Zayne climbed out of bed, put on his pajama pants which Luna threw to the floor last night, then ambled out of the room.

"--!--!" As he passed by the room he spent his seclusion in for the past two days, he heard a voice from within.

'Oh, she's milking her simps...' Zayne inwardly remarked as he quietly walked to head to their open concept dining room. Which was just a fancy way to say that your dining room had a kitchen built into it.

'She's been doing well as a Vtuber. She might surpass me in income soon, especially when she graduates and becomes a chef.'

Between her college student duties, chores, and general couple stuff, Luna also streamed as a Vtuber. She had quite a large amount of loyal followers, despite only using her voice.

'What was it again... they said her voice "made blood rush into my head" and "made my soul shake in pleasure"...' Zayne recalled all the various comments about her. Most of them were variations of 'sexy' or 'hypnotic'. He did admit that she had a good speaking voice, but he didn't understand all these comments. 'Well, maybe I'm just too used to her.'

Zayne trembled at the money they could potentially gain if Luna showed off her face. Or even just her clothed body. Hell, just the silhouette would probably cause her subscribers to increase their dominant arm's muscle mass.

'Well, that's never going to happen though.'

Setting aside the fact that he would never allow it, Luna didn't want too much fame either. Not only did she dislike getting attention when she was in public — which would only increase if she became famous — but she also didn't want her family to know where she was. She wanted to lay low as much as possible.

Zayne finally made it to the kitchen and found a meal spread out for him on the table. Each plate had a plastic wrap over it, but the lingering scent in the kitchen reminded him of his empty stomach.

"Let's dig in~." he happily sat down and started shoving the food into his mouth.

As an aspiring chef, anything Luna made was at least at a decent level, while being incredible most of the time. Despite growing up in a poor family, Zayne now had a palate that only the upper crust possessed.

While Zayne cleaned up after eating, he noted how much extra effort Luna put into today's meal. Even though they normally ate well, today seemed to be special.

"Geez. She's always like this when she knows she had a panic attack..."

Shaking his head, Zayne started washing the dishes. Afterward, he went back to the bedroom and took out his phone.

He wanted to get some writing done, but since his lover was currently using the computer to earn them some money, he'd have to set it aside for now.

It was the perfect excuse to goof off and do nothing.

Zayne took a look at the website where he posted the free chapters. As usual, comments on his web novel were about eighty percent positive and twenty percent negative. He sent a little reply, thanking all the readers, then read all the little hater comments he got.

How would those haters react if they knew Zayne's reaction to their comments was to sneer?

'Fools. Don't you know that your comments fuel the algorithm? You give power to the very thing that you despise!'

"Let's see... wonder what my patrons think of the ending?" he brought up the comment section for the chapter he posted yesterday and saw that it was also predominantly favorable.

There were a few people threatening him with pitchforks and knife emojis, demanding that he add an after story. Some were saying that they wanted more sex scenes in the after-story that he should write. And despite being a minority amongst the minority, some were also expressing their desire for more romance in the after-story that — again — he must release.

The pressure to make an after-story was palpable, to say the least.

However, the majority of his patrons just expressed their satisfaction at the bloody and very violent ending, which felt like an homage to his novel's roots.

"Hm. I should comment back to a few of these..."

For the next hour, Zayne spent his time typing out replies to his patrons. After he'd responded to every single one, he yawned as he stretched out his stiff back.

"Whoo! Alright, that should be it." Zayne smiled in satisfaction but then noticed a familiar username attached to a donation. "Oh, it's them!"

He had a lot of people who donated to him, but there was one who seemed like they loathed money. The person kept donating thousands of dollars to him whenever the story reached a milestone or whenever a particularly villainous villain was defeated. They would give even more money if he made the baddie's death really bloody and gruesome.

Honestly, throughout writing his novel, Zayne was tempted to just make every villain's death grisly and gory because of this. He was also tempted to delay the end of his novel.

It was all because of this person who threw so much money at him.

However, Zayne didn't start writing for the riches.

It was great, sure. They helped pay the bills, gave him funds to bring Luna out on nice dates, and buy her some nice stuff from time to time. They also helped fuel his mild gacha addiction.

But his primary reason for why he started putting words onto the page was so that he could become a good author who wrote good stories.

So, he was going to write whatever he thought was good.

Although, he wished that that person would keep liking his work and throwing money at him. He really really wanted that person to keep donating. It made life so much easier.

