The Lady of the Golden Apple
The Lady of the Golden Apple
The Lady of the Golden Apple.
"Elysia. You don't have to do this. Your father will find some way—"
"Prince Kael wants me, doesn't he? I'm the reason this war started, so I'll be the one to end it."
The middle-aged man clutching my hands and weeping in front of me was, incredibly, the king of an entire kingdom.
If you asked why such a powerful man was in such a pathetic state, the answer was simple.
A stronger man's bullshit had forced him to send his beloved daughter off to an enemy nation.
I'd rather scheme for a chance than die with everyone else.
I'd only been transmigrated a few days ago, but I could keep my composure. I mean, come on—I sank hundreds of hours into this game.
Waking up in a completely different body had been, admittedly, a bit of a shock... but thanks to that shock, I figured out what world I was in at a glance. An eroge where you invade a country and get busy with its royalty. The kind of game where you watch a woman get thoroughly ravished if you pick her.
And in that game, the Kingdom of Astrea had nothing going for it besides arts and culture.
Except for one person—Elysia von Astrea, called the most beautiful woman on the continent.
Why her, of all people...
Hair like fine gold spun into slender threads, streaked with blue highlights. Eyes that sparkled as if they held actual stars. Skin so pale, smooth, and soft that even a light press left a red mark behind. A body that was the textbook definition of slender—with the sole exception of a chest and hips sized like a walking pornography activation trigger.
Why did it have to be her?
I'd have taken Serf #1 any day. Pay my taxes. Dig potatoes. Flee to the mountains whenever a war broke out. Then snag some random country boy and live out an ordinary life.
...Actually, that sounds fucking brutal too.
Retracted. Doing farm work in a medieval lookalike world with a modern weakling's body is a nonstarter.
By that logic, being a princess was the better deal... except for the problem of this princess's future.
Elysia von Astrea.
In-game nickname: the Golden Apple. The most beautiful woman on the continent. The kingdom's national treasure.
Countless royals and nobles sent marriage proposals. Minstrels wrote love songs about a face they'd never even seen. Even reproductions of her portrait supposedly traded for dozens of gold coins in the underground market—a woman wrapped in an absolutely insane amount of lore.
The devs had slathered every flattering descriptor imaginable across her character profile to sell one single heroine.
I laughed at it while I played.
These bastards overdid the lore again.
That's what I thought, right before I collected every last CG.
...Human beings are, by nature, contradictory creatures.
Anyway.
That "most beautiful woman on the continent" designation was currently tightening around my throat.
Or more precisely—an insane crown prince had marched an army here to claim this body for himself.
Kael de Arcadia.
Crown Prince of the Arcadia Empire, the strongest military power on the continent.
And the man at the very center of this deranged game.
Should I even call him the protagonist?
His face was plastered front and center on the title screen, so protagonist was technically accurate. He was just a little different from your average game hero.
No gathering heroes to slay a demon lord. No saving the world. He simply used his overwhelming army to steamroll every neighboring country, one by one.
Capture the castle. Force the king to his knees. Take the royal family prisoner.
And from that point on, the genre changes.
Such a wholesome game, really.
I snuck a glance downward. My abundant chest hid my feet from view.
...
This was my body now.
"Ha."
A sigh escaped before I could stop it.
"Elysia?"
"It's nothing."
The king stared at me with worry etched across his face.
Oops. Sighing right here makes me look like a daughter being led to her execution.
Which, to be fair, wasn't far off.
"Please don't worry about me, Father."
As I spoke, I gently covered the back of his hand with mine.
Until a few days ago, he'd been a total stranger. And yet from the moment I opened my eyes, this man hadn't left my side for a single instant. Even with war councils running back to back, he came to check on me several times a day—whether I'd eaten, whether anything hurt. When word spread that my sleep was troubled, he dragged in three royal physicians.
It was almost overwhelming.
And now he had to hand over a daughter who was loved that much to a hostile country.
...I understood it, a little. If I were king, I'd probably cry too.
"I'll come back. I promise."
At those words, the king's composure crumbled.
"My daughter..."
Ah. Okay, this one stung a little.
I am not Elysia. At least, not if you count only the mind.
I had no idea where the original Elysia had gone, or why I'd ended up in this body. I opened my eyes to find a bed that was obscenely huge, a gorgeous blonde stranger staring back from the mirror, and maids who took one look at me and called me Princess Elysia.
Two days later, war broke out.
Technically, a border skirmish had already been simmering—it just escalated into all-out war.
Three days. That was how long it took the Arcadian army to smash through three of Astrea's fortresses.
In the game, it was just castle icons popping off the map one after another. Experiencing it firsthand had a slightly different flavor.
Holy shit.
That was the moment it truly sank in. Before "this world is a game" even registered, the fact that I was utterly screwed came first.
What was worse was the letter Arcadia sent over. Their demands were simple.
Hand over Elysia von Astrea, and the army withdraws.
