“Oh,” I realized, taking a step away, turning to face the king, who was standing, looking dumbfounded, “Shit, I just punched you in the face, huh?”

“S-t-th-n—Kai, take Persephone to her quarters!” The king ordered sharply, “She is to remain there until I call for her! Everyone, my beautiful daughter Persephone isn’t the Queen yet, stand up.”

No one moved. Except me, to look at the king. What did he mean Persephone? Wasn’t Aphrodite the one in line for the crown?

“Now. That’s a royal order!”

A dizzy feeling overcame me as some hot guy with short cyan hair and glasses led me away, practically dragging me by the arm. I stared at his honey-brown eyes for a long moment, stumbling as he dragged me away. He looked straight ahead, expression bored.

Kai? As in Kairos? I thought he didn’t appear until later! Where did he come from?! What?

One of my favorite characters was my servant? Why didn’t I know this? I even DM-ed the author a hell of a lot, and commented under every chapter I could! The author didn’t mention this!

Wait. Waitwaitwait was this real? I mean no, of course it wasn’t, but I could have sworn I was fine and alone in my house! How did I end up here? Did I pass out?

Well if this was a dream that would explain why Kairos was my servant, I mused, looking at the man. He mostly fit the description of Kairos.

But wasn’t Kairos the leader of… some shadow organization or something? A group of people who presumed the princess to be evil due to how much everyone loved her, but it was just Kairos using the people who had never seen her to take her for himself.

Man, the imprisonment arc was so hot. Kairos was so beautiful a character. Not physically—though he was—but mentally. The way he acted, his backstory, the way he spoke, just agh.

I had like ten favorite characters in this book. Sadly, none of them were really main characters, just appearing for an arc or so within the story. I guess I did like the Demon Lord for a bit, until he became made of cardboard.

Same with the Fae King…

Ah. Pain filled me at the knowledge of the fate that all of these characters would suffer through.

The world was still spinning by the time I was being dragged through the carpeted halls of a castle. Before I could get too far, I pulled my grip from Kai’s.

Brushing myself off, I did a few checks in the cold halls of the castle. Five fingers each hand. Nail check. Tap-tap-tap-tap good. I twisted my neck a bit, hearing a crack. Lastly, I pushed deeply into the wound I’d accidentally created.

It hurt.

Hm. Everything remained as it should.

Was this real?

I looked around, walking on my own. The carpets were blue with fancy red outlines. Kai didn’t do anything nor say anything as I wandered in literal circles, keeping an intent eye on everything I was seeing.

The details of each colorful landscape painting, the gold engravings of each iridescent vase, the exact position of each decorative piece. The windows and what I could see out them.

After about half an hour of exploring the castle, I came across a difference in the halls, though one that proved nothing.

A man. He wore a white decorative militaristic suit with midnight blue and blood red highlights. His eyes were like silver, and his hair was like the void.

The cliche cold duke of the North looked at me. He was leaning against a corner I’d only just passed a few minutes ago, waiting. For what, though?

“Hello, Persephone,” The duke greeted coolly, his voice naturally warm and silken.

I could see why the author described his voice so oppositionally. While the voice itself was a very warm and nice one, the tone in which he spoke was absolutely frigid.

I hummed shortly, eyes scouring his appearance. In the manwha, they’d given him white hair and golden eyes, but here his appearance matched that of the novel. Black hair, silver eyes.

Interesting.

“Only days prior, you seemed envious of your twin,” The duke queried, “You protecting her today was quite the surprise.”

I tilted my head, “She’s very stupid and still has everything. Who wouldn’t be envious? That doesn’t mean I wish to see her suffer at the hands of her own stupidity.”

It wasn’t her fault that she was a dumb-ass. The author just made her that way.

…

Wasn’t this unrealistic?

Why did everything feel real?

There’s no way this duke would be at a random garden party. Or, well, wait, wasn’t it kind of really important? Something about peace between warring kingdoms or something…?

I guess he would be there, but then why wasn’t he at the garden party? Sure, he was a generally antisocial individual, avoiding large groups and parties and the like, but everyone else was cardboard when it came to Aph, why wasn’t he?

Maybe the author just didn’t want to introduce him this early. A lot of characters were kind of dumped really quickly at the garden party, adding more would be a bit much, right?

So maybe it was a he saw her from afar, marveling at her beauty type thing? Something unwritten but there to get the character initially interested in her?

