Chapter Text
I blink silently upon waking up, unimpressed.
That is not our dorm’s ceiling.
Maybe I should’ve been panicking, or at least acted a bit more confused. But honestly, I can’t be bothered to. The system has really ruined my common sense.
There is something odd, though. It’s not just a boring, plain-white, unfamiliar ceiling. No, this one looks like it’s been made by draining my entire bank account, from both pre- and post regression combined, and then some.
It has hand-painted clouds. Hand-painted. Gold-leaf swirls, a chandelier that shines just a bit too brightly—are those actual crystals?
For a long moment, I just lie there, staring up, until eventually, I let out the longest, most exasperated sigh I can muster.
Alright, rewind.
Last thing I remember? Reve had just celebrated our seventh anniversary—what is it about the seventh anniversary, seriously—with a classic livestream. There was the lettered non-cherry cake and all that, as per tradition. This time, I didn’t traumatize our fans by yapping about ‘real music’ either, so it was a good day.
After the stream, the five of us even threw an after-party. Seo Yehyun actually allowed us to eat past six p.m. for once, Kim Dobin managed to sneak an extra order of fried chicken, Kyeon Hajun brought home more cake, and Ryu Jaehee smuggled the snacks to eat along with the alcohol I got from Jiwon-hyung.
I remember laughing a lot. Someone spilled drinks on the carpet—probably Dobin.
I remember coming out of the balcony for a bit, and the night wind was cold, but then it got warm. And then …
Yeah, okay, at one point, I might have had one drink too many.
Did I fall off the balcony and die?
No, that can’t be. Our balcony is too secure to fall off, unless I climb it myself in my drunken state, which I doubt. Besides, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone. Whoever was with me would’ve prevented that from happening.
The fact that I don’t remember is slightly concerning, though. If I blacked out enough that I don’t remember, does that mean I tried to go to my parents’ house? But in that case, I should be waking up next to the doghouse, not in a bed that could probably bankrupt me if I breathed on the sheets too hard.
I push myself upright, my fingers brushing against smooth silk, my gaze sweeping over a room so big it could fit my own three times over. Gilded pillars, plush couches, windows draped with embroidered curtains. There’s even a marble fireplace in the corner.
“What in the world,” I mutter. “Did we win the lottery while I was out?”
No answer, obviously.
Fine. Time to call for backup.
I sigh again.
“Hey, system. What is it this time?”
I won’t admit to being relieved that the semi-transparent blue screen pops up immediately when asked.
[A Project to -̶̻̕-̴̻͆-̴̝̦̱̯̾͌-̴̧̊-̶͙̈́̕̚-̸̼̖͚̼́-̸̯̫͂-̵͔͇͇́̿ ̵̳͖̽̈-̷̡͍̠̒̈́-̸͉͑̉͗̋-̷̨̣̯̽-̶̥̞́̊͘ ̴̙̋̉͘-̵͔͔̻̆-̸͎͙̘̔̈́̈́͘-̴̘̙̣̭͛͝ ̴̻̝̏͋̀́-̸̦̝͚̳̊̓̚-̴̢̩̊̽-̸̪͕̳̀̕͝-̸̤̥̬͚̂͋ ̸̘̇-̵̧̥̙̦̍-̷̦̯̅̍̚-̵̭́͠ ̷͈̥̩̓͌̃͝-̵̧̦̈́̇̾-̵̧̘̭̯̏͑͑̈́-̵͈̥͈͛̇̓-̷̜̺̦̐̀̃̒-̶͍̀̐̊͘]
Target: Yoon Eden
Information:
Age: 20.
Role: Second Prince of Eidolon Empire.
Skills: Swordsmanship [Master], Magic [Pioneer]
(*both skills are currently hidden)
Fame: 0.
(*Fame Level will increase/decrease based on the target’s behavior and achievements in public.)
(*Several story points will require a certain Fame Level to be unlocked.)
Project Goal: Reach the perfect Happy Ending!
Project Reward: Return all of Reve to the modern world.
Penalty Upon Failure: Stay stuck in this romance-fantasy world.
(*warning: death in this world will count as death in the modern world, so stay alive!)
Fantastic.
Okay, first of all, why is the project name glitched? Being twenty again isn’t new, so that part doesn’t phase me. But, second, prince? Me? Did I skip an episode somewhere? There’s magic, too? And what in the hell is this Fame Level thing? Where is the Beginner’s–
Wait …
“Fuck!”
