Chapter 111
“Him-sum-jjin? What’s that?”
Aurora frowned at the unfamiliar term.
Him-sum-jjin.
Short for a loser who hides their strength.
It refers to someone with combat power or backing on a world-class level, but who deliberately doesn’t show it and stays cooped up like a loser.
Readers know that the protagonist is actually a monster beyond normal standards.
That’s why, when third-rate extras mock and harass the protagonist as a loser, they don’t feel anger so much as anticipation.
Because before long, the fools who don’t know their place will be mercilessly crushed, and the protagonist’s true identity will be revealed.
The buildup leading up to that and the dopamine burst at the end—that’s the flower of this genre.
“Hmm, I’m not sure I get it...”
Aurora’s expression was a complicated mix.
“Would it actually be fun?”
“My former master loved this kind of thing.”
“Lady Edelheid?”
Whenever I was ignored by others and ran into trouble, she would just watch, fully knowing how it would turn out.
And when I won a fight, she’d light up as if she’d been waiting for it.
She was so cute I wanted to bite her.
“For now, I think I need to see what kind of feeling it has.”
“Then let’s just work out the basic plot...”
I was about to work it out when my hand hesitated.
“Why?”
“But is it really right for me to write it again this time?”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you trying to break your promise?”
“That’s not it. I can’t keep writing forever, can I? Don’t you want to try writing it yourself, Princess?”
“That...”
“Didn’t Your Highness want everyone to read the works you wrote? Weren’t you trying to become an author?”
If the blood of an author runs in Aurora’s veins, she would never be satisfied with something as trivial as ghostwriting.
She would want to turn her imagination into words, make it real, and have everyone see it and love it.
“That’s true...”
“How long are you going to rely on someone else’s strength? You’ll never improve if you keep doing that.”
If I can sweet-talk Aurora well enough, I won’t need to write a thing.
And if the day comes when she no longer needs my help, if she acknowledges my efforts, maybe she’ll let me go.
“I understand what you mean.”
“As expected of Your Highness. Then I’ll assist you, so Your Highness...”
“But not now.”
“Huh?”
For once, the conversation seemed to be going smoothly, but it was blocked before it could go far.
“I still want to see Rion’s writing. I’ll write later.”
“...You will write it later, right?”
“Of course.”
Can I really trust that?
She looked at him with suspicious eyes, but Aurora’s expression was more confident than anyone’s.
I had sworn never to trust a master again.
Just this one more time.
Thinking of the writing I was doing now as the foundation for that day, I began to scratch out the words with my pen.
***
<The Princess Hides Her Identity>.
The opening plot went like this.
Aurora, princess of the Empire.
Tired of court life, Aurora sneaks out of the imperial palace for a bit of mischief.
She dresses in dowdy clothes and wanders the streets in disguise.
Though she lived in the most splendid place of all, everything is a new sight to a princess who has spent her entire life in the imperial palace.
Like a country girl who knows nothing of the world, she wanders the streets with sparkling eyes, brightened by everything she sees for the first time.
After wandering around eagerly, Aurora gets hungry and tries to buy a snack, only to be on the verge of being overcharged by merchants’ tricks.
“Wait.”
A hand suddenly shoots out from somewhere and grabs the merchant’s wrist.
“You really have no conscience, old man. You’re trying to charge a gold coin for one skewer?”
Aurora’s eyes widen.
What reaches the end of her gaze is a boy her age wearing a worn, threadbare tunic.
The boy swiftly snatches the gold coin that was about to be taken by the merchant, then furrows his brow fiercely.
“I-I was going to give change.”
“Then don’t dawdle and give it to her already.”
The boy takes the change from the merchant and hands it to Aurora.
Then he takes her wrist and leads her to a place with no people around.
Soon, the boy stops walking and looks at Aurora.
“What are you doing, suddenly pulling out a gold coin? One gold coin would be enough to buy everything at that stall and still have plenty left over. Are you an idiot?”
“I-idiot?”
“You are an idiot. You’re basically advertising, ‘I have money, please come rob me.’”
Aurora mouths the words in shock.
Because it was an insult she had never heard before, and never had any reason to hear.
“If you understand, go home quietly today. You’ll be in big trouble if something goes wrong.”
“A-ah, wait...”
Aurora tried to grab the boy, but he disappeared from sight in an instant.
She slowly lowered the hand that had brushed only empty air. Aurora stared blankly at her wrist.
No one had ever dared to grab her wrist so carelessly since she was born.
A mere commoner had grabbed the wrist of a princess. Strangely enough, it didn’t feel unpleasant.
A rough, calloused touch.
The boy was already gone, but the sensation left on her wrist was so vivid that it didn’t fade for a long time.
.
.
.
Aurora, sitting on the sofa and reading the manuscript, eventually finished the last page.
“How is it?”
“Hmm, it’s a little plainer than the previous one.”
“The regret-obsession genre is the kind that goes all-in on early shock value. This one isn’t that far, but it’ll still be worth reading.”
Aurora nodded slowly. It was still a little vague, but not so bad that she couldn’t read it.
“But who is this boy? He doesn’t seem like someone who just shows up.”
“That boy’s name is Kyle. He’s a figure from the underworld.”
