Dethroned from the Throne #2
The word slipped out clean.
Coward.
Three seasons had passed since Thirin fell into this other world. Roughly six months, give or take. And at long last, she had managed to pronounce her very first intentional word properly.
Instead of feeling moved, she mostly just felt ridiculous. The memory of how this whole shitshow started floated up again. This was definitely the game she’d bought—The Fall of the Empire: Chronicle. …Probably. Or maybe it was The Empire’s Collapse or some other bullshit. She couldn’t remember the exact title anymore. Six months had gone by since the brain damage. If she could still recall the name of a game she’d never even played, that would be a goddamn miracle.
Thinking about it gave her a headache all over again.
Am I a real person, or did some game character suddenly gain self-awareness? With a man’s memories trapped in a woman’s body, am I a man or a woman? And is any of this even real?
There was, in fact, a very simple answer to Thirin’s confusion: she was just mentally ill. A lunatic in a medieval fantasy land having one long, extremely weird dream. Like the butterfly that dreamed it was Zhuangzi, only crazier.
“Cut that shit out.”
Thirin had already lost interest in that kind of existential nonsense. She’d agonized over it plenty during the past six months and come to her conclusions long ago. Right now she had far more concrete, physical problems to deal with.
The phantom ache of something that should have been between her legs. After the inability to speak properly, this was the next worst—or maybe even worse—thing about her situation.
She didn’t dwell on it. The only thing that mattered was that she was in a shit situation and had to overcome it. Adapting quickly to any environment was one of Thirin’s few real talents. Her intelligence wasn’t low, but her knowledge base was shallow and her thoughts tended to be short and to the point.
She glanced at the system window.
A safe haven for the ultra-cowardly.
Thirin let out a dry laugh. The naming was practically mocking her. Well, she was the one who’d chosen Coward Mode in the first place, so she couldn’t exactly blame anyone else.
Coward Mode came with all sorts of difficulty options that matched its pathetic name. The biggest one was obviously this:
HP will not drop below 1 under any circumstances.
No matter what happened, she wouldn’t die. The so-called immortal mode.
And then there was this:
Typical Coward Mode—absurd experience multipliers on top of everything else.
But the most eye-catching thing of all was something else entirely.
Martial Arts in a Fantasy World (provisional title) applied.
Achieve and perfect martial arts through Enlightenment (Simdeuk) and Physical Realization (Chedeuk)!
Thirin let out a long sigh. She had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do with that.
She wasn’t exactly an expert on wuxia. Her knowledge was limited to whatever she’d skimmed on wikis. As far as she knew, martial arts were something you learned by joining a big clan like the Huashan or Namgung families, eating some magical carp full of spiritual energy, or falling off a cliff.
From that perspective, she had already fulfilled one of the classic prerequisites.
Well, I did fall off a cliff the moment I got here.
The system’s explanation was pretty half-assed, but Thirin still felt good. Just being able to speak properly again was already a huge relief. And regaining her speech was a small but monumental first step toward her real goal.
Thirin’s ultimate objectives:
One—turn back into a man.
Two—go home.
Over the past six months, she had roughly planned out what she would do once she could talk again. Strictly speaking, those plans had mostly been mental victory coping mechanisms to keep herself from going insane or falling into despair. But now they were something else entirely. They had become genuinely achievable goals.
This fantasy world was a chaotic mix of magic, divine blessings, mysteries, and a thousand other things. If she could use any of them…
There has to be a way to become a man again and get back home.
She could head to the imperial capital, the heart of the magic-obsessed empire. Or she could accomplish some legendary feat and earn a god’s blessing. Or maybe uncover some ancient mystery.
“…”
But before any of that, there were debts she needed to repay. The old priest from the Savior Cult and the nice lady who ran the bakery had both shown her kindness. She couldn’t just leave without settling those accounts.
Thirin stood up from the stream and washed herself. It had been a long time. As the mud and soot washed away, her real features were finally revealed.
“…”
She stared quietly at her reflection in the water. She didn’t know how to describe her own face. Honestly, she didn’t really care that much.