I exclaim out loud, and brace myself.
Yet … nothing. Not a zap, not even a slight tingle. Amazing! Then it must really be gone–
Zzap!
“Agh!”
The surprise almost made me curse again. Damn it, system!
[Due to the different world setting, the Beginner’s Level will temporarily be inactive.]
“Then why did I still get zapped?!”
[The system exists to help maintain Idol Yoon Eden’s behavioral pattern.]
“I’ll maintain it myself!”
[No.]
This bastard.
But before I can start arguing with the system more, a knock echoes from the massive double doors across the room.
“Enter,” I say automatically, mouth working faster than my brain.
And then I pause, catching myself, frowning.
What was that? My tone was calm, firm. With a smooth dignity I’ve never once used in my entire life. It feels like muscle memory.
The door opens, and in walks–
… Kim Dobin?
Except, not exactly.
Because this Kim Dobin is dressed like he just stepped off the set of some high-budget foreign drama. Neat black suit—with a tailcoat—polished boots, white gloves. His head is bowed low in perfect, stiff formality, and his footsteps are silent as he crosses the carpet.
It’s such a surreal image that I forget to react in time. I just watch as he stops by the bed, bends slightly, and says in a clipped, polite tone,
“Your Highness, it is time to wake up.”
I stare. This is even scarier than the Dark Dobin from pre-regression.
For half a second, I seriously consider that maybe this is not Kim Dobin. Maybe this is some extremely polite doppelgänger who just happens to have the same face.
Then he looks up—and his eyes flicker as he gazes at me. A flash of uncertainty, laced with hope. Familiar.
“… Dobin?” I try.
His eyes go wide—and then teary. In a snap, his perfect posture crumbles.
“EDEN-HYUNG!”
He practically launches himself at me. I barely have time to brace before there’s an armful of overgrown puppy crushing my ribs.
“Ah– shi– GET OFF ME, YOU BRAT!”
₊ ⋆ 𓂃 ⋆ ⁺ .♕. ⁺ ⋆ 𓂃 ⋆ ₊
It takes a while before Dobin stops clinging like an overgrown koala.
And by ‘a while’, I mean he’s still hiccup-sniffling when I finally manage to kick him off onto the absurdly plush carpet. After his breathing evens out, he launches into what can only be described as ‘Dobin’s Isekai Morning Report.’
Apparently, his day started the same way: waking up somewhere weird. Except, his first thought—because of course it was—was, ‘I’ve been isekai’d.’
I feel like I should scold this brat for always instantly jumping into fantastical assumptions, but my own reaction probably wasn’t normal either, so for once, I shut myself up.
“Anyway, I was excited for like, five minutes,” he says, puffing his cheeks. “And then the memories of this world slowly caught up to me and doused me like a bucket of cold water. I’m just an attendant.”
He says ‘attendant’ like it’s the lowest NPC class possible.
“A low-rank attendant,” he adds bitterly, “who spends his days ironing your shirts and polishing your boots. I thought maybe my luck was good, like, I’d at least be a knight or something. But no. Attendant.”
“You iron?” I ask, mostly because it’s concerning to imagine Dobin near a hot iron without burning something. Or himself.
“That’s not the point!” he huffs. “Anyway … the ‘me’ from here? He works for Prince Yoon Eden–”
“Me.”
“–Yeah. But I wasn’t sure if it was you-you or just … you-but-not-you. The other you’s personality is way tamer, but in a cold, apathetic way. So I didn’t know if you had your modern world memories or not. But now I know. And now I’m relieved. So, there.”
I rub my face. “You’re taking this situation way too easily.”
“Do you know what’s happening, hyung?”
I pause, thinking about what excuse I should make.
But then again … do I have to? Hypothetically, if this is a ‘regular isekai situation’ like Dobin might like to believe, then someone having a system suddenly pop-up would be normal, right?
Let’s just go with that.
“A system came out for me.”
As expected, he doesn’t look suspicious at all. Instead, his eyes gleam instantly.
“A system? What did it say?”
So I easily tell him. Every single line, reading out every bullet point. He nods along like a bobble-head.
By the time I finish, he’s already crossed his arms, wearing a self-satisfied look—like he knows exactly how this works.
