Chapter Text
Only the slimmest self-preservation keeps Khun from turning on his webcam for these streams.
That and the chat becoming new levels of insufferable. IF they could see another Khun streaming, the donations would get to levels of absurdity no one could imitate.
The room isn't dark (he'd learned his lesson from his first attempts at streaming), and he's swept up any of his packaging, lest Isu get any ideas of him being disorganized or something. Perish the thought.
Or worse, someone accuses him of snorting cheeto dust or something. Those are disgusting.
Khun adjusts his headset, checks the mic and turns to OBS.
The stream starting overlay mocks him with a cartoon fox running through a field of flowers (he can't believe this thing he'd gotten as a joke had stuck around this long) and the early chat blathering on about the knight character romance H scene or whatever.
He was not looking forward to it. These POV scenes of cringe worthy 2D horny that may have a pixilated anything or worse - a collectible.
Streaming shit games had started as a joke. If Hachuling and his inability to recognize any games past the year 1994 at best could get dedicated followers, let alone the occasional shit mobage stream whale, there was no reason why he couldn't do it, but better.
Granted, his half-brother had a bombastic, excitable, gullible personality. The once a week pulls for cute sparkly character number ninety-nine thousand only did well was because of the god damn whale counter.
Khun did not have such an ability. His personality could be charming, his ideas clever, and his opinions strong. His friends were solid, dependable allies. But he was honestly terrible at the surface, shallow bullshit. Hachuling could troll with the best of them. For him, this was just stress relief.
Chat of course, is already going at it, bitching and moaning around about the route he's on. The vagabond knight, forced into rehabilitation from his mercenary days. He's a swordsman, rarely wore armor. His features were sharp, eyes cold and intent on the task, and constantly suspicious of the hapless heroine.
What Khun wouldn't give to have one of these with an option for a man. Then again, those were usually worse. They always were twenty stereotypes in a glitchy trench coat.
Khun'd gotten his start on indie PC games. He was gentler (for lack of a better word) with those because they didn't have AAA budgets to blew on voice actors and loot box mechanics. He was still critical but on occasion, it was much easier to drag praise from his mouth.
The chat had gotten into the habit of reccing games on sale (he could afford them full price, but they said it was not worth it and they were usually right). Mainly because they were all massive trolls with no night life, but also they tended to enjoy his commentary. He did pick the dark horse faves usually, though, so that might be why. The fan favorites were often picked apart to death.
The exception so far in his run of liking absolute randos has been this game.
Fucking Demon's Sun.
Khun boots up the game, his computer making a soft whirr. The familiar opening plays with a blond girl, all cherub and angels to match the light magic practically oozing out of her pores. She's soon shrouded in darkness by a girl who is just as washed out but sharply beautiful. Beneath their feet, upside down in opposition, a hooded shadow lurks. Unlike the other two, he doesn't turn towards the camera.
Khun didn't pay the rest of the visuals much attention. He'd played them at least twenty times already.
The thing with the game was less that it was bad (most of these recced games were, slop with bland ideas and worse sex scenes that were censored regardless) and more that it was empty.
There were so many features (character routes, dungeon crawling, item making, different outfits, the gallery and sound theaters, puzzles, mini games, the repetitive fucking festival arc that was a halfway mark before the prince's graduation route where he annulled his engagement that there was an awful graphic of him cheating with the protagonist on the first route) but so little of it had world connected significance Khun was convinced the updates were added to delay plot chapters when it was initially put on Steam.
The chat has not dissuaded him of this notion.
Add to that he honestly hates most of the characters. The love interests sucked and were downright nasty, and the villainess even more so no matter how sympathetic she could be.
The only saving grace was the demon lord of the game, who he was still unlocking. Name unrevealed, the closest he got was the word "Indigo" and his hooded face.
Chat repeatedly assured Khun he was attractive but that meant basically shit. He was a Khun, for fuck's sake. Attractive was the bare minimum.
He sighs and cracks his neck before picking up the headset. "Hey. You're late."
His standard greeting, harmless but amused. Kept his voice light and his few consistent viewers sent waving emojis.
An older one, Killer-Blow9397 greets him cheerfully and with points. Khun sighs fondly as he moved his pngtuber into the proper corner. The fox ears and mouth move harmlessly as he does. "You don't need to give me money, Killer. I'm doing this for boredom."
