Surviving As the 5th Prince of the Ruined Kingdom

002

Throb!

A headache I had forgotten stabbed through my mind.

Like waking from a dream, I returned to reality. My consciousness, which had been cast into the heart of the universe, was summoned back by my body.

I surveyed my surroundings, wondering if I had merely dreamed for a moment.

The phantom hand was as usual, flexing its fingers alone in midair.

However, the login screen that had followed me all my life was nowhere to be seen. Its constant presence within reach made its absence incredibly unfamiliar.

‘What has changed?’

The moment you entered your ID and password and clicked [Login], something definitely changed. But you couldn’t tell what had changed.

Swish, swish—

You moved your ghost hand around. The moment your ghost hand touched the potted plant on the bedside table, a ‘change’ occurred.

———————×

[Cozy Nightmare]

Rarity: Rare

A flower rarely found in some magical realms.

Be careful not to mistake it for [Tranquil Night], which has a similar appearance and fragrance and is native to the elven forest.

It emits a fragrance that clears the mind, but prolonged exposure causes insomnia and nightmares, gradually weakening the person.

———————

The description window that appeared before your eyes showed that the words influenced by the Hamil Empire, located northwest of the Lionel Kingdom and using metaphors, were expressed in a Chinese-like manner.

After reading it calmly, you tapped the × in the top right corner with your ghost hand. The translucent window gradually faded and disappeared.

‘Somehow, I feel a bit sleepy.’

If this were your previous life, you might have been amazed at how realistic the VR game was, indistinguishable from reality.

You frowned and approached the table. You broke the stem of the [Cozy Nightmare] in half and threw the entire pot into the trash.

When did this get here…?

– Alfonso, that flower I’ve never seen before…

– Ah, I heard it was a gift from the envoy of the Arya Kingdom this time. **They said it has the effect of aiding sleep and warding off evil spirits .** I thought I wouldn’t get one, but somehow one was left behind. It was called something like “Sleeping Night” or “Dreaming Night”…

Did someone switch it in the middle?

Surely the [Tranquil Night] that occupied a corner of every royal family member’s bedroom couldn’t be the [Cozy Nightmare]. If that were discovered, it could cause a national conflict.

‘Who is it?’

Just the slim possibility that I could inherit the throne was enough to make me a thorn in someone’s side.

“Tsk.”

You clicked your tongue at the face of the unidentifiable culprit. Deciding to do something more productive, you tapped the table with your ghost hand.

‘Why doesn’t it tell me about the table?’

After some thought, you came to your own conclusion.

The Lost Saga game you had installed on your smartphone right before you died in your previous life was definitely related to the abilities you possessed in this life.

If I think of myself as the protagonist, and the surroundings as a game screen, that ghostly hand would be like a finger touching the screen.

At least I’ve never played a game that displays an information window for every object I touch. So what could I use to acquire information?

The answer came quickly.

Things that aren’t ordinary objects.

‘Items.’

To confirm, I decided to bring the ghostly hand close to objects that might be recognized as items.

First, the pendant hanging around my neck.

━━━━━━━━━━━━×

[Radiant Iana]

Grade: Rare

A 100% pure mithril pendant. Protects the wearer from evil spirits and curses.

. . .

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Next, a pouch containing jewels and gold coins.

━━━━━━━━━━━━×

[Expanded Pouch]

Grade: Superior

. . .

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lastly, the dagger in the corner of the dresser drawer.

━━━━━━━━━━━━×

[Iron Dagger]

Grade: Common

. . .

━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━

After confirming everything, I nodded my head. I vaguely understood which things were being treated as items.

Strangely, the color of the item names shown in the description window differed by grade.

Common was white.

High-grade was green.

Rare was blue.

There were no items more valuable than the pendant around me, so further confirmation was impossible.

I roughly expected that after rare, there would be grades like historic, legendary, and mythical. The colors would probably be purple, yellow, rainbow?

I could find out slowly. But more than that, something else had become more curious.

My status window.

‘Will it work?’

I summoned the ghostly hand in front of my eyes.