“Hyung, I’m a pro at this kind of thing,” he claims brazenly.
I squint, considering if I should somehow ban him from wasting hours binging on manhwa and webseries—that confidence is a bit irritating. I’ll shelve the thought, for now.
Maybe it can indeed be helpful.
I sigh. “Alright, lay it on me.”
Dobin nods excitedly and then raises three fingers.
“The important bit is actually in the last points.”
As he says so, my gaze flits upwards, staring at the system I had opened up again.
Project Goal: Reach the perfect Happy Ending!
Project Reward: Return all of Reve to the modern world.
Penalty Upon Failure: Stay stuck in this romance-fantasy world.
“Explain.”
“Well, we know from here that to return to our world, we need to reach a ‘happy ending’. And the clue to what it meant is in the penalty. It says ‘romance-fantasy’ world.”
I don’t get it.
“How so?”
“That’s a genre. It means that this world is running on a specific story. So we’re going to have to make the right choices, take the right routes, unlock the right branches … avoid the bad ending and reach the pre-determined ‘happy ending’ instead.”
Dobin claps, his expression brightening.
“We lucked out by landing in a romance-fantasy. This is usually the easiest fantasy genre.”
“Why?”
“Because the goal is romance! We just have to get the main leads together. Low risk, high reward! Usually, as long as the male lead and female lead meet each other, the story will flow by itself. When they do, it's a happy ending. We’re free to go home.”
He makes it sound so simple, but one word bothers me there.
“Usually?”
“Okay, sometimes there can be a subplot or two. Like a political revolution, or sometimes even a demon lord appearing–”
Dobin pauses, slapping a hand over his own mouth.
“Oh no, did I just plant a flag?”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not how it works.”
“It is!”
“If everything you say becomes a flag, We would have a billion views each in all of our MVs already, brat.”
Still, I focus on what he has deduced so far.
“So we just need to find the leads?”
“Yeah. They should be easy to spot. There are tropes. Like, for example, a prince– …”
He trails off mid-sentence and then looks at me.
I feel goosebumps slowly creeping up, along with memories of my own life in this world.
“... Don’t,” I warn, dreading the look on his face.
The insolent brat ignores it.
“Hyung,” he calls, tone solemn. “I think you might be the male lead.”
“No.”
“No, listen!”
Despite my refusal, he’s already launching on another long ramble, trying to convince me of why I must be the male lead of this world. Even starting with my family history.
In this world, my father—the Emperor—was smart, but selfish and frankly, a garbage excuse of a man. As a prince, he fell for a lowly Baron’s illegitimate daughter. Yet, because he knows that love doesn’t win elections, he married a powerful duke’s daughter instead, using her to sit on the throne and made her Empress. All the while keeping the Baron’s illegitimate daughter as his lover anyway.
However, on a twist of events, the Empress got sick soon after the wedding—now that I think about it, isn’t this timing very suspicious? Either way, her illness raised questions about whether she could produce an heir. And so, the Emperor was allowed to take a concubine.
Guess who he picked? That’s right, the Baron’s daughter, of course.
In months time, she gave birth to the First Prince, Cha Yeonho.
Yes, that Cha Yeonho.
“Do you think senior Cha Yeonho has modern world memories, too?”
“No idea.”
I don’t care, either.
Instead of debating over it, Dobin and I decide to shelve it for later.
Anyway, after birthing a son, the concubine gained power, and everyone treated Cha Yeonho like he was already named heir to the throne.
Yet, two years later, the Empress somehow gave birth to me—the second prince. However, she got even more sickly, basically confining her to a bedridden life. With all the eyes already on the first prince, and my mother too ill to support me, I became the forgotten spare.
Not that I care. I have zero affection for this Empire that my bastard of a father ruled, so I couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I purposely hid my talents to avoid undue attention, so I could devote most of my time taking care of my mother without any threats.
“Hyung, this is textbook male lead stuff,” Dobin insists. “Forgotten prince. Born of the Empress. Rightful heir. Secret genius with cheat skills. This is the part where you reclaim the throne.”
“Who says I want it?”
“Uh … the plot?”
I snort. If I’d wanted it, I wouldn’t have stayed quiet all these years, sick mother or not.
What, you think I can’t multitask? I became DTB’s season six producer while working on Reve’s album. Kicking Cha Yeonho’s butt while taking care of a sickly mother is a cake walk in comparison!