Technically he's doing this so he can kick Hachuling's ass and so his mother doesn't worry he tossed his hobbies out the window. She wants well rounded children out of spite first and foremost.
Chat moves on, with Killer Blow reassuring him he wanted to and to get over it.
Khun lets it go, greeting a few others as the title screen earworm rolls on in his headphones. "Yeah, we should be finishing the reformed mercenary route tonight. That's the last one right?"
As one the chat riots. Khun snorts. "I haven't forgotten your favorite, guys. I haven't seen his face so forgive me for not giving a shit."
About twelve messages pass with various emojis of quality or perversion. A mod casually deletes the pornbot and so Khun moves on.
Adjusting his micset, he calls. "Sound's balanced? Everybody good?"
A few people drop bits in approval.
Despite himself, Khun cracks a grin. "All right, let's get started. Welcome back to Demon's Sun, everybody. Today we're finishing the mercenary route. Let's get started."
And so it goes, another round of cliche dialogue, of the protagonist trying to win over a stoic, quiet former knight with promises that despite his failures to protect his charge (who is only images of brown hair and a round face, a blur of hands too small to protect anyone) he still has honor. He is still worthy of love.
In a moment of weakness, on screen, the mercenary who wants a better life gives into the questionably pretty enough blond girl with magic meant to heal rather than hurt, and they defeat the boss together. The boss who is the cover for the real final boss. Together, their bond is unbreakable, or something.
It's all trite bullshit, really. Love that conquered everything, light that overrode the terrors of the darkness, something meant for children (except for the porn scenes). Nothing that happened here was work. It was tropes and good CG. In reality, all these things did for most was let you muddle along, while for others it would hurt them. For some, sure, it was magic, magic built on effort grown into sediment, but enough of society wasn't built on savoring the experience.
Khun himself knows he's not lived long enough to experience it. Maybe he's also full of shit. But then, would he really be playing this game if he had the real thing in his hands?
"Do you think these people draw anatomically accurate dicks?" Khun asks as he slaughters another vaguely pixilated demon. He almost pities the demons. They're all designed in a generic, stereotypical way. He thinks there was a kidnapping scene at one point. "Or do they do these graphics so they don't have to?"
The chat squabbles over that for a while as another couple of party members appear on screen. "And here we have," Khun drawls. "The obnoxious couple!"
If you didn't take the prince route, which knowing what Khun did now, he probably would have, for once in the game, the prince and the villainess stayed together, obnoxiously unhappy and yet duty bound to the kingdom. If you grinded enough FP (Khun had once, in a fit of pure exasperation, dubbed them fap points and the chat has still not let it go) with him despite with someone else, the prince's secret would come out and then abdicate the throne. It left the villainess in charge and started a whole shenanigan he hadn't fully unlocked so-
Whatever it was made ThiefBod47 bust up laughing, so … there was that.
A couple people actually cheer on their finishing move, which was fair … the first time you saw it.
"I would kill for an offensive spell right now," Khun mutters as the villainess spouts something about how annoying the saintly commoner was. Which, yeah, she was right but don't throw stones in glass houses.
Thankfully the mercenary's attack stat was higher than god and so Khun finishes off this final line of mooks. He stretches, sipping water and taking a quick bite of dried fruit away from the microphone before continuing. "Final boss time everyone?"
There's a resounding digital cheer and multiple messages of advice that Khun promptly ignores. For all its bullshit features it was not a combat based game.
Hours later, the route done and having been convinced into a couple hours of multiplayer mini-game bullshit, Khun logs off and heads to bed. It's almost two in the morning, fuck. He stares at his alarm clock, remembers he doesn't have any classes until noon, and falls right into bed.
Well, the first good news of the day when he wakes up is that he is, in fact, still in a bed.
That said, it's way better than the one in his apartment. The sheets are nicer, and not bunched from his typical tossing and turning. It's also bigger and softer.
Then, Khun's eyes snap open. Where the fuck was his alarm? He was, the sun was streaming into his eyelids, this was not his apartment, when he saw sun through his window there was a problem. He kept curtains closed to sleep with the window open, what the fuck?
