced.

\'But Awakening, huh? It\'s just forming a core and wielding mana... Nothing special. Though it can definitely be useful to take cold showers or dry up myself and even an area to immediately doze off…\'

Just recalling his own words darkened his face as he vowed to never let anyone know of it, no matter the cost!

"Ahem," Jash coughed to get rid of those memories before thinking to himself, \'Anyways, what am I to do now?\'

"Nothing, of course!"

Jash answered to himself with a wide smile as he rolled around his huge bed, enjoying the soft mattress beneath him.

Unlike typical extras, authors, haters, transmigrators, regressors, possessors, reincarnation and the like, he wasn\'t the least bit interested in the plot.

He even cursed his past life self for reaching such a trashy book.

"Whatever. A man gotta do something to survive, nah?"

Talking and nodding to himself as if finding his own words convincing, he finally stopped moving.

\'My supposed death is in the academy arc, so training, awakening... blah blah blah... It doesn\'t matter to me now.\'

With all the memories from basic forms to advanced forms of techniques, he truly didn\'t need to care about getting stronger.

Still, he doubted the memories ever since he got them.

Yet he wasn\'t an idiot to ignore something like his own death. He loved his life a little too much to ignore that.

The strange thing was his nonchalance and indifference towards changing the entire plot of the novel which begins with his death.

As he would be the only casualty during the beginning itself, it would lead to a larger impact on all characters in the novel, given his background.

And he was going to change that.

It was truly a wonder how he didn\'t care of the consequences it would have for other characters, his family and even the world at large.

Jash was not someone who would change the future only a little bit so that future will remain predictable.

That would just not be him, he loved his life and peace a little too much that he wouldn\'t mind changing everything to enjoy his peace and quiet, even if it led to the world\'s destruction.

\'Just be the strongest. Simple, right?\' mused Jash.

Only he could be that free about something.

Was it his fault though? What is he supposed to do then? Just lie down and take it for the plot to progress?

Never!

However, he wasn\'t some psychopath, wanting everything under his control or something.

"That shit is better left to those chuunis," jeered Jash, recalling memories of Eighth-Grader Syndrome.

"Anyways, if anything goes wrong... Then, don\'t we have the protagonist? When else will his plot armor ever come in clutch?"

Of course, Jash knew that protagonists, heroes, heroines, villains, and villainesses came with not only plot armor but also were calamity magnets in themselves.

Anyways, it wasn\'t any of his concern.

\'Whether the villain handles it or the protagonist has nothing to do with–\'

Jash stiffened in the midst of his thoughts and immediately sat up straight.

"Wait, wait, wait! I keep thinking and calling them villain and protagonist, but who are they? How come I never cared about their identities?"

After coming up with this thought, the idea just didn\'t leave his mind.

The only clues he had was the protagonist and another important character came from the church. The protagonist naturally defeats the other guy and gets hailed as the saint and hero.

Of course, Jash ignored the females as he believed they were just there for the sake of the hero\'s harem.

Immediately he felt the chills imagining the scene of fifties or even hundreds of women asking for a man to satisfy them.

"Your sacrifice will be remembered, O\' Protagonist."

Jash mock saluted the protagonist for taking care of so many brainless women, even if some died for emotional development, or for the protagonist to get one or two more women.

"Whatever. Let\'s just ignore him since it is confirmed I haven\'t met him. The problem is the villain..."

Jash\'d mind shifted to the possibilities as he kept thinking of the possible main villain or the antagonist.

\'It has to be someone who can rival the illogical plot armor...\'

\'Most likely someone from nobility...?\'

\'Some human prince? Or from another race? Or someone from a ducal family?\'

\'Also, he needs to be smart...\'

\'What else...? Handsome! Of course!\'

\'Wealthy? Nobility, duh.\'

\'Maybe have no sister?\'

\'Since the plot didn\'t have ntr elements, it does tone down a lot of options...\'

\'But what if it is some commoner plebian the protagonist treated like shit or had his crush or sister enamored by the protagonist?\'

…

The possibilities were endless and Jash truly couldn\'t go through them within a few hours.

He didn\'t even realize and the week elapsed as he continued to add, remove, diversify, and group the various possibilities.

In the end, he still couldn\'t confirm who could be the main villain.

No matter how much he thought about it, there could be way too many.

Even shortlisting them didn\'t have much of an effect as he didn\'t even know much about the other races.

And who\'s to say the main villains couldn\'t be from other races or even from some race yet to appear before humankind.

That wasn\'t to say he didn\'t have a guess.

"The most likely one should be him... But I truly hope I am wrong..." Jash mumbled to himself, knowing fully well unless something unexpected happened, his guess would end up correct.

Even his excitement for the awakening had waned due to the strenuous week he spent.

Being overfed and overcared for definitely didn\'t feel nice when done for a week continuously.

He really couldn\'t get used to the feeling.

At least, he would get a few answers from Andrew tomorrow.

That was the only respite in his mind as he fell asleep, a serene expression appearing on his face.