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

“Hic. Ahah, Hic,” I laughed, but I hated the feeling.

It wasn’t my lips, my mouth, my tongue, my teeth making those noises. Was my voice different? I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

After several moments, I succeeded, hands dropping. My breathing escaped me in a gasp as I looked up.

Kairos stood there, staring at me impassively.

“O-oh,” I said, reaching up and wiping at my face with shaking hands that weren’t mine, looking back down to hide my tears, sniffling.

“The king has requested you join him for dinner. It is in a few hours.”

I huffed out mirthfully. Requested? “Can I refuse?” I asked rhetorically, taking a step back from Kairos and looking around the room.

Actually looking, since it seemed like I’d be here for a while. At least until I figured out how to return to my own body.

There was a four-poster bed, a weird bench-thing at the end of the bed, a dresser, two night stands, and three doors, one of which was painted wooden double-doors that looked like they led to a closet.

As I thought, I took in the sights of my room.

The god of souls was still wandering around somewhere in the form of a Lich, so if I couldn’t find anything that could help in the library then I could always just look for him.

I had until the Fae King joined the war to find the gods that could help me. From what I’ve seen in the story, the gods that had been on the planet weren’t too different from people, just wishing to enjoy their lives on such a beautiful planet.

… What an unrealistic goal.

Meeting a literal god to-to return to my world?!

I chuckled quietly at the ridiculous thought, shaking my head. Right. I probably seemed insane, right now, didn’t I?

Swallowing, I wandered to the door Kairos hadn’t been going toward, when he spoke who-knows-how-long-ago. Before I cried. Before he left and came back.

Opening it, I saw a lavish bathroom with a pretty big tub in the center of the room.

“How extravagant,” I sighed out.

I almost… No. No, I really didn’t miss where I came from. Maybe accepting the situation is better than continuing to be in denial about it.

With how my life’s been so far, it wasn’t really hard to adapt to. I was just once more being in a totally new place, not having anything remaining from my past. The only thing I could truly call my own is me. My mind, my memories, and my soul. They were all I had, now.

Again.

Though at least before I still had my own body.

“I shall call the other servants to set up a bath and prepare you for the dinner, your highness. If you need me, simply ring the bell,” Kairos mentioned, gesturing.

On one of the nightstands was a bell. Had it been there before?

“Oh, okay,” I agreed listlessly, tired.

Okay. A new start. The best way to adapt to the present is to ignore the past until every detail is forgotten about. Drugs and alcohol definitely help, but I don’t know if this world has the same plants, let alone plants that have similar or same effects.

So now, I was just… me. I was Persephone Esmer-Gold. What a long and complicated name. I’d just shorten it to… Percy. I was Percy.

Percy, twin of Aph, daughter of what’s-his-face and random-dead-chick-whose-name-was-never-given.

I was first in line to the throne of a Kingdom I hardly knew anything about, though I wasn’t the candidate most people expected to get the throne despite that.

According to what I knew of myself, I was an envious and ruthless bitch who would do anything to get what she wanted. Not in a cunning way, no, but in a bratty tantrum-throwing way.

It didn’t mention anything else about me, except that I was “one step behind” Aph in everything I did.

Aph was physically weak, though, and this body clearly had muscles. Percy was called lazy, was that not true? Gaining muscles like these, did she train in swordsmanship or something…?

No, no, it was probably just muscles gained from throwing tantrums and running around being an entitled brat.

Or, well… I mean I punched a decent-sized guy and immediately downed him. This body was clearly strong enough to get into swordsmanship, I supposed.

I should start learning, if I’m not already. The swordsmanship was like the stuff in cultivation stories, it could be as strong as magic if not stronger so long as someone could use aura.

One of the immortals didn’t even know magic, so getting into something I knew the main character didn’t get into would be good.