This ceiling was not his ceiling. He'd picked a nice apartment. Sure, it was all one room and yes the kitchen was more of a wall with an island than an actual separate space because he didn't need much, but he did not ask for, nor did he require a ceiling painted like the sky with chains for constellations that he'd never heard of. Also! He never rolled over and saw a tea table with chairs that cost more than a rent check with suitably treated wood and flowers he could breathe in without his eyes swelling shut and-
"If this is a prank," Khun mutters. "Then joke's on you I'm going to enjoy it."
No one answers. He's not even sure who could kidnap him. His siblings were out of the city, hell his older sister was in another country. His mother wouldn't even dream of this kind of prank. Maybe Hachuling used his inheritance for something else stupid outside of his dream arcade building. The old man probably didn't even know his god damn name.
Maybe it was Maschenny? No, she'd be in here by now…
"What the fuck," Khun says to himself, incredulous. He shifts further, trying to move towards the edge of the bed, when-
These aren't his pajamas. He loves his fleece pajamas. It was like: 3 degrees outside when he went to bed. Those pajamas kept him warm. Now he's in a … He looks down and lifts up the nightgown.
"Whoever changed me in my sleep is going to die," Khun decides, and rolls himself out of bed. "Slowly. Painfully." Then he looks at his hands again. They were much smaller than before he went to bed.
Panic thumps in his brain and chest cavity as Khun looks around for a mirror. He scrambles out of bed upon seeing one, padding on bare feet to a mirror that is almost twice his current height. For fuck's sake.
The first problem is his face is younger, rounder. The second is that he's shorter, like, half a meter shorter. What the fuck? He was not going through puberty again. His hair was a little longer than he remembered too. Even worse. He hates his hair past his ears.
There's something Khun has to state for himself: his father was rich. That didn't mean his children were rich. They weren't going without. Khun has never been homeless and tricking and winning money from gambles and ventures was something he did. But he never had sheets that silken or beautiful treated wood bedframes like that or a room this big.
So either this was the most elaborate set for a long standing prank in VR or he was in a coma. That was the only explanation he could think of.
Or maybe I've been isekaied, Khun thinks with the hysteria he typically associated with his I'm two hours before group project presentation and my alphabetically chosen teammates have not shown up situations. Fucking electives.
He takes a deep breath. Then, with careful footsteps, Khun examines his surroundings. There's a wall that is just a bookshelf, a full of books of a language his brain doesn't recognize as Korean, Spanish, English or even the bits and pieces of Japanese he'd heard from a few transfer students in the cafeteria. That said, he can still read it. One tome lists spells, fire ones specifically. Another discusses the political geographical conflicts of … the past fifteen years with the Country of Thorns, whose true name had been wiped from all books it had been placed in as a punishment.
The words continue to niggle in Khun's brain, but he puts it to the side to explore. Nothing falls apart at his quick, forceful tugs, so that unfortunately put to rest the set piece theory. It was also physically holdable. He could touch marble and wood. So that removed virtual reality too. That meant for a definition of the word, this place was real.
That or he was in a coma, but this being real meant he could do something about it. Breathing out, Khun reaches the closet. All blues and blacks, a few white shirts, nothing he wouldn't wear, if a bit too fancy for him to bother. He was a soccer player, half of it would be dirty by roughhousing in a matter of minutes.
"Well," he says to himself. "At least the underwear is the same." He doesn't know what he would have done if the underwear was like, thongs or something.
Khun picks a combination that feels comfortable and easy to put on. Upon a quick look for another door (he was avoiding the larger ones with the handles too big for his hands, that would get him lost), he finds a bathroom. It's not as large as the bedroom, but it's close and that's too much to take. Khun mechanically toys with the faucet, watching steaming water and looking for soaps. There's only bars, albeit soft bars of soap that upon contact don't make his skin crawl. There are also two crystal bottles full of what he hopes is shampoo and conditioner, but almost wishes were poison.
"What the fuck?" Khun whispers. "Where the fuck am I?"
As if to mock him, a screen forms in front of his face. Close enough to touch, far enough away that he couldn't grab it and break it over his knee.
"Hello Khun Aguero Agnis!" it says in familiar, flowing script. The script however is against a dark blue screen, and easy to read. It also doesn't sparkle gold, the silver letters smoother. "Welcome to the world of Demon's Sun!"
What. "What?" Khun repeats, dumbly.