Whatever. I had to go… somewhere… and think through my findings. Nodding once after the duke didn’t speak for a long moment, I turned on my heel. He was my absolute favorite character, but he didn’t like people, and he was a man of few words. There was no point idling around him. I would get to appreciate his appearance a hell of a lot soon enough.

Walking away, I felt duped as I gazed at the giant hallways. Why did people never explain the layout of places? Couldn’t there be even a small blurb in the books that would tell me where Persephone’s room would be?

Down three corridors from the entrance, on the other side of the castle to the ballroom, five doors down, there was a giant library, mostly unused was the only description I’d ever gotten, and that was because it was included in the introduction of Lucius. A loyal fling the princess had during a scene where she ran to the library crying.

Whatever.

If mostly unused was the best I would get, I’d take it. I doubted Lucius would even be there. Or, well, he probably would be, actually, right? He was the Royal Librarian…

I would figure it out.

Right. Looking around, I got my bearings. The instructions were three hallways down and then turn, then go down one of the halls that went to the other side of the castle, turn, and five doors down was the library, right?

Wandering around, I found the entrance, and followed the instructions. To my surprise, I found it.

Well. Kind of. Mostly.

I was about to walk past it before I saw the double-doors had “Library” engraved in the stone arch that held the doors. So yay!

Walking in, I looked around.

The floors were wooden, and the shelves were organized quite messily. Books were strewn about everywhere, and standing precariously on a chair, reaching out with frizzy hair and bags under his eyes was Lucius. He had long blond hair and green eyes. His outfit was ruffled.

“Dude’s gonna fall,” I muttered.

At my words, Lucius jerked in surprise, only to cry out as he fell.

“Called it,” I called out as I wandered in, Kai closing the doors behind me, “Hey, Lucius. You okay?”

Lucius slowly picked himself off the ground, not looking very okay, blood running down his temple and eyes glassy, “F-fine, Princess. Please do not worry about me.”

I stared at the poor state of the man, frowning. Didn’t Persephone have excellent healing skills? Like, wasn’t she better at magic than Aphrodite, even though she wasn’t as powerful as her?

How did magic in this world work again? I walked over, kneeling. I really wanted to heal Lucius. He didn’t deserve to be hurt like this.

“Hmmm…”

Magic was very unique in this world. It wasn’t led by desire or the gods or words of power or anything like that. It was actually run by numbers and having the blood of an elemental.

Which was pretty cool.

So all I had to do was, like, 1+1=2 to heal this guy, right?

“You look not okay,” I said.

I knew that healing didn’t require contact, so I remained crouched by the fallen chair, staring at Lucius. 2*2=4? The square-root of 4 is 2 times 5 is 10. Heal!

…

Lucius reached a hand up, the green of healing magic glowing and appearing in a circle of magic similar to one I recognized from one of the book covers.

Damn it, not circle math! That sucks!

Soon Lucius looked better than I did.

“I appreciate your concern, Princess Aphrodite, however—“

“Aphrodite?” I asked, setting my elbow on my knee to hold my head up on my fist, “Dude I’m Persephone.”

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

Lucius glanced up, surprised, “Oh! Hello, your highness. I had not realized that you knew my name.”

I scoffed, grinning, “What? Of course I know your name. You’re the royal librarian. You have one of the most important jobs in the castle, and you’re really powerful so you can protect all these books, right? I mean you kind of suck at being an actual librarian, though,” I rambled on, looking at the absolute mess of a room.

How was this even sorted? Randomly?

“Maybe get an aide or something, my guy. This place is a dusty mess,” I muttered, standing up and reaching out my hand.

Lucius hesitated. I rolled my eyes, reaching out and dragging him to his feet by his collar. Lifting the chair, I brushed Lucius off and turned to walk away.

“Anyway, have fun. Bye.”

“Her highness is acting weird. Did something happen?” Lucius asked quietly, eyes following me even as his face flushed red. I suppose being dragged to your feet by the collar was embarrassing, for someone as powerful as Lucius.

A dull and emotionless voice responded, “She did a ritual the other day to try and make herself better than her sister. It backfired.”

Lucius sighed, “Make sure she doesn’t harm any books, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

A ritual? That wasn’t in the story. I suppose “Persephone did anything to get ahead of her twin sister Aphrodite” was kind of a catch-all, and the garden party was her introduction. Anything before that wouldn’t be spoken of, right? Well then. I could just say I had amnesia or something.

Go along some cliche plot-line.

…

What the fuck was I even saying? Dude if this was real I had to get the fuck out of here. Nowhere on Earth—or, wait, what was this planet called?—was safe, but at this point there were still gods roaming around pretending to be human, right?