Especially since, to kill her, I would need to get through Sora. Sora was an expert assassin who grew attached to his target. He would know of and be able to prevent most assassination attempts.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about killing off the main character. Doesn’t that type of stuff always make the world end anyway, in stories? The main character is what keeps worlds alive, right? … I suppose I could ask the gods, if ever I found any.

Or one of the characters that could see causality and world paths and stuff like that. That would probably be easier, since the Fae King was one of the ones able to.

Not that he would help me… Hm. I’d figure it out.

As I thought, servants swarmed in, and I found myself being undressed and led around. I didn’t pay it too much attention. Soon I was placed in front of a mirror.

I looked at Percy for a long moment.

Her hair, red as any rose, flowed down to her waist in vibrant curls, her hair having the same depth to it that glass and gemstones and her father’s hair had. Her skin was pale, though not as pale as the main character’s.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In some spots, I saw dots no bigger than glitter showing through to another reality of explosions and sunsets and beautiful shades of other warm colors. How could those be called freckles?

With lips painted as red as her done-up hair and fox-orange eyeshadow with cat-eye makeup, she looked ravishing. She wore a rather bright dress that matched her eyeshadow, looking like a burnt sunset.

At the bottom of the dress was a very deep scarlet, and at the very top was a very deep orange. There were decorations on the delicate form-fitting dress, the sleeves being uneven, the longer part of the sleeve almost covering Percy’s unnatural stone-like nails.

The jewelry that was put on her was simple, a chain embedded with rubies around her neck and amber earrings in her ears.

“What do you think?” One of the servants asked hesitantly.

I looked at the light brown haired individual.

His plain features only made Percy’s beauty stand out more.

“It’s fine. How much time do we have?” I asked, looking away from the mirror to regard the servant.

They all looked uncomfortable when I looked at them, not meeting my gaze.

“U-Um, the dinner starts in half an hour.”

I hummed, shrugging, “Well, okay. Being early never hurt anyone, right? If I’m ready I’ll just go now.”

“Very well,” A familiar voice called out.

I glanced over, seeing Kairos waiting in the corner. His sharp gaze was clearly calculating, the bored expression he’d worn when dragging me to the castle gone.

“Let us go, your highness,” Kairos said.

I walked up to him, observing him for a moment as he opened the door. Right. Servants typically walked behind people, right? But I had no idea where I was going.

Walking through the door, I glanced around.

An arm gently wrapped around me, guiding me the opposite direction of where I turned. I glanced up, looking at cyan hair as Kairos spoke, “Your father asked that I ensure you do not run off. Let us go, your highness.”

I walked in the direction he was pushing me, unable to shake off his arm. Annoyed, I reached up.

“Unless you know the way, I would suggest you not push my arm off,” Kairos murmured quietly to me.

I hesitated, sighing as I dropped my arm, fingers trailing along the bandage that was on my opposite hand as we walked.

Great. Cool. Wonderful.

Soon, Kairos’ arm fell, and I found myself walking into a pretty decent dining room. It was stupidly extravagant, as every other main room in the castle was.

I slumped into a random chair, no one else around, yet. Not even servants, except for Kairos.

“I would suggest sitting here,” Kairos mentioned, hands on the back of a chair quite far from where I’d sat.

I stood up quietly, staring at Kairos for a long moment. I walked up. There was no way he already caught on that I wasn’t Percy, right?

But his instructions so far have been pretty… informative. Especially since, from what I know of the novel, Percy was someone who didn’t take suggestions well. Let alone orders.

What a really sharp individual. I suppose the small amount of interactions I’ve had with others and with him might have been enough to have suspicions. How the hell did he figure out I didn’t know what was going on?

Did he think I had amnesia or something?

I looked up, meeting his gaze over the chair. While his hair was a wild color, and his eyes were also barely within the realm of possibility, he still looked just human.

Unlike the members of the royal family and people that were literally not human, everyone else just looked like humans with dyed hair and contact lenses at a renaissance re-enactment.

It was comforting to know that humans still looked like humans in other worlds. That humans existed in other worlds. Not that this world was a good place for anyone to exist in, with the coming Simpocalypse.

