The 4th Princess Just Wants to Rot!

The first night anywhere is always the worst time to sleep.

Whether it be some foldable bed in some armored train carriage traveling through vast stretches of rail, the cozy bedroom of her paternal grandparents' mansion in northern Hautwarden, or even her own bed after three weeks of forced-parental travel spent in some foreign (six hour train ride away) land.

But this place, in this cavernous room and on that obsidian black floor of stone above three layers of comforters, Sophia Elise actually sleeps quite well for once.

Well, despite the dream that comes to her in this moment of weakness.

"I… I remember you." It comes to her like some vast winter storm, a blizzard through this cold and empty place.

Uh oh. This part of her warns with perhaps a bit too much self-awareness. Get ready, it's judgement time.

Because the first cultural export from central Ensolia was its religion.

Born on the ancient monasteries of Mount Julius and brought down from the peak by an exiled, and later exalted preacher, the faith of the Goddess was something unlike anything the world had seen before.

When this young woman, who was declared a raving madman from the clerics in the mountain's inner sanctums, came with fistfuls of scrolls and the words of a divine inspiration the villagers at the foot of the mountain's corpse listened.

When at the time a majority of these tribal beliefs told tales of ancient ones, of wars between old gods and humanity, came a message not of obedience or the worship of some self-declared prophet but of something more personal.

This was a story of a Goddess who came to the world, who loved the world and the people beneath her, who betrayed her own kind to save humanity in a sacrifice of pure love.

Well, Sophia Elise wasn't feeling quite loved in this critical moment.

She's at the foot of the Goddess now, watching as that faceless form slowly descends in a horrifying ethereal light that blinds her eyes and sears her worldly flesh. This presence of divinity was pure anathema to her soul, her entire being screaming in pain at the arrival of this utterly incomprehensible monster.

But yet there was comfort here.

Through the burns that were cutting through her body, through the light that was searing off her senses came warmth; like a gentle hug from mother as she sang distant lullabies to a young Sophia in the palace garden.

So this was it.

Sophia hoped that she did alright in her twenty one years in this world, that throughout her time within this body of meat, fat and calcium this young woman would be forgiven for all her sins and once again return to the embrace of she who loved first. That in her final breaths, Sophia would…

The voice, soft as the wind through a mountain field of wildflowers, speaks to this lowly ensolian girl. "So you're the one who reads a lot of smut."

Sophia was doomed.

The voice continues, like the rays of warm sun upon her face. "Seriously, I've listened for thousands of years and that amount of smut-trash? Like, wow. I couldn't believe it. I had to double check even."

Sophia has to defend herself, to somehow crawl her way out of this. "I-I can… I can explain…"

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"No, I get it." The voice, like the long drones of ocean waves crashing upon rocks, silences her.

"What?"

The being groans, like a tired parent to a rowdy child. "Girl, please. I literally fell for a human boy. Full package with him—kisses, cuddles, and yes, even the seggs. I get it, cause I got it. From the front and from the back."

Sophia stands utterly shocked, only able to hold her soul together as the voice continues. "So no, I'm not judging you for that; I gave you the language and the capacity to write and read… 'romance' novels with it."

Lightning strikes in the distance, the thunder approaching from a storm cloud forming over rolling plains. "My loving daughter, my dearest Sophia… it's just that I can't get over the fact that 90% of the media you've consumed in your life has been utter trash."

A scroll of pure white silk unfurled, rows and rows of beautiful, unreadable language in the most perfect of writings comes from the hand of this being.

And written on the scroll in that divine script: Death.

"I mean look at this, how could you even stomach reading any of it: Why is My Cheat Skill Just Being Ridiculously Handsome? Garbage, it's just chapter after chapter of smut with no story at all. Reincarnated as a Background NPC, But My Presence is So Overwhelming I Accidentally Became the Final Boss? What could've possessed you to even pick up something with a title like that. And overpowered fantasy makes terrible plots, only idiots love these things. The Duchesses' Forbidden Maid: A Spicy Tale of Love and Laundry? You like this status gap garbage? And this: Reincarnated as a Cat, But My Owner is an Overpowered Clingy Villain! What the hell, what even is that premise?!"

Sophia speaks up. "Ok that last one was pretty good though…"

"It took seven volumes before it became readable."

The Goddess did have a point on that one.

Like rain falling upon leaves, the voice stops just a mere four lines into this scroll that was still unfurling into the voidless abyss below them. "Shall I continue?"

Sophia makes a difficult expression of pain. "N-no need…"

There's a long silence and a sigh from the voice, the long drone of the desert wind flowing as she speaks her next words. "Your mother, she knew about this."

The human soul freezes. "What?!"

"OF COURSE THE FIRST PROPHET KNEW, you think she walked into that mess of a room to talk to you and DIDN'T NOTICE?! Sophia, you just had this stuff just laying around on the floor. Why do you think she was so worried about you?! Half of her prayers were FOR YOU."

Sophia just stares off into the boundless expanse of white before them, as still as a marble statue.

A year, a century, a millennium passes between them before she dares to speak up to this creature of divinity. "Am I dead?"

"No of course not girl, what are you talking about."

"T-Then…"

The Being, the divine, takes the words like the distant clouds upon their parent world of Unudo. "Look. You are in some deep, deep shit alright? I knew from the beginning your entire life was gonna be some sort of absurd political-comedy but this romantic twist has completely thrown it in the dumpster. You were supposed to live your life as a shut-in, single-forever, utter failure to the Elise but look at you now. You're actually girlbossing your way through this mess, even if you absolutely faceplanted your confession of dearest, so pure love to your HUSBAND of all people."

Sophia remembers now, that fuzzy memory returning unwanted as she cringes.

"W-What's happening to me?" She continues to ask.

"Ugh. Um…" Like a bustling street of pedestrians the voice answers gently. "In times long ago your people would call it a revelation. Though, I'm certain now they would call it a hallucination brought by perhaps the deepest sleep you've had in almost three weeks: your delirious imagination triggered by entering a place of faith and creating its own narrative in an attempt at coping with whatever problems you're facing."

"H-huh?"

"Yeah, me too girl." The voice pauses, like a last breath taken from a peaceful soul on their deathbed. "And we were wondering if this donut addiction of yours was actually real or not, but I can see that I was gravely mistaken. You need some help, serious help."

Sophia doesn't answer, can't answer.

So instead she just sits here in a puddle of her own humiliation.