‘Gotta write this down before the inspiration fades.’

The bodyguard drove me home safely in the Benz. The second I got back, I plopped down in front of the computer and started typing.

I kept replaying the conversation with Kang Taeyang in my head, thinking about how to weave it into the story naturally.

‘I already planted the royal-family breadcrumbs early.’

I’d already revealed that the female lead “Mer” is the youngest of the imperial family. But I never said exactly how many siblings are above her.

That vagueness gives me tons of room — I can drop a new prince inspired by Kang Taeyang without breaking the story’s logic at all.

‘Just a little pro trick from experience.’

Most web-novel writers don’t map out every tiny detail of the worldbuilding from day one.

Usually you just lock in the core premise, genre, and main cast. Everything else gets filled in chapter by chapter as you go.

‘And that’s exactly why plot holes happen so easily.’

That’s why deliberately avoiding hard numbers is such a lifesaver for keeping things believable.

Classic examples: never stating the exact number of floors in a tower climb story, or staying vague about the protagonist’s full family tree.

It makes expanding the world or adding new characters later way easier.

‘For now I’ll mentally use the real Daehan Group family tree as reference.’

Even if I don’t write it out explicitly, having a rough blueprint in my head makes writing smoother. So I’m just copying Kang Bada’s family size.

That automatically slots Kang Taeyang in as the second prince. And since the protagonist “Ciel” is currently kidnapped and stuck in the palace by Mer, connecting the two of them will be simple.

──────────

“Are you Ciel?”

“You’re asking when you already know?”

“Cocky little shit. Looks like you won’t die quietly.”

“That’s the plan, actually.”

Heh.

The empire’s Second Prince, Ilios, smirked as he studied Ciel. The deeper he dug, the more entertaining this guy got.

The baby of the family—who used to never leave his room out of sheer apathy—finally stepped outside, so everyone wondered what the hell was going on.
Turns out he fell in love.

“Do you know who I am, by any chance?”

“Is there anyone alive who doesn’t recognize Second Prince Ilios on sight?”

“No, I mean my *real* face.”

“……”

“Thought so. You know. Isn’t that wild? Only a handful of people in the whole empire know this secret, so how the hell did *you* figure it out?”

Ciel kept his face completely blank.

After countless regressions, he’d learned a few hard truths. One of the biggest: getting tangled with Second Prince Ilios always ends in blood.

The man controlled the empire’s entire underworld and would do literally *anything*—no matter how insane—for the imperial family.

“Pretty interesting, right? Every single time the youngest is in danger, you magically show up. If I were a woman I’d probably fall for you too.”

“Coincidence.”

“Coincidences pile up into patterns, patterns repeated become fate. But that only happens in fairy tales, doesn’t it?”

Ilios leaned in close, voice dropping to a whisper like the edge of a freshly sharpened blade.

“I don’t buy into fate. Isn’t it way more logical to assume you *knew* an incident was going to happen there? Or maybe… you even staged the crisis for the little one yourself.”

That razor-sharp tone sent a cold shiver down Ciel’s neck.

But Ciel had lived (and died) through endless cycles. The weight of all that time wasn’t something to take lightly.

“You’re giving me way too much credit.”

Ilios pulled back, locking eyes again. They stared each other down in silence for a long, heavy moment.

“Hahaha! Fair enough. Sorry about that. I’m just paranoid by nature. There are plenty of lunatics out there dying to get their hands on imperial blood.”

“I get it.”

“There’s something behind that arrogant mouth of yours, huh? Weirdly, I don’t even hate it. If you turn out to be a dragon in disguise, please forgive my rudeness.”

Ilios gave a light chuckle and let his face soften. In a blink he switched back from “empire’s shadow” to “normal second prince.”

“Anyway, jokes aside. Since you haven’t blabbed to Mer about me yet, I’ll let it go this time. But don’t get any stupid ideas.”

“As long as you don’t start anything.”

“Anyone watching would think *you’re* the prince here.”

He shrugged like he was about to walk away—then suddenly his eyes flashed and he grabbed Ciel’s shoulder.

“One last thing.”

“What?”

“Are you still a virgin, by any chance?”

“……”

“Keep it that way. The day you lose it—even if you really are a dragon—I’ll personally peel every last scale off you.”

Pat, pat.

Ilios tapped Ciel’s shoulder twice, turned, and walked off. Ciel stared at his retreating back and could only shake his head in disbelief.

──────────

‘Came out pretty well.’

Using a real person as reference really makes the character pop. Can’t wait to see what readers think.

Of course, in a protagonist-centered web novel, making side characters *too* charismatic is dangerous as hell.

‘But there’s such a thing as “character carry” stories.’

Some works have trash-tier plots and zero consistency, yet people can’t stop reading.

