Drop!! ～A Tale of the Fragrance Princess～ - Volume 3, Extra 03: The Apprentice Girl’s Effort

“Pretend to be my lover and join the social circle.”

Selena, the top star that had the entire world’s attention, was suddenly warped to Northern Duke’s land during an accident while filming. Kalcion, the Northern Duke that saved her from the infernal beasts, offers Selena a chance to go back home in return for collecting information in various social circles by pretending to be his lover. Selena quickly accepts Kalcion’s offer, but…

“Why in the world can’t you do this!?”
“Don’t you think that the answer to that should be obvious to you, the actress, not to me, the duke?”

There was a critical problem. The Northern Duke’s acting skills are horrible!

“…Let’s change the plan. I’ll seduce you instead.”

And thus the contractual relationship between the two started. Will Kalcion’s acting skill improve first, or will he start to have true feelings for Selena instead?

Due to his own carelessness, Duanmu Huai finds himself transported into the world of the game “Star Ocean Online.” Starting from a humble core capsule, Duanmu Huai ventures across the starry sea to countless worlds. He awakens powers that have long been dormant, confronts threats lurking in the depths of the universe, and sets his sights on dominating the galaxy!

It was in the middle of the night that the woman who would be the Duchess came to see me.

She said my father and mother died, and my kind uncle became king.

She said it’s not worth it for me, the crown prince, to be living in hiding, too.

“A while ago, Your Highness had been hiding from me. With all due respect, is that for the sake of survival? Just because your parents died doesn’t mean you have no reason to survive. Actually, that fact alone made it all the more reason why you should live. If you die now…”

If I died now?

When I asked her while looking at her eyes, the woman eventually brought out the harsh truth with empathetic eyes.

“It’s like a dog’s death.”

“That’s rude….”

It’s been a long time since I said that. In a short while, he has been treated as a madman and beaten to death just by saying similar things. She loosened her arms that held me and I suddenly stiffened up due to it. Because I thought she might have loosened her arm to hit me. But she didn’t.

She knelt down with one knee in front of me, just like a knight.

“Hastred’s Sarian raised her salutations. May you accept it gladly.”

My first knight is beautiful and kind.

“Are you on my side?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

It was all a lie.

In the year 2090, technology has advanced to the point where Simulation Boxes, (Sim Box for short) are common place, allowing for the user to link up their brain's neural network to a full dive Simulation. While initially used for educational purposes, recently a large gaming company, Averon, released a fully fledged immersive MMORPG simulation where users can become anyone they desire, level up, choose their class, and become a hero or a villain. The name of this simulation is The Shattered World Online.

Eli Winters had no interest in playing it. His father, a jobless bum who spent his entire life playing games in the hope of becoming a famous player or streamer, was able to use the release of The Shattered World Online to gain wealth and fame, quickly becoming the number one player and a household name as the game took the world by storm. He immediately abandoned Eli and his mother in favor of being with someone from his guild, despite his mother having worked two jobs to support them and raise Eli by herself. Eli had nothing but spite for his father and the game.

When Eli's best friend convinces him to try out the game, his father's fame begins to interfere, culminating in him being singled out and shunned by his peers, and his father offering to pay for his university tuition in return for Eli hiding their relationship and quitting the game. Instead of complying with his father's wishes, Eli decides to prove to everyone how useless a guy his father is by challenging him that if Eli is able to surpass him in the game world he must delete his account and quit his streaming career. His father accepts the challenge believing his son to be useless at games - but Eli will soon show him just how ambitious a spiteful person can be.