NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I fell asleep feeling good. As I smack my lips, even the air tastes sweet somehow.
Not wanting to open my eyes, I hug the rustling blanket and rub my head, suddenly I remember the last letters I saw.
‘Rachel?’
Oh come on, I can’t help but chuckle. Rachel? That doesn’t make sense.
That arrogant Red Dragon was known for her hot temper even at Kane’s party, which seemed to be a collection of communication disorders.
‘Such a polite message?’
They borrowed a heroine’s name to act as a GM, but come on, a heroine who uses her fists before words send a reply? What reply?
By the way, was my bed’s mattress always this good?
Today it feels like it’s not just wrapping around my body, but molded to my exact shape.
“Lord Adelian.”
I hear a timid clapping sound from afar. Like a clap made only with fingers while keeping palms together…
‘Oh, this is…’
The one in charge of timidity in Kane’s party…
Without realizing it, I sit up abruptly and shout.
“Luna!”
“Eek! I’m sorry!”
With the afterimage of two white fur balls sinking, I see a luxurious room.
Looking around with sleepy eyes, I see a girl crouching down, trembling, covering her white ears with both hands. And a lavish living room decorated in white and gold.
No, is this a bedroom?
I was on a bed that seemed big enough for four or five people to lie down.
“What is this.”
“Waaah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for waking you up…”
But it’s time for you to wake up…
The timid rabbit- girl mumbles something while shedding tears profusely, in this luxurious room.
Without realizing it, I got up and headed to the mirror. Long golden hair, blue eyes, and a face that looks impertinent.
This, this. It’s that.
“My special bonus…”
“Uuu… Lord Adelian…”
Adelian.
* * *
[Adelian Guardian Kruger – Golden Young Master]
Representative Traits: [Financial Power (A)] [Arrogance (S)]
Hidden Traits: [Sense of Affluence (S)] [User’s Eyes (SSS)]
I waved my hand to close the trait window.
After half a day of mental breakdown, I found out that this is not inside Innocent Saga.
In the original Innocent Saga, ‘Adelian’, that is, I didn’t exist, and this NPC is an option added as a bonus for my funding.
A minor extra who only appears in the flashbacks of Kane and Gadia, one of the heroines, and Gadia’s younger brother.
“Aaaah!”
Crash!
As I scream while pulling my hair, Luna, who was eating cake while watching me nervously, drops her fork.
I glared irritably at the rabbit- girl with pink eyes and pink hair.
“Ow…”
“Don’t cry. If you cry, you’ll never eat cake again, you know.”
I’m in trouble, I’m in trouble.
I turned away from the rabbit-girl who was covering her mouth with her long ears to keep from crying and pulled my hair again.
‘Crazy Kang Soo-ho. You should have just brazenly asked to be put in the mainstream! If you paid that much, you should have demanded a character standing next to the protagonist on the cover!’
An extra who is as incompetent as a goblin in Innocent Saga, which becomes more superhuman as it goes on, and eventually gets his neck sliced by Gadia who needs the family seal.
A role that is only used as a device to show Gadia’s cold personality, who can betray her family and younger brother for the sake of the protagonist, Kane.
I momentarily touched my chilled neck and swallowed the now-cold tea before me.
“Luna, bring me a pen and paper.”
“Yes! Young Master!”
Luna, who had been watching me nervously, runs off excitedly when I say something other than threatening not to let her eat cake.
As expected of a rabbit- race, she’s really fast.
I snatched the bundle of papers and quill pen from Luna’s hand, who returned in the blink of an eye and started writing down the traits along with everything I could remember.
Why am I here now? Is there no way to go back?
I intuitively understood these things without needing a clear verbal explanation.
The important thing is how to see a happy ending. That’s it.
From the beginning, Kane’s party didn’t fail because they lacked power.
Both in the game and in the original work, there were opportunities to become stronger everywhere, and even if they couldn’t catch all of them, they caught at least half.
The problem is just one.
The members of Kane’s party. Not the Gaenodap Three Brothers, but the Gaenodap Seven Siblings (non-physical).
Communication? What’s that?