All I had to do was find one of them and beg them to take me with them when they ran from the world. Maybe they’d drop me off on a different plane or something.

I knew the Astral, Demonic, and Fae realms weren’t safe, because each had an immortal male lead ready to snatch up Aphrodite, and I had no idea which immortal would actually win the fight, since the webnovel stopped uploading online, and the last book wasn’t out yet.

So the only safe place to be was on a different planet far from here.

That was for me to think about later, though. For now, I had to actually confirm my own knowledge. Reaching out, I picked up a book.

Opening it, I read the first line of the second paragraph of the random page I’d opened it to.

“Escape is impossible.”

I closed the book, glancing outside as I counted to ten. The trees outside were as rainbow as everything else. With how beautiful everyone and everything around me was, it was kind of refreshing to see someone average looking outside cutting some green shrubbery. I was glad the grass was green.

I looked back at the book.

“Escape is impossible.”

Hm. Okay.

So.

This was either very, very real, or…

…

I stared at the book as tears filled my eyes. I mean sure I only lived to consume stories, but seriously? I, I—… I didn’t want to live in a world with beautiful characters turned into cardboard.

I didn’t… I…

This was real?

No, no way. No. No no no no no no no. I refuse. Thank you no thanks bye. I was some-some chick! There wasn’t anything about me that was special! I was as average as average got, and more useless than Aphrodite!

I didn’t even have any motivations of my own except to read and enjoy stories! What sort of character was I supposed to be?

Especially in a world that is literally going to end due to a Simpocalypse! I wasn’t even into Erotica most of the time! I skimmed most of the sex scenes to get to the plot!

This was real?

This was real?

Was this real?

No. No way.

No way in hell. Nuh-uh no way. Fuck that. Mm-mn. Nope.

Slap!

I staggered, falling to the ground. My eyes blurred for a moment as I stared at the dust-covered ground, books and pages liberally coating it.

…

My head slumped down, and I relaxed against the floor for a moment. Ow. Slapping myself really hurt.

Opening my eyes, I found myself staring up at a beautiful mural of a wonderful sky. I stared up at it for a long moment.

I was already sick of seeing all this beauty and extravagance.

“What the fuck, dude,” I muttered, sighing as I sat up.

“You passed out—“

“Shut the fuck up Kairos,” I snapped, giving the man an annoyed look, shaking my head at him, “Mr. Cardboard Cutout motherfucker.”

“… My name is Kai, not Kairos, your highness.”

“Dude I don’t care,” I muttered, rubbing roughly at my face.

So I was in an apocalyptic world that gets torn apart by war and obsession in about a decade.

Since the garden party happened, that means that Persephone and I—or, wait, Aphrodite and I? Which one was—doesn’t matter—that means we had only just reached adulthood. Which the author was very sketchy about, especially when it came to exact ages.

Aphrodite was 28 when I stopped reading, 10 immortals left in the world with her, everywhere else dead or dying.

So…

“How old am I, again?”

“You are 16, your highness.”

I scoffed, “Fuck, of course I am. Great.”

What adulthood? I suppose even where I came from 16 was seen as an age of consent in a lot of places, but like damn. My blood boiling with freedom and my breath full of liberty didn’t quite agree with the bitter taste of being an adult at sixteen.

Great. Cool. So I had twelve years to either prevent the destruction of the planet, escape, or to accept my fate and die.

I thought about it.

Well the last option sounded like something a loser would do, and while I was a loser, I kind of didn’t want to die one. Only kind of. I could accept my fate if everything else seemed too complicated to resolve.

Maybe I could just escape? Go home? Go back to being annoyed at the cardboard characters I’d loved before they grew out of character?

I hummed.

I suppose I could just do what I did before, right? Go up to random characters and berate them for nothing, punching them in the face too? I mean it’s very much a part of Persephone’s character, isn’t it?

Though typically she wasn’t berating people for being made of cardboard…

No. No, that would suck. This was real. I was physically here. I breathed the air and felt the twirl of a whole new world spinning around me. I couldn’t just treat people like the cardboard they are.

After all, none of them have become cardboard yet! Well, except Kairos, but maybe he was just… in disguise? Like Sora, secretly something else but just pretending to be a servant or something?

… Kairos was smart, right?

Dude he would definitely have an answer to all of my questions. I mean, sure, he was snarky and an asshole, but he was cute and smart, which is all anyone needs to answer questions about saving the world.

“Kairos, what would you do if you suddenly appeared in a disadvantageous situation, knowing that the world was going to end in about a decade? You’d try leaving the world or something, right?” I asked, turning to look at the servant that was in my room.

