When Umi finally decided to stop eating before her stomach bursts like a bomb, she finally motioned the goddess to start the process.
'Ah, to hell with dying. Let's find a way to live!' Umi thought as she wiped the stray food on the corners of her mouth.
Effie, after seeing the girl's appetite, was utterly dumbfounded, to say the least. How can such a girl with a slender figure like hers eat like a cow?! Has she never had a cake in all her life?
To Umi's defense, her slender figure was the result of being subjected to a strategic diet ever since starting her career as an actress, in other words, all her life. Having to eat to her heart's content, this was her first time!
After eyeing the human before her, the goddess then started her incantations. For a brief moment, a blinding light engulfed the three beings in the small office, and after a second, the human girl and the white kitten disappeared before her.
Effie let out a smile, pleased that the incantation was successful, failing to notice the glitch in the supposed to be "successful" incantation.
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When Umi woke up, the next thing she felt was extreme nausea. She held the sides of her head, trying to steady her swirling vision.
Damn, if the "slight nausea" that the goddess assured her as the only side effect of transporting into this world, she will seriously complain! This nauseating sensation isn't something that can't be described as "slight"!
While controlling her breathing to ease the feeling of nausea, without attempting to get up from her position, she scrutinized her surroundings unhurriedly by glancing around.
After the conversation with the goddess, she briefed herself already with the expected upcoming weird events so she wasn't overly horrified to see herself lying in a dark place with only one source of sunlight peeking through an opening, wide enough for two people to enter, a few meters away from her. Just one glance, she can discern that her current body is laid on a floor of a narrow but lengthy cave, like a dark tunnel, with only one opening.
One might panic to find themselves in a cave one random day but Umi was an exception. She had already come across a few weird things just by a conversation with a certain goddess so she felt oddly calm. If one didn't mind the dark cramped space, this is rather exciting ah. Why was this body in a cave in the first place?
When the feeling of nausea and headache finally subsided, Umi sighed in relief. Finally, the pain-numbing she requested from the goddess is taking place!
Having somewhat calmed herself, enough for Umi to go about her mission, she sat up from the floor she was lying on when she woke up and after some deep breaths, summoned Mochi to transfer the data.
'I swear if going through all this won't get me a second life, I'll wreak havoc in the whole of Ecletia!' Umi thought but of course, that was only a wishful thinking since, what can a mortal even do?
When Mochi appeared and after muttering an incantation, a surge of foreign memories flowed through Umi's mind like tsunami waves. Going through the data, she finds everything making sense now.
The world she is in right now is set up like a medieval fantasy world. Umi's eyes sparkled with the thought of magic, beasts, elves, dwarves, etc. It's all finally starting to get exciting!
The original storyline, entitled The Beautiful Tribute, focused on the push and pull romance between the two main characters. This is basically a romance story in a medieval fantasy world.
Ah, how typical.
To summarize the plot, the Male Lead named Zevlin Emeric, after overthrowing the Mad King who pursued to take over the four main kingdoms of the continent, rose to power and stabilized the four kingdoms in his stead.
Harmony was finally achieved after only five years, which only proves his prowess and excellent abilities as the rightful ruler. Before all this was made possible, what made him able to reach the highest pinnacle of strength is because of his...tragic past.
Before the Mad King took over, the four main kingdoms were actually in tranquility and peace for a long time, with the signed treaty against any wars. Not until there was a Magic Tower built at the center of the continent, promising to educate the noble children of royal blood from each kingdom in order to fully strengthen their magical prowess.
In this world, only the ones with the royal bloodline have the ability to absorb the mana in the surroundings into magic. Hence, a certain prince from the North was admitted to the tower, alongside all the other royal children of the continent, enticed by the promise of strength, only to figure out that the Magic Tower had other purposes too.
These children of royal blood were experimented and tortured, like research rats, extracting every ounce of their own abilities and powers, to be used by the Mad King, who was the king of the South at that time.
This went on for full five years, and by that time, the Mad King has successfully taken over the entire continent by murdering the royal families of each kingdom. When the male lead has reached 15 years of age, the children in the tower finally rebelled against the tower with the mindset of "We'd rather die than be used."
However, it was only a one-sided massacre. The children, after being judged useless by the Mad King, were slaughtered one by one, leaving the place looking like an actual hell.
Only one has ever escaped, and that is the prince from the North.
After he had escaped, with only revenge in his mind, he immediately formulated a plan, gathered supplies and comrades, faced hardships along the way, used his strength he had obtained after being subjected to torture every day, and successfully killed the Mad King after ten long years.
When all was stabilized, and when the young king turned 30, he was constantly being pestered by the elders to guarantee an heir to continue the throne.
He wouldn't mind actually, he can just marry for political reasons, however, the elders unreasonably wanted for him to marry someone with the royal bloodline and the only one remaining who is eligible for the prospect of marriage was the Mad King's daughter, who was actually locked at the uppermost floor of the Magic Tower, with her mother, all this time. The Mother and daughter were only discovered after raiding the remains of the deserted tower when Zevlin was crowned king.
