The room smelled musty and stale coffee. No light came in through the windows, eternally covered by thick anime-print curtains. The walls were filled with posters, action figures, manga shelves, a shrine carefully assembled by someone who had long since given up on the real world. In the center of this profane temple of otaku culture, a peeling leather gaming chair, the throne of a king without subjects.
And here he went.
With slow and tired steps, the 32-year-old man pushed the bedroom door as if returning from a war. His belly slightly popping out from under his rumpled dress shirt, his deep dark circles under his eyes, and his reddened eyes screamed that he had overdone once again. But when he closed the door behind him, something changed. The tension in his shoulders eased, and a smile began to form.
— Finally...
He threw his work clothes on top of an indistinct pile of already dirty clothes and was left only in his underwear. A generous sip of cold brew coffee straight from the thermos made him cringe.
— There's an event in Ultimate Challenge Online 2 today... And it will be historic.
It was then that he sat in the chair, turned on the PC, a machine assembled over years, each piece acquired with sweat, overtime and giving up basic luxuries such as dining out. The fan roared like an awakened dragon. Upon loading, the game displayed its interface: a golden medieval coat of arms on a black background. Epic music filled the stuffy room.
He then selected the character.
On the screen appeared an imposing warrior with long silver hair and golden eyes gleaming like cursed jewels. Its armor was ornate, consisting of black plates with black and gold accents and mystical jewels encrusted. The name hovered above her: FatalPrincess.
"Let's charm the mob," he said, with a low laugh.
But behind the digital beauty, there was a single man, with no social life, whose existence was reduced to the expedient and the infinite grind of DSO2. Still, in that avatar, he had it all: power, respect, adoration—and control.
Ultimate Challenge Online 2, known as DSO2, was a colossus among MMORPGs. Unlike competitors, the game did not follow a pre-defined narrative: each event, each geopolitical change, was the direct result of the players' actions. Factions rose and fell. Empires grew, took territory, negotiated treaties, or tore them up like paper.
And on top of the chaos, FatalPrincess reigned.
In the community, she was a legend. Some idolized her as a digital goddess. Others worshipped her with religious fervor. It was a character of fanfics, of heated discussions on forums and, unfortunately for the player behind it, of extremely NSFW fanart.
But no one knew that FatalPrincess was just a minimum wage in her underwear, typing from a dark room on a Tuesday night.
Odin's Golden Residence guild was a palace of digital marble and gold, erected by hundreds of players in years of progress and investment. When the character entered the main lobby of the guild, the chat exploded.
[Global] FatalPrincess has entered the Guild Hall. [PM] LadyFleur: OMG! 😍 [
PM] RickTheGreat: Let's make a group, just the two of us? ;)[PM] DangerOftheSwamp: WHAT KIND OF MAN ARE YOU?????
The man laughed.
"Just pretend you have a little feminine tact and that's it, the idiots melt..."
With nimble hands, he began to type:
"Greetings, noble friends. I pray to the goddess of dawn to protect pure hearts in times of darkness to come."
The chat was delirious.
[Guild] SirBlack: SHE'S SO CUTE PQP[Guild] DuckManco: Fatal... You are the soul of our crusade.
That Duck Manco was the Guild Leader. Dedicated player, stronger than necessary, and absolutely obsessed with FatalPrincess. The man knew that. It was because of this weakness that he won the position of Deputy Leader and began to manipulate the guild behind the mask of a princess.
"My subjects, the time has come, we have been invaded by barbarians who think they own our lands, so we must show them that this land has owners and that they are mistaken if they think they can roam our noble lands!" FatalPrincess reverberated.
"Glory to Odin!" - Shouted the players present in the chat.
Behind the war there is a Plan.
The war against the Nhyr Empire was no accident. It was meticulously orchestrated by FatalPrincess over the course of months.
It all started with the Mystic Dragon Hunt event, which could only be triggered with a very rare Legendary item: the Tear of Ignarion. These items appeared only at each lunar cycle in the game and were protected by dungeons that were almost impossible to beat.
But FatalPrincess already had them all.
Not officially, of course. Using multiple ghost accounts and exploiting vulnerabilities in the marketplace system, she was able to acquire the guild's own Tears. He created fake logs with the names of Nhyr members, tampered with combat information on Odin's internal servers, and left clues carefully planted in the guild's shared files.
