There are few things more damaging to an author’s ego than discovering nobody wants to read the book she actually tried to make good.
I learned that lesson at twenty-three.
For three years, I wrote what I considered serious fantasy. I created fictional languages, mapped trade routes between kingdoms, designed a magic system with enough rules to qualify as advanced mathematics, and spent an embarrassing amount of time researching medieval agriculture because apparently realistic wheat yields were essential to my artistic vision.
My masterpiece sold four hundred and twelve copies.
Then, after several glasses of wine and a particularly unpleasant argument with my landlord about rent, I threw what remained of my dignity into the trash and wrote The Hero’s Harem: Conquering the Seven Demon Queens.
It had everything I’d spent years convincing myself respectable fantasy didn’t need. The protagonist was obscenely overpowerheart-shapedrtant woman was suspiciously gorgeous, ancient bloodlines awakened whenever I needed someone to become stronger, and legendary artifacts appeared with alarming frequency whenever I’d written myself into a corner.
There was also sex.
A lot of sex.
Apparently, the little red R18 warning did more marketing than anyone I’d ever paid, because the damn thing sold thirty thousand copies in its first month.
By the end of the year, my shameless fantasy had earned more money than everything else I’d written combined.
’So much for artistic integrity.’
I stared at the final Chapter displayed across my laptop screen, where two beautiful words sat beneath nearly two million words of literary degeneracy.
THE END
Seven hundred and eighty-six Chapters. Four continents, three major wars, seven villainesses, and one Hero whose collection of legendary artifacts had grown so absurd that I’d eventually forgotten half of them existed.
I’d finally finished it.
"Thank fucking God."
I leaned back in my chair and stretched until something in my spine cracked. My apartment looked exactly like you’d expect from a woman who had spent the last six weeks surviving on coffee, delivery food, and increasingly questionable sleep schedules.
Empty cans occupied half my desk, laundry had conquered the chair beside my bed, and there was a pizza box on the floor that I was fairly certain had developed its own ecosystem.
A responsible adult would have closed the laptop and gone to sleep. Unfortunately, I’d never claimed to be one of those.
I refreshed the comments.
Worst ending ever.
’Fair.’
The next one appeared beneath it.
Roland didn’t deserve Seraphina.
’Also fair.’
I kept scrolling until another comment made me snort.
Justice for the Blood Witch!
"Absolutely fucking not."
She’d murdered eleven thousand people.
Granted, I’d chosen eleven thousand because it sounded appropriately evil when I wrote the Chapter at three in the morning, but the point remained.
Then I found a comment that made me sit up.
Why did every villainess have bigger tits than the heroines?
I stared at the screen for a moment before quietly answering the stranger as if they could hear me.
"Artistic vision."
’And definitely not because I have a type.’
Another reader had apparently reached the same conclusion.
Author clearly has a type.
"Fuck you."
I clicked the little heart beside their comment anyway. The next one genuinely offended me.
10/10. When’s the sequel?
"No."
I closed the laptop before someone could ask for another thousand Chapters.
There would be no sequel. Roland had defeated the final villain, saved humanity, collected a harem large enough to require its own organizational chart, and become the strongest living creature in the world. I’d given everyone their happily ever after, or at least everyone I’d remembered was still alive by the final Chapter.
More importantly, I had money now. Real money. The kind that meant my landlord could complain about rent to somebody else because I was finally getting the hell out of this apartment.
’Tomorrow.’
Tonight, I intended to sleep until my body forgot what caffeine was.
I stumbled across the room, collapsed face-first onto my mattress, and decided brushing my teeth was a problem for future Kira. Somewhere between consciousness and sleep, one final thought drifted through my exhausted brain.
’I never want to see another fucking succubus again.’
Reality apparently took that personally.
....
When I opened my eyes again, my mattress had become considerably less comfortable.
I remained still for several seconds while my brain attempted to understand why my pillow felt like straw and something hard was digging painfully into my hip.
The familiar smell of stale coffee and questionable pizza had also been replaced by mildew, smoke, damp stone, and something unpleasant I couldn’t immediately identify.
’Please tell me I didn’t drunkenly fall asleep outside.’
That seemed unlikely considering I hadn’t been drunk, but I was willing to consider increasingly stupid explanations if they prevented me from considering the obvious one.
I slowly lifted my face and found gray stone inches from my nose.
"What the hell?"