Kairos sighed, reaching up and adjusting his glasses, honey gaze focused sharply on me, “My first option would not be to flee, no. Would there be anything I could do, in that disadvantageous state?”

I thought about it. Where did his bored expression go? No, wait. Focus. What could I do?

“Uhh… Punch people in the face without execution?” I commented, tilting my head as I looked away, at a dresser.

It was silent a moment, and then I shrugged. How the hell should I know? The only reason the world was European-style was because of the gross underlying bestiality tones that happen sometimes due to shapeshifting species and the Magical Academy arc, which was just an exact 1-to-1 copy of another popular non-erotica story, with a lot of sex added in. From what I knew, it started as a fanfiction and then had its characters changed a bit to become its own story.

“I dunno. You just aren’t able to get anyone on your side no matter how hard you try, and can’t trust anyone’s loyalty, and every power you have, the reason the world ends has more of. What would you do?”

“Kill the reason the world ends, if it is a singular person.”

I thought about it, thinking. Well, sure, but that would get me executed, whereas punching people in the face would not.

“Okay, not very helpful. It’s not like you could win against them in a fight.”

“Assassinations rarely happen honorably,” Kairos mentioned.

I shook my head, thinking. With Sora there… No, wait, if I’m the second most beautiful person, wouldn’t that mean…?

“Okay, that might resolve the issue, but it also might just shift the reason the world ends onto your shoulders. Or exacerbate the issue. The options don’t really include killing innocents.”

“I would think they should, if killing those innocents kept billions more alive.”

I hesitated, looking at Kairos, pouting.

My voice wasn’t sullen, though, coming out in a drawl, “I mean I’m not surprised by your answer, but you could at least pretend to have morals.”

To my surprise, Kairos’ lips twitched up, and he nodded, “Of course, your highness. Apologies. I now realize it is highly amoral of me to let millions be massacred because I did not wish to get my own hands dirty, in this hypothetical situation.”

My face twisted, and I looked away, because I was grinning, and that response should not have made me grin. But Kairos was really great. I loved him. He was the best. What a great comeback.

My grin faded as I looked out the window. Ah. He was real now, though. Gross.

The room I was in was massive, the floor made of obsidian tiles and the bedframe made of rubies. Everywhere in the room was just red and black bull, and it was very pretty. The roses in a vase on a dresser looked picturesque.

Getting up, I stumbled as my feet didn’t quite make it to the ground. Kairos didn’t bother helping, watching as I fell flat to the ground.

Pushing myself up, I brushed myself off, looking at my dress. Then my hand caught my attention.

“Huh?” It was wrapped and bandaged, “Oh. How long was I asleep? Jesus.”

“Only about an hour, your highness,” Kairos mentioned, “I was ordered to tell the king when you awaken, so I must go fulfill my duties, now.”

I glanced up, seeing Kairos staring at me.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, whatever,” I agreed, looking at the wrapped hand.

Who would wrap my hand? The doctors would all just heal me, the librarian too. Did Kairos? Why would he do that?

To my knowledge he hadn’t been very close to Persephone, right? In the imprisonment arc with him in it he showed active distaste of her. So… what. Was it the servants? Did the bandages just magically appear?

…

I sighed, shaking my head as I glanced around the now-empty room. The obsidian tiles were cold against my feet.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite believe that this was all real. It felt real, and I knew it really was, but… well.

It was just too unrealistic.

This was something I’d read about in manga, manwha, manhua, and webnovels. Something that couldn’t even be published into an actual physical book because of how shitty of a sub-genre medieval-European fantasy transmigration into a known story was.

But…

I focused on the ground, ignoring my own form to stare at the obsidian tile.

The silence rang in my ears, growing into a screeching crescendo. The entire room smelled of something sickeningly sweet. The cool air of the room brushed against my skin, my bare feet pressing into the cold floor. The dress around me was scratchy and uncomfortable.

My mouth felt weird. Reaching out, my tongue definitely wasn’t my own, and my teeth were different. My hands were shaking when they came up, desperately clutching at my arms. The sight of my unnatural nails made me want to tear them out.

The body I was in was foreign to me. The figure was different, the shape, the sizes. Even the delicate way my muscles moved was different.

Tears burned down my face, escaping my eyes. My breathing was shaking as badly as my body was. I focused on my breathing, on the way my lungs moved, but it only made my breathing hitch.

I heard my own sobs, and they sounded foreign. I covered my face, trying my hardest to stifle my crying.