Chapter Text
What would you do if you were a king? If you held absolute power over the entire world around you? If everyone you knew, from friends and family to strangers on the street, had no choice but to obey your orders?
Would you be wise and benevolent? Gently guiding your nation to a better future?
Would you be hands-off? Simply letting others live their lives and allowing your power to remain unused.
Or would you become a tyrannical dictator, using and abusing your power to mould the world to your whim?
I know my answer.
I would live selfishly. I would take everything I wanted, when I wanted it, however I wanted it. I would do as I please and damn any who tried to get in my way. I would become an iron-fisted despot.
Now mind you, that's not because I believe in some silly philosophy like 'might makes right' or anything like that. I recognize that corruption and tyranny or wrong...
It's just that I know myself.
'When there is a pizza, I always take the last slice.'
If I could do anything I wanted...I would certainly end up abusing that power. That's just the type of person I am.
This might seem like a strange thing to ponder so seriously, but I had a good reason.
Before me stood a large pair of double doors, covered in ornate glyphs. On the other end of that door, was my father the Emperor. And as soon I stepped through that door, as soon as I killed the last obstacle set before me...I would attain absolute power. I would become the Tyrant.
But, before I get to what happened next, perhaps I should explain things from the beginning.
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It all started when my sister shot me a text message.
Erica: just cme up with outline for my new story
Erica: pls read
Erica: LINK
Connor: I'll check it out later.
Erica: meannie!!!!
Erica: What r u even doin?
Connor: I'm finishing my submission for CompSci 202
Connor: You know, so I can graduate and get a real job?
Erica: KYS!!!!!
My older sister Erica, was an aspiring novelist. Though I use the term 'novelist' loosely because to call the trash she wrote novels was honestly an insult to the entire history of the Western literary canon.
You know those shitty romantic fantasy stories that are all the rage in East Asia? They follow a woman, often either a commoner or a self-insert from modern times, who inexplicably attracts either one or a whole reverse harem, of unbelievably hot and powerful men to her side. Where the power dynamics are usually crazy toxic, rapey and abusive?
You know the type. The shit titled like:
"Help, my father is the Evil Tyrant?"
"Reincarnated as a horror game NPC, I seduced the villain audaciously!" "Survival Guide of the Mad Prince's Maid!"
"The Reincarnated Villainess in the Gender Reverse World"
Literally just the female version of Isekai haremslop, but because they were targeted at women they somehow got more of a pass culturally.
Anyways, my sister was obsessed with those things. Like, every other week she would pester me to read her newest obsession. And often, chide me for not acting more like the 'Male Leads'.
"Connigton would not have let that guy speak to your girlfriend like that! You should have hit him!"
"That dude was like 6'5, you trying to get me killed?"
"Duke Revas would never let his girlfriend have men in her friend group! You need to be more possessive, or someone else will take her from you!"
"Jaden's been our friend since we were like six. Plus, he's literally the gayest man I've ever met."
"Ugh, I cannot believe you didn't buy Samantha that pretty dress for the party I suggested you get, you cheap bastard. You should always make your woman feel like a princess, you know!"
"Samantha has her own job. If she wanted a five thousand dollar jewel-studded dress, which to be clear, she does not , she could buy it her fucking self . "
In hindsight, perhaps it should not have been a surprise that my sister actually decided that her dream in life was not to get a 9-5 and live the life of a responsible adult. No, instead, she decided she was going to write her own shitty female mc romantic fantasy.
Except, instead of being originally Korean or whatever and translated, she would write it ground up for a Western audience, to introduce to American society the apparently unappreciated joy that was 'Josei novels'.
Anyways, me being the little sibling, I was the sounding board for many of her deranged ideas.
"No, it is still bestiality to fuck the werewolf in his wolf form, Erica."
"Yes, kidnapping and drugging a woman, is in fact , rape, Erica. Even if she is, quote-unquote, totally into him."
"Yes, locking your crush in a dungeon just because she smiled at another man, is in fact, fucking nutjob behaviour, Erica."
Anyway, she had just sent me her latest script, and I would soon have to look it over to give feedback. Yes, as much as I despised with the fury of ten thousand nuclear warheads, my sister writing...I still loved her, so I had to help her out with her stupid manuscript.
The new one, unlike the first few suggestions, was one of those transformation/reincarnated into a novel isekai-type josei.
