[Quest. Witness the Emperor Ending]
It was clean. The beautiful green fields and the blue sky with a few clouds were terribly clean.
I stared at that unrealistically beautiful scene with a blank expression. And on those green fields, just one thing. I saw something foreign that didn’t belong. A small pixelated icon. My mouth fell open on its own.
[Recycle Bin]
This situation that had befallen me felt so unreal that I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to ten, and opened them. Still, on the computer’s desktop background, only a single white recycle bin sat alone on the green fields.
Cold sweat trickled down my back. My hands automatically grabbed both sides of the desktop monitor. I could feel my hands trembling.
“Auntie… By any chance, the computer, the computer…”
“Oh my, Isu-ya. I was just about to tell you. Yeonsu’s dad said the computer was getting too slow so he wiped it clean.”
“He wiped it…?”
“Yes. There was nothing except the homework folder and some dress-up game or something? Really, Yeonsu. I told him not to install weird games on the computer.”
“……”
The sound of my aunt calling “Isu-ya?” from the living room didn’t register well in my ears. I melted down onto the desk.
This doesn’t make sense. How hard did I work to raise ‘that child’!
I bit my lip hard and grabbed the computer monitor. With the desperation of grasping at straws, it was the very moment I touched the monitor.
Sssshk.
A cold, slime-like sensation touched my fingertips. I thought nothing could be more surprising than a monitor with only a recycle bin, but encountering such an astonishing situation, no scream came from my mouth—I just moved my lips.
The perfectly fine monitor broke. No, it melted. My hand was going through the monitor!
No matter how hard I pulled, the hand that passed through the monitor wouldn’t come out. Rather, the more I tried to pull my hand out, the more it was being sucked into the monitor.
The monitor slowly but steadily squelched as it sucked in my wrist, forearm, and then shoulder.
Even so, from the living room, the small tapping sounds of my aunt preparing dinner still continued. That sound—so realistic compared to my current situation—made goosebumps rise even more.
“Aun—”
The moment I tried to call for my aunt, my face was sucked into the monitor, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
It must be a dream. Right. How could all this be real? That’s right. I’ll wake up when I sleep. I nodded my head.
My brain, having seen something too shocking, irresponsibly dumped its work onto my unconscious. I could no longer hold onto consciousness.
* * *
[Starting the game]
My eyes snapped open at the familiar voice ringing in my head. I couldn’t tell when I had lost consciousness. I grabbed my head and raised my gaze. My mouth slowly fell open.
With a stupid expression, I fixed my gaze on something that was floating right in front of my eyes, blocking my view with its massive size.
[The Princess’s Godfather]
Golden letters written in a flashy but familiar script floated before my eyes. The content was familiar too. The Princess’s Godfather. There was no way I could forget it. It was the cause that had just made me despair.
A raising game boasting an extremely wicked difficulty with no account linking or saves.
A game where you become the godfather—or godmother—of the Emperor’s only daughter ‘Estella’ and raise that girl splendidly. That was ‘The Princess’s Godfather.’
Before I could even finish grasping the situation, a huge rectangular window appeared before my eyes. At the familiar appearance, I frowned with one eye and read the text.
[Quest. Witness the Emperor Ending.]
“Huh…?”
I barely finished reading the text that appeared before my eyes once, and before I could be confused about what this meant, a window was shoved right in my face. The familiar golden-bordered rectangular shape made me feel strange.
Detailed Clear Conditions
– Have ‘Estella Jen Runpie’ win the 8-year-old Crown Prince competition to become the Crown Prince.
Reward
– Return
Return… it says?
I looked around. It was a dense forest. A forest decorated exactly like the game’s starting screen. The position of the trees and even that pitch-black color were the same as those in the game, but it was on a different level from those made of square pixels. Literally, a different dimension. It was like a place where the game screen had been made into a three-dimensional set.
I rubbed my goosebump-covered arms. But without even time to suppress the goosebumps and calm down, the next window opened. With a cheerful sound effect that didn’t match the gloomy forest ringing in my ears, the tension didn’t ease.
Upon Failure
– Game Over
Whether the game over this window was talking about was the failure of the game or perhaps…
I gulped.
“Hello! Is anyone there?! Excuse me!”
I yelled at the top of my lungs. But the sound seemed blocked somewhere, unable to spread far and quickly returning to tickle my ears.
Even when I pinched my cheek, I only felt a tingling pain on my cheek—far from waking up from a dream, my consciousness only became clearer. I crouched down and established hypotheses.
