Planned Release Date: 2027

About This Game

Don’t Just Finish the Story. See Through Every Line.

In most visual novels, what a character says is all the player gets.

Are they lying?
What do they truly want?
Why have they suddenly started treating you kindly?
What is really hidden behind that seemingly harmless remark?

Usually, you have to wait for the story to reveal the answers.

But in The Bastard Who Rewrote the Empire, every line of dialogue can become a doorway.

You can accept the version a character gives you—or spend a limited ability use to uncover the other truths buried beneath their words.

Dialogue no longer has only one interpretation.

A single line can be read in five different ways.

One Line. Four Ways to Dig Deeper.

When someone tells you:

“Please believe me. I never wanted to hurt you.”

You can choose to do nothing and take their words at face value.

Or you can activate one of four different abilities.

Mind Reading

Peer directly into the thoughts they never say aloud.

They may apologize while secretly trembling with fear.
They may appear loyal while plotting how to use you.
They may act as though nothing is wrong while already falling apart inside.

What a character says and what they think may tell two entirely different stories.

True Intent

Turn emotions and intentions into readable intelligence.

You can examine:

• The Lie Value of a line;

• The character’s current Favorability toward you;

• The true intention behind their words.

A tender promise may be ninety percent false.

A cold rejection may come from someone who simply refuses to put you in danger.

Numbers can expose the performance on the surface, but they may not fully explain why someone chose to lie.

Appraisal

Read a character’s identity, background, and hidden profile, or analyze an item’s value, composition, and purpose.

An unremarkable servant may possess a family background that should not exist.
An ordinary bottle of wine may contain an ingredient capable of changing the outcome of a trial.
A seemingly worthless object may become the key to turning the entire situation around.

Some lies are hidden in words.

Others are hidden in identities and objects.

X-Ray Vision

See through the clothes a character is currently wearing, or through the first layer obscuring whatever stands before you.

It can be a tool for uncovering secrets—or simply a way of satisfying a curiosity you should never have indulged.

You may discover something that was deliberately concealed.

Or perhaps, after gaining this power, you will simply begin crossing boundaries you never would have crossed before.

When you possess the power to peer at anyone, the real question is no longer what you can see.

It is:

When will you choose to stop?

You Cannot See Through Everyone

Your abilities are not unlimited.

You must obtain additional uses through the in-game shop and decide which person is worth investigating, which line deserves a closer look, and which secret might truly change the situation.

When the queen threatens you, will you check her Lie Value first—or read her mind?

When a companion promises to stay and protect you, will you trust her, or spend a precious ability use on her?

When someone tells an obvious lie, will you spend one of your limited chances to discover why they lied?

You cannot know every truth.

That means choosing what not to know is just as important.

The Same Scene Can Offer a Completely Different Reading Experience

On your first playthrough, you may spend every ability on your political enemies, trying to discover who is plotting against you.

On another playthrough, you can turn your attention toward your companions and uncover the fears, desires, guilt, and secrets they never voiced aloud.

Without the truth, a line may sound like a promise.
After seeing its Lie Value, it may become a test.
After reading the speaker’s thoughts, it may become a desperate plea for help.

Even when the scene remains the same, the information you possess, the way you understand each character, and your reasons for making a choice can be completely different.

The Bastard Who Rewrote the Empire does not simply ask you to replay the same story.

It lets you discover, on a second reading, another story that was there all along—one you never saw the first time.

After Death, You Become Hell’s Most Anticipated Star

An ordinary man from Hong Kong dies and is chosen by HELL TV, the broadcasting network of the underworld.

He is not sent to Heaven.

Nor is he cast straight into Hell.

He is sent into a show.

After becoming Lucien, the kingdom’s bastard prince, the first thing he awakens to is his own trial and impending execution.

Someone has accused him of poisoning the crown prince.
The queen wants him silenced forever.
The Church is searching for a weakness it can exploit.
Every companion by his side hides a secret they cannot confess.

Beyond that world, the audience in Hell watches his every move through their screens.

He has only thirty days.

Within those thirty days, he must use the abilities granted to him by the underworld to see through lies, gather secrets, and build alliances—transforming himself from a bastard awaiting execution into someone capable of shaking the entire kingdom.

Because Hell has never wanted to watch a man live peacefully.

Hell wants a twist.

When the Human Heart Becomes a Number, Can You Still Trust Anyone?

Lies can be displayed as percentages.

Feelings can become Favorability scores.

A person’s identity, value, and desires can all be analyzed through your abilities.

These powers allow Lucien to escape one death trap after another.

They also allow a man who could never control his own fate in life to experience, for the first time, the intoxicating feeling of having power over others.

At first, he only wants to survive.

Later, he begins to enjoy seeing through people.

When someone can know who is lying, who likes him, who is afraid—and even peer into everything another person refuses to reveal—

Is he using a system that can save him?

Or a power that is slowly becoming addictive?

The numbers you see may all be true.

But do those numbers represent the whole truth of a human being?

Key Features

A Five-in-One Dialogue Experience

Every line retains its original meaning while offering four additional interpretations through your abilities.

You Decide How Deeply to Read

Not every secret is revealed automatically. You must decide which character and which line of dialogue are worth investigating.

Four Abilities, Four Kinds of Truth

Read minds, judge lies and Favorability, appraise characters and objects, and see through the first layer concealing what lies before you.

A Reading System Built Around Resource Management

Ability uses are limited. Every investigation is a choice about which information matters most.

A Visual Novel Designed to Be Replayed

Use your abilities on different characters to uncover entirely different stories hidden behind the same scenes.

HELL TV × Medieval Court-Intrigue Power Fantasy

Under the gaze of Hell’s audience, survive deadly trials, palace conspiracies, conflicts within the Church, betrayals, and assassination attempts.

Item Appraisal and Duplication

Discover the true purpose of different objects and use the Duplication Bag to create items capable of changing the course of events.

Truth Is Not the Same as Justice

When you can turn the human heart into data, you must also decide how you will use that power.

Will You Believe What They Say—or Look for Yourself at What Lies Beneath Their Words?

In The Bastard Who Rewrote the Empire, reading is not simply a way to receive a story.

Reading itself is your choice.

You are not only deciding what Lucien will say next.

You are also deciding:

How much truth are you willing to see?