The words right themselves, then vanish again, like a scrolling text box. "Welcome to Demon's Sun! I know this must be confusing to you, but I assure you this is necessary! You are now in the role of the Moonlight Queen, the reviled, redeemable, beloved villainess, opposing our charming, humble, hopeful Sunlight Saint!"
Khun breathes in. He turns off the water faucet. He breathes out.
Why the fuck would he be in this game? A game he still wasn't done with? A game he, quite regularly, mentioned he hated?
"Who are you?" Why me?
The screen glitches a little, like, hm, was he not supposed to say that? Okay, good. He had footing now. "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you. Not now. Perhaps not ever. But! Who I am should not matter, but what I want will interest you. One of the paths of the world is bugged. I would like you to repair it."
"One of the game routes?"
"Whatever you'd call it!" How can a screen sound amused. "Well, put in your terms, an NPC made an error. I tried to repair it, and now the world is deviating dangerously. I'm sure you're aware of the concept of the world ending."
Khun remembers a few bad endings in Demon's Sun. If you didn't romance one person, the world didn't end, but if you built too many affection points with someone and then went for someone else, the saint would end up dying horribly. Or, if you didn't neutralize the villainess or get enough purification power in her levels, the saintess would die to a very specially made poison. The minigame would be hit or miss.
That would also explain the plants he saw in the greenhouse like balcony a few minutes ago that he'd been not looking at.
"A bad end," Khun says. He doesn't dare strip. He wasn't sure if this screen had eyes. "I've played those. Is that why you picked me?"
The screen glitches. Another question that could be abnormal, as it seemed to scroll properly sometimes.
"I picked you because you were available."
Great. Fun. "Fuck you," is what spits from Khun's mouth as he slows down, thinks. "I'm supposed to ensure there's no bad end." Did that mean dying? Did that mean being the villainess to the very end? Did that mean jealousy over a man he didn't know and murdering a girl he didn't know (or like playing as?).
"Something of the sort!" The screen seemed downright pleased. "I knew I picked an intelligent one. However! Please let me make this clear. The point is to bring the world back onto a path, and how that path plays out is entirely up to you. I've tried a few times, and it has resisted. You can take the prince as your own, you can win over the saintess, you can take the Child of Eclipse, whatever you'd like, as long as the world lands on a path that ends."
"And will I get to go home?" He really doesn't want to wake up in a hospital bed. Or worse, miss finals.
"If you want to!"
"Right. Great. Thanks." His breathing calms, the hysteria fades into focus and he-
Well, he doesn't trust the magical screen that looked like the darker version of the UI he was currently loathing. That said, this was all he had. All he had to do was get the game on one of the routes.
"Of course. So, to business. You are Khun Aguero Agnis, chosen representative to wed the newest Prince of Gold. You are thirteen years old and you will meet him today at the Prism's Castle."
Oh. Shit. Right.
He'd forgotten about that. He's not sure how reality will handle that he is, well, a guy. At least in the traditional version of the word. Maybe it's fine to have a gay prince, considering in almost all routes, the king hadn't died, nor actually named an heir, nor likely had one. The prince was a prince for the sake of politics, not because Jahad intended to die.
Oligarchs, really.
"Well," Khun says to himself. "I guess I don't have to be in the closet."
He feels like he's forgetting something about this whole situation.
The screen sparkles silver and then vanishes. On the other side of the room, someone knocks on the double doors.
Khun looks at himself, debates the dignity loss and sighs to himself. "Come in!"
The doors open. There's a man dressed in, well, smartly, a suit and tie. It's storm grey, the tie green and while he would have been taller than Khun no matter how old he was, he makes Khun feel a little small.
Also, he was fit. He could see the slopes of muscles even through the suit jacket and oh right.
Demon's Sun was definitely a porn game. It pretended it wasn't but after route one you could start putting alternate, revealing outfits on the characters. He remembers unlocking the priestess outfit for the saintess and the chat screaming. There were also a lot of H-scenes, with extras to unlock and the version with no censorship was sold on website or at events only. He'd been sent a USB key with that version.
Khun idly hopes he doesn't have to fuck his servants for EXP. Someone had made that mod once for a game he'd played and … man. The videos were something.
But this was a real guy, an actual person who stared at him blankly. "Morning, boss. You're out of bed on time."