The secret? A handful of super active, vivid side characters whose banter and daily life alone keep readers hooked.

‘I seriously thought I’d never touch that style in my life…’

“Character carry” basically means tightrope-walking the entire serialization. One slip and it’s game over.

Character charm collapses, or the MC gets completely overshadowed by a side character — once that starts, retention tanks hard.

‘Way too high difficulty.’

Still, I can afford to try it because even if the story crashes, I’ve got other ways to eat now. Plus the feedback has actually been decent.

[Where’s the princess??]
[When is princess coming back?]
[More princess screen time pls!!!]

Look at this flood.

Over half the comments are just princess thirst. As the author I’m not sure whether to celebrate or panic, but for now I’m just gonna enjoy the ride.

Most importantly…

Our real-life princess seems pretty happy too.

[Title: Princess has sent sponsorship.]

100,000 gold.

She’s been dropping donations every chapter lately.

Simple math: she’s single-handedly matching like 1,000 normal readers. At this point I just accepted it.

Of course there were chapters where the amount dipped.

“Only 50k today?”

Whenever that happened, it was usually because the princess didn’t appear at all, or her inner thoughts/psychology felt off.

[The princess feels too dumb here.]
[No princess today…]
[The princess wouldn’t think like that, right?]

On those episodes I’d write test comments then immediately delete them so only I could see.
Kang Bada was slowly turning into a vicious reader.

Using the “Princess” nickname and spamming “the princess this, the princess that” felt like massive over-immersion at first, but honestly it’s been super helpful.

‘She’s got surprisingly sharp instincts.’

Her feedback is actually spot-on most of the time. Whenever I tweak things based on what she says, reader reactions improve noticeably.

I can’t do huge rewrites on already-posted chapters, but small details in the princess’s dialogue and actions suddenly feel much more alive.

‘…No wonder readers say it’s better after the author revises.’

Thanks to her, my novel—originally 90% male readers—quietly climbed to 30% female readership without losing any guys.
A straight-up miracle.

‘It even hit official Tube rankings now.’

My story that was crawling up little by little finally landed on the official trending board. Still near the bottom, but compared to the start? Insane progress.

‘Should I just ask Bada to be my editor?’

She’s so competent I actually considered it seriously—like those couples who co-write novels together.

Of course I stopped myself.

If I ever slip and say something like “Bada-ssi, you *are* the princess, right?” then from then on I’d be writing while hyper-aware of her.

‘…Better to play dumb forever.’

Letting readers control the direction is the fastest way to ruin a story. Unless I’m writing this solely for Kang Bada, the current distance feels perfect.

“Ughhh—”

I finished the chapter, stretched big, then reflexively grabbed my phone to check notifications.

“Hm?”

An unfamiliar name in messages. Kang Taeyang.
Why the hell is *he* texting me?

Wait—more importantly—we never even exchanged numbers. The fact that he’s messaging me like it’s normal is already weird.

‘I guess at this point nothing surprises me anymore.’

I sighed and opened it.
And despite my earlier vow, I got shocked all over again.

‘…Rich people really are built different when they go crazy.’

Heh.

Head suddenly pounding, I let out a hollow laugh and flopped onto the bed.

* * *

“Everyone buckle up!”

“Yesss!”

“It’s hard to stop for bathrooms on the way, so anyone who needs to go, do it now.”

“Ah!”

A few kids jumped off the bus right away. They followed the director toward the restrooms.
Kang Bada watched them, then turned to me looking amused.

“You’ve driven a bus before?”

“All the time in the military. Usually a 25-seater minibus, but whenever we had division support runs I’d get stuck driving the big coach.”

“Wow, that’s cool.”

She nodded, impressed.

Looking at her, I couldn’t help but think back on how the hell I ended up in this random situation.
The mastermind? None other than Kang Taeyang.

: Cleanup around the orphanage is done.
: But the photos look pretty bad. If they’re using our foundation money, they should at least make it decent.
: I’ll handle the rest myself. You just take the little ones out to play. Jang will contact you with details.

Soon after, Secretary Jang sent over a super detailed 2-day-1-night itinerary for the kids.
Including full remodeling of the facility.

It completely ignored my schedule, but web-novel writers with chapters stockpiled basically have free time on demand, so no big deal.

‘Besides, the kids are thrilled.’

They barely have money for food and clothes—trips were never in the picture.
Meanwhile their school friends brag about family vacations, so they must’ve felt left out without saying anything.

Then suddenly someone says “full course trip, bus included.” Of course the whole orphanage went nuts.

Since it started because of me anyway, I figured I’d just treat them and make some memories for a few days.
The only real problem was…

“So… why are *you* here, Bada-ssi?”

“…You don’t like it?”

“No, no, not at all.”

Apparently when Kang Taeyang said “little ones,” he was including her too.