The meat arrived on a silver platter large enough to serve as a shield.
Kain's eyes widened as the servants set it before him—a roasted leg of some animal he couldn't name, glazed with honey and herbs, steaming gently in the candlelight. But it wasn't the size that stole his breath. It was the appearance.
The meat shone.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. The surface actually glimmered with a faint golden sheen, like someone had captured starlight and baked it into the crust. Kain had never seen food look so... alive.
His eyes burned. Tears slid down his cheeks before he could stop them.
It's all fake, he thought desperately. If only this game was real. If only I could actually taste this, actually experience this, actually LIVE like this just once before I die.
He picked up the knife and fork—heavy silver, real silver, engraved with the royal crest—and cut a piece. The blade slid through the meat like it was butter. He lifted it to his lips.
The first bite changed him.
Flavor exploded across his tongue—savory, sweet, smoky, rich, complex in ways his cheap palate couldn't even process. It was like his taste buds had been asleep his entire life and just now decided to wake up. The meat practically melted, leaving behind a warmth that spread from his mouth to his chest to his very soul.
Kain's eyes rolled back. A sound escaped him—something between a moan and a sob—and suddenly he was weeping openly, tears streaming down his face as he chewed.
"Th-this," he choked out between bites, "is so... so tastey!"
The maids stood frozen along the walls, their faces a mixture of astonishment and barely suppressed alarm. They had served princes their entire careers. They had seen royalty react to fine food with pleasure, with appreciation, with the occasional compliment to the chef.
None of them had ever seen a prince cry over roasted meat.
Maria, her bandaged finger forgotten, exchanged glances with the head maid. Neither spoke. What could they say? Their prince, awake after a year, was now sobbing into a leg of lamb like a man who had never been fed in his life.
And Kain couldn't stop.
Bite after bite, he devoured. The leg disappeared. Another platter arrived. Then another. He ate like a starving wolf, like a man possessed, like someone who had spent two years surviving on spoiled pastries from café garbage bags and now, finally, finally, was tasting what food was supposed to taste like.
Seven kilograms. The servants lost count after that. They simply kept bringing meat, and Kain kept eating, his tears never stopping, his moans of pleasure filling the royal chamber.
Eight people's meals. Maybe nine. He lost track. He only knew that the hollow pit in his stomach—the one that had been there since childhood, since his father left, since hunger became his constant companion—was finally, finally being filled.
He drank wine between bites. Rich, purple wine that tasted of berries and sunshine. It burned going down, but it was a good burn. A real burn.
Finally, when he could physically eat no more, Kain collapsed back against his pillows, his belly distended, his face a mess of tears and grease, his heart fuller than it had ever been.
The maids cleared the platters in stunned silence. They brought wet cloths to clean his face and hands. They adjusted his pillows. They did their jobs with mechanical precision, their eyes never quite meeting his.
Kain didn't notice. His mind was elsewhere.
The meat sat heavy in Kain's stomach, but his mind was heavier.
I should be dead by now, he thought for the hundredth time. Those pills were expired, sure, but seventy-two of them? There's no way I'd still be conscious. Unless...
He remembered reading once about overdose victims who hallucinated for hours before the end. Vivid dreams. Entire lives flashing before their eyes. The brain's last desperate fireworks show before the lights went out forever.
That must be it, he decided. The pills are killing me slowly, and my dying brain is giving me one last fantasy. The ultimate escape.
It made sense. The hyper-realistic sensations—the taste of meat, the feel of silk, the warmth of sunlight—those were just his neurons firing randomly, creating a dream so detailed it felt like reality. And the game? Game of Crown? He'd played it exactly once, months ago. His subconscious was just recycling old memories, building a world from scraps.
He smiled sadly.
What a way to go. Dying in a filthy apartment while my brain pretends I'm a prince.
The maids had mostly retreated, leaving only Maria to watch over him. She sat in a chair by the window, darning socks—actual socks, with a needle and thread—her presence a quiet comfort Kain didn't know how to process.
She's so detailed, he marveled. My brain really went all out with this hallucination.
He closed his eyes, letting the silk sheets cradle him. The wine hummed pleasantly in his veins. The meat sat warm and satisfying in his belly.
If this is death, he thought, it's not so bad.
But a small part of him—the part that had survived two years on stolen scraps, the part that never quite trusted anything—whispered otherwise.