And that person likely donated a large sum of money to him again. Zayne put his hands together and prayed to that person for a moment, then respectfully opened up the email.

"Holy sh-sh-shit..." Zayne gulped at the amount shown on the screen. [Akasha's Archiver] would usually donate in increments of a thousand dollars, sometimes donating ten thousand when he liked a certain antagonist's death. The accumulated wealth Zayne had obtained from this person already surpassed a few million, but he'd never gotten so much in one go.

"Is this s-s-some kind of joke...? They won't ask for a refund will they?"

Zayne looked at the message attached to the donation.

"Haha... they sound like an awkward fangirl or something..." Zayne smiled warmly at the message. This person always sent encouraging messages attached to each donation. No author disliked being told that someone liked their work, so the messages naturally shot his mood up high into the sky. "A suggestion, huh..."

It was true that he didn't really have any concrete plans. His 'plans' amounted to some vague thoughts and desires.

"Hm..." Zayne's brows furrowed as he tapped his chin with his finger. Although the suggestion wasn't specified yet, it was implied that it'd be a pain in the ass. But, it came from someone who'd donated so much to him.

Even though Archiver mentioned that Zayne shouldn't feel obliged to agree, he couldn't help but feel obligated to do so.

When Zayne and Luna eloped, the money Zayne got from their donations helped them out a lot. Without the money Archiver sent, Zayne would've had to continue his shadier gigs just to make a living for him and Luna.

The money also freed him of worries about their livelihood, allowing him time to research various things, practice his writing, and edit his work multiple times. He even found the time to develop his skills in drawing and develop hobbies.

Eventually, he was even able to send Luna to college, rent a good apartment, and buy a car — albeit, a used one.

All of these were caused by [Akasha's Archiver]'s support.

So, if someone asked Zayne if he felt obligated, he would nod vigorously and shout 'Yes!' at the top of his lungs.

"Well, sure. I'll bite." Zayne muttered to himself as he DMed them on discord, saying that he welcomed the suggestion. "I'll at least hear him out."

'Even if it's troublesome, I'll still do it. As thanks.' he decided. 'That million dollars will last us for a long time anyway.'

Zayne didn't have to wait long for a reply.

"Huh..." Zayne took a while to process what he'd just read. After rereading the message a few times, he stroked his chin while humming in thought. "Getting reincarnated into my own novel, huh..."

Zayne's first reaction to this idea, was wishing it would never actually come true. The first arc of his novel was written while he was having a rough time in real life, so he'd poured all his frustrations into his writing.

Needless to say, it was dark.

Zayne just made his protagonist suffer endlessly, as if the fictional character's suffering made his real-life better.

But then, he started thinking about the concept positively.

He was aware that there were plenty of novels where people get reincarnated into a novel.

But those stories, in pursuit of uniqueness, would reincarnate the main character as a mob, a monster, the villain/villainess, or maybe even the mom.

Thinking about this, choosing a zany character's body to be reincarnated into has become the norm. Ironically, Zayne wasn't aware of any stories where the protagonist was reincarnated into the body of the novel's protagonist.

The concept was unique enough to stir Zayne's heart.

There was even the added conflict of being reincarnated into the body of the protagonist of a Dark Fantasy novel.

Usually, the MC would be in a dilemma, because they were reincarnated as the villain of the story. Hence, they were in danger of being killed by that story's hero character.

Other times, they would be reincarnated into someone really weak, so they would be in danger of not surviving some sort of apocalyptic event.

But in this case, being reincarnated into the body of [Grant's Merry Adventures in Garrotia]'s protagonist was the dilemma, since his life was much worse than ordinary people's.

Furthermore, the story's world also had an apocalyptic event. So there were tons of difficulties ahead.

Zayne's sadistic tendencies made him like this story concept very much.

But then he remembered that it was him being reincarnated. Even if it was a fictional version of himself, he wasn't quite sure whether to like the idea or not.

Certainly, it would make it easier to write, since he wouldn't have to empathize with the MC. He was the MC after all. But still... it wouldn't hurt to give his fictional self a few power-ups.

In any case, the concept was interesting. Furthermore, he even owed Archiver a lot for their help, so Zayne decided to go with the idea.

He spent the next ten minutes composing a reply, thanking him for the concept and all his help in the past few years and mentioning some concerns he had with the novel.

Once he was done, Zayne read through it thorougly before pressing send.