CH 1

Three monitors were set up side by side. He was using them for video editing, along with his keyboard and mouse.

The main monitor in the middle displayed a still image captured from a video game.

The image showed an illustration of a beautiful girl with shiny golden hair, glittering emerald eyes, and pushed-up breasts. She was dressed as a knight, but her clothes were fringed with tassels, and her collar was raised high around her neck. The bottom third of the image was taken up by a text box.

Don’t worry. I have faith that we’ll get married, one day. Will you please wait for me, just a little bit?…

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The Crown Prince Route.

The Crown Prince marries his fiancée, Diana, but the marriage is only on paper, and loveless.  Before their day of betrothal has even ended, he gives her away to an aristocrat that is 40 years his senior. Her official marriage to the Crown Prince, as well as the informal marriage to this aristocrat, can remain secrets as long as they are not declared to the public. The Crown Prince ends up proposing to the female protagonist of the Otome game, and they lived happily ever after.

The Paladin Route.

The protagonist arrives at the Magical Forest with her troop of comrades to vanquish a magical demon. These knights-in-training will be recognized as true knights if they return from the forest with proof that they defeated a demon. If the demon is vanquished, one of the knights-in-training fighting beside the protagonist will gain the courage to propose to her. Diana, joining the troop, gets taken over by the soul of an ancient sorcerer. The protagonist and the knight-in-training work together to defeat her. They take home a magical stone that emerges from Diana’s dead body, and the young knight-in-training becomes a true knight, at last. He then proposes to the protagonist.

The Assassin Route.

Getting into an argument with someone. Bumping shoulders with someone. Someone stepping on his foot during dance class. These minor infractions against the assassin are all reason enough for him to kill the offenders. After killing all of the enemies that arise in the game, including the protagonist’s rival, Diana, the assassin proposes to the protagonist amid a pool of blood.

The Elder Duke Route.

Diana and her older brother have a rocky relationship. Unlike Diana, the protagonist is kind and gentle. The duke falls in love with the protagonist, but he cannot marry her due to their difference in social status. He then becomes a commoner and marries the protagonist. The former duke demonstrates his talents and raises the protagonist’s family status, finding out what true familial love is, along the way. Diana is forced to cancel her marriage to the Royal Crown Prince because her brother has left the family and the Duchy has lost its heir. She then marries a young relative. However, as this relative was already living with the love of his life, Diana ends up in a terrible loveless marriage.

The Younger Suitor Route.

The Mage Classmate Route.

The Teacher Route.

The Secondborn Prince of a Neighboring Nation Route.

No matter which Route was taken, the protagonist ended up living happily ever after, while her rival, Diana, was left in sorrow. Every time the game was finished, at the end of every possible Route, Diana met a disastrous end.[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

At first, it could be laughed off with a “That’s what happens to rivals in an Otome game, ya loser! LOLLL!”, but the idea of Diana’s unfortunate fate got darker and darker as time went on.

Throughout the game, the player controlled the protagonist character, and the character behaved as a protagonist should. Diana was always getting in the way of reaching the game’s checkpoints, and it felt good to see her get destroyed.

After replaying the game over and over, though, it began to feel like the game was a bit harsh on her.  He would think to himself, “They didn’t need to go that far, did they?” It started getting painful to watch. He couldn’t help but think, “She actually didn’t really do anything to deserve all that.”

Diana, without fail, always ended up in torturous situations orchestrated by the bad-guy characters in the game. The protagonist, though, was also always indirectly leading her to her demise.

While editing the gameplay footage down, he was forced to watch Diana’s last moments, over and over again. Afterward, the protagonist and her beautiful friends would cuddle up close to each other, smiling and laughing away.

“…Why? …Why’s it like this?”

The man before the monitor just wanted to upload a Let’s Play video entitled “Guy Tries Out an Otome Game!” to gain some views for his channel. Now, he sat there, hanging his head, clenching his fists.