The God’s Offer
"Indeed... It seems I have never truly loved anyone until now." The moment those words left my lips, an emptiness flooded my chest. So I died without ever knowing love. What a wasted life...
"It is still too early to despair. I shall grant you one final chance."
A final chance? As I looked at him in confusion, Papiyas lightly tapped the ground with the royal scepter he had just slammed down. A low, rhythmic thud echoed, and ripples spread through the air like waves, projecting what looked like a video.
"..."
The image showed me sitting in front of my monitor, completely absorbed in the game. The guy was really focused, huh. He wouldn’t have noticed a thief breaking into the house. It was the first time I had ever seen myself playing from a third-person perspective. It felt strangely unfamiliar and embarrassing.
"I know how desperately you have worked these past months to save Elaine’s descendants. Your sincerity moved me, so I summoned your soul to offer this opportunity. With my power, I will place your soul into the body of a mortal who once had the chance to become Elaine’s partner."
Wait... so he’s telling me to become the protagonist of a possession story? The thought was unsettling, but more than that, I felt excited. Me, the protagonist of a possession novel! That was genuinely good news. After all, there were only two men who had any chance of becoming Elaine’s partner.
One was, of course, Crown Prince Alec. He was her fiancé from the very beginning, and the one she loved with all her heart. But... honestly, the Crown Prince was a bit much. His rotten personality could be fixed once I possessed him, so that was fine. The real problem was something far more fatal.
He was infertile. Azoospermia, I think it was called. In the world of King’s Crown, infertility ranked among the worst negative Traits. Since the player had to continue through their descendants upon death, infertility meant the game ended with that generation. And that wasn’t the only issue.
If the Emperor discovered his son’s condition, what would happen? From the Emperor’s perspective, there would be no reason to keep an heir who couldn’t continue the bloodline—especially when he had other children. I was certain he would strip Alec of his title without hesitation and lock him away in a monastery. How did I know? Because I had played it that way.
That was the optimistic scenario. In the worst case, the Emperor might send Alec on some impossible mission like slaying a dragon or reclaiming a holy land, provide minimal troops, and use him as a meat shield to die in battle. Or he could exile him to the open sea for decades until he succumbed to disease. How did I know that? It was a favorite tactic among other players.
Honestly, seeing this kind of ruthless reality made me think the Crown Prince hadn’t become a villain for nothing. The reason he joined the cult that worshipped the Demon King was to cure his infertility, after all.
Because of all this, possessing the Crown Prince might be the worst choice. But who was standing right in front of me? The God of Fertility himself. Maybe he could cure Alec’s condition?
Hoping that might be possible, I asked, "If you can cure Crown Prince Alec’s infertility, I’m confident I can possess him and make Elaine truly happy. Aren’t you one of the most powerful gods in this world? Is there really no way?"
After a brief silence, Papiyas spoke. "Hah. I did not expect this from you. You possess quite the cunning streak. As I said, even I cannot undo a curse placed by another god, no matter my authority."
He paused, then suddenly struck the space between what I assumed were his left and right... well, his divine attributes, with a sharp slap. "Perhaps this will help you understand. When Medusa was cursed by Athena and turned into a monster, did Poseidon undo it? Or when Heracles was cursed by Hera to kill his own children, did Zeus lift that curse?"
Ah. It clicked immediately. Even though Poseidon and Zeus outranked the gods who cast those curses, they still couldn’t break them.
"Therefore, abandon any thought of entering Alec Lu’s body. I did not bring you here to watch that poor girl suffer through another failed pregnancy!"
...Just as the god said, in the original story Elaine never bore a child until her death. Since the Crown Prince was infertile, that was inevitable. But only he knew the truth. To hide his condition, he had already declared several orphans who resembled him as his illegitimate children. As a result, any failure to conceive would be blamed entirely on the Crown Princess.
Anyone who had watched historical dramas set in the Joseon era would understand—the treatment of a woman who could not bear children in this world was unimaginably cruel. If Elaine had ever been with another man and become pregnant, she might have realized she wasn’t the infertile one. But that was impossible in King’s Crown. Elaine was the kind of woman who would break before she bent when it came to chastity.
So possessing the Crown Prince was off the table. I didn’t want her to suffer either.
That left only one candidate. In a way, this was the most orthodox choice of all.
The other candidate was the Hero. Since the main villain, the Crown Prince, was trying to summon the Demon King, the one who would stop him had to be the Hero. But there was a problem. In King’s Crown, the Hero only shared a few fixed settings—the rest were completely random. Which meant... if my luck was bad, the Hero could be female. That would actually be one of the better outcomes. In the worst case, the Hero’s race could be an orc, a lizardman, or even a drug-addicted cat thief beastkin. If that happened, it would be even worse than the Crown Prince.
Of course, if I somehow beat those terrible odds and rolled a human male Hero, an incredible harem route would be waiting. The Hero’s party was composed entirely of women except for one member: the senior-position Marquess’s daughter mage, the tomboy elf archer, the cool and mysterious demigod saintess, and the fragile, tragic widow Elaine.
Yeah. This was the classic harem possession story.
After thinking it through, I looked up at Papiyas and made my request once more. "If the Crown Prince won’t work, then it has to be the Hero. If possible, please make it a human male body."
"..."
Huh? Something felt off. The god’s demeanor had changed. Veins were bulging beneath his skin, growing thicker and more grotesque by the second.
God...? Are you... getting an erection right now...?
My head tilted upward. From the now-rigid divine form, a mouth opened and unleashed a roar I had never heard before.
"!!!!!!!!!"
The furious bellow shook my entire being, loud enough that my eardrums would have burst if I still had a physical body. It didn’t stop there. From the god’s wide-open mouth, thick, murky fluid sprayed in all directions. In an instant, my entire front was drenched in what his followers called holy water.
"How dare you covet other women while Elaine stands before you! You, whose mind is filled with nothing but demonic lust!!!"