Rion tapped the paper lightly with the tip of his pen.
“Kyle is an orphan who grew up under a back-alley gang. To survive, he lives by doing odd jobs under a criminal organization.”
“Odd jobs?”
“Things like pickpocketing, keeping watch, delivering things, and luring people in.”
Aurora tilted her head.
“What’s luring people in?”
“It’s the role of luring naive people or powerless children into dark alleys for human trafficking.”
Aurora’s expression stiffened.
“Then when he first met Aurora...”
“At first, he probably saw her as prey.”
Though she wore dowdy clothes, she had an air of refinement, casually took out a gold coin, and wandered around alone.
From the back-alley thugs’ point of view, she was a target too good to pass up.
“Then why didn’t he hand her over?”
“He changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“Because he fell in love at first sight.”
For Kyle, who had spent his whole life with only dirty, rough things in the back alleys, Aurora was too unreal.
Like a pure white flower dropped in the middle of a mud pit.
“What happens after that?”
“After that, Aurora will keep going on escapades, and she’ll get tangled up with Kyle.”
But Kyle doesn’t take Aurora away, and he doesn’t do the job.
Instead, he volunteers to act as her guide.
Then, after getting on the boss’s bad side, he gets beaten and locked up.
When Aurora learns from a resident that he’s in danger, she starts acting in earnest.
The story is about her storming the underworld and beating down the organization that tried to kidnap her, thinking she was an ordinary girl.
As Aurora reviewed the overall plot, she pointed at one section with her finger.
“I’m confident about this part.”
It was the part where Aurora charged into the underworld and smashed the organization.
Aurora, who was suspiciously good at writing noir, was confident she could handle it well.
“All right. Then let’s co-write this one. Please write that part, Your Highness.”
“The part I wrote goes into the novel? That’s great.”
“No, this was originally Your Highness’s novel...”
Rion was puzzled, but since she was offering to help, he didn’t refuse.
Thanks to Aurora’s help, he was able to finish the novel much faster than before.
***
“Did you all see it?”
“See what?”
“The new work written by Her Highness Princess Aurora.”
“Oh. The Princess Hides Her Identity? Of course I saw it. These days, if you don’t read that, you can’t fit into society.”
<The Princess Hides Her Identity>.
It’s Aurora’s new work following <The Terminally Ill Young Lady Declares Divorce>, which recently took high society by storm.
She writes so fast that only two months passed between the previous work and the new release.
Normally, when you churn out a sequel in such a short time, the quality tends to drop.
But the princess’s new work mocked that prejudice with its perfect finish.
The narrative had become even more meticulous, and the immersive grip it had on readers was still the same.
Of course, the scene where the heroine stormed the back alleys was suspiciously vivid, but this time it was quite good.
The balance of tension and release was just right.
But above all else, the male lead, Kyle, was the talk of the young ladies.
“Hah, isn’t Kyle way too cool?”
“Kyle? I don’t really like him.”
“Why? He’s cool. He tries to protect Aurora even though he knows he’ll be in danger.”
“Don’t whitewash him. In the end, he was a back-alley gang member. The things Kyle did before don’t just disappear.”
“Right. He was also planning to trick Aurora at first.”
“But he protected her in the end.”
“That’s because he fell in love, duh.”
“Isn’t that what makes it good?”
If Kyle had been a perfect nobleman from the start, it wouldn’t have burned this hot.
He was a savage.
He was rough, rude, and clearly saw Aurora as prey.
But that made him even more thrilling.
A boy who grew up in a bad world, yet wasn’t completely corrupted by it.
A boy who learned how to sell others out, but couldn’t bear to lay a hand on the woman he loved.
A boy who, after learning Aurora’s identity, worried that his existence would be a burden, and so stepped back instead, calling her “Your Highness.”
The contradictions spun out by that pitiful boy shook the young ladies’ hearts.
“How cute. He tells her not to come to the market again because it’s dangerous, but then waits at the same place the next day.”
“Right. He says not to come, but he’s waiting there. He must be doing it so he can protect Aurora if she comes again.”
“I love it.”
The young ladies grabbed each other’s hands and squealed.
After sharing their wishes like that, emptiness set in.
“Could I ever have a love like that too?”
At those words, the young ladies around her fell silent for a moment.
If things continued like this, she would have to marry the partner chosen by her parents and live as others told her to.
A man like Kyle, who would see her for who she was, regardless of family or wealth.
She wanted to meet someone who would look at her and be swayed.
It was a fantasy that every noble young lady, used as a political pawn and bound by strict etiquette, dreamed of at least once.
“Could we do it too?”
Maybe that was why.
Suddenly, someone voiced that idea.
“Us too? How?”
“Hide our identities and go out to find someone like Kyle.”
If the previous work won over married noblewomen with its shock-soaked spiciness, this new one hit the tastes of young ladies squarely.
It was a story noble young ladies couldn’t help but fall for.
The problem was that it stirred admiration, not just sympathy.
They thought a romantic story like the princess’s in the novel might unfold for them too.
They thought they could find a true connection that didn’t depend on arranged marriage or their social status.
As a result.
“Lady Valdis is missing too?”
The capital’s young ladies had disappeared en masse.