MTL - The Venerable Swordsman - Chapter 14 : There is a brother like this!

When I opened my eyes, I found my soul synced into the popular dating sim game, ‘Midnight’! And although I was clearly one of the female protagonists, I possessed the body of Evenes Harin, the saint who is treated like a trivial extra. What’s worse is that I must pursue one of the five male love interests and see it through to a happy ending in order to complete the game.

Having attended the triple combo of an all-girls middle school, high school, and university wasn’t enough of a debuff, having unintentionally put up an iron defense, I’ve been in ‘forever alone’ mode for 25 years. On top of that, I’ve possessed the Saint seldom played due to her atrociously difficult route! This life is screwed up, and I’m sure of it.

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

“She was originally a demon. How could she be led evil after meeting a human like me? Those critics always say some ridiculous things.”

In 1798, during an interview with a reporter, Cardinal Ranchi was asked about his past with the exiled princess of the last descendant of the Demon Clan and the recent signs of the Demon Clan’s recovery. He said:

“I have made too many efforts to safeguard world peace. I am convinced that under her leadership, there will be no chance of the demons returning to the country.”

…

In the winter of 1802, the demons successfully restored their country.

[Based on the above materials, please identify who is the main war criminal who led to the return of the demons, and explain why it is Lan Qi. (10 points)】

——Selected from “Classic Collection of Imperial History Unified Examination Questions”

- Description from novelbuddy

I thought I had seen bad endings before—but nothing prepared me for the garbage conclusion of The Hero’s Path.Years of investment, countless struggles, and for what? The protagonist failed. The villain won. Everyone else? Dead. Furious, I sent a message to the author, only to get a chilling response:[Do you think you could do better?]Before I could even blink, my phone exploded in a blinding light, and the next thing I knew—I was waking up in a completely different body.Now, I’m Merlin Everhart, a fourteen-year-old with a 12-star talent, the kind of gift only the strongest should have.But here’s the problem: I have no idea who I am supposed to be.With nothing but a system and a first-day-of-school alarm ringing in my ears, I’m thrown into the world of The Hero’s Path.Am I just another side character in a world that already ended once?…Either way, I refuse to let this story beat me too.