Chapter 2
Chapter 2
“Ah~.”
Pop.
As I kept my mouth open, a sweet piece of fruit went inside.
I was happy. I was blissful.
“Your Highness, is there anywhere that itches?”
On top of a sofa that looked soft just from seeing it.
I was sprawled out comfortably, resting my head on the thigh of a woman with exquisite beauty.
Slightly cool fingers gently parted my hair, and at the touch that tickled my head, sleep naturally poured over me.
“Ah~.”
As I opened my mouth again, a sweet fruit the size of a grape once more entered my mouth. As I chewed it slowly, the woman who had offered her thigh to me formed a light smile.
“Parsi, the mirror.”
“Here it is, Your Highness.”
I roughly took the mirror that the woman, Parsi, handed me and met the gaze of the figure inside it. Even though a full week had already passed since I came here, there was only one thought that came to mind whenever I saw this face.
‘Damn handsome.’
It was really damn handsome.
It was my first time ever experiencing the sensation of being handsome, but that wasn’t the important part.
No, was it important?
Anyway, one week ago, at the moment I was lying in bed and drifting into sleep, I came to my senses here.
Absurdly enough, the very first thought that came to mind was whether I had died and come to heaven.
I did go to church, but it was only because I had been dragged along by my parents as a child until it became a habit.
Honestly, when I thought I had come to heaven, I felt like I had bowed in thanks to my parents at least ten times.
Church coin to the moon, the unfilial child arrived in heaven first!
However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that was a misunderstanding.
By my side when I came to my senses was a maid who introduced herself as Parsidad.
I asked Parsidad—Parsi for short—many things, and I was able to hear many stories.
And at last, I reached a conclusion.
‘SSS-Rank Otherworld Absolute(SSSOA)’.
I was now inside a novel.
I said it in a meaningful way, but in truth, it wasn’t something all that remarkable.
Entering a novel when bored, flying to another world when bored, reincarnating when bored, possessing someone when bored.
I had seen such things countless times.
“Fuck.”
I tried to act calm like protagonists from novels of similar genres, but there was nothing I could do about my mind turning completely white.
It was so ridiculous that a hollow laugh nearly came out.
Regression, possession, reincarnation.
There was even a term for it, showing just how similar the trends of genre novels were.
Especially possession stories.
From a certain work onward, both demand and supply exploded exponentially.
Sometimes the writer who wrote it went in, and sometimes the reader who read it went in.
But to think an editor would go in.
If this were a novel, wouldn’t that be slightly fresh as an opening? Well, since entering a novel is all the same in the end, the later content would be obvious anyway.
“Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
“No.”
The problem was the person I had possessed.
…I never thought I would end up saying this line. I had once advised an author that it was too clichéd and should be cut, and now I felt an immense sense of regret.
What do you mean clichéd? It was overflowing with reality—that was the problem.
A blond, blue-eyed flower boy stared back at me from the mirror with a sulky expression.
The name of this face was Leios von Ribera.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the protagonist, but he was a fairly important character.
As the third imperial prince of the Ribera Empire, which possessed the strongest power in the story, he opposed the protagonist in the early to mid portions, but in the latter half became an assisting ally who provided great help.
Borrowing the words from the comments, he was something like a deus ex machina.
Leios von Ribera was handsome, strong, and had his own faction.
So what was the problem?
Everything mentioned earlier only held true in the mid to late stages of the story.
At present, he was merely a wastrel prince of illegitimate birth, putting on the act of a ruffian while watching the reactions of the empress and the other princes.
Fortunately, in a few months, he would leave the imperial palace and enroll in the academy. As long as I endured until then, it would be fine, so I planned to lower myself and endure quietly, like a dead mouse.
“Your Highness, are you not training today?”
As I lay sprawled out, reviewing what had happened so far, Parsi spoke cautiously.
“I will. Training.”
Aside from the first day, when I was flustered by the sudden change in environment, I had begun training to get used to this body.
One might ask what kind of training it was all of a sudden, but at times like this, the correct answer was to shut up and follow the clichés. That was how the protagonists of the possession-genre stories I had read always acted.
Seeing the sun hanging high in the sky outside the window, it seemed I was just entering the afternoon.
As I got up and stretched my stiff body, Parsi said she would prepare things and left first. I then approached the desk in one corner of the room and opened a tightly closed drawer.
“Hoo.”
I had experienced two failures.
Because I didn’t want to taste that horrific feeling again, I had faithfully carried out my assigned duties and analyzed the works I was in charge of in detail.
In particular, if there were to be a debate over Oneulnal’s work, SSS-Rank Otherworld Absolute, I was confident I could win even against the author.
And the result of that was the thick stack of parchment piled up before my eyes.
Future events, key characters, even hidden pieces. Anything I thought was important, I wrote down indiscriminately onto parchment.
Still, since I was relying solely on memory without any reference materials, it was regrettable that I couldn’t recall everything. Even so, judging by the amount, I figured I had written down about two-thirds.
Even if someone were to discover it, they wouldn’t be able to read it since it was written in Hangul, and to guard against loss or damage, I had also made a backup copy.
In truth, the best option would have been to return to reality, but it wasn’t something I could think optimistically about forever.
That was why I began setting future policies in order to survive.
Even if I knew future events, being unable to make use of them would be no different from kicking away opportunities with my own feet.
Fortunately, I had seen countless possessors until now, and I clearly remembered how they acted.
First of all, I couldn’t act recklessly without understanding anything. If I moved clumsily and the story changed, the future I knew could become useless.
As much as possible, I had to protect my own safety while staying within the bounds of the story.
Fortunately, I knew many things that could help.
Hidden pieces that appeared in the work but were never used in the story.
Myth-grade relics that could turn the user into a transcendent being in an instant, or mysterious elixirs that granted tremendous power with just a single drop.
