Shen woke up when his legs gave way and he sank down on the cold stone of the bridge. The sword fell from his hand, and, breathing heavily the owner of the Cursed Peak he looked at the scene around. The thorn trees formed a dense wall around the ENTIRE square in front of the black castle. Somewhere in its depths rested the main character, but he hadn't been seen for a long time. Twilight was descending on the world.
"System!" begged Shen. "Get that siren out of my head! I'm gonna go crazy!!"
System was silent for a while, and he almost beat his head on the floor to get the unbearable sounds out of it. But then they were gone, and System in a tone not was not exceeding the normal decibels for human hearing, said:
[Off-plot curse was adapted into a story arc «Fairy tales of the faerie queen»! Congratulating for opening a new story arc! +5 points for effort!]
«You wrote off one and a half thousand from me, and now you're returning five?!»
[It's because of you the main character got into this situation!]
«Because of me?!» Shen outraged. «I had nothing to do with it! Why does he pick up all sorts of suspicious objects?!»
[You are his teacher! You should have taught him not to pick up trash!]
She screwed him up. Shen had nothing to say.
«Wait a sec,» after a while, he realized, ««Fairy tails of the faerie queen» isn't it the arc with references to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm? I still recall how I read it and thought that someone had to take the keyboard away from the author, so that he stop to suffer and put all sorts of the weird stuff into the novel! Oh and, tell me did he write all this while being high? Looks very much alike.»
[The user one just has a talent. And yes, this is that arc. I had to shake up a lot of memory to find something not related to the main plot, which would more or less fit into what happened with the mc. I did my best.]
Shen paused, looking at the high wall of thorn vines.
«Great» he then drew, «so now the main character is the Sleeping Beauty. What am I, then, the prince-savior?»
[I don't think it works that easily. The original novel of the user one had a lot of different references mixed up in there. You look more like the Little Red Riding Hood – after all you're wearing red.]
Shen no longer had the strength to react violently, so he just giggled.
«You almost killed me,» he then scolded.
[Some things are beyond my control.]
Shen sighed, and was about to get up and try to force his way through the thorns without violence, but he paused, staring at something moving on the ground between the branches. A chill ran down spine, and his fingers tried to find the sword lying nearby, but soon froze. A whole horde of white snakes crawled out of the thorn bushes in different directions. More than two dozen of them were on the bridge and were moving in the direction of the sitting cultivator. Shen was paralyzed with horror.
"N-no..." all he could say was a whisper, and then his voice was gone. He couldn't make a sound anymore.
His mind was empty, and his body was flooded with uncontrollable fear. The snakes were moving toward him in a steady stream. And all he knew at that moment was that he couldn't do anything about it. Such fear was almost like madness.
. . .
Before Shen who was sitting on the bridge stood a person.
Lord of the Peak of Glory sat down in front of Shen and studied his face.
YOU ARE READING
Villain Path
FantasyHe died and was reborn in the world of the novel he'd just read?! How banal, damn it! System, I wish I were never born! System: [You have been assigned the identity of the main villain] Have I sinned so badly in my past life?! System: [And by the...
