"Well, at least this system was… Neutral enough, who knows what I'll get with whatever assistance was requested and confirmed? And Delphina? I've ended up in Delphina of all characters, truly, I think I'd rather off myself now than play along with her route."
"Is it too late to kill myself? The transmigration status wasn't confirmed, so I might disappear this time if I try it. I'm tired, but I'm not that tired."
"But the system said, 'The World' of Mareveil. That's a good sign. If we think of tropes, I know which one this might fall under. Thank the Gods it's not limited to that shitty adult otome game."
Delphina stood up from the chair, reaching around to flick through the books behind. After finding nothing she was particularly looking for besides some history books she would most certainly be reading later, she headed towards the desk.
Despite the desk and small living room not being separated from the bedroom by any walls, and instead sunk into a conversation pit-like area, they were still clearly well-stocked and maintained.
"There's no way Delphina does this herself; she simply doesn't have the time."
Reaching for some rather expensive pressed paper and a clunky ink pen, Delphina began to write out her thoughts.
The Game: Lovers of Mareveil is being called The World of Mareveil. Probably the trope- this is an alternate reality, not the game/the game was a window into 'The World' that Mareveil makes up.Lovers of Mareveil was a crappy 19-Gold Korean/Japanese collaboration on Western romance in the Fantasy subgenre. But there are clearly steampunk elements here in the actual 'World' of Mareveil.The difficulty for this world is SSS.Delphina dies or goes missing in every game route despite being a Sword Master.Delphina is regarded mainly as the game's villainess despite her lacklustre endings…Avoid the heroine and her boy toys??? But Delphina's twin Pietro is one of them…Following the law of tropes, there's more going on in the de Velasques family, hidden capture targets, Delphina's past, maybe with Pietro too?
"Wow, how do I even remember some of this crap. Thank you, brain, really remember the important things, don't you? Or was it because this game ended up being so hardcore and dirty, it's just never left…"
The silence, already heavy with triplets, was struggling to cope with what might become quadruplets at this rate, as Delphina was also struggling with her thoughts.
Long story short, Delphina <3 Pietro, and tried to commit twincest…
Delphina dry heaved as she finished writing this simple sentence.
"Ugh, Nobility and the Incest trope is the fucking worst, bleh. I know it was the Japanese producers who pushed for it. Didn't she unironically call him oppa/onii-chan depending on which outfit you took as the heroine?"
"In all fairness, though, there were plenty of other hardcore tropes it immediately broached with the heroine and her boy toys. Wasn't the 'large age-gap', 'beast man', and 'size queen' tropes the routes people pushed for the most? Heavens above, why do I still remember this utter crap?"
People can live for up to 200 years if they're Sword Masters. 150 max if untrained.The World will end if you take the wrong route.There's no magic, but there's The Gates.Everyone drinks Absinthe…Everyone's good-looking, but only the main characters stand out.
"Okay, I can't remember anything else at this point. But I'm sure reading through the history books will bring up memories. I wonder how The Gates work actually in the World rather than the Game."
Delphina let out a heavy sigh and moved to the small sofa and low table combination that was off to the side in the conversation pit.
"I'm forgetting something important."
Looking up towards the bed and its drapes, Delphina noticed something odd about the layout once again.
"