His voice is drab, a bit bemused. The screen flickers into view again, smaller, but more clinical. "This is Novick. He has no last name, or has not provided it to you. He's your bodyguard and caretaker. You found him fighting demons with magic and his bare hands when you were young and took him in. He's been loyal to you since, though he also wants to win a fight."
"Morning, Novick." The words slip out of his mouth before he can think better of it, before he can test the waters of how he (or the person he maybe replaced, because would his parents assign a man to a duchess? He's pretty sure the villainess' father is one step from the Emperor's bullshit, as one of his trusted conquering comrades) behaved once before. He can establish a baseline that the person he was preferred to procrastinate on things that were hard, or at least getting out of bed. He's assuming the latter.
The villainess, the Moonlight's Queen, was a young girl who discovered her talent at an early age. She was able to manipulate water, and thus people. It didn't seem corrupting at first, and if it wasn't for the saintess, it may not have been.
To her, Khun remembers the lines as Novick observes him with only a little curiosity, the saintess was an unnecessary measure, a bonus wife, a mistress outright that didn't need to be there. Holy fire corroded, ate at the world around them in its efforts to purify. A commoner having that power was dangerous. There was no one to teach them control.
The saintess, a good person because she was programmed that way, would never do such a thing. The prince chose her, the mercenary, the mage, the teacher lost in the taboo. They sided against the midnight's queen, and the magic of water, both holy and polluted, turned dark and unforgiving.
"Let the water drown," she'd said once, before choking the sweet little girl too stupid to know what she was doing. "Let them all choke," she'd said, poisoning all of their crops, drying up their gardens and rusting their pipes in places it would take too long to heal.
A queen of destruction that ultimately led to the fall of the kingdom … somehow.
Her defeat always awoke the final boss from its slumber. If that fight wasn't done right, there was an awful game over. Bloody, with the sounds of digitized screaming.
"I thought you didn't want to get married." Novick's words snap Khun out of his thoughts. he should get better about that.
Also what kind of servant was this guy? "I don't," Khun says, with feeling. He had been nineteen eight hours ago and the thought was as appealing then as it is now. "But I'm not impressing my fiancee am I?"
"Your sister is still arguing with your old man."
"Is she winning?" Slowly Khun shrugs the nightgown off. Novick is turned away, headed back to the clothes. "I can dress myself."
"Will you?" the man asks and for fuck's sake.
"Answer my question instead of sass me," Khun mutters, stripping fully and getting into the still warm tub.
Novick snorts. "They're tied. I'm pretty sure that's why he's humoring her."
No, Khun realizes as the tension only somewhat escapes his bones. His sister was a much easier marriage candidate. She just wouldn't match the prince because.
The prince in the game was a princess.
This was going to be awful, and he'd not even started the in game territory yet.
Meeting his father at home was an exercise in patience and a healthy dose of masking fear. It was frankly, easier just to avoid him as often as you could. He made it all the more feasible by rarely visiting. Sometimes he'd come on Friday dinners, the once a week time when everyone would be there. Aguero assumed it was intentional, but he came by drunk so who the fuck knew?
In this life, Aguero has the horrible luck to see his father sober.
Khun Eduan (he's wondering if the man was glitched in here, copied in or it was just easier this way) looks at him wryly. Aguero's outfit is meant for combat and respect, which was the point of the marriage. They weren't supposed to marry for love (in these games, love is for recklessness, impracticality, a vulnerability forced by needing to move forward with no choice in the matter), but for power.
It was also excessively difficult to pull off but the chat had not mentioned a villainess and saintesss unlockable route (unless that was the real last one and they were fucking with him.) So it was another example of her, well, unsuitability to the kingdom. The wife of the prince should be down to have her corset stripped and dress torn off in public if need be. These games were fucking weird.
When the prince had turned for love, it had been painful for the villainess. Because the prince could choose. He had the power to choose because he lied about what was between his legs and she, she would have to be married or not have to be at all. Jealousy, Khun knows, is an ugly thing, but humans at their core can be ugly.
His sister meets his gaze. Her dress has short sleeves, any bruises covered by the make of the fabric. There are none of the knife scars that had lined her skin since his first year of high school and wow, he thinks, he should be happy to see that.