After taking a deep breath, I tapped my forehead.

━━━━━━━━×

Evan Lionel

Gender: Male

Age: 13

Race: Human

[Stats]

[Skills]

[?]

[?]

.

.

.

RP: 0

━━━━━━━━

Despite my worries, my status window that appeared in front dazzled my eyes.

It displayed my name not as a full name but in the basic way used in real life. When I placed the ghostly hand over it, the full name appeared.

Putting that aside······.

I scanned from top to bottom.

‘Why are there so many question marks?’

The [?]s, colored grayish-black, seemed to be locked menus. Even when I put the ghostly finger on them, there was no reaction.

Giving up on what didn’t work, I tapped on [Stats].

━━━━━━━━━━×

HP: E+

Strength: E

Stamina: E

Cardio: E

Agility: D

Flexibility: C-

…

Mana: –

━━━━━━━━━━

The stats were far more subdivided than I expected. Excluding Mana, they were all related to the physical body.

Most values hovered around E, with the occasional D appearing, and only one started with C.

‘My flexibility is C-…….’

Objectively, my flexibility is exceptional.

If not at the level of a gymnast, I could still do motions like the 180-degree split that are difficult for ordinary people.

Considering my age during the growth period and the C- rating for flexibility, I guessed that around D might be the average for an adult male.

It’s an issue I can understand more accurately later when I check other people’s stat windows and have more samples. For now, I decided to move on.

Next, I opened the skill window.

From mundane things like [Breathing], [Walking], [Running], [Throwing], to qualities like [Composure] and [Patience], various skills were listed in a jumble.

It seemed to categorize a slightly broader range as [Skills] compared to typical games.

The listed skills were in no particular order, not alphabetical or otherwise. There was no discernible criterion for how they were arranged. Since it wasn’t that important, I decided not to dwell on it too much.

After [Handsome], the skill names began filling the screen in grayish-black.

‘Is this the extent of the skills I have?’

I felt a little deflated.

When I opened the status window, I realized this was exactly the same as the skill window in Lost Saga. If that were the case, it would definitely be a doomed game.

From the very start, bombarding people with such excessive information would surely make most delete the game right away.

But.

‘This is reality for me.’

Sitting on the bed, I dived into the sea of information laid out before my eyes. As I scrolled down, examining the skills, one caught my attention.

‘Lionel Style Swordsmanship?’

A basic swordsmanship that every soldier of the kingdom would be well-versed in. Out of curiosity, I brought my ghostly finger to it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━×

Will you learn [Lionel Style Swordsmanship] by consuming 100 RP?

[Confirm] [Cancel]

━━━━━━━━━━━━

I frowned.

When I had skimmed through the initial status window earlier, I was certain my RP was 0. This swordsmanship was supposed to be taught for free upon enlistment, so…

‘They’re not even giving any information on what kind of skill this is?’

I scrolled down further to see what else was there.

Starting with the unheard-of “**Gagamel’s Lionel Style Swordsmanship**”,

‘The Bloodfrenzy Spear Technique! For real?’

Even the ancient spear techniques of a renowned martial house were present.

Countless swordsmanship styles, spear techniques, magic spells… No matter how far I scrolled down, the scroll bar next to the skill window didn’t budge.

‘Ah, wait a sec?’

I found a pattern.

Only things related to combat that could be learned within the Lionel Kingdom existed here.

There were no skills related to everyday life like [Herbology] or [Woodworking], nor any traits close to [Genius] or [Sickly].

‘Let’s stop here for now.’

I pushed the seemingly endless skill window aside for a moment and stared at the RP amount on the initial status window. No matter how I looked at it, it was 0.

I didn’t know what the ‘R’ in RP stood for, but I could guess the meaning of ‘P’.

What else could it be other than Point?

‘So what do I have to do to get RP?’

I searched around for any tips, but none were visible. Instead, I found what looked like a search function [⌕] at the top of the skill window.

I gave it a try.

———- ×

[Category] [Price] ……..

⌕

———-

A UI that looks familiar from online shopping. Setting search options was blocked. It seemed like a free version of a program where you had to pay to access all features.