It wasn’t just items.
This world also had reclusive eccentrics hidden throughout the land, so it truly was a case of first come, first served.
However, most of them were scattered across the entire continent. Since I was currently stuck inside the imperial palace, it was regrettable that going out to find them was out of the question.
If only I could enter the imperial palace vault, where countless treasures slept, without any complications, I would have no regrets, but that place was classified as a sanctum.
At the time, no one other than the reigning emperor or those granted permission by him were allowed entry, and even if one were an imperial prince, the moment they tried to enter without authorization, their head would go flying.
However, treasures were not found only in the vault. The imperial palace of the Ribera Empire possessed a long history.
Hidden pieces concealed by people of previous generations were scattered everywhere, and naturally, whoever got to them first became their owner.
The problem was that the locations of those things were hazy.
I vaguely remembered impactful names like Excalibur or Elixir, but the locations of the hidden pieces concealed within the imperial palace felt utterly obscure, as if dark clouds were hanging over my mind.
“……?”
Thinking Parsi was probably waiting, I picked up my coat to head to the training grounds when, for some reason, a noisy clamor echoed from outside.
Soon after, pounding footsteps approached, the door burst open roughly, and a figure appeared.
“Y-Your Highness! At least give notice first……!”
“How dare you give me orders.”
Parsi followed in beside him with a tearful expression.
The sudden uninvited guest shot her a cold rebuke, then strode into the room with stiff, echoing footsteps.
“You.”
The uninvited guest was a man with refined features, blond hair, and blue eyes like mine.
I didn’t know why he was angry, but he glared down at me with cold eyes, his brow deeply furrowed.
“You dare make me come here myself?”
The unfamiliar man snarled as if he were about to devour me.
I glanced at Parsi, who stood pale-faced, clutching her hands together, utterly at a loss.
‘Who is he?’
I desperately worked my mind.
Blond hair and blue eyes were a mark of the direct imperial bloodline of the Ribera Empire. He obviously wasn’t the emperor, so he had to be one of the three princes.
Recalling the group illustration made to commemorate the two-hundredth chapter, I hurriedly sifted through my memories, and before long, I was able to deduce his identity.
“August von Ribera.”
Originally, he had held the position of the empire’s third prince, but then Leios, a bastard, had appeared like a comet.
Despite being the same age, because Leios had been born earlier, August had been forced to hand over the title of third prince, and his place in the line of succession had dropped by one.
That was precisely why he was glaring at me now as if he wanted to kill me.
Enraged that a rolling stone had stolen what was his, he hated Leios and committed all kinds of cruel acts.
“Hah, I’m so dumbfounded I can’t even speak.”
August stepped right up to my nose and glared at me with a frigid gaze.
For a moment, seeing even murderous intent flicker in his eyes made my chest surge, but I clenched my anus and barely held it in.
‘Endure, endure.’
Had Leios bowed to them because he was afraid? No. He avoided them because it was filthy.
I only had to endure for a few months anyway. We would meet again at the academy, but once the fence of the imperial palace was gone, they wouldn’t be able to touch Leios so carelessly. At most, they’d scheme in the shadows.
And before that, I might even be able to return to reality. As much as I wanted to punch that insolent bastard, there was no need to poke a hornet’s nest.
“I told you, didn’t I? Live like you’re dead.”
Grinding his teeth, August spoke to me, enunciating each syllable. His face, having come right up to mine, filled my vision.
Thick, glossy blond hair that looked like it might spill over, fine skin that could pass for a woman’s, and deep eyelashes—he was handsome enough that even idols would hesitate to stand beside him.
This bastard was damn handsome too.
“If you don’t want to die like that lowly whore who gave birth to you, that is.”
“…….”
Unlike his good looks, vile words spilled from his mouth.
They were words that made my face twist involuntarily.
No matter how much I was a 21st-century Korean gamer who took parental insults like greetings, hearing such abuse to my face was a bit much.
In games, it was commonplace for insults to climb past parents and all the way up the ancestral line, but having someone directly attack me like this was the first time since the military.
That aside, by your logic, your father would be a piece of trash who slept with a whore.
Do you realize you’re basically spitting in your own face while you’re talking?
“Hmph.”
When I stood there without saying a word, August seemed satisfied, letting out an unpleasant sneer as he turned his head.
“Even so, punishment is necessary. I can’t strike royalty, even if you’re only half one……. Good. There’s something perfect right here.”
What?
August’s gaze shifted behind me, landing on Parsi, who was standing awkwardly there. At the lecherous smile directed at her, her face turned pale.
August strode forward, passing me by.
Before I could do anything, he abruptly struck Parsi across the cheek.
Smack—!
“…Ghk.”
An ominous impact echoed through the room. As I stared blankly, the sight of Parsi tumbling across the floor after being slapped by August entered my eyes.
“Hhk…….”
Her cheek reddened instantly and swelled, and her split lip spat out crimson blood.
As if the shock was severe, she crawled on the floor without regaining her senses, and August squatted down in front of her, speaking with a face full of mock pity.
“Your looks are decent, but you chose the wrong master. You should have become my maid. To think you’re serving that vermin. Consider this your fate.”
“Ugh…….”
August seemed to have no intention of ending it with just one blow and raised his hand again.
Terrified, she trembled and lowered her head.
“Hoh, do you dare defy me? You know the price of disrespect toward royalty, don’t you?”
Telling her not to resist, August grabbed Parsi by the hair and lifted her head.
A cheek swollen bright red, and a single line of tears running down over it.
Unable to shake off his grip, Parsi merely sobbed with a trembling body.
Watching that, I felt something snap cleanly in my head.
“Yeah, that’s right. Someone like you… ghk?!”
“You fucking bastard!”