She muttered to herself.
“I hate The Little Prince.”
The Little Prince had claimed numbers couldn’t express essence, but Thirin disagreed. Sometimes a number was the most accurate description possible.
Her appearance could be expressed very simply.
Charm stat: 180.
If there were a hundred members of the opposite sex, all one hundred would find her attractive. Her charm of 180 even overflowed the scale of 100. It meant that even among the same sex, eighty out of a hundred would feel sexual attraction toward her.
It made sense. Thirin was the type who put serious effort into character customization. If she was going to play as a woman, she might as well go all out—big breasts, beautiful face, mysterious Eastern beauty concept. Since it was the character she’d be looking at the most while playing, it only made sense to make her perfect.
On top of that, whether due to system correction or something else, Thirin had no body odor at all. No matter how much she rolled around in mud, she only ever smelled like dirt.
Of course, it wasn’t all good. The consequences of a charm stat of 180 had included an attempted rape, which was exactly why she had desperately tried to apply that race-change user patch.
After roughly drying off, Thirin put her rags back on and headed toward the village. She didn’t want to cover herself in mud anymore. But she also didn’t want to deal with the headaches her appearance would cause. So she let her messy hair fall over her face and tore up the bread bag Martha had given her, wearing it like a makeshift mask.
This should hide it, right?
Her steps felt lighter than they had in months. The sense of liberation from being able to speak properly made her mutter to herself out loud, not caring who heard.
“Bored, roses, up the nostrils. Happiness is, a burning, roundhouse kick to the side.”
A few villagers who passed by jumped in fright and gave her a wide berth. They whispered among themselves that the crazy bitch had finally stopped cursing and started saying real words—only now she was spouting even crazier nonsense.
In truth, Thirin was being extremely careful with every word. The twisted language circuits she’d been stuck with for half a year had become a habit. One slip and she might start cursing again by accident.
Gotta be careful. I want to say ‘you son of a bitch’ but I can’t risk it coming out as ‘thank you.’
After walking while minding her tongue so carefully, she eventually started humming as she entered the village. She hadn’t realized how good it would feel to be able to say whatever came to mind. At this rate, she could probably laugh off the taunts from those damn brats earlier.
…Or so she thought. The very moment that idea crossed her mind, one of those same brats popped out from around a corner and blocked her path.
The kid looked at her cleaned-up face and the clumsy mask, blinked in confusion for a second, then put on his usual sneering expression.
“What the—? Amp-amp! You crawled out again? Today you’re…”
Thirin’s brow twitched.
This little shithead.
His vocabulary was so pathetic he could only repeat the same insults over and over, yet he’d spent all this time mocking her. She briefly considered showing this pathetic little twerp what civilized, colorful physical destruction looked like… but decided against it.
Beating the kid up would be easy. But a much better idea had just occurred to her.
“Hey. Hans.”
When she called his name in a low voice, the brat flinched and took a step back.
“…Huh?”
Hans felt goosebumps crawl all over his skin. That crazy beggar woman was speaking properly instead of cursing. And she even knew his name!
In reality, Thirin knew quite a lot about the village—not just Hans. It was a well-known fact that beggars existed in a quantum state. Thirin was nowhere and everywhere at once in the village. This had been one of her many efforts to recover her speech. She figured listening to as many conversations as possible would help.
What she knew wasn’t limited to village gossip. She also knew the names of the thugs from the mercenary band that caused trouble, and all the dirty little details—like how the worst of the worst, Heres, had been beating up Merye from Wilson’s tavern.
Thirin didn’t realize it, but she was already acting like a character from a wuxia novel. What she’d been doing was the Open Beggar Sect’s essential skill: eavesdropping while in a quantum superposition.
Taking advantage of the brat’s hesitation, Thirin smoothly lowered the mask covering her face just a little. Between the messy strands of hair, her real features—freshly washed of mud and soot—peeked through. Even though it was only half her face, it was more than enough.
“Uh… uhh… uh?”
The boy’s eyes widened. He swallowed hard without meaning to.
“Uhhhhhh…?”
