Ronan wasn't always Ronan. He had been James for most of his life until two months ago. He had been browsing Web novels, looking for more useless authors to curse.
That's when he stumbled upon an author account called InsertRandomName. Apparently, the guy wrote kingdom-building novels. James didn't enjoy such novels but decided to give it a try since he had nothing else to do.
He read and read. Surprisingly, the novel was interesting at first, until the author began killing characters left and right. Naturally, James was annoyed when his favored waifu died and couldn't contain his rage.
That day he became Shakespeare of curses. The curses he wrote became legendary, and held in high regard for ages to come.
Just like that, James dropped the book and went looking for the next target, thinking that would be it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
One day, he received a strange email. The subject was short and to the point.
Redemption.
"What is this about?" James mumbled.
Thinking it was a scam, he deleted the email, only for it to arrive once again. James deleted it again, only to receive another email a second later. When even blocking the email and changing accounts didn't help, he was forced to open and read it.
You crossed a line.
However, your creative curses got my attention. It also gave me inspiration to do something about my writing.
Since I am worthless and not a creative person like yourself, I hope you can guide me.
"God… did I offend this emo kid?" James scoffed.
He couldn't believe the author, who never replied to his readers, would get offended by his curses. People should be thick-skinned, especially authors, yet it seemed InsertRandomName had an ego bigger than Discord mods.
Still, it made him wonder how was the author tracking him. It was a different thing to access his public email, but how did the author email him on an account he just created?
It was unsettling, to say the least.
"Meh, who cares? Let this fool curse me in his mind."
James was about to delete the email and be done with it when something caught his eye. It was the last line of the email.
Show me how you'll write my novel.
Show me how you will change it.
"These… lines weren't there before…"
James panicked. How was the email getting edited in real-time?
At first, James thought it was just an author with a god complex, but strange things began happening. Suddenly, his phone screen turned pitch black, and a countdown appeared before him, along with the author's strange words.
Repent in…
10… 9… 8…
"What the hell is going on?"
7… 6… 5… 4…
"…this has to be a joke, right?"
3… 2…
"This fucker hacked my phone. Yeah, that has to be it."
1.
The countdown ended, but nothing happened. James looked around. For a moment, he was actually scared, only to realize how foolish he had been.
"Of course, nothing would happen! What was I even worried—"
He spoke too soon. A moment later, his heart ached as if it had been torn out of his chest. The sudden pain blinded him and he fell to the ground, darkness shrouding him.
When he opened his eyes, he was in a place not even all his ancestors could afford. It took him a while to realize he was inside the novel, the same one he had invented new curses for.
That wasn't even the worst thing.
He was a character no one even knew about!
Ronan Valencia.
He was a character who was only mentioned in passing as the disabled brother of an unimportant antagonist. Yet, James was forced into his shoes.
But the author wasn't heartless and gave James a wish.
"A system! Please give me a system!"
He thought with an overpowered system, he would rule the world in no time. With a system, even replacing the protagonist wouldn't be a problem.
But all that hope shattered when Ronan received the [Fallen Heir System].
Instead of becoming the all-powerful, unstoppable force of nature, Ronan turned into a useless burden. The system came with an initiation quest.
[Quest: Get Disowned]
[Task: Get disowned and thrown out of the Valencia Kingdom.]
[Reward: Initiation of the system.]
[Penalty for failure: The host will lose 1 day of lifespan till he gets disowned.]
At first, he thought Ronan would die and didn't care about it. Since he was already dead in the real world, nothing else mattered.
But then the author revealed the truth.
James wasn't dead in the real world, but in a coma. As for the penalty, he would lose a day of life in real life, not in the novel.
And just like that, Ronan did everything he could to get disowned, all the while cursing the sadist author. However, he still lost two months of life in the real world.
The characters in the novel didn't know that, and that's why they thought Ronan had lost his mind when they saw him dancing like a fool. They weren't aware of how happy Ronan was after getting disowned.
Still, only one gold coin a week? I need to level up this system. How am I supposed to get a servant like this?
The servants in the castle had a salary of ten gold coins a month. Even if they weren't elites, no one would work for less than five gold a month. Ronan couldn't afford that, even if he starved himself.
"I have the funds, but I can't use them for my system missions. Man, this is annoying!"
It was a folly of the Fallen Heir System. While he was free to use quest reward money as he pleased, he could only use the system's rewards to progress with his missions.
In other words, the money Minister Dane gave him couldn't be used to hire a servant. Even if he did, the system wouldn't recognize them and the quest would remain incomplete.
Wait… since this is the novel, he has to be here as well!
Suddenly, Ronan bolted away, searching for someone in the city's alleys. He didn't stop until he saw the one he was looking for.
A one-armed man wearing a straw hat.