What if it's not a hallucination? What if the pills didn't work? What if you're really here, really alive, really trapped in some impossible situation?
He pushed the thought away. That way lay madness. Better to accept the fantasy, enjoy the ride, and wait for the darkness to take him.
Except the darkness didn't come.
Hours passed. The sun moved across the sky. Maria finished her darning and started on a second pair of socks. Servants brought more food—Kain ate some, just because he could. Guards changed shifts outside his door. The castle hummed with the quiet music of daily life.
And Kain remained stubbornly, inexplicably alive.
This is taking too long, he thought, frustration building. How long does it take to die from pill overdose? Shouldn't I be fading by now?
He needed answers. Needed to understand.
"System," he whispered.
The blue screen appeared, as it always did. Kain navigated through the menus, searching for something—anything—that would explain his continued existence.
And there it was.
EXIT GAME
His heart leaped. Of course. Every game had an exit button. He'd been so caught up in the fantasy that he'd forgotten the most basic function.
His finger hovered over the option. Then he noticed the small text beneath it.
WARNING: Physical body detected as deceased. Exit will result in permanent termination of consciousness. No resurrection available.
Kain stared at the words.
Deceased? What do you mean, deceased?
Below the exit button, a folder icon pulsed gently. Label: SYSTEM RECORDINGS // KAIN // FINAL
He clicked without thinking.
The footage continued to play before Kain's eyes, a window into a world he would never see again.
Room 307. His room. His mattress. His body.
And then—a crash.
The door burst inward, splintering off its cheap hinges. Marco stormed in first, his crowbar raised, three thugs behind him with pipes and knives. Their faces were twisted with rage, ready to collect a debt from a boy who had nothing left to give.
"Kain!" Marco's voice echoed through the recording. "You brat! Where are you hiding?"
No response. Of course not. Kain's body lay motionless on the mattress, the VR headset still strapped to his face, hiding eyes that would never open again.
Marco kicked a pile of clothes. "Kain! Answer me, you disgusting little—"
One of the thugs pointed. "Boss. There."
They approached the mattress. Marco loomed over the still form, crowbar raised.
"Hey. Brat. Wake up."
Nothing.
Marco's face twisted with annoyance. He lifted the crowbar and brought it down on Kain's leg with brutal force.
The crack echoed through the recording like a gunshot.
Kain—the real Kain, sitting in a prince's bed in another world—screamed. Not aloud, but inside. His hands flew to his mouth as he watched his own leg bend where it shouldn't, bone visible through torn flesh, blood spreading across the stained mattress.
I didn't feel it, he thought hysterically. I didn't feel any of it. I was already dead. I was already gone.
But watching it happen to his body—his body, the only one he'd ever known—was its own kind of torture.
The thugs backed away, their faces pale.
"Boss," one stammered, "he didn't wake up. He didn't even flinch. Is he... is he dead?"
Marco's anger flickered, replaced by something colder. Fear.
"Check him. Now."
One of the thugs approached cautiously, as if the corpse might suddenly spring to life. He reached down and pulled the VR headset from Kain's face.
The eyes beneath were open. Vacant. Staring at nothing.
Foam crusted at the corners of the mouth. The skin had already begun to take on that waxy, pale appearance of the newly dead.
"Holy shit," the thug whispered. "Boss, he's dead. He's been dead for hours."
Panic erupted. The thugs stumbled over each other trying to get out, but Marco grabbed the nearest one by the collar.
"Nobody leaves! If we run now, we're done for. We need to get rid of the body. Hide it. Dump it somewhere."
"Boss, the police are outside!"
Marco's face went white. "What? How? Did this little bastard set us up? Did he call them before he—"
But it was too late. Through the recording, Kain could see blue lights flashing through his grimy window. Could hear the stomp of boots on the stairs. Could watch as Marco and his thugs were caught red-handed, standing over a corpse with weapons in their hands.
The police burst in. Chaos erupted. Shouts, struggles, the clang of crowbars hitting the floor. Marco's face, twisted with disbelief as he was slammed against the wall and cuffed.
"We just got here!" he screamed. "He was already dead! We didn't do this!"
Nobody listened.
The footage continued—the investigation, the photographers, the body bag. Kain watched himself being zipped into darkness, carried out of Room 307 for the last time, loaded into a van and driven away.
And then the recording ended.
