[WildPocketMon donated 100 Gold.]
‘A-a donation?’
No matter how I looked at it, the word donation was unmistakably written there.
‘Th-this is a donation?’
For a moment, tears nearly burst from my eyes, though they did not actually fall.
That was how overwhelmed I was.
It had already been two years since I started serializing stories, saying I was going to become a writer.
At long last, this was the first donation I had ever received.
My heart swelled, and I wanted to drop to the floor and bow deeply to WildPocketMon, but the problem was-
‘Why did it have to be now?!’
The timing was extremely bad.
If I had received this back outside, I would have taken a screenshot of the message, set it as my wallpaper, and grinned at it every day. But here, it was nothing more than a rice cake in a picture, something utterly beyond my reach.
[First donation received.]
[Gold Shop unlocked!]
[Donated Gold can be used for transactions.]
……or so I almost said.
Right. If the number of Favorites had become my lifeline, and everything I did became a chapter of a novel, there was no way the Gold I received through donations would be completely useless.
A cash shop.
Was this not a system practically arranged specifically for me?!
Looks like Lucas had a conscience after all.
Delighted, I hurriedly called up the Gold Shop.
Just thinking about it made a translucent window appear before my eyes.
As expected of a cash shop, I suppose.
-Moonlight Swordsmanship 1,000,000G
-Hundred-Step Divine Fist (sale!) 820,000G
.
.
.
The player gouging was so outrageous it would put even the 3N to shame.
All I had was a measly 100G. But the average price in the Gold Shop was on an absurd level far beyond that.
‘Fuuuck, are you screwing with me?! How the hell is there not a single thing I can buy with 100 Gold……..’
[Price filter set. Searching for items at 100G or below.]
‘……There is.’
Exactly one.
-Language Mastery (Grand Opening Special!) 100G
Just one.
If there was any consolation, it was that this happened to be what I needed more than anything else.
‘I’m buying it! I’ll buy it, I said!’
[Language Mastery purchased.]
The Language Mastery displayed in the Gold Shop turned into a cluster of light and began flowing into my head.
It did not feel like anything had changed.
“Hmm…….”
I glanced around and spotted the book I had been reading earlier.
- Written by Heinz.
“Oh…….”
It worked.
The title, which had been nothing but squiggly drawings before, now read clearly.
“Are you looking for something, Master?”
And that was not all. I could now understand every word the servants said, when before I had not understood a thing.
“……I’m thirsty.”
Even the words came out properly.
Long live the Gold Shop!
Long, long live WildPocketMon!
With one less thing to worry about, my appetite suddenly returned.
……Not that I could suddenly start shoveling food into my mouth, so I kept eating as before, cutting it into small pieces and savoring them one by one.
‘It’s delicious!’
The meal that had felt like chewing sand now tasted like something from heaven. This must have been how good it was supposed to taste in the first place.
As my stomach filled with delicious food, hope seemed to well up inside me.
***
……My ass.
Just when I thought I had dealt with one problem, a new crisis loomed before me.
“His Majesty…… wishes to see you.”
“Yes. That is why I came to escort you personally, Lord Kraus.”
A summons from the king.
It might not sound like much, but this was a very big deal.
A mobilization order.
Lucas had only received his title in the first place because the King of Aerok, convinced Lucas was strong, had arbitrarily shoved one into his hands. Now it was time to pay the price.
Lucas had accepted all the benefits, and I was the one who had to deal with the consequences.
How fucking unfair!
And there was an even bigger problem.
According to my setting, before Lucas became a professor, he was thrown straight into the middle of a battlefield.
Through absurdly good luck, he alone survived, and afterward became a professor at Grasco, but-
‘I never described that process in detail.’
I had only mentioned it briefly to show Lucas as a comic-relief character who was both unlucky and absurdly lucky. I had never described how he survived or how he avoided the danger. On top of that, readers were not interested in Lucas at the time, so I had not devoted any real story space to it. I had simply brushed the whole thing aside with one line.
‘He got lucky.’
But this was not a situation where ‘He got lucky’ would cut it anymore.
It meant I had to face it myself.
‘Absolutely not!’
But I could not run away from here either.
I had already taken what they had given me. If I gobbled it all up and ran, a terrifying pursuit was bound to follow.
[Favorites Count : 2]
More than anything, that was what bothered me.
The Favorites.
Avoiding an event like this might cause the hard-won 2 to turn into 0. What reader in the world would enjoy a novel where the protagonist said, ‘Ah, I’ll just skip this crisis!’?
A novel needed a continuous chain of events. A novel without events was as good as dead.
The big problem was that if this novel died, I died too.
‘So I at least have to go see what that king bastard’s face looks like…….’
It was bleak.
But I did not show any of it and simply nodded.
“Let us go.”
***
Aerok’s royal capital, Yuged.
Aerok was the most prosperous kingdom in my novel.
And it was also the first kingdom to fall, beginning with Grasco.
As I looked bitterly over the city, the attendant spoke to me.
“We will soon arrive at the entrance to the royal palace. Within the palace, no one except authorized personnel may carry arms, so please remove any you have. If the barrier detects them, the Black Lion Knights will be dispatched. Please take care not to overlook anything.”
In other words, if I had any hidden weapons tucked away somewhere, I should hand them over now.
As if I had any weapons.
I had never even properly held a kitchen knife before. A fork or table knife would be another story.
“It seems you have none. Good.”
The carriage passed through the castle gate at a very slow pace.
The attendant, who had been carefully watching me, finally withdrew his suspicious gaze once we had completely passed through.
“If that was unpleasant, I ask for your understanding. Allowing a powerful man such as yourself into the royal palace carries great risk as well.”