‘Can’t even search?’

I randomly tapped the virtual keyboard with a ghostly hand.

———- ×

ㄴㄹㅈㄷㄱㅂ ⌕

———-

Searching itself seems possible at least.

To check if only things within the Rionel area existed in the skill window, I searched for the infamous ‘Black Flame Spear’ martial art of the Black Knight Order of the Hamil Empire.

“Access denied.”

If I gain access, can I learn the Black Flame Spear too? How do I gain access?

Suddenly, I wondered if the martial arts from my previous life would show up in the skill window too.

I searched for Taekwondo.

“Access denied.”

“Huh?”

The unexpected notification left me a bit flustered.

Just in case, I searched for martial arts that only existed in imaginary worlds.

‘Celestial Horse Divine Skill.’

“Access denied.”

‘Indestructible Force.’

“Access denied.”

‘Plum Blossom Sword Technique.’

“Access denied.”

The same results.

I stopped searching for martial arts and searched for something that definitely wouldn’t exist anywhere.

‘Evan Rionel’s Dragon Slaying Sword.’

A sword technique I made up for playing heroes as a child.

“No results found.”

A completely different result came up than before.

It seemed that skills which did not exist at all displayed a message saying there were no search results.

The question that followed was whether the skills I had searched for matched the ones I had in mind.

If the Taekwondo that was denied access could split the sea with one kick and crumble mountains like in comics?

Cheonma Shingong, Geumgang Bulgwae, and Maehwageombeop might all just share the same names. There could be martial arts translated that way in the Hamil Empire and countries influenced by it that use synonyms.

‘But does the Maehwa even exist in the present?’

……

It felt like it was precisely pinpointing everything I had in mind and displaying the notification.

‘Creepy.’

I couldn’t help but glance around, with the thought that someone might be watching my every move, even reading my mind.

Afterward, I continued exploring the skill window.

All the clans belonging to the Lionel Kingdom and visions of the Martops could be found through searches. When I saw the [Lionel Imperial Sword Technique] that is only passed down to the crown prince, I doubted again whether I could truly learn it.

I wanted to check, but I had no RP.

‘How do you even get RP?’

The pondering dragged on.

Knock, knock.

In the midst of it, the sound of knocking.

Even though no one could see, I instinctively hurried to close all the windows in front of me.

“Prince Evan! It’s time for din——.”

“I’m not eating.”

“hahahaha, I figured, so I brought it for you to eat in your room.”

“……. Come in.”

With my permission, Alfonso entered, opening the door. In his left hand, he held a tray with a steaming hot soup bowl.

The rich aroma made my mouth water, but I had no appetite at all.

“I asked the chef to put lots of meat in it. hahahaha, you don’t have to thank me.”

Alfonso grinned cheekily.

Well, let me see if I can view information on others besides myself.

I firmly poked his forehead with my ghostly index finger.

—–x

Alfonso Einberg

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Race: Human

[Stats]

[Skills]

[Relationship: Wary]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

An extremely simplified status window.

The [Relationship: Wary] line, which my status didn’t have, immediately caught my eye. Among the completely white text, only that was in a light red color, so it couldn’t be helped.

‘Wary…….’

Just looking at how Alfonso usually treated me was beyond friendly and bordered on reverence. What a two-faced guy.

I watched him place the tray on the table with a bitter gaze.

But what’s this, something seems off?

I examined his status window carefully again.

‘Ah!’

I immediately found the source of the strange feeling.

His name.

The surname the status window showed was different from what I had remembered.

‘Not Heimdel, but Einberg?’

Did my memory get messed up during the process of my head splitting open and realizing my past life? But the name Einberg didn’t feel unfamiliar.

‘Where have I heard that before?’

Throb.

Even with the head-splitting migraine, I rummaged through the mess in my mind. Eventually, I was able to recall the face of a middle-aged woman.

My nanny, who I can no longer meet.

The one who was falsely accused and dragged to the guillotine—at least, that’s what I believed. Her name was definitely Olivia Einberg.