This Empire isn’t exactly worth my effort, and Cha Yeonho shouldn’t be incompetent enough to fuck up a whole ass nation if he ascends the throne. Probably.
… Or is he?
My mind flashes back to some unpleasant memories of Cha Yeonho’s broken moral compass. Maybe he could fuck up an Empire.
It’s a valid concern.
Not my concern, though.
“But anyway, that’s part of the story, too! Usually, there needs to be a trigger to change the male lead. That’s where the female lead comes in!”
I raise a brow, and he continues.
“The female lead is supposed to change you. She makes you want to be a better version of yourself! You grow as your relationship with her progresses, and solve conflicts along the way. True love wins all! Boom, happy ending.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
The female lead appears, and I will suddenly want the throne? That’s ridiculous.
“Well, in this case, you have to, hyung.”
Dobin points out, and then recites the Project Reward.
“Return all of Reve to the modern world,” he says. “All of Reve.”
Oh. I frown.
“The others are here, too.”
“The wording implies so … but aside from that, something else bothers me, too.”
“What is it?”
“That warning note at the end.”
What warning note?
Dobin’s words make me pull the system back out. Immediately, I ignore the wall of text and only check the final line.
(warning: death in this world will count as death in the modern world, so stay alive!)
Well that isn’t ominous at all.
“So there is danger.” I frown.
Dobin mutters something about how this is, after all, a fantasy world. But he says that since the main genre is romance, the risk level should be pretty low.
“I don’t think the hyungs or Ryu Jae are reckless enough to get themselves in danger.”
I nod. Statistically, Kim Dobin has the highest chance of getting into trouble. No one else in Reve is reckless and thoughtless as he is.
It’s a good thing I get to him first.
“However, they don’t know the situation like you and I do.”
It’s best if we can talk to them about all this.
Sharing a look, we both scour through this world’s memories once more, trying to piece together what we know, if we can find them.
It doesn't take long at all to recall the first one.
“The Seo Dukedom– Yehyun-hyung is my childhood friend.”
I scrunch my nose as I say it, glaring when Dobin’s lips twitch to hold back a grin.
Now you might be wondering how that came to be.
Well, you see, while it’s common for a lower-class noble like Dobin—who is a second son of a Viscount—to work as an attendant, high-born nobles are put as playmates instead. For future political connections, and all that.
Seo Yehyun, as the son of a Duke, was brought to his first visit to the palace at the young age of seven.
I remember now. He took one look at both me and Cha Yeonho and decided that I was the lesser evil of the two.
Still, he chose to be my friend.
“I’m never going to let him live this down,” I snicker gleefully.
“Hyung, not to ruin your parade, but your competition was Cha Yeonho. Does it really count?”
“Shut up, Dobin, let me have this.”
Anyway, we found Seo Yehyun. Meeting up might be an issue, however. Although officially childhood friends—and we are—we don’t hang out all that much lately. We used to, back when we were younger. But as we grow up, my mother’s health has been deteriorating further, so I spend most of my time inside the palace, and my outings with Seo Yehyun also tapers off.
“Either way, we’ll meet him at the academy soon, so it should be fine.”
The academy exists for nobility. Aristocrats send their children to study at this glorified, ‘prestigious’ school, typically starting from age fourteen until twenty, when they’ll graduate and can either immediately be put to work, or for heirs to further learn territory management directly under their own parents.
It’s currently school break, but it’s going to start back up in about a week. I’m about to start my final year, along with Seo Yehyun—who enrolled a year late, for some reason. Dobin says that it’s probably plot convenience. Meanwhile, he himself will be in his fourth year.
“I think I remember hearing about Ryu Jae.”
Dobin says, recalling the gossip he heard.
“Something about a genius magician freshman. I’m pretty sure it was his name that was mentioned.”
“That checks out,” I mumble.
“This is great. All we need to do is wait for the academic year to start–”
“Wait.”
I frown, an unsettling feeling growing.
“... Where’s Hajun?”
The sudden silence is suffocating.
Dobin’s face goes pale. “I … don’t recall Hajun-hyung at all. Do you?”
I dug through my memories. Hard. But there’s nothing. No recollection of a student named Kyeon Hajun in my year, nor any indication, or slightest hint of memories regarding his existence in this world.
My blood runs cold.
“We need to find Hajun.”