Human-distrusting Kane. Rachel, the violent taste advocate. Gadia, who’s not just cold but freezes any man she sees, and the timid crybaby coward Luna.
There are… No, seven intelligent life forms, and the main characters are like that.
Are the rest normal? No, that’s not it, so even if Kane prevents the continent’s calamity like that, everyone thinks Kane is the culprit.
Ah, did you save us? Even if they try to praise him, it’s “Shut up and Die” Or ice magic flies, who would appreciate it?
I wrote several pages in Korean about the locations of artifacts I remembered and dungeon solutions, then wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked at Luna.
With the ‘User’s Eyes’, the only special bonus that Rachel had the conscience to provide.
[Luna Index – Crybaby Rabbit-race Maid]
Representative Traits: [Timidity (S)] [Cuteness (A)]
Hidden Traits: [Leg Strength (A)] [Frenzy (C)]
I looked at the Frenzy attached to the hidden traits with salty eyes.
‘That can’t be.’
That trait should not… No, must not be awakened.
I, who was frustrated with the Timidity trait, committed the atrocity of pushing Luna into battle, and as a result, all attack, retreat, and item use left my hands…
I don’t want to know how that trait will manifest in this place that has become a reality, not a game. Absolutely not.
I wrote down Luna’s traits on the paper, then organized the traits of other heroines as much as I could remember.
I can compare them with the facts later when I meet them, and set up strategies according to their traits in advance.
‘The problem is Kane.’
[Kane – Title not remembered right now]
Representative Traits: [Indomitable (SSS)]
After writing Kane’s name and traits, I sat with my arms crossed, staring at the paper.
Other traits? Hidden traits? Those aren’t important for that guy. What’s important is that damn Indomitable trait.
I don’t remember if it was triple S from the start or just S in the beginning, but the problem is that it’s a real trap trait.
When I just read that trait on the official website, I thought, ‘Wow, as expected of the protagonist. It’s magnificent.’
[Indomitable: This trait maintains the individual’s physical strength, vitality, and regenerative power probabilistically according to their mental strength, and probabilistically creates miracles.]
At first, I thought it looked good, and it wasn’t bad when I actually used it.
To put it bluntly, even without a single red potion, if you put Kane alone in an appropriate dungeon, even if he was about to die, the abnormal state called ‘Indomitable Will’ appeared and he survived with 1 HP.
At first, everyone thought it was great.
All kinds of grinding were possible.
But that Indomitable trait was actually…
Until we realized it was a trait that used Kane’s mental strength as fuel.
By the time we realized, no interaction with any NPC was possible.
No dialogue or action with heroines was possible.
Someone might have cheered when they saw the status window showing 500% resistance to mental attacks like confusion or brainwashing.
‘Not me.’
If you call me an overly immersed otaku, maybe that could be the case.
Some might like it and find it convenient to have a protagonist who can’t press anything but the attack button that appears when encountering monsters.
‘Not me.’
If he wasn’t Indomitable with poor speaking skills and human distrust in a bad way, I think he might have been a puffer fish, But he was still somewhat precious to me.
‘It was also effective that I would lose my head if I didn’t intervene in the original work anyway.’
It’s simple. Find Kane and erase the Indomitable trait no matter what before starting.
That’s the best option now.
* * *
Some who learn of my situation might think like this.
‘If you don’t like danger, can’t you just hand everything over to your older sister Gadia before getting your neck cut and live?’
No, that’s not it~
According to the game settings, all the authority of the Kruger family, the richest in the continent, is concentrated in the head of the family.
How?
Well, by magic~
The family’s magic is passed down through the bloodline.
This is primogeniture, so unless I die, our sister can’t take even 1 copper from the family vault without my permission.
Can’t I swear to cooperate, write a contract, and make a fuss?
No, I can’t.
Would Gadia, who is set to distrust men and be a jerk originally, believe the words of Adelian?
Moreover, when you become the head of the family, you can magically withdraw money from anywhere on the continent, but Gadia comes to Adelian and begs every time she needs money.
Even fan art would get all kinds of curses if it came out like that. They’d say it lacks plausibility.
Besides, whether I intervene or not, the incommunicado no-answer party will roll on unchanged, leaving only the ending where Kane’s infamy spreads across the continent.