Kain sat in the royal bed, tears streaming down his face, his body shaking with sobs he couldn't control.
"I died," he choked out. "I died like a dog. In that filthy room. On that disgusting mattress. And Marco—Marco got arrested for it, but I was already—I was already—"
The sobs grew louder, echoing off the ancient stones. Outside the door, he could hear the guards murmuring to each other.
"Is the Prince crying?"
"I've never heard him make a sound like that."
"Should we check on him?"
"No, the physicians said to give him space. His mind is... fragile."
Kain didn't care what they thought. He couldn't stop. The tears kept coming, years of pain and loneliness and finally, finally, the confirmation that it was all over. His old life. His old body. His old self.
Gone.
What is this place? he wondered wildly, looking around the chamber through blurred eyes. Is this hell? Am I being punished? Is this heaven? Did I somehow earn this?
He didn't believe in heaven or hell. Never had. But sitting here, in a dead prince's body, in a world that shouldn't exist, he didn't know what to believe anymore.
Then, through the fog of grief, a memory surfaced.
I wish I would live like this place.
The words echoed from somewhere deep—a passing thought, a desperate fantasy, spoken aloud to no one in the empty silence of Room 307. I wish I could live in a place like this. A castle. A palace. Anywhere but here.
Had he wished it? Had he actually spoken those words while putting on the headset, right before swallowing the pills?
He couldn't remember. But somehow, impossibly, that wish had been granted.
Kain forced himself to breathe. Forced his sobs to quiet. Forced his mind to focus.
He looked at the system screen, still floating before him. The detailed explanation was there, cold and clinical:
CONSCIOUSNESS TRANSFER COMPLETE
Source: Kain (Deceased — Cause: Pill Overdose)
Destination: Prince Aldric Valerius Astra (Deceased — Cause: Viper Blood Poisoning)
Status: Successful — Consciousness integrated. Host body revived.
Revived, Kain thought. They revived a dead body by putting my dead mind inside it. Two deaths making one life.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up. He tried to suppress it, but it escaped—a wild, broken sound that made the guards outside jump.
"What was that?"
"The Prince is laughing now. First crying, now laughing. He's definitely lost his mind."
But Kain didn't care. Because for the first time since waking in this body, he understood.
This is my life now. My real life. My only life.
He smiled—a real smile, genuine and warm, cutting through the tears on his face.
"I can live like a prince," he whispered. "I can actually live like a prince."
The laughter started again, but softer this time. Not hysterical. Almost... happy.
The guards exchanged worried glances. "We really should call someone."
"No kidding."
And then, like a bucket of ice water dumped on his newfound joy, Kain remembered.
Prince Aldric. Fifth Prince. The useless one.
The one who gets executed by his elder brother.
His laughter died. His face went pale. His hands gripped the sheets.
"No," he breathed. "No no no. Prince Aldric is destined to die. His brother kills him. In front of everyone. That's—that's the story. That's what happens."
The system screen flickered, as if acknowledging his realization.
WARNING: Host body's original fate remains in motion. Events leading to execution still active. Player intervention required to alter destiny.
Player intervention, Kain thought. Me. I have to change it. I have to survive.
But how? He knew nothing about this world. Nothing about politics, magic, sword fighting, or royal intrigue. He was a street rat from another dimension, wearing the body of a doomed prince.
Before he could spiral further, the chamber door opened.
A guard stepped in, his face formal, his voice loud enough to carry through the entire room.
"Your Highness. The Second Prince has arrived to visit you."
Kain's blood turned to ice.
The Second Prince. The manipulator. The one who believes humans are superior. The one who—
The guard stepped aside, and a figure moved into the room.
Golden hair caught the light like spun sunshine. Blue eyes, sharp and calculating, swept the chamber in a single comprehensive glance. A smile played at the corners of his mouth—charming, warm, and utterly unreadable.
Prince Cassian Valerius Astra, Second Prince of the Astravia Kingdom, walked toward his younger brother's bed with the easy grace of a man who owned every room he entered.
"Little brother," he said, his voice like honey over steel. "I heard you finally decided to rejoin the living."
Kain stared at him, his heart pounding, his mind screaming.
This is him. This is the brother who will watch me die. Or maybe the one who will kill me himself. I don't know. I don't know anything.
But one thing was certain.
The Game of Crown had just gotten a lot more dangerous.
TO BE CONTINUED...