Shadow King

Nice to meet you! This is a work I encountered during a children's literature lecture in college... It's a time-slip story. The "story of going and returning" type. The main plot is about a boy who time-slips and meets Shakespeare. ...However. What surprised me wasn't so much *how* he time-slips, but rather... "why did he need to time-slip in the first place?" While many works feature time travel happening "by chance" (which can also be interesting), this one has a solid reason for it. It's less about the "protagonist's central role" and more about the result of "history's grand will" at play. When I found out, I exclaimed, "Wait, *that's* why!?" My theory is that originally, this story was probably "the world seen from the perspective of a supporting character in another story."