“I would like to ask after the hypothetical you mentioned earlier,” Kairos said.

I hummed in agreement. Honey eyes grew lidded for a moment as he looked at me. For a solid moment I thought he planned to kill me or something similar, but he just continued to speak.

“You never mentioned what destroyed the world.”

“Oh,” I said quietly, still looking up at one of my favorite characters, “War. A lot of people wanted one, so they fought over that person, and destroyed themselves in the process. In the hypothetical, you’re disadvantaged because you’re not in a position to easily deal with it. Neither are you the person being fought after nor any of the people fighting over the individual.”

Would a world truly have humans in it if the thing that ended it wasn’t war or their own negligence in caring for the planet? Humans were quite greedy, consuming all they could get their hands on.

Honey-hazel eyes behind glasses captured my attention, distracting me from my thoughts as Kairos’ gloved fingers tapped at the back of the extravagant chair.

For a very long time, I contemplated his beauty. In my world, he would be hounded by various people to be a model, an actor, or, if they knew what he looked like naked, they would ask him to star in a porno.

“No new solutions?” I mused after a long silence.

Kairos’ gaze relaxed slightly, “Are you certain the war is caused by the individual and not by an already worsening political climate?”

I blinked at the very reasonable response, humming as I thought.

The story was hyper-fixated on the main character and all the attractive men around her. It glossed over most of the Academy arc, but a reason all of the characters felt like cardboard despite their intricate backstories was because of how they acted specifically regarding the main character. If the reason they fought was outside of the person they fought over, their actions would make a lot more sense with regards to their characterizations.

It would mean they were just using her as an excuse to fight each other, not actually fighting over her. It would also explain why, despite everyone saying they would do anything for her, very few actually listened when she told them to stop fighting.

“Unfortunately I cannot agree, Aphrodite,” Valentine said, snapping Logan’s neck. Aphrodite cried out, tears streaming down her face.

“There are certain things happening that you do not understand. Do not worry, I will ensure you survive until the end.”

“Possibly,” I agreed, blinking back to reality—Jesus, this was reality—and staring up at Kairos, “I’d hope not.”

“Why?”

“Because then, in the hypothetical, you wouldn’t just be in a disadvantageous situation. You would just be in a useless one, unable to do anything as you watched the world destroy itself. That would kind of suck.”

Kairos hummed, eyes growing dark, “I see. Wouldn’t the gods do something about it, if the world were to end?”

I shrugged, the motion awkward as I was still leaning back in my chair with my head craned back to see Kairos.

“Nah. They would run away the moment things got dicey. In the hypothetical, one of the options you have is to find one of the gods and beg to be taken to another world. Seems like a good option now, right?”

Kairos didn’t look as amused as I expected him to. Which made sense, I supposed. He wasn’t one of the crazy ones that grinned at everything, like Jester. He was a calculating individual with enough cunning to outwit half the immortals.

It was said that even gods admired his intellect. Not that I would ever get to experience any of it, which was a shame. Reading of him slowly and systematically taking apart and destroying entire countries just to imprison the main character was wild.

I screamed when all of his intricately laid plans revealed themselves. I was cheering so loudly for him. It was a shame he died only a few chapters later to the Fae King’s hands.

“Do you know the location of any gods?”

My lips twisted up, “Why so serious? It’s just a hypothetical, Kai. How would I know where they were?”

I knew vaguely what they looked like, though. Of course I did. In this world, it was conveniently obvious who was and wasn’t a main character. There were over fifty male characters, and I memorized all of their appearances. All I had to do was find someone prominent that interacted or passed by the main character that was both beautiful and not one of the characters I knew.

They’d have to be a god.

Finding a goddess would be much harder, though. While there were some scenes that included other women and Aph, it wasn’t the focus of the story.

Kairos didn’t look happy at all, stepping away from the table. Only a few seconds later, the door opened. I glanced to the side to see my new father walking in.