It was something Hans had never seen in his entire life. It couldn’t be expressed with a word as simple as “pretty.” It was like moonlight shining through night fog—radiant yet somehow unreal. The skin visible between the dirty strands of hair was unnaturally white and smooth. Her eyes were sharp yet deep. His mind felt scrambled. The alien sensation was so intense he forgot to breathe, and from that alienation bloomed an inexplicable pull.
His heart pounded strangely. His face began to burn for no reason.
“What?” Thirin asked, flashing a grin.
It was the kind of smile that would make every single one of a hundred men clutch their hearts—even the gay ones.
“Ah, no… um…”
“Aren’t you going to call me amp-amp?”
“Uh, uhh… n-no, that’s not…”
The boy was completely flustered. It was only natural. Thirin’s charm stat was 180. To exaggerate only slightly, if she’d been born in Troy she might have become Helen. If she’d been born in the Shang dynasty, she might have become Daji. With just a little more effort in makeup and presentation, her beauty could topple nations.
Thirin narrowed her eyes and said,
“That thing in your hand. Isn’t that a rock? Weren’t you planning to throw it at me?”
“N-no, um, that’s not…”
“Why aren’t you throwing it? If you’re going to throw it, do it already.”
Hans felt a strange sensation. Her voice was mocking yet somehow gentle. The feeling that he had committed some terrible sin washed over him, and without realizing it, he dropped the rock and bowed his head deeply.
“I-I’m sorry…!”
Thirin chuckled and pulled the mask back up. She was about to head over to Peter, but the damn brat was hesitating and following after her. Seeing that, she came up with a plan on the spot.
Yeah. After everything this little shit had put her through, she couldn’t possibly leave without repaying him with a little “kindness.”
Thirin hated juvenile offenders. No matter how young, a person had to pay the price for their actions. Especially if no one had forced them to do it.
Return favors twofold. Grudges… let’s say about twentyfold.
Thirin herself didn’t realize it, but she had a very wuxia-friendly personality. Her vicious temper was remarkably similar to the poisonous heart of the Tang Clan.
She looked around as if checking for watchers, then approached Hans and crouched down to his eye level. Even with the mask on, her beauty was palpable at this distance. When she matched his height and spoke in a soft, gentle tone, Hans felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Why? Do you want to see what’s under the mask?”
Those words acted like a spell that paralyzed what little reason the boy had left. He did want to see. He wanted to know what was behind that mask, whether what he’d glimpsed earlier was real.
With a bright red face, Hans nodded as if in a trance.
Thirin gave a satisfied little smile. That smile made Hans feel like his heart had dropped into his stomach again.
She glanced behind him, but Hans had no idea why she was doing it. She narrowed her eyes even further and whispered,
“Then… why don’t you tell me I’m pretty, just once? If you do, I’ll think about it.”
Her voice was sweet, but somewhere in it was a chilling hiss like a snake’s.
“……P….”
Hans repeated her words with a face as red as a tomato. To a kid like Hans, Thirin’s seductive smile and gentle voice were practically hypnotic. A corner of his mind was screaming that something was wrong, but every ounce of his attention was focused solely on what lay behind the mask.
“……P-pretty… sis…ter…”
“Hmm? I can’t hear you. What are you saying?”
Thirin tilted her head and asked again. That only made Hans more desperate. Just a little louder. If he spoke just a little louder, she might show him.
“S-sister… you’re pretty…”
“Aww, that’s not enough. It doesn’t sound sincere at all. If you really want to see it, say it louder. Loud enough for me to hear.”
Thirin pressed him with a slightly whiny but firm tone. The anticipation that she might actually take off the mask, combined with the anxiety that hesitation might make him miss his chance, made Hans squeeze his eyes shut and practically shout.
“Sister, you’re pretty! You’re really pretty!”
Thirin nodded in satisfaction. Hans panted, staring at her with eyes full of expectation. She was going to take the mask off now, right?
Instead of removing the mask, Thirin pointed behind him with her finger.
“Huh…?”
It was time for this juvenile delinquent to pay the price for all his past misdeeds.