The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

I woke up with a throbbing headache.

My vision was blurry as if someone had hit me hard in the back of the head.

Late last night, I drank two, or was it three, bottles of straight and undiluted vodka.

In any case, the nonstop chugging had given me an uncharacteristic hangover.

“Ugh… I feel like I’m going to die….”

I ran my hand through my hair, pressing it over my eyes and forehead.

This was not the same me who was once called “An Yuan,” the madman and law breaker from Bulgwangcheon.

If my friends had heard me say that I was about to die of a hangover, they would have laughed out loud with their signature rotten eyes.

I let out a guttural sigh as the thought hit me.

I remembered that it was at my friend’s funeral that I’d downed all that vodka.

I may be a drunkard, but at least I’m a man of moderation.

At an age where I despise losing my temper, I never drank more than I should have.

Son of a bitch.

You acted like you would never die even if I tried to kill you, and then you left.

I lay there with my eyes closed, my heart broken, but it felt too hot to stay still.

“Fuck, what kind of fucking blanket is this thick?”

I nervously kicked at the heavy blanket covering me and sat up.

I slowly opened my eyes and looked around the room, which had a bed that could only be described as large, and a room that still had plenty of space to spare.

The walls were covered with wallpaper that looked old-fashioned and tacky, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling made of a material I couldn’t tell if it was glass or crystal.

So….

“Where am I?!” Everywhere I looked, this was not my friend’s funeral chapel.

Was I kidnapped while I was sleeping? No, I may act without thinking, but I keep track of the resentments against me.

I haven’t done anything to deserve being kidnapped, but when I do, I don’t leave anyone alive who could retaliate against me.

Besides, if I were kidnapped, I’d wake up in a moldy, cramped, semi-subterranean warehouse, not some fancy European-style room.

As I took stock of my current situation, I realized something was odd.

It’s not just my hands, either. My arms are thinner than usual, and I’m wearing clothes that look expensive at first glance.

I started to push myself up from the bed, but suddenly, someone burst through the door.

“Your Highness, have you awakened?”

The worried voice was that of a beautiful young person in armor; their red hair pulled back in a bun.

Their face was androgynous.

I couldn’t tell if they were a boy or a girl, but I thought I recognized them from somewhere. Behind them, a man wearing glasses and dressed as a butler hurried in.

Whoa, what is this? Is there a hidden camera? How did they make that headpiece so it looks like it has a real dog’s head? It’s a costume that the furries would love. While I was still contemplating my somewhat leisurely appreciation of the scene, the dog-headed butler asked anxiously.

“Prince, are you ill? Are you all right?”

Wait, Prince?

I was about to say something in disbelief, but the red-haired beauty pulled me into a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re awake, I’m…I’m…!”

They hugged me so hard that I choked and lost my breath for a moment.

No, this little person is so strong!

As I rolled my head around, trying to figure out what was going on, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glasses on the dog’s head, and I gasped in horror at the sight of a light-blond adolescent boy.

It wasn’t me reflected in those glasses.

I tried to push the person off from me, but the strength difference didn’t allow me to move.

I tapped the top of the armor in surrender, and they fell away, blushing.

“Ah! Sorry, it’s my fault, I didn’t realize….”

I narrowed my eyes at their embarrassed apology.

“Your name.”

“Yes…?”

They repeated my words, their blue eyes widening at my abruptness.

“Don’t make me say it twice; it hurts my head. Your name.”

I said in an irritated voice, but they twitched in response to my words of pain.

“You mean my name? I’m Precia Jamileion, Your Royal Highness’s bodyguard, and you have a headache… Get me a court physician now!”

Precia, I recognized the name… I’d heard it somewhere, read it.

But I wasn’t sure.

No such nonsense could happen, could it?” I asked, grabbing Precia by the shoulders to calm her down.

“What’s my name, huh?”

“Whoa, Prince…?”

“Calm down and answer me. Who am I!”

At my urging, Precia reflexively dropped to one knee and bellowed out a pledge of allegiance.

“You are the First Prince of the Great House of Duplion, Yuan del Azdemian Duplion!”

I was lifted out of bed by ‘her’ hands on my shoulders.

My head throbbed at the sound of ‘my’ name, and fragments of memories of this body flashed before my eyes.

And I realized something I didn’t want to know.

“Yes, I am Yuan, the First Prince of this country. Isn’t that right, Lord Precia?”

I opened my eyes, realizing that I had become a tiny little extra prince in a novel.

“Yes, you are!” she replied vigorously.

She is the heroine of the novel.

The problem is that the novel begins with the death of her favorite prince, and to make matters worse, the death of the young and vulnerable prince, Yuan, occurs on his seventeenth birthday, which is today.

In short, I was doomed from the start.

I was doomed.

Why the hell!

There were plenty of other good extras!

* * *

I told the two of them to give me a moment to think.

“I’m still a little bit out of it, so could you please step outside for a moment?”

It felt natural to give instructions to two people I had never seen before. Was this an effect of this body?

Hearing the irritation in my voice, they both looked at me with puzzled faces.

It was only natural, as they’d never heard the weak prince speak like this before.

But right now, my head was too full of thoughts to deal with them.

“Can’t you hear me?”

My question was answered by the elderly Were Beast, a servant of the wolf species, who came to his senses and replied with a polite tone.

“No, sir, I apologize. Lord Precia, the prince seems to be tired, so why don’t you wait outside for a while.”

“What? Oh, yes….”

I took a long look at Precia, the heroine of the novel and the prince’s personal servant, and plopped down on the bed to sort out my current situation.

It’s hard to believe, but I had apparently wandered into the novel The Sage of the Winter Wood.

It was fragmented and hard to read, but when I recalled the memories of Prince Yuan and the description of the heroine Precia’s appearance, I couldn’t help but believe it.

Precia looks quite young now, but she looks a lot like the cover illustrations of the three novels.

“Unless some mad scientist turned me into a brain in a vat and I’m hallucinating, it’s real.”

I’ve never heard of any technology that can replicate the sensation of reality to the extent that I’ve experienced it: the feel of my skin, the smell of perfume, the sight of bright sunlight.

I’ve never heard of any technology that can replicate the sensation of reality to the extent that I’ve experienced it: the feel of my skin, the smell of perfume, the sight of bright sunlight.

Moreover, there was no way I could have conjured up memories of Prince Yuan, who was only mentioned by name in passing, and who had been dead since the prologue and didn’t even appear until the end.

“No,” I thought, “what I need to figure out is not how I became Prince Yuan.”

Yes, that’s not what I should be thinking about.

What I really need to think about is if I die now, will I actually die?

Like, if I’m in a virtual world and I die here, is it game over, and can I go back to being me, or am I really the prince in the novel, and if I die, I’m dead forever?

“You’re in trouble.”

I muttered and slapped my cheeks vigorously with both hands, the tingling sensation sharpening my senses.

If these sensations were this realistic, even if this was a virtual space, I would most likely die of shock if I died here.

I sighed and raked my hand through my hair, trying to decide what to do now and what to do next.

“Well, I can’t take a gamble with a low probability.”

From now on, I will live my life as Yuan, the frail prince who dies in the novel.

To do so, my first task will be to survive.