"The Legend of Saint Marta" opens amid the scent of bread baking in a borderland oven in Ovendo. When pastry chef Buluoke is adjusting the hazelnut cream ratio for the 113th time, a group of unexpected visitors, clad in starlight, arrives at her shop and declares that she is the lost bloodline of the regent. With a scepter to save the world and a royal decree placed at her sugar-dusted fingertips, this girl, raised among sacks of flour, doesn't even have the chance to shut her door on her guests. When a black magic incident ensnares her younger brother, Brook, the hangman's noose forces her to don the crown that is rightfully hers. And so this destiny, wrapped in the scent of cream-filled bread, rolls along dew-damp wagon tracks toward the beleaguered royal city.
This "ensemble story told from the heroine's perspective," under the author's capricious habit of periodically stopping updates, gradually became what readers called a "neither fish nor fowl." Some mocked it as a puppet show disguised as a story about a powerful heroine. Others joked that it read like "The Oral History of Saint Marta's Survivors." Still more meticulous readers pointed out that the characters died at a rate rivaling church cemeteries during the Black Death. Were it not for the protagonist's plot armor, the heroine would probably have ended up as a sacrificial offering on the altar long ago.
Compared to the turbulent main plot, Elsi's story arc is like a silent film on repeat. Even with a bloodline curse to bear and ties to many popular characters, this princess's fiance leads a life so bland that readers nod off. Whenever the plot needs an emotional climax, he appears like a standard fixture at a medieval execution ground. Before the audience can work up any tears, he has already turned into a hastily sketched silhouette in the background. By contrast, his childhood friend Suoxi has crossed time and space to save him several times. Sadly, under the author's chaotic setting about fragmented souls, this tragic one-sided devotion ultimately comes to nothing.
Only when this "tool character" notices that the world is changing does he luck into a place in the main plot, squeezing into the welcoming party for the heroine as a human backdrop.
|| Interdimensional Ad Break (Serious Face) ||
When an electronic voice came through the rift in time and space, Elsi was searching for his next soul fragment:
[Want to unlock a character's hidden story?]
[The Saint Marta Popularity Poll is underway!]
[The top five characters will unlock a special side story based on an afternoon tea set.]
[Log in to the Magic Web and follow @SaintMartaOfficialBirdcage. Spend money to give your favorite character a future!]
[Every silver coin rewrites the character's book of life and death.]
[Preorders are open for the limited-edition character book. Survival rates are directly proportional to sales.]
Elsi's quill carved deep marks into the parchment: "***************." (Stop, Elsi, you're acting out of character.)
|| Reading Notice ||
● A fictional Western fantasy continent. Please don't project the real world's worldview onto it.
● Absolutely no romance in the main plot. Do not interpret the protagonist in any romantic pairing.
● Supporting characters have CPs.
● The story includes some forum-style sections, but not many, and they don't affect the main story.
|| About the Protagonist ||
● Secret identity: Appears relatively late.
● Roleplaying rules: Completely immersive acting (no out-of-character behavior).
● Elsi does unilaterally put other characters down.
...More to be added...
Thank you for your support if you're okay with all of the above.
This is my first time writing, so I may revise the story from time to time.
Theme: At some point, fate always folds the path of life into a fork in the road