He looks up into her face. She's not smiling. Camilla had struggled to smile for years, before everything went down on graduation and he'd had to cope with being a part of a big picture problem. But this face looks less forced into it. She's looking between him and their father with the dry hate kindling Aguero uses when he's one question away from kicking it all over.
It makes sense Alexi was no different.
Aguero smirks instead. "Morning, noona. Who won?"
"Guess," she says dryly.
Aguero laughs, mind racing. "You should have known."
"Someone had to try."
The villainess in Demon's Sun had no full-blooded siblings barring a sickly little brother who the saintess healed at the end of the prince's route, forcing him to bend the knee to their new kingdom. He'd been supposedly wedded off to a younger princess a decade later, a puppet and nothing more.
"Mother is busy," he assumes as the screen helpfully provides more information for him. His little brother Gabriel had been ill two nights ago and it always took three to get him back on his feet. Plus, mum was probably absolutely furious about the whole engagement but didn't have the pull to divorce.
Did divorce exist in Demon's Sun? Was there even holy matrimony in the eyes of god? Cheating and polyamory obviously hadn't put his old man into an early grave.
"Unfortunately." They both ignore Eduan, who watches them with that sly grin that Aguero knows he has worn on his own face more times to count. "So Maria will chaperone you instead."
Who?
The screen flickers next to Alexi's ear. "Khun Maria Jahad, who often spent time with you in this castle. One of the Emperor's many potential heirs. Very exuberant, supportive of all your endeavors, but wishes you put more effort into things."
Ew, a babysitter. "Not you?"
Alexi shakes her head. "I lost. So."
Aguero dares to risk a glance at this data version of his father. He looked a little younger in this world. Aguero considers having a teen temper tantrum for the fun of it but-
Ugh, puberty again. Could he time skip that part?
"It's almost like it was planned," Aguero says before he can stop himself.
Eduan chuckles. Alexi merely looks more made from granite. She reaches over and takes his hand. There are bruises on her palms. She pulls him closer. He can smell perfume, faint but right enough to cover the rusty scent of blood and sweat.
"Be careful," she tells him.
Aguero doesn't look at his father. He doesn't imagine- well, he doesn't know what to imagine. "Be safer," he says instead. A thing he told Milla in her darker moments, when she walked on a tightrope at an escapable edge.
"The carriage has arrived," Novick announces. He must have left before Eduan arrived because he gives the man a barely respectful bow.
The old man doesn't seem to care and waves off his hands. "Have fun. I'll see you later."
Prick. Aguero doesn't bow, because he has never shown his neck to his father and won't start now. The system hadn't said something about being able to be killed by this shit. He wouldn't take any chances on it though.
Novick led him out to the sharp gates and carefully cultivated home. Aguero makes the mistake of turning to look back.
The villainesses and other nobles usually had grandiose dorms and houses, castles that earned the name noble. They were more audacious, too beautiful and expensive forw ords and understanding.
Looking at it now, even with the knowledge his room was large by Korean standards, it seemed … small. Fragile.
Expendable.
Aguero turns away and enters the carriage with a nod of long suffering to Novick. The older teen has the gall to raise his eyebrows.
"A.A!" Maria chirps the second he sits down. Her dress is all dark blue, sparkling with what could be sequins or actual jewels for all he knows. There's a red pin in her hair, marking her favor with the emperor. "You made it!"
… This is a porn game. The king probably did sleep with all his favored chosen ones. His dad did it. The emperor legalized it probably. That was gross to think about.
"I thought you'd be back in the main castle," he says before she can shove him half in her chest and send them both toppling around the carriage with the poor balance of standing on a soon to be moving vehicle in heels. "With Jahad."
It's brief, but as she pulls away, Maria pulls a face. Then it's back with a smile. "Endorsi-unnie is back from the academy," she says cheerfully. "It gets awkward with her dancing around doing the inevitable and pretending she's all into it."
And that was something he didn't want to know. "Not everyone can be Maschenny," Khun says. The carriage starts to move.
Maria sits back and laughs. "To be honest I think she wants to go to the Prism Tower but asking requires giving back. She's quite allergic to that."
"Sounds it." None of these names mean anything to him. They were sprinkled in bits of lore, names in clickable text books and locations where you bought items and equipment. None of it was real. Not until now.
Isu was going to kill him if he got out of here.