Princess 'King' Maker 3
When the viewers get furious at Han Se-ah and start tearing into her, the solution is remarkably simple.
Have Roland — the teacher they all officially recognize — step in and verbally thrash them until their rage flips into laughter. Even if Han Se-ah hits the accept button the instant a quest pops up without reading a single word, I wouldn't get angry about it myself. But once the viewers start having a meltdown like that, I have no choice but to intervene.
"Hanna. Come over here and sit down."
"Eh?"
The fruit basket Grace had received was already handed off to the maids, and the skewers had been finished off for dinner alongside the panne pasta they'd brought back packaged. Han Se-ah, returning late to the mansion after wrapping up her alchemy grind, sat down at the table with a sheepish shuffle.
Grace, who'd been chewing on chicken skewers; Irene, who'd been curiously picking at the panne pasta; Katie, who'd been rummaging through the fruit basket after finishing her evening workout — all of them quietly slipped out of the kitchen.
The kitchen fell so still it made me wonder whether this kind of atmosphere transcended East and West alike. Even Emma's junior maid, who'd been handling post-meal cleanup, fled at a half-trot. Left behind in the silence were only Han Se-ah and the viewers staring at her.
"Do you know why I called you?"
"Uh, um… because I accepted that proposal right away?"
In that peculiar silence, I organized my thoughts.
When I'd spoken to Grace, I'd given her a reasonable explanation to soothe her. But flip that around, and the reasons this could get messy and annoying stacked up like a mountain. Even modern politics — where you can't just ram a longsword through some bastard's gut — is already a den of snakes, foxes, and demons. In a world like this, it would only be worse, never better.
I couldn't go through every single one of those countless points in detail, so I needed to toss out something that would prick Han Se-ah's guilt a little while still being easy for the viewers to follow. Honestly, as a gamer myself, I had a bit of that hell yeah, smash Enter without reading the quest text energy in me too.
…I still don't know the main story of Heroes Chronicle, the game I've dumped tens of millions into over the years.
"Hanna. Who is Katie?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Who. Is. Katie."
I wasn't planning to get truly serious, but by setting the tone and speaking in deliberate, clipped beats, Han Se-ah's face went pale. She looked like a kid who'd thought they'd snuck a cash purchase past their mom — only to discover the billing text had already been sent.
Until now, my vibe had been closer to a carefree guy nursing a drink. Never harsh words, never scolding, just rolling with things and helping out when trouble hit. For someone like that to suddenly lock in the atmosphere and meet her eyes head-on — Han Se-ah shrank back on instinct.
To her, the fact that I was an NPC in a VR game didn't seem to matter at all. Her knees drew neatly together, and both hands clenched into fists atop them.
"Sh-she's… a precious comrade…?"
"No. Not that."
My razor-sharp reply and the chat's bombardment sent Han Se-ah's eyes spinning in circles. The way she kept darting sidelong glances made her look like a scolded puppy — but no matter how cute she was, those mischievous viewers weren't about to hand her the answer.
Of course, the "correct answer" wasn't anything grand.
"Th-the swordsman who solidly holds the party's rear line…?"
"And?"
"Eh…"
But why couldn't that simple answer come out?
If she was being called out and scolded over a political mess involving a princess and a prince, then obviously Katie's status as a ducal daughter should have come up. Yet she was so thoroughly flustered that the words "ducal daughter" and "Grand Duke's house" showed no sign of leaving her mouth.
"A genius swordswoman who reached Upper-grade at such a young age?"
"……"
"Uh, um, that's…"
"…She's the Northern Grand Duke's daughter."
"Ah — right!"
At this point, the viewers' joke about her "playing dumb for donations" was starting to feel like it might be the truth. But if those wildly darting eyes and that trembling voice were an act for money, Han Se-ah wouldn't be an internet streamer — she'd be a ten-million-ticket actress lighting up the box office with that face.
As Han Se-ah gradually shifted from a source of entertainment into something actively hazardous to dental health, the viewers' attitude shifted with her. As expected of a woman who'd cut her teeth on internet broadcasting — she wasn't going down easy.
Still, this side of the table was a military-discharged returning student who'd personally endured the full K-Army chewing-out experience. When it came to driving someone up the wall while grilling them, I'd learned plenty from military officers and that famous cooking-show host.
