NOVEL NEXT 1- From office worker and gamer to side character in an otome game
Earth. Present Day.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Elisa exclaimed when she read on screen that Alistair wanted to take her to the end-of-term ball.
"What's wrong?" came her friend Beatrice's voice through her headset.
Pink headset, by the way. She didn't like being compared to other girl gamers, especially in LoL, where the term was usually derogatory. But she liked her pink headset and wasn't going to change it for anyone.
They were playing Ilisea Kingdom and Hearth, an otome that had launched a month ago and that her best friend was obsessed with. Seriously, she'd played through it countless times trying out different protagonists. And Elisa still didn't know how she'd let herself get talked into trying it.
"Just for some laughs together", Beatrice had said.
And she, who was all about LoL and MMORPGs, had let herself get convinced to spend time every night with her friend, to listen to her ramble about routes and characters, because she missed having her around.
Just like she missed her city and her parents.
"I screwed up," she explained. "I just entered the romantic route for the brainless redhead."
"Hey! Alistair is strong, like that guy from last summer," Beatrice protested, pretending to be offended.
"Yeah, right, and because of his wonderful 'muscles' you lasted with him... how long was it... a week?"
"Six days and five hours," she muttered.
"Please, you did nothing but complain that all he could talk about was the gym and protein shakes."
Elisa heard her laugh.
"Fine, but that doesn't make Alistair's route any less fun. Seduction, my dear. That's what's interesting."
"Yeah, I guess..."
Elisa thought her friend applied that pretty effectively in real life since her boyfriends never lasted too long—she got bored with them quickly. In that regard, the two of them were nothing alike. Maybe that's why they got along so well.
But this damn otome... Elisa thought. I want a guild, new lands and a new world to discover, masteries to learn and stat points to raise. And if I could build or farm on top of that, it'd be perfect.
But no, here I am in this fucking otome interacting with boys at an academy (like I'm back in college) and competing with the villainess. Total snoozefest. If it weren't for Beatrice, I never would've bought this thing.
Elisa was playing as Mary, the typical commoner blessed at birth with rare magic and thus invited to the Royal Academy of Magic and Combat. Of course, right away the prince and his group of smoking hot friends took her under their wing.
"Come on, say yes, tell him you'll go to the ball with him," her friend urged her on.
"No way. Since apparently all I do in this game is talk, at least I'm going to the ball with a guy who has more conversation than how well he handles his sword."
"Hahaha," Beatrice took it out of context. "You wish you could find one like that in real life. As long as he's not all talk and actually delivers."
Elisa blushed, even though she wasn't even in the same room as her friend. Beatrice had no filter and loved both saying outrageous things and messing with Elisa's nonexistent love life. Elisa's excuse? She had a 9-to-5 job.
"You're evil," she whispered into the mic.
"And you adore me."
"Fine, but I'm rejecting this guy."
"I will not give up on you, Mary. I will achieve a feat that makes me worthy of your heart" appeared as dialogue text on screen while melodramatic music played, making Elisa cringe.
On top of that, the game gave her the option to use charm points on Alistair, the guy she'd just rejected.
Oh my God... she thought. Now I see why Beatrice likes this. I can reject him and increase his interest in me while I go to the ball with someone else. This is totally Beatrice.
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"Do you have points to spend?"
"I'm not gonna."
"Okay, don't get mad. Look, I just unlocked the prince's romantic route. I've got Sol fuming. Let's see if I can get her expelled from the academy."
"How do I get to a dungeon? I went to that slime one with Karina and so far that's been the most interesting part."
"Because Theodore confessed to you there?"
"Because I burned them with fire magic and leveled up. By the way, the stat values in this game are really low. And that thing about not being able to go past level 20..."
"Says the LoL player."
"Don't make fun of me."
"Elisa, I'm telling you again, relax, loosen up a bit. Have the nerve to tell me your heart didn't skip a beat even a little when Alistair asked you to the ball."
"Fuck off! I'm not that desperate," Elisa snapped.
Her friend burst out laughing and she decided she was done playing for the day. Tomorrow was a work day and what time was it anyway, past midnight?
She said goodbye and went to bed. But that damn otome... She couldn't get it out of her head.
Ilisea Kingdom and Hearth. Bianca.
The first coherent thought I have when I wake up is that something is totally fucked.
For starters, this isn't my bed. My mattress is hard, with springs that creak every time I move. This one is soft and doesn't make the slightest sound. The sheets covering me aren't mine either. They feel like silk and smell like lavender instead of my discount fabric softener.