Who would properly voice their opinion in a party mixed with dragons and ice magicians?
It’s not for nothing that the party rolled with only women who fell for Kane.
There was no one else who could handle them. It’s a party that can’t be endured without fierce love at least.
“In the end, it’s only me, huh.”
I said it playfully, but I can only sigh.
The fact that I don’t feel this realistic and think it might be doable to this extent is probably due to my hidden trait of Sense of Affluence.
It’s ambiguous what exact role it plays but in a place like this where even the wind touching the skin and the sunlight feel realistic.
Seeing how my thoughts conclude with ‘It’s just a game anyway’, it must be in charge of my mental barrier.
I don’t want to deliberately change that and feel vivid realism and be afraid of the war ahead, so for now, let’s go!
“Lord Adelian. Where are we going?”
Luna, holding a pink cotton candy as big as her head, asked me as she followed with small steps.
“The auction house.”
With one ear folded and drooping, she looks cute.
I liked the older sister style, so Luna, who was a loli type, wasn’t a heroine I pushed for, but seeing her in person is pleasing to the eye.
Grabbing and stretching her drooping rabbit ears, I spoke again to Luna, who was about a head shorter than me.
“You need to come of age for traits to awaken, you know, according to game settings?”
“Oww… What?”
“Rabbit-race people become adults at 15, so it’s too late to change your timidity, but humans become adults at 18, so you can change your representative trait before your birthday.”
“Ugh… Ah… I don’t understand… Anyway, my ears…”
The starting point of Innocent Saga is after the protagonist has already become an adult, but from what I’ve found out in the days since coming here, it’s now early to the middle part of the original novel.
In game terms, it was two years ago.
If my guess is correct, it’s two months before the protagonist’s birthday.
‘This is the time when his family is massacred as sacrifices to an evil god, he’s dragged away by a passing black magician for live experiments, then runs away and gets backstabbed by everyone he asks for help, and finally gets sold as a slave and is now in the basement of the auction house.’
Just thinking about it briefly brings tears to my eyes.
It sounds short when I say it, but that rolling takes place over several volumes, and there’s only one satisfying moment in all of that.
Only the scene where he stabs the black magician in the stomach.
‘That son of bitch.’
After a moment of silent stone-throwing at the original author, I let go of the soft, fluffy ears.
Ah, that could become addictive.
Did they intend to throw me here from the beginning?
The place where I opened my eyes as Adelian was Labes, the pleasure city where the Kruger family’s main house is located, and there was the continent’s largest auction house.
Although human trafficking is illegal, it’s almost a dead law, so the continent is always rife with human trafficking, and many humans and the Ain race are traded here.
Kane was also sold here after drinking a glass of water given by an innocent-looking village chief.
In the original work, he’s immediately sold to an assassination group, and in the game, I buy him and use him as a living punching bag to hone my swordsmanship.
Then, when even beating him like a dog doesn’t make Swordsmanship F appear, I just resell him and he ends up being sold to an assassination group.
Despite going through all that, Kane, who never gave up his will for revenge, displays the Indomitable trait at the same time as his first murder training…
Back then, I was moved and expected the start of cider. My younger self. Just close the window, please…
“Welcome, Young Master. You may bring up to three companions into the auction house.”
I just nodded at the words of the elf doorkeeper standing in front of the VVIP-only gate and entered.
Anyway, one is Luna, and two will be from those guarding in invisible places.
Although the main auction hasn’t started yet, as a VVIP privilege, you can buy items in advance except for the main products.
‘But it’s not good to go buy Kane right away.’
A playboy who only indulges in drinking and women comes to the auction house and selects a specific person to buy before the auction starts.
And not someone with good traits determined to be useful, but a human male before trait confirmation?
Even though I’m trying not to care about reputation, that’s a bit much…
‘And no one would buy first before the auction starts.’
If that were the case, the Adelian in the game wouldn’t have bought Kane either.
For now, it would be better to act like I’m just here to look around and then buy during the main auction.
“Shall we go to the upper floor first?”
I spoke as if I had come without any particular intention and took a step.