The first time I heard it, I was so dumbfounded I asked three times to confirm.
"...Just me?"
The envoy bowed his head. "That is correct."
"No money?"
"None was demanded."
"Territory?"
"None."
"Tribute?"
"That as well..."
"He's out of his goddamn mind."
It slipped right out of my mouth. The envoys all froze.
Apparently that was a bit crude for a princess's lips. But what else do you call a lunatic besides a lunatic?
If a man wanted a woman that badly, he should've just downloaded a dating app. They don't have those here, though.
Then lunatic it is.
Unfortunately, my options were limited.
Refuse—the kingdom falls.
Accept—I get dragged away.
Done. Astonishingly simple.
So I accepted.
And no, it wasn't out of some noble spirit of sacrifice. I offer this body for my people. I shall fulfill my duty as a princess. I hadn't been here long enough to entertain grand sentiments like that.
I just ran the numbers, and this option had the higher survival rate. Because I knew the game.
Kael, at the very least, wasn't the type to break his promises. Hand over Elysia, and Astrea survives. And Elysia doesn't die right away either.
Right away.
That's the key phrase.
Well... it'll work out somehow.
Hundreds of hours of playtime. Three playthroughs of the main story. Two expansion packs. Every hidden event cleared. I'd even personally unlocked the infamous special ending with a trigger condition so convoluted it became a meme—all without a walkthrough.
I could recite the early game with my eyes closed. Which event fires when. Who to avoid. Which choices are dangerous. And exactly what kind of man Kael is.
So all I had to do was go. Show up, play the docile captive for a while, and wait for my opening. Run. Negotiate. Raise his affection, if it came to that. Survive by any means necessary.
...Hmm.
Thinking back on all those raunchy scenes left me with a strange feeling.
I slowly lowered my chin. Cleavage. Raised it back up.
...There's an easy path available, isn't there.
That is a tool I will never use. Humanity has something called dignity.
"Your Highness."
A maid's voice came from beyond the door.
"Everything is ready."
Already?
I released the king's hand and rose from my seat, the long train of my dress whispering across the floor. I still wasn't used to walking in this body. Take too wide a step and the hem snagged. The chest swayed pointlessly. The waist was so narrow that my center of gravity felt all wrong.
I'd spent the past few days practicing walking in front of a mirror. Sure, a princess tripping over her own skirts and face-planting in front of a foreign crown prince would make for quite the legend. But it's not the kind of legend I'm aiming for.
"Elysia."
The king called to me one last time. I stopped at the door.
"...You don't have to go. If you don't want to."
My answer didn't come right away.
Does he know? That one sentence almost swayed me. If I stay, the kingdom will most likely fall. The capital could hold out two weeks at most. In the game, it took less than a week.
I know all of that. And still.
Family is really something...
Memories of my past life surged up unbidden, then sank away again. I exhaled slowly and smiled.
Elysia's face was simply cheating, even at a moment like this. I knew from mirror practice—just the slightest upturn of the corner of her mouth was enough to short-circuit anyone's brain.
"I'll be back, Father."
Tears fell from the king's eyes again.
...At this point I was starting to feel like the villain here.
I turned away without another look.
A black carriage waited outside the palace. Emblazoned with the crest of Arcadia—a vehicle sent by the enemy nation, under the pretense of escorting their future crown princess.
Future crown princess, my ass.
This was the moment Elysia's fate was sealed in the game. Board the carriage, cross the border, head for the imperial capital. And there, come face to face with Kael for the first time. That was the original order of events.
I gathered my skirts and set my foot on the carriage step.
"Phew."
It's fine. I know everything. As long as things unfold exactly like the game, there's no problem.
The door was just about to close—
When hoofbeats rang out in the distance. Not one horse. Dozens.
The knights guarding the palace gates all turned their heads in unison. Moments later, a column of black-armored cavalry rode through the palace's front gates.
At their head was one black stallion, unusually large. And in the saddle sat a man.
Black hair. Crimson eyes. A face so vivid it stood out even at a distance.
I knew that face. There was no way I couldn't—I'd stared at it a few hundred times on the title screen alone.
"...Huh?"
My mouth opened on its own. The maid beside me murmured in a trembling voice.
"P-Prince Kael..."
Hold on.
I blinked several times. What is he doing here?
Kael is supposed to wait in the capital. Elysia arrives at the empire, and in the palace's audience chamber—that is his first appearance. At least, that's how it went in the game I knew.
Instead, he drove his horse straight toward me.
As the distance closed, those crimson eyes came into sharp focus. And that gaze was nailed to one single spot from beginning to end.
Me. More precisely—Elysia von Astrea.
Kael smiled lightly from atop his horse.
It was an expression I'd seen countless times in the game.
The problem was... very few of the events featuring that smile ended with anyone still intact.
I murmured, very quietly.
"...I'm so fucked."
Five days since the transmigration. And for the first time, something that isn't in the walkthrough just happened.