"Riven, why does that sound so familiar?" Luke asked.
He was certain that he had seen that name somewhere, he racked his brains to remember who Riven was, and finally, it clicked.
"Riven Von Grave," he said, the name that came to his mind. "This has to be a joke," he said. He got up from his bed and walked to the mirror beside his cupboard.
His head throbbed after every step he took, but he still pushed to the mirror. He stood in front of it, and his reflection shocked him.
He was in the body of a thirteen-year-old boy, with coffee brown hair and eyes. He had a skinny body, which hinted at the fact that he didn't do any sort of hard work.
Luke stared at himself in the mirror, finding it difficult to believe that this was him right now. Did he really wake up inside a story?
The last thing he recalled before this was writing a review and receiving a threat from the author of Hero's Obsessed Harem.
"The threat... it can't be," Luke still didn't want to believe that the author somehow put him inside the novel, but everything felt so real. It couldn't be a dream or a hallucination.
"This doesn't make sense. It's not possible," Luke said, trying to find a plausible explanation, but then he recalled that this was exactly what the MC felt when he woke up in the new world.
"So this is real? I'm really in the story." Luke slowly came to the realization that he was actually inside the novel as an Extra, Riven Von Grave.
He recalled who Riven Von Grave was. He was the fourth son of the Grave baron family. Riven only made an appearance in the first and second volume of the series.
Riven was the favorite grandson of their grandfather, and when he was a child, his grandfather made a deal with three dukes. They were friends, the three dukes and Riven's grandfather, so they offered to allow their granddaughters to marry Riven when they came of age, and so the engagement was set.
But Riven grew to become a waste of a son. He was overshadowed by his elder brothers and sisters, so he never tried to do anything. He allowed himself to become useless, just living.
This character made many despise him, seeing him as the waste of the Grave family. Even his father stopped talking to him, seeing him as a disgrace. His fiancées, whom he only met once before, also despised him. His life was a mess.
"Of all characters to be, it had to be a wasted noble," Riven said. He scratched his head as he thought about his current situation.
The maid, who had gone to prepare a bath for him, finally came out of the bathroom. She bowed and spoke. "Young master, I have prepared your bath," she said, and was about to go.
"Thank you," Riven said. The maid paused and looked back in shock. She realized what she did and immediately scurried out of the room.
"Seriously? I was that big a piece of shit? I can't believe me saying thank you shocked her," Riven said. He walked to the bathroom. A wooden bath was filled with water, waiting for him.
He undressed himself and got into the bath. The warm water flowed over his body, relaxing his muscles and easing the tension. It felt comforting, like a gentle embrace, soothing his throbbing head as well.
There was a bar of soap at the edge of the bath. It was rough and had a strong, earthy smell. He used it to wash his body, but unlike the soap he was used to, this was coarse, the rough texture forcing dirt off his body. The soap didn't foam or form lather, it was just rubbed over his body.
He spent a few minutes in the bath before getting out. He got into the room and opened his cupboard, where a towel was neatly folded inside, along with a large stack of different clothes for different occasions.
He picked the towel and cleaned himself quickly before picking out a simple white shirt and black trousers. He put on his underwear and then wore his clothes.
There was a set of boots and shoes close to his bed. He picked a black boot and slipped his feet into the shoes.
He sat down on the bed and leaned forward, with his hands clasped together. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he was inside a novel, and he was a character who died at the end of volume two. What sort of luck was that?
"Freezing Fish, I don't know how you did it, but I'm not going to follow your plot. I'm not going to allow myself to die, not in a thousand years," Riven said.
He wasn't going to allow himself to become a casualty of the plot. He was going to change the destiny of Riven Von Grave. He didn't want Frozen Fish to have a laugh at him, and he wasn't going to regret posting the review.
"You know what, Frozen Fish? Your story sucks, sucks really bad, and I'm going to fix it myself, since you couldn't make it good yourself," Riven said.
He got up from the bed and walked to the door. He took a deep breath and walked out of the room.