The daughter was Princess Rosalyn Beckham who is the Female Protagonist. The original storyline actually centered around how the female protagonist, who is considered an enemy by the King Zevlin, was forced to be a "tribute" to bear an heir for the King in exchange for her to continue her nobility and her mother's. When she was placed to live at the palace, full of grief, fear, and weakness despite being a direct descendant of the Mad King, she tried all means to go against King Zevlin in small ways because she thought she was wrongfully accused of being an enemy and that she was in truth innocent.
The girl insisted that at that time, no one can blame her for her unreasonable actions since King Zevlin really didn't spare her a glance despite marrying her and forcing her into the palace. At first, she tried bullying the servants, loitering the palace walls and gardens, and sabotaging the parties. She did all those because she felt animosity towards the king for restricting her, never allowing her to set foot outside just after being freed from the tower.
If anyone can know of her being locked in a tower, they can only admittedly claim that she was indeed innocent and was only seeking love and acceptance from a cold-hearted husband. Although she had no connections with her biological father and actually deeply hated him for taking away her freedom by locking her on a tower ever since it was built, which is also coincidentally her day of birth, the only sin she knew she committed was knowing all about the Mad King's plan about the massacre and only kept quiet about it.
However, telling anyone about it was beyond Rosalyn's power, she was still a child for god sake! She was deeply afraid to join the corpses loitered around the floors below her chambers!
When she and her mother were discovered by the time King Zevlin was crowned, she was only fifteen at that time. After that, she lived in the slums for another five years as she provided for her and her mother, until she was called to the palace with the promise of continuing her nobility if she marries the King.
From King Zevlin's perspective, Rosalyn was an enemy whom he showed compassion for by letting her and her mother live comfortably in a palace after losing their nobility. From Rosalyn's perspective, she was forced to marry a clearly uninterested husband and was again locked inside a palace, taking her freedom from her once again.
When time passed, and Rosalyn, with the help of her personal maid, finally realized that her tantrums were unreasonable and she was just digging her own grave all this time, turned over a new leaf and actually helped the kingdom with her own powers that gradually grew strong over time. As she was a mage with healing magic, she volunteered to heal the sick without charge.
That is when the starting point of the push and pull romance of the two main characters.
Umi felt that the female protagonist was very unfortunate. The father's actions don't define the daughter but the protagonist was subjected to all this suffering just because she was a descendant of the enemy. However, her way of coping with her emotions was indeed out of the line. Why bully the servants ah?
Umi can only question this because the body she possessed right now is the bullied personal maid of the female protagonist, named Fae. The personal maid of Rosalyn, who will be dead before the happy ending of the main couple, because she tried to sacrifice her life to save the female protagonist from taking her own life by drowning in the sea.
Rosalyn, who was at the point of surrender, decided to take her own life by going into the sea despite not knowing how to swim. When Fae saved her, it was too late for the maid because she was swept away by the currents. Fae's death is the turning point of Rosalyn's behavior.
'Fae is indeed an epitome of a doomed cannon fodder.'
Umi thought as she grimaced, inspecting the thin and slender hands of the original body she now possessed. No wonder the readers didn't accept the original story at first. It is indeed hard to like a female protagonist who bullies others no matter the reason what. Furthermore, her character developed because of a certain someone's death, not of her own decision to be better, which might be unsettling to the readers, especially considering the kind of people who are supposed to be the ones who will read Effie's books.
That was the summary of the original story. Regardless, the goddess was adamant in telling her that the new story she will write is based on the premise of Umi's character. A genius high school student from another world who got transmigrated into a novel she read before dying due to a car crash. A simple reason for transmigrating but that was enough to start the story since what the readers really wanted to know was her adventure after transmigrating into a story of a novel she already knew the future of. An indifferent and aloof student, also named Fae, who will possess the body of an originally timid maid.
However, there is a catch. Once the high school student gained the memories of the original minor character, she discovered that King Zevlin wasn't the only one who got out of that tower alive.
Fae was actually a princess of the East Kingdom! Her powers were weak, that's why after miraculously escaping from the tower at the age of 10, she practically lived as a beggar in the streets for another ten years.
When King Zevlin was crowned, she was finally admitted to working as a palace maid when they were recruiting for servants, and after five years of working, she was promoted to work as the personal maid of the wife of the King. Busy working her ass off to live, she never had the time to cultivate her powers before her pitiful death.
Umi thought to herself.
'What a waste of what could have been a great character. Princess Fae could have survived on her own.'
She clicked her tongue.
Behind the timid personality of Princess Fae is a girl with tenacity and resilience. It was just a pity that she threw her life away for someone who bullied her several times just because Rosalyn was the female protagonist.
Now, Umi's character will be the genius Fae who will possess the originally timid one.
The corners of Umi's mouth perked up just as her eyes sparkled with fierceness. "Mochi, tell me the mission."
Mochi mirrored Umi's expression. Both of them looking like a pair of villains, only a side of their faces are illuminated by the sunlight coming from the cave's opening, making their faces look sinister.
"Main Mission: Accumulate at least 90% Emotional Points from the Story Characters based on events influenced by you. Special Mission: Change Faerin's fate."
Umi gazed at Fae's small pair of hands, a hint of anticipation shown in her face, her eyes glistening under the dark.
'Should we start spicing things up?'
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Dear Readers,
This author loves you.
Yours truly,
ACLIXAM
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