The background was that a common female college student(who was described looking exactly like Erica did at that age...) was reincarnated into the world of an erotic horror novel she had read and had to figure out how to survive, all the while averting the future disaster waiting for her.
Yeah, pretty generic, but what did I expect from Erica? The Brothers Karamazov.
The 'original story' was called 'The Flower Does Not Bloom in Silence', henceforth referred to as The Flower), while the book she was actually writing and publishing was tentatively called '"I Will Raise the Bloody Tyrant Preciously!". Henceforth referred to as The Bloody Tyrant. '
The Flower, the original story, was about a crazy, bloodthirsty tyrannical prince named Florian, who was constantly tormented by terrible nightmares due to the trauma and abuse he suffered from his parents.
One day he hears a peasant girl singing a beautiful song in a forest and is soothed to sleep, where he dreams gently. Upon waking up and realizing what had happened, he searches the whole forest but does not find her. He tried other musicians, but none of them had any effect. At his wit's end, Prince Florian starts to crazily turn up the whole kingdom searching for her, since no other singing voices had the same effect.
Clearly some kind of Cinderella inspiration, though I did not mention that.
Anyways, eventually, Florian does find the girl, who is named Wisteria, and basically kidnaps her and forces her to be his personal sleep inducer. Through her overpowering pure heart charm, she slowly warms the evil prince's heart and redeems him into a good, and wise ruler...though not before they have a bunch of super extremely dubcon yandere sex. Why my sisters had to specifically storyboard a few scenes, I will never know.
Maybe r19 novels just sell better?
Anyways, the girl who read The Flower novel reincarnates as a royal princess named Serena, who is destined to be the mother of the evil prince Florian. The evil Emperor Ambrose would one day conquer her kingdom, kill her entire family and essentially force her to be his personal sex slave. Due to this abuse, she would horrifically torment their son, leaving him deeply traumatized, and setting the stage for the events of The Flower.
The kicker was that Serena only realized what novel she was in after like fifteen years of enjoying life as a royal princess since she and her family all barely mentioned side characters in The Flower. Only upon hearing a mention of 'Prince Ambrose' did she realize she was in the world of the flower.
She only had two years before Ambrose took the throne, so she ran away from her whole country, the Kingdom of Demacia, and applied to be a handmaid there. It was all a ploy so that she could meet Prince Ambrose and get on his good side.
You see, Ambrose had been born a cripple who could not use magic, which was a problem since magic basically defined nobility in the setting. The noble rulers of every country were the descendants of the mages who left the Magic Tower to conquer land. Ambrose, despite being the son of the Emperor and the Mistress of the Magic Tower, could not use it. Because of this, he was an abandoned son, treated even worse than servants, and tormented by his stepmother and step-siblings.
In the timeline of the Flower, Ambrose would actually discover at age eighteen that he had magic. In fact, he had more magic than had ever been recorded in the history of the Victarian Empire. In fact, his magic was so strong that his body could not physically handle it, so his mother sacrificed her life to seal away his power until his flesh was strong enough to handle it.
Upon age eighteen, that power awakened. Ambrose killed the entire imperial family and took the throne, before conquering and crushing the many smaller kingdoms between the Victarian Empire and the Glowing Sea. There he would meet Serena, take her as concubine, and set in stage the events that would lead to what happened in The Flower.
Thus, Tyrant!Serena's goal was to befriend and 'normalize' Ambrose before his eighteenth birthday, so as to save her entire family and prevent the events of The Flower from taking place.
My first point of criticism I noted down, was that Florian and Ambrose's story seemed a bit too similar. They were both essentially bloodthirsty abandoned princes tamed by the pure-hearted female lead. She could consider coming up with more distinct roles and relationships between them.
I skimmed ahead, reading more of the worldbuilding, planned plot arcs, and character descriptions. It was mostly generic, with a hint of originality or twist here and there. And god, was it weird to skim through the many erotic plot points described?
Seriously, did my sister have to be so unsubtle about inserting her barely disguised rape fetish into so much of the worldbuilding and plot? I blame fifty-shades-of-gey, which for reason our parents let her watch at way too young an age.
I was reading through the seventh of nine planned arcs-where Serena and the now Emperor Ambrose finally marry-when I suddenly felt my vision go black.
When the darkness finally left me...I was staring at a mirror, and a face not my own was staring back.