Prologue
A relentless barrage of bleak headlines scrolled across the screen.
Not that I gave a damn. It had nothing to do with my life, and frankly, things back home in Korea weren't looking any rosier.
"...Heh."
I stared at the bank balance displayed on my monitor. Now that was a satisfying set of digits.
Gilmok, they called it—making a living purely by writing. The holy grail of every full-time web novelist. And against all odds, I had actually pulled it off.
An eight-figure sum sat proudly on the screen, tens of millions of won. The accumulated royalties from five grueling months of serializing my latest web novel had finally landed in my account.
Farewell to those wasted years—floundering at a third-tier provincial university and slaving away at dead-end part-time jobs after getting discharged from the military! Say what you will about snobs sneering at mass-market romance-fantasies...!
A formulaic romance-fantasy that skillfully blended male-power-fantasy tropes with female-oriented drama was an absolute cash cow. And I had just proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"...Should I buy a car?"
Staring at that mountain of cash, I could indulge in the luxury of such pleasant dilemmas. It felt as though dawn had finally broken over my miserable life.
"...I really did it...!"
Raising my beer can toward the monitor in a solo toast to the payout, I tipped my head back and drank deep. Tonight was a night I was entitled to celebrate. I kept chugging beer without a second thought—so much so that I couldn't even remember at what point I blacked out.
"...Ugh..."
My eyes fluttered open. Above me was an unfamiliar ceiling.
"A princess! It is a princess!"
"A most glorious blessing upon the Royal Family! Our heartfelt congratulations, Your Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence and Avondale! And to Your Royal Highness the Duchess of Clarence and Avondale!"
Unfamiliar voices echoed around me. English... specifically, something that sounded like aristocratic British English. My sluggish mind couldn't begin to grasp what they were shouting about.
Did I pass out drunk with some British period drama playing on my computer...? Was it something like The Crown or Darkest Hour?
But then...
"...Oh, so you are our daughter...! Hélène, my darling... you've been through so much..."
...This had to be karma. Had making a living off churning out cookie-cutter romance-fantasies cursed me to get dragged into one?
I tried to speak, but not a single sound would leave my throat.
Suddenly, my body rose into the air. Someone was lifting me up.
Well, right...
My dick was gone. Just like that, I had ended up in a body where quoting the opening line of The Martian—proclaiming myself utterly and royally fucked—felt far too anatomically inaccurate.
The man who appeared to be my father held me high, gazing down into my face with an expression of profound, tearful emotion. The woman who seemed to be my mother remained lying exhausted in the bed.
...I haven't even had the chance to spend a single penny of that money yet, for fuck's sake...