My voice sounded wrong.
It was softer and slightly higher than I remembered, although that problem immediately became less important when I pushed myself upright and felt something shift against my chest.
I looked down.
My brain temporarily forgot how breasts worked.
A thin black nightgown clung to a body that very definitely wasn’t mine. For one thing, I’d apparently gained several cup sizes overnight, and whoever had designed the nightgown had possessed a philosophical objection to unnecessary fabric.
’Those cannot possibly be mine.’
I grabbed them.
In my defense, I was experiencing what could reasonably be described as a medical emergency.
They were real.
I immediately released them and stared down at myself while attempting to process that discovery with the dignity expected of a twenty-six-year-old woman.
"What the fuck?"
Something moved behind me.
I twisted around and discovered a long crimson tail curling lazily across the straw mattress. It ended in the stereotypical heart-shaped point I’d seen on approximately ten thousand pieces of fantasy artwork.
My attempt at dignity died.
I scrambled backward, slammed into the stone wall, and immediately felt something hard strike the wall above my head. Reaching upward with one trembling hand, my fingers closed around a smooth black horn curving from my skull.
There was another one on the opposite side.
’Okay, Kira. Don’t panic.’
I was absolutely going to panic.
I stumbled off the bed and nearly fell because my new body apparently had a center of gravity designed by a horny teenager.
Fortunately, a tarnished bronze mirror hung beside the wooden door, giving me an excellent opportunity to discover exactly how catastrophic my situation had become.
The woman staring back at me had long crimson hair, pale skin, brilliant red eyes, two black horns curving upward through her hair, and a face so unfairly attractive that I briefly resented her before remembering I was apparently looking at myself.
My tail swayed nervously behind me as I touched my cheek and watched my reflection mimic the movement.
’Succubus.’
There were hundreds of fantasy worlds with succubi. Thousands, probably. Technically, I still had absolutely no reason to assume this had anything to do with my novel.
Then I noticed the pale blue flame burning inside the iron sconce beside the mirror.
My stomach tightened.
The flame produced neither smoke nor heat.
’Please don’t be what I think this is.’
I turned toward the opposite wall and found a human skull embedded directly into the stone, its empty eye sockets illuminated by the same ghostly blue light.
I knew that fucking skull.
More accurately, I knew the sentence responsible for it.
The halls of Ashfall Dungeon were decorated with the bleached skulls of unfortunate adventurers, illuminated by ghostly blue flames.
I’d written that description in Chapter four and never thought about it again. Apparently, whatever force had transformed my garbage prose into reality had taken my one-sentence description as an interior-design mandate.
I stepped closer and noticed a thin crack running diagonally across the skull’s forehead.
’Oh, fuck me.’
I’d added that crack two Chapters later because Roland needed a convenient way to recognize which corridor he’d already walked through.
There was no mistaking it anymore.
This was Ashfall Dungeon.
My Ashfall Dungeon.
The pathetic F-rank hole in the ground that existed for four Chapters before Roland and his first party slaughtered everything inside, shattered its Dungeon Core, stole the treasure hidden beneath it, and continued toward the Demon Frontier without ever mentioning the place again.
I slowly backed away from the wall as my tail knocked into a wooden table behind me.
"Okay. This is fine."
It was not fine.
Ashfall wasn’t a mysterious location I could exploit using my knowledge of the novel. It wasn’t a peaceful village where I could disappear and avoid the plot. It wasn’t even one of those early cities that survived until the first major war.
I’d literally created this place to be destroyed.
’Of all the fucking places in my novel, why did I have to wake up in the tutorial dungeon?’
Another uncomfortable realization surfaced before I could properly panic about the first.
I was a succubus.
There was something particularly unusual about succubi in this world, and I had the terrible feeling my exhausted brain was deliberately protecting me from remembering it.
Then Chapter eighty-seven came rushing back.
A reader had asked a question in the comments about succubus biology. Instead of ignoring them like a normal author, I’d apparently decided the subject deserved an extensive lore explanation.
’No.’
I remembered exactly what I’d written.
’Absolutely fucking not.’
My gaze traveled downward.
Several seconds later, I covered my face with both hands.
"WHY THE FUCK DID I WRITE SUCCUBI LIKE THIS?!"
Something crashed on the other side of the wooden door.
"M-Mistress?!"
I snatched the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around myself before answering.
