[System Initialization Complete]
[Welcome to Holfort Kingdom, Aquamarine Hoshino]
[You have been registered as a member of the Holfort Kingdom Faction. As a participant in this living world, you will be expected to contend with other players and NPC factions vying for power, influence, and survival within the game's boundaries. Your choices will shape the fate of kingdoms and the lives of thousands.]
[Now, let us begin your first mission.]
[Faction Quest Mission 1: Vanquish or Exile all Sky Pirates operating within Holfort Kingdom Territory]
[Reward: 5,000 Points]
[Failure: You either fail to vanquish or exile them, or you betray the kingdom.]
[Penalty: Disqualification if you fail, and change of faction if you betray the kingdom.]
So, Sky Pirates are even a thing here?
Of course, they would be easy to defeat since he was the duke's heir and part of the second most powerful faction in the kingdom. He was basically a walking cheat code, after all.
With his status and the impregnation system backing him, if he still couldn't accomplish this, he might as well find a rope and a crooked-neck tree somewhere and let a better MC replace him.
But he wouldn't make things easy for the kingdom. The Sky Pirates had their own uses, and he wasn't necessarily a friend of the royal family. Maybe someday he would overthrow them, make the Redgrave Family rule the kingdom, and have his children and women become the colonizers of this world.
And for that, he needed chaos—someone to trouble the kingdom while he took advantage of their weakened state.
But that was for the future. For now, let's check the second mission.
[Faction Quest Mission 2: Defeat or subjugate The Principality of Fanoss and assist Holfort Kingdom in eliminating their threat permanently]
[Reward: 10,000 Points]
[Failure: The Holfort Kingdom is either defeated, subjugated, or you betray the kingdom and shift your allegiance to Fanoss.]
[Penalty: Disqualification if you fail and change of faction if you betray the kingdom before Holfort is subjugated.]
Yeah, Aqua remembered the Principality of Fanoss. They had beautiful twin princesses waiting for him to breed—correction, save. He meant save them.
They were basically nothing more than puppets of the nobles and the military faction—tragic figureheads of a nation that had no real authority over its own people or its own royal agenda.
They were symbols, trophies, pretty faces mounted on a throne while others pulled the strings.
They were also, if his memory served correctly, absolutely beautiful.
The question was which version of them existed in this world.
The anime adaptation had portrayed them as mature women—an aesthetic choice that Aquamarine personally considered a waste of potential.
If he wanted mature women, he wouldn't bother with princesses; he'd set his sights on the Queen herself.
No, the appeal of the twin princesses lay in their delicate youthfulness, their petite frames and innocent faces that would look up at him with wide, trusting eyes as he claimed them—while also being of legal and adult age at the same time.
The light novel illustrations had captured them perfectly—petite, cute, almost fragile in their beauty.
The kind of girls who made a man feel protective and possessive in equal measure.
The anime version, by contrast, had rendered them as almost generic mature beauties, their unique charm diluted into something far less interesting.
In Aqua's opinion, they'd looked like a poor imitation of Utaha from that rom-com anime he'd watched in his distant past—a character he'd found attractive enough, but not someone worth crossing oceans for.
It was the same disappointment he felt whenever he thought about adaptations that failed to capture the essence of their source material.
Take Game of Thrones, for example.
The television show's version of Jon Snow had always struck him as fundamentally wrong—a man who looked like someone's uncle trying desperately to play a teenager.
The book version, however, was something else entirely: handsome, charming, and youthful.
If he were transmigrated into Game of Thrones as Jon Snow, he'd rather have the book version's appearance—the kind that looked like Prince Charming and could make women wet with just a glance.
Well, naturally, he didn't have to worry about that now.
Aquamarine Hoshino, both in canon and now, was basically more handsome than the book version of Jon Snow.
[Faction Quest Mission 3: Unification of Holfort Kingdom — Defeat or subjugate all enemy and neutral factions. Eliminate all player factions not aligned with Holfort Kingdom.]
[Reward: 50.000 Points]
[Failure Condition: The Holfort Kingdom remains content with stagnation and shows no indication of pursuing unification.]
