Necromancer's Descent

36 - Burdens of the other side

Mia's point of view

I always wished for love. Not some love that would just fade away after ten years, and leave you married housemates that would be happier without each other.

My parents never fought, but the silence at times seemed sufforcating... so already as a young girl I longed for that fairytale ending.

I set my desires high. Handsome, rich, smart athletic, sociable, kind, cool, and most importantly... forever true only to me.

Despite my ridiculously high demands, there was actually one guy in our high school that fulfilled all of those... the only problem was that he already had a girlfriend.

She was beautiful, smart and cool. She really had herself properly put together. The only minus was that she'd come to school with make up clumbsily hiding bruises she got from her poor alcoholic parents. Rumors swirled that he had chosen her partly out of pity, but he remained true to her... I overheard someone ask him why he was with her, when her family like this, and he scolded them, telling them to stop judging a person by their family.

For the first time I doubted whether I was worth him.

So... unsurprisingly, I fell in love with otome games, because they are realistically probably the closest thing you get to perfection when you're just a side character in real life.

Of course I primarily played the routes of those that were my type... but to be honest, the number of otome games were... limited. So I ended up branching out, both in games but also types of capture targets.

I tried out a lot of different game types. Some with vampires, ancient egyptian gods, a terror attack in an amusement park.

There was a lot of different things.

But this one game, had a rather big strategy part to it on top of being an otome visual novel game. So I tried it for a change of pace, and I completed all the base routes and the harem routes multiple times, to get the true ending.

You see, as it was also part a strategy rpg game, you have to manage and level up your romance targets to defeat the demon lord. Go to the correct locations at the right times to stop the demon lord's army from just killing everyone and destroying important regions for the country. Not only that, but each romance target you have above a certain rating gives you bonuses in managing the country, as they use their personal assets to assist you.

The problem is, not all romance targets can agree with each other, so some won't join you if you already have chosen a target from the opposing faction.

To get the ideal ending, you have to get the reverse harem ending, and that ending leaves only about half the country undestroyed.

HALF!

And on top of that you still have to deal with the visual novel part at the academy with love events, bullying by the fiancés and groupies and taking classes op top of that!

I look up from my pillow to Henrietta, who's petting my head lovingly.

She's smiling at me, and spoiling me, being all nice and stuff, but that's just a performance. Unless you make her actually fall in love with you, you're nothing but a tool for her.

Yes, another huge problem with this game is it's love interests. All the stereotypes are horrible! Sadist, creep, arrogant, loves their superior more than you, smile on the outside but actually cruel. The only somewhat normal one is the first prince who just acts cold though he loves you very much.

I sigh on the inside.

At least Henrietta's ending is one of the best ones, and she actually treats you like a person, and the world isn't almost destroyed if you choose her.
Sadly Alexis' route almost destroys everything... because of Claudius.