"NOTHING IS WRONG!"
A nervous silence followed before the woman outside spoke again.
"Are... are you certain, Mistress?"
"No!"
Another pause followed, and I could practically hear the poor woman trying to determine what answer wouldn’t get her murdered by whatever she thought I was.
"Should I come inside?"
"Absolutely not!"
I sank onto the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands.
’Twenty-four-year-old me deserved to be punched.’
Unfortunately, twenty-four-year-old me was still me, which complicated matters considerably.
I was deciding whether it was possible to die from embarrassment when crimson light suddenly appeared between my fingers. I lowered my hands and found a translucent window floating directly in front of my face.
Of course there was a System.
I’d written one of those too.
Because apparently my younger self had encountered every trashy fantasy trope in existence and decided the correct response was, ’Yes.’
Letters began forming across the crimson window.
[World Synchronization Complete.]
[Host Identity Confirmed.]
[Race: Lesser Succubus.]
[Location: Ashfall Dungeon.]
I read the notifications twice before leaning backward and rubbing my temples.
’Well, there goes the coma theory.’
Somehow, I had been dropped into the world I’d created. I wasn’t Roland, one of the seven legendary villainesses, or even a side character important enough to receive a name.
I was a Lesser Succubus living inside the weakest dungeon in the Demon Frontier.
Considering Roland had killed dozens of Lesser Succubi during the novel without me bothering to name a single one of them, that didn’t inspire confidence about my future.
Another notification appeared before I could finish contemplating how thoroughly screwed I was.
[Ashfall Dungeon recognizes a new Mistress.]
I blinked at the words.
"What?"
The System apparently didn’t care about my confusion.
[Dungeon Authority has been transferred.]
A larger panel replaced the previous message.
[ASHFALL DUNGEON]
Rank: F
Floors: 3
Population: 23
Treasury: 13 Silver, 42 Copper
Stored Mana: 7/100
Defensive Integrity: 12%
I stared at the information while slowly becoming offended on behalf of my new home. I’d seen abandoned roadside inns with better prospects, although that probably shouldn’t have surprised me considering I’d deliberately designed Ashfall to lose.
The dungeon wasn’t supposed to survive longer than four Chapters. It existed so Roland could obtain his first magical weapon, rescue a conveniently attractive adventurer, and demonstrate how powerful his newly awakened class was.
’The entire fucking dungeon is basically a tutorial with tits.’
Somehow, that observation was considerably less funny now that I lived here.
Still, there was one piece of good news hidden beneath the mountain of terrible ones. I knew exactly what happened to Ashfall Dungeon. I knew where Roland entered, which traps failed, where the monsters were positioned, and even where the hidden treasure chamber was located.
More importantly, I knew the timeline.
If I’d arrived early enough, none of this mattered. I could grab anything useful, walk out the front entrance, and be halfway across the continent before Roland ever knew Ashfall existed.
’Please let me be early.’
The System responded as though it had heard me.
[Primary Scenario Identified.]
The crimson window expanded until it occupied most of my vision.
[THE BEGINNING OF THE ORIGINAL STORY]
[Hero Roland will enter the Demon Frontier in: 785 Days, 11 Hours, 43 Minutes.]
I read the number once and then again to make sure exhaustion hadn’t added a digit.
Seven hundred and eighty-five days.
That was more than two years.
A relieved laugh escaped me before another line appeared beneath the countdown.
[Canonical Event #1: Destruction of Ashfall Dungeon.]
The relief disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived.
Then the System added one final message.
[Expected Survivors: 0.]
I stared at the crimson letters while my thoughts raced through everything I remembered about the beginning of my novel. Roland’s route, his first class advancement, the artifact beneath Ashfall, the neighboring settlements, the Demon Frontier, and dozens of opportunities I’d conveniently placed throughout the early story all started clicking into place.
The System thought it was showing me a death sentence.
All I could see was a deadline.
I had more than two years before Roland came here. More than two years of knowing where the treasures were buried, which people would eventually become monsters, which kingdoms were destined to collapse, and which nobodies were secretly carrying bloodlines powerful enough to reshape the world.
Better yet, Roland didn’t know any of it yet.
I looked around the miserable stone chamber that I’d once created solely to be destroyed and felt the first genuine smile spread across my new face.
’Seven hundred and eighty-five days? That’s a lot of time to fuck up my own plot.’