In the end, everything led to believe that Nhyr had betrayed the peace treaties.
During a meeting of Odin's leadership, she presented the "data".
"These records show that the Nhyr subfaction broke into two of our dungeons and extracted all the key items. As a result, we lost four entire events.
"This... this is an open attack," said DuckManco, clenching his fists.
"Exactly. I recommend... war.
The meeting with Nhyr took place in a large digital arena, where leaders of both guilds appeared with their avatars wearing ceremonial attire. The floor was white stone and blue flames burned in the surrounding braziers.
FatalPrincess was in the center along with Limpduck and the members of the Nhyr Guild, all surrounded by elite knights on either side.
On the other side, SinFonyr, leader of Nhyr, with a frustrated expression.
"I've said before, we didn't invade any territory. This dungeon story is forged.
"Forged?" She said, in a calm and noble tone. "Tell that to the war orphans who won't see their dragons resurrected this season.
"Dude, for God's sake..." muttered SilenceKiller, Nhyr's deputy leader. "There are people here who will lose their jobs because of this fight.
"So be it," replied FatalPrincess, with glacial coldness. "They will have lost something fighting for justice and defending their homes from heretical invaders and dungeon desecrators.
"As my deputy leader said, there will be no peace, you took our tears and now we are going to take your leather. - Said DuckManco
The war lasted four days and four nights. Gamers around the world camped out in front of PCs. Keyboards broke. Relationships are over. People were fired. But in the end, Odin won.
67,000 Odin players waged a historic war defeating 228,000 Nhyr players, making this event the largest Roadkill in the history of Modern RPGs.
Absolute victory.
The new empire that emerged from the forced merger of the two guilds was named the Sovereign Empire. And FatalPrincess, now at the top of the game, possessed the loyalty—or fear—of nearly 300,000 players.
Back in the real world, the man laughed, exhausted, his eyes fixed on an already empty energy drink bottle next to the keyboard.
"That was... beautiful.
A chat flashed.
[PM] PatoManco: We have come far, haven't we? [PM] PatoManco: You know... I wanted to meet you one of these days. I think we have a good connection, you know?
The man froze.
"Oh... drug.
[PM] FatalPrincess: I apologize... This is not the right time for personal conversations. [PM] FatalPrincess: I need to be away... urgent matters demand my attention.
And he left the game.
The body screamed. His back seemed broken, his eyes burned, the result of a long crusade of 4 days in a row in front of a computer screen living only on coffee and ramen noodles. He went to the fridge, got more energy drinks, drank straight from the bottle.
Looking quickly at the time he noticed that soon he would have to go to work, he then went to the bathroom and took off the underwear used for 4 days, turned on the shower. The hot water hit his face.
It was then that a strange feeling ran through her body.
A dizziness. Heart racing. World spinning.
"Shit... What the hell is this? 'M... Dying?
He then tried to leave the pits, however, he slipped.
The ground approached like a divine slap.
"But... I was happy... Damn it, my empire. I didn't even finish the Ques—
A feeling of hugging all over my body, a warmth that soon became a wet cold, it was all so strange, everything was dark.
Suddenly a Light, very strong.
Voices. Screams.
Warm touch on icy skin.
- Mr. Bishop! She opened her eyes! Healthy... they are golden!
"It's a miracle," the bishop said, tears in his eyes. "A child blessed by heaven.
"Her?"
The world turned again. The bishop would then hand the child over to the mother and in turn the child would look at his mother, a beautiful woman with green eyes and hair as black as the night sky who had a happy and somewhat tired face.
"She's beautiful... my lotus flower. - Said the Woman as she held the child.
The man's mind screamed.
"EEEEH?!"
"What name do you want to give her, miss?" - asked the Bishop.
The woman was thoughtful for a few moments until her eyes filled with sparkle.
"Your father is on a long mission in a place far away from here, but we came to a consensus that you would inherit a name given by me, so you will be called Elyandra..." Elyandra Valemortis. - Said the Woman as she hugged the Child.
"NO. NO. NO, I'M A MAN!
But all that came out was the faint cry of a newborn.
And so, the legend of FatalPrincess is reborn. No longer as an avatar. But like Elyandra. A child with a mind straight from another world blessed by an unknown Goddess.