[Penalty: Disqualification or change of faction if you decide to betray the Holfort Kingdom.]
No wonder the mission description said this dungeon was extremely difficult.
The reality of Holfort's current king made the task exponentially more challenging.
From everything Aquamarine knew and from his previous life's knowledge—the man was a lazy, degenerate fool.
A pathetic excuse for a ruler who cared about nothing beyond his own pleasure, who treated his harem as his greatest achievement and viewed actual governance as someone else's tedious responsibility.
With a ruler like that at the helm, unification wasn't just difficult—it was functionally impossible unless someone took matters into their own hands
If he wanted to complete this mission and continue climbing the tower, he would need to take over this kingdom himself.
There was simply no other path forward that didn't rely on the impossible scenario of the king suddenly growing a spine and developing ambition.
The man was a lost cause, a rotting figurehead who existed only to be replaced.
The thought raised an interesting question, though.
Were other players facing similarly difficult dungeons?
"System. How much are 50.000 points actually worth? What can I purchase with that amount?"
[You can buy one of the Three Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter or the Super Soldier Serum from Marvel.]
Aquamarine blinked, then let out a low, disbelieving chuckle.
"Seriously? That's the reward for basically conquering an entire kingdom? A magic stick or a bottle of juice that makes you tall and buff?"
[That is precisely why Awakeners are considered overpowered, Aquamarine. Especially those fortunate enough to awaken with an exceptional system or genuinely remarkable abilities. Do not underestimate your position. In time, you will come to understand just how privileged you are compared to ordinary players.]
Maybe.
He couldn't deny the logic, even if the rewards seemed almost insultingly modest for the scale of the task. Compared to his Impregnation System—which handed him Nanomachines and Mystic Eyes of Lust as a novice gift for simply knocking up two girls—conquering a kingdom for a point total felt like a scam.
The quest to unify Holfort Kingdom was the kind of monumental undertaking that would consume years, perhaps decades, of effort.
It would require political maneuvering, military conquest, economic domination, and the systematic elimination of every rival faction—both NPC and player-controlled.
The chances of success for anyone without foreknowledge of canon or access to cheat-level abilities were essentially zero.
And even if some incredibly talented, incredibly lucky player somehow managed to complete it through sheer skill and determination, what would they get?
A serum that granted peak human capabilities in a world where magic and monsters and divine blessings already existed?
It was almost insulting.
But that was the nature of this game, Aquamarine realized.
Effort and hard work meant nothing in the face of luck and cheat abilities.
The non-Awakeners, the ordinary players who had to struggle and grind for every scrap of power—they were the ones Esdeath had ridiculed so mercilessly.
And now he understood why. No matter how hard they fought, no matter how brilliantly they strategized, they would always be playing catch-up to those who had been blessed—or cursed—with awakening.
The system's words echoed in his mind: That's why awakeners are overpowered.
He wasn't going to complain about his advantages. But neither was he going to pretend the playing field was anything close to level.
In the dining room, Duke Redgrave spoke.
"Aqua, Angelica. Both of you have already come of age and are now adults. Aqua, you have much to learn about our family's holdings, our responsibilities, our position within the kingdom. In the coming months, I will entrust the management of our house to you piece by piece."
"I will test you, challenge you, push you to your limits. And if you prove yourself qualified—if you demonstrate that you possess the mind and the will to lead—I will name you Head of the Redgrave Family."
Then he shifted his gaze to Angelica.
"Angie… you will attend the Holfort Academy. This is not merely about education, though you will receive the finest instruction the kingdom can provide. Your true purpose there is to make connections."
"Find friends among the younger generation of noble families. Forge alliances. Build relationships that will serve our house for decades to come. You will be the face of our family to the youth of the nobility—make sure that face is one they remember favorably."
"Yes, Father."
Both of them answered.
With this, no one could restrain Aqua's plan to take over the kingdom—and eventually the world.
As for academy life?
Well, they could enjoy it as much as they wanted.
When you could rule a kingdom, who cared about school anyway?
Aqua chuckled as he began writing down his plans one by one in his mental notes, ready to execute them step by step.
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