- The game company representatives who saw me play the game splendidly invited me to a special set.
Rebuttal. Then how exactly did they bring me to this place through a squishy monitor, and how did they implement the quest window floating in the air without any devices? Had Korean science and technology advanced this much without my knowledge…?
- I’m having a dream where I don’t wake up and can feel pain.
Rebuttal. After pinching my cheek and everything, what dream, my ass. I grabbed my hair tightly. With pain like all my hair was being pulled out, I released my hand while shedding a few tears.
- Through something bizarre, I’ve entered inside the game.
Rebuttal. No, does this even make sense? The two hypotheses above made more sense. So what exactly is this bizarre thing? But…
I jumped to my feet. Whichever of the three it was, what I had to do right now was the same. It was a game I’d played countless times.
This situation where I was dumped in the middle of a gloomy forest in a hoodie and sweatpants didn’t make sense at all, but first I brought my hand to the accept button. At the touch sensation like a tablet PC, I flinched and pulled my hand away.
“Ha, right… First, let’s do as it says.”
Accept
[Choose your profession]
Like a scene from a spy movie or sci-fi film, several hologram-like figures appeared before my eyes. However, those figures were all ‘me.’ Six people with the same face as me were floating before my eyes.
Me wearing glasses with a thick book in one hand, me wearing commoner’s clothes with a mercenary badge around my neck, me wearing armor and holding a sword, me raising one hand manipulating water and wind, me holding a monster’s corpse in one hand and a bow in the other, and me wearing a robe and wielding a staff. And below them were respective windows.
[Scholar]
[Mercenary]
[Knight]
[Spirit Mage]
[Hunter]
[Mage]
I felt somehow reassured by the familiar six windows.
<The Princess’s Godfather> was a recently popular raising game where you become the godfather or godmother of the Empire’s only princess ‘Estella Jen Runpie,’ born between Emperor ‘Kalian du Runpie’ and hunter ‘Mikaela,’ and raise the child.
Many people downloaded the game, enchanted by the pretty and detailed graphics, but soon dropped out, exhausted by the extremely wicked difficulty and ridiculous play time.
I had never been interested in games, especially raising games, but after my college entrance exam ended, during the idle winter vacation, I discovered what my cousin had installed on the computer and played it half-crazily to clear all the endings.
I thought it was interesting that it was a raising game but rated 15+, and as I played, I naturally nodded my head. At every turn there was execution, getting attacked by bandits, death for ignoring nobles, kidnapping, being sold as a slave… Plus there was no mid-save button. If you die, you start over with a 5-year-old child.
However, this was a game I’d played countless times, and if it was only about safely raising Estella to 14 and seeing the ending, I had a chance of winning.
However, the game had multiple endings. The ending changed depending on the profession the protagonist ‘Estella’ chose when having her debut at fourteen years old.
Depending on ‘my’ profession, the route of meeting Estella, the relationship with the Emperor, and so on—the overall story of the game changed slightly.
If matched with ‘my’ profession, raising Estella in that profession was easiest, and scholar and hunter, mercenary and knight, mage and spirit mage had poor compatibility, making it hardest to see the ending.
And Emperor.
The Emperor ending was the most wicked difficulty among the wicked. Especially if you chose hunter, mage, or mercenary starting as a commoner, seeing the Emperor ending was the hardest, and it was easiest to see the Emperor ending as a scholar or knight.
However, I had succeeded in seeing the Emperor ending through all routes except mercenary. I had finally succeeded in raising Estella as an Emperor candidate through the mercenary route, so now it was just the coronation ceremony left for the Emperor ending, but my uncle formatted the computer…
I shook my head. Let’s focus on the current situation for now. That’s the only way I’ll wake from the dream or whatever.
Having made my decision, I raised my hand.
Of course, until just a moment ago, I had been playing this game on the mercenary route. But that’s that, and the one with the absolutely easiest difficulty is still the scholar route. I quickly pressed the leftmost window.
Press.
Now the die has been cast.
[Your profession is ‘Demon Race’]
“Huh…?”
For some reason, because of the voice ringing as if broadcasting in my head, I stupidly raised my head. Before my eyes was a window sparkling obtrusively.
[NEW!]
[Demon Race]
I looked ahead in dismay. The professions were sorted by newest… Scholar had been pushed one space to the side, and before me, a version of me with red eyes floated, bound at the limbs and neck with restraints. A glowing circle formed at my feet, and a chilling wind began to blow around me.
Ah.
“Can’t I… start over?”