"You don't know why I brought up Katie?"
"Uh-eh…?"
The Socratic method, right there.
Don't explain first why you called her to the table — always make her answer. If she can't get it right, like now, you can ask why she doesn't know. If she lucks into the answer, you can hit her with the company-commander brand of disappointment: you knew, and you still did it? A time-honored technique.
I'd originally planned to give her a light grilling and shut the viewers up… but watching those eyes roll around full of anxiety was so entertaining I couldn't stop.
I clenched my jaw to hold back a laugh, and my face must have set into something a little stern. Han Seah, desperately rolling her eyes, stared up at my forehead with the desperate look of someone seeking salvation. Apparently she'd floated the chat window over my face to try cheating somehow.
"Because Katie, our party member, is a daughter of the Grand Duke's house — so if a political matter comes up, we need to discuss it."
"You knew that, and you still did it?"
A few viewers, growing concerned for their own dental health, had started throwing her the answer — and Han Se-ah finally found her bearings. She wasn't completely dense, so she roughly understood what this situation was about.
One party member was the Northern Grand Duke's youngest daughter. Another was a candidate Saint watched with interest by the Temple's Saintess and Saint. If she said she didn't know, she'd get scolded for not knowing. If chat helped her get it right, she'd get scolded for knowing and doing it anyway. Those eyes trembled without mercy. After roughly twenty minutes of verbal thrashing, the viewers locked in their angles and lit their final fireworks.
And in the middle of all that — casually declaring political support for someone without thinking it through. Wasn't that exactly why the viewers had freaked out at that terrifying word and started beating Han Se-ah with money and chat?
It was fantasy-world politics with zero connection to parallel-universe Korea — and yet bait this potent was genuinely terrifying.
The chat window was awash with national flags; red faces and blue faces started shouting about patriotism; and clueless foreigners, thanks to someone blasting revolutionary anthems, began belting out who will not be slaves again!
"Stop! Stop it! Okay, I was wrong, please! If I get banned again it's three days!"
What exactly supporting a princess, voting for candidate number three, and the French Revolution reclaiming the people's freedom had to do with each other, I had no idea.
Lunatics from the parallel world screaming for the release of a politician Princess who'd caused an incident; Révolution baguettes who'd somehow misunderstood and wanted to soak the fields of France in a martyr's blood; and Yankee brats jumping in for no reason to belt out every military march they knew.
In a chaos no single word could describe, Han Se-ah had howled — and now she was back, looking haggard. Unable to quell the riot, she'd logged out and forced herself into a full day of cooling off.
"Starting today, let's move toward the 45th floor as fast as we can! I didn't take any particular commissions from the guild. I think we need to check the 45th floor first."
"Alright. …And Hanna — I'm fine."
"Uh, hm?"
That morning, over sandwiches the maids had prepared, Han Se-ah was laying out their goals when Katie quietly sidled up beside her. Last night's K-style grilling at the dinner table must have hit the young lady harder than expected.
Han Se-ah, mid-chew on her sandwich as Katie patted her shoulder, looked thoroughly lost — her eyes thrashing around with nowhere to go. It was a pretty dumb look.
To the party members, yesterday's events were a situation where their (magically) genius leader had exposed her (socially) immature side and gotten a stern scolding — so of course they'd assume she was hurt and try to comfort her. The person in question, meanwhile, had spent a full day resting, tallied up the money she'd been beaten with, and come back with both her wallet and the corners of her mouth ready to split from grinning.
"Yeah… thanks, Katie."
"Of course. Anyone can make a mistake. But Hanna — from now on, let's always discuss things together before making a decision, okay?"
Katie stuck right to her side, and Irene watched them with a benevolent smile. The whole atmosphere felt like a kindergarten teacher looking after a kid who'd gotten into trouble, and Han Se-ah naturally set down the sandwich she'd been chewing. Her eyes went round, as if it hadn't occurred to her that even after shaking off the viewers' karma, her party members were still there.
Still, after getting beaten like a dog with money and then being cooed over and comforted, she didn't seem to be in a bad mood at all.
Amid that commotion — carrying the leftover skewers she hadn't been able to finish while getting scolded — we headed for the Tower once more.