I sit up slowly, blinking to focus my vision, and what I see throws me completely.
The room is huge. Probably three times the size of my studio apartment. The walls are covered with tapestries embroidered in gold and navy blue, and there's a carved dark wood desk that must cost more than six months of my salary. A stone fireplace takes up an entire wall, with ash remains suggesting a fire burned there last night. Tall windows with leaded glass let in golden light that looks nothing like what filters through the cheap blinds in my apartment.
"Okay," I mutter, and my voice sounds weird. Higher than normal. "Okay, this is..."
I bring my hands to my face and freeze. These aren't my hands. They're smaller, paler, with perfectly manicured nails. Nothing like mine, which are short and sometimes even bitten. The fingers are slender and elegant, like someone who's never had to write reports and emails for more than eight hours straight or carry weekly groceries up the stairs.
Panic starts crawling up my chest like a poisonous spider.
I jump up and frantically look for a mirror. I find one on a vanity that looks straight out of Versailles—all gold marquetry and crystal handles—and what I see in it nearly gives me a heart attack.
I'm not me.
Or rather, I'm still me on the inside, but on the outside... On the outside, I'm someone else entirely. A young girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with brown hair pulled back in an elaborate braid that must have taken hours to do. Her eyes are a pretty light blue. Her face has that graceful, noble beauty you'd expect from old aristocratic bloodlines.
"This can't be fucking real," I whisper, because I recognize that face.
It's Bianca. Bianca L'Crom, daughter of Count L'Crom. One of the secondary antagonists from Ilisea Kingdom and Hearth.
For a moment, I just stand there, staring at my reflection like an idiot. Waiting for any second now to wake up for real, in my bed, which will be uncomfortable but mine, with my normal face and my boring but predictable life. But it doesn't happen. Minutes stretch on and I'm still a noblewoman in a room that looks like it came from a medieval castle.
I feel like screaming, but if I do I don't know what might happen, who might be on the other side of the door. I realize I'm clenching my fists when I feel my nails digging into my hands. If I'm hyperventilating... I slap myself to see if I snap out of it and focus on breathing slower and deeper. After a few minutes, I manage to transform the initial panic into something more methodical.
Yeah, this is what happens when you play too many MMORPGs: you develop an adaptability that borders on pathological.
Okay. Let's break this down. Data. I need data.
Because it certainly doesn't seem like I'm still asleep.
Name: Elisa (or should I say Bianca?). Twenty-four years old, computer science degree, practically nonexistent social life since I moved for work. Last night I went to bed after playing that damn otome with Beatrice. I remember staying up really late, frustrated with Alistair's romantic route and complaining that the game didn't have decent dungeons.
And now I'm here. In Bianca L'Crom's body, in what appears to be her room in the family mansion.
The irony is so bitter it makes me want to laugh. If someone had told me I'd end up trapped in a video game, I would've bet on any RPG where I could level up killing monsters. But no. Nothing like the games I enjoy, where I can be ridiculously competitive. No... It had to be the fucking otome. The game about lovesick schoolgirls and melodramatic romance that I've only played a few times and only to keep my best friend company.
Yeah, I let out a bitter laugh.
Because on top of that, I'm not even the heroine. I'm not Mary, the commoner with special magic who manages to charm everyone she meets.
Am I at least a powerful mage or warrior? If only...
I'm more like a villainess. But not even a classy one—the kind you watch with your mouth hanging open as she dazzles you with her beauty and her cold heart, capable of hatching impossible schemes and carrying them out without breaking a sweat. No... More like one of the mindless ones without personality who laugh at that villainess's sister's jokes.
I didn't even get the glamour of being the main villain.
"I'm Bianca. Now I'm Bianca," I whisper to myself, as if that's going to make it as real to my mind as it already is to my body. "One of Sol's dumb lackeys. A rich girl with no personality of her own."
Am I really going to accept this shit? Am I losing it?
"This is fucked up!" I exclaim, using the same expression I would have used in my previous life.
And I scream. I let out a shriek loaded with frustration because I can't take it anymore.
But yelling at the mirror isn't going to change anything. And if there's one thing I've learned in my years of gaming, it's that when you get dealt a shit hand, you can cry and give up, or you can find a way to win anyway.
Though honestly, right now I don't have the slightest idea how you win when you're trapped in the body of a minor villainess in a world where the only thing that matters is who you're taking to the end-of-term ball.