"What are we going to do now?" asked Princess Sebille.

"Hmm, let's see," Mark said. "There is a town that way. We should go and ask around how we could get you back to your family."

He didn't actually want to do that, not after he became impotent because of her, but Mark was the good guy protagonist. There were certain sentences he had to say at all costs.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Sebille replied. "They are all dead. The dragon told me while I was his captive that the Red Empire had fallen."

"Uh... what empire are we in currently, then?" asked Mark.

"The Blue Empire, of course," Sebille said, gritting her teeth. "If you plan on overthrowing their rulers, count me in. The Red Empire may be no more, but I'd rather see every noble burn on stakes than to let them have these lands."

What the hell did I just unleash, Mark thought. This chick had a strange fixation on the whole world burning; she must have spent too much time with the dragon.

"Uh, no, I didn't plan to do something so dramatic," Mark said, then seeing the dark look on Sebille's pretty face he added, "At least not right away."

"Then what are we going to do?" asked the princess.

"I was thinking about going to the town, buying some kind of magical seeds and forbidden knowledge, then go somewhere and cultivate."

"...cultivate?" Sebille asked, a sight frown creasing her features.

"Yup," Mark said, nodding enthusiastically. "You see, the author—and by extension, the narrator—haven't read many cultivation or xianxia stories. Anything else we do, the narrator would be always floating around, making sarcastic comments. But not with cultivation! He'd have no idea what we are doing, so he would have no chance to make fun of us."

"I... see," Sebille said hesitantly. "So... how do you plan to do this?"

"Well, as I said, we'll need a good headstart and start growing stuff. I can use my protagonist powers to get a big portion of land somewhere nearby. Then—"

"I don't think that's what xianxia is about," Sebille interrupted him. "Not agriculture."

"No?" Mark asked. "But... I thought we could get levels in cultivation and then grow ourselves an own kingdom. Doesn't that sound appealing?"

Sebille nodded. "It does, but cultivation refers to cultivating Qi while training in martial and mystical arts. The goal is to achieve immortality and godhood. There are different cultivation levels that you must go through as you ascend."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "And you know this, because...?"

"Google."

"Ah, of course. Well, that's a bummer. Not that I was very enthusiastic about farming tea, but still, growing a kingdom would have been awesome."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"There can be other forms of cultivation of course," Sebille said. "The only limit is your imagination."

"True, true. Maybe we should revisit this idea after the author read more about these types of novels."

It wasn't a bad idea, though the author would sooner turn Mark into a dungeon than let him cultivate himself into godhood. He was OP already, so let's just focus on the plot now, okay?

It was also high time that things got more serious. Being sarcastic was nice and entertaining, but to get a proper story going, Mark needed more screentime. Needed to act more, and rely less on the narrator. He was the MC, and he had to carry this novel on his shoulders.

"That's right, buddy! I'm glad you finally recognize my importanc— Ouch!"

A second piano hit Mark in the head. Yeah, things needed to get more serious, but Mark was still an idiot. He shouldn't talk too much.

"I'm going to ascend to godhood and kick your ass, just wait and see!"

Okay, while Mark threw another tantrum, let's focus on our more reasonable character, Sebille. She walked silently next to Mark as they walked slowly towards the town. She had no idea—

"—don't you ignore me like a sidecharacter, you f*cking—"

—no idea what kind of town it was. Despite being technically old (in mind and spirit), she didn't know much about this world. She had spent most of her years sleeping, waiting for her knight to rescue her. She had this notion that he would rescue her with a kiss—

—*sslicker narrator, I swear to god I will turn this into a xianxia novel and—

—but sadly it was just not meant to be. Instead of her white knight, she got xXxNoobSpanker720xXx, who had introduced himself as Mark. He was a loud man, complaining and shouting angrily, a far cry from what Sebille had imagined.

But it was alright. Sebille would never admit it to Mark (because she was a tsundere-type of character) but she was actually very grateful that he had rescued her. He had even given up his manhood, just so that she could be young again! She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but she was already falling in love with him.

"What?" Sebille gasped. "No I'm not, you idiot!"

That's the spirit! She was a true tsundere.

As they walked on and Sebille joined Mark in cursing the narrator, they arrived to a town called... uh... *hits up a random name generator* town called Transmere! It was a small town, but full of life. The readers can probably imagine it without the narrator having to describe every little detail. They should just picture a typical medieval town, with typical medieval houses.

Mark and Sebille wanted to buy some food to fill their empty stomachs, but found a slight, itty-bitty problem: none of them had any money.

"We should have taken some of the dragon's hoard when he left the cave," complained Sebille.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Mark said. "I'm the good guy, I can't do things like that. Besides, he would have chased us down once he noticed."

"Bleh, no way," said Sebille in a very un-princess-like manner. "That trolling dragon wouldn't have noticed a few coins missing. He is way too careless for that."

"Well, what's done is done," said Mark. "Any other tips how to get money?"

"BURN THE WHOLE TOWN DOWN AND TAKE THEIR STUFF," Sebille shouted, then cackled manically.

A couple of passersby looked at Sebille suspiciously, but since she looked hot, she could get away with anything.

"Eh... no, I don't think that's gonna work. I'm still the good guy here, remember?"

"But they are of the Blue Empire," Sebille said, pouting. "They are the bad guys. It's alright for good guys to kill the bad ones."

Mark thought about correcting Sebille and telling her that these people probably didn't have a choice but to become part of the Blue Empire. It wasn't the common people's fault that they got conquered. But Mark knew that explaining these things would be a headache, and it would be above his pay grade, so he decided to keep silent. Besides, outbursts like these were good comedic elements. It would be a shame to cut these things short.

"Alright, I figured out what we'll do!" Mark exclaimed, without any regard that this sentence didn't connect smoothly to Sebille's last comment. Well, this was the problem with long paragraphs in-between dialogues. Hopefully none of the readers will notice inconsistencies like this one.

"What will we do?" asked Sebille.

"Starter areas like this one ought to have a couple of low level animals and monsters around the town," Mark said with a grin, proud of his cleverness. "So, we're going out to kill some chickens."