I am really not that dangerous.
Still, opening my mouth for no reason would not do me any good, so I kept it firmly shut and stared straight ahead. More precisely, I kept my eyes fixed on the precariously maintained number 2.
Even after passing through the gate, we rode for quite a while before reaching the main castle.
Since this was the most prosperous place in the setting, even the royal palace was needlessly huge.
Only after passing through several layers of security did we finally arrive before the doors to the audience chamber where the king was waiting.
“Your Majesty, Count Lucas von Kraus has arrived.”
“Let him enter.”
Once the king gave permission, a magic circle appeared on the door, and I watched the several layers of magic placed over it unravel.
“……Three layers, no, four?”
Damn it. The dazzling magic circle had made me mutter without thinking.
I would have to be even more careful if I wanted to survive in this world.
Best to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.
***
“……Three layers, no, four?”
Romero, who had escorted Lucas all the way here, had felt his blood run cold throughout their time together, but this time his astonishment only deepened.
‘How?’
The barrier installed on the door to the audience chamber was one of the castle’s core security measures, personally created centuries ago by the overwhelmingly powerful Archmage Kaien. Only the king knew that fact.
Yet Lucas had seen through it precisely with a single glance.
That was not all.
Had he not detected the hidden guard who had remained concealed all the way here and traded stares with him as they traveled?
Although his title was non-hereditary, he truly was someone who had won the rank of Count through sheer force.
There was no doubt he would become a man of great use to Aerok.
But precisely because he was that powerful, Romero could not help being even more tense.
If someone as strong as Lucas truly wished it, he could harm the king without any weapon at all.
Still on guard, Romero led Lucas before the king.
***
-Count Kraus. Thank you for willingly answering such a sudden summons.
A deep, weighty voice rang out from behind a massive veil.
‘Hm?’
I raised my head at the sudden sense that something was off and looked beyond the veil.
A figure befitting the ruler of a nation, with a presence that could be felt even through the veil.
The person before me was so strong that every hair on my body stood on end.
But-
“You stand before His Majesty. Show proper respect.”
The attendant who had brought me here urged me on.
He wore a deliberately stern expression as he reprimanded me.
I could not understand this situation at all.
‘The King of Aerok in my novel…….’
I stared directly at the attendant.
“Lord Kraus!”
Shock spread across his face.
Seeing that expression nearly made me laugh. The wart dangling from his earlobe made it even harder to hold back.
I had to hide my expression.
I hurriedly bowed my head.
“Forgive my discourtesy, Your Majesty. This subject, Lucas von Kraus, pays his respects to the Sun of Aerok.”
“…….”
“…….”
Silence descended over the audience chamber.
The person I had shown respect to was not the king beyond the veil, but the attendant who had escorted me here.
“No, Lord Kraus…….”
Bewilderment slipped from his lips.
“As expected, you knew.”
Of course I did.
The King of Aerok I had described was a man of slight build, distinguished by a wart on his ear.
‘Though I never wrote anything about him using a ‘shadow.’’
Then again, I had never described Aerok’s royal family in much detail, so this much fell within an acceptable margin.
If I had not been the author, I never would have noticed.
“How did you know? At the investiture ceremony last time, I thought you had not noticed at all.”
See?
The original Lucas really had not known.
“……I knew.”
“Oho, so you noticed even then? I see. You were being considerate of me because the other nobles were watching. Yes, yes. Your martial ability is impressive enough, but you are quite perceptive as well. Hohoho!”
The King of Aerok laughed in satisfaction.
“I apologize for deceiving you. If it offended you, I ask your forgiveness. I ascended the throne at a young age and have spent my entire life under threat of death, so I do not trust people easily. That is also why no one knows that the man sitting over there is my shadow. I began switching places with him when we were very young, and no one ever noticed. No one but you.”
He slowly approached the veil and drew it aside.
The ‘shadow’ who had been sitting there paid him the highest respects and stepped back.
Then the man naturally took his seat upon the empty throne.
“I am Romero van Aerok, King of Aerok.”
The presence he had barely shown until now changed the instant he sat on the throne, and he began to radiate the aura of a sovereign as though it had always been there.
It was as natural as an unfinished painting finally being completed.
His stature was slight, but even that was merely a gimmick meant to deceive people’s eyes.
He was-
a born ruler.
“Well, there is no need to speak in circles with a man who even saw through my shadow. I will get straight to the point. Go to Igner.”
Fuck.
The curse nearly slipped out on its own, then shot straight back down.
As expected, this summons had been to draft me.
Igner was currently the front in the bleakest situation.
In one phrase, a death ground (a place of certain death).
Absolutely not.
I had no idea how the original Lucas survived, but I was not him.
I started racking my brain for a way to survive.
I did not want to die. Therefore, I absolutely would not go to Igner. But that was undeniably a royal command. And I was a noble of Aerok. Refusing a royal command could lead to execution. It was common in settings like this. On top of that, Aerok was a country with an extremely powerful monarchy, so nine times out of ten, that was exactly what would happen.
“……I cannot obey your command.”
“Oho. Even after all I have given you?”
“If you wish, I will return it.”
“Oh dear. It seems you have not understood me properly.”
As soon as Romero finished speaking, the ‘shadow’ standing behind him began to move.
A fine crack formed around his hand, opening into another space, and the hilt of a sword peeked out from within.
All of it happened in a single instant.
An ordinary person would have had their throat cut by that sword before even realizing it existed.
But I could ‘see’ it.
Just as the ‘shadow’ was about to draw the sword, I barely managed to speak.
“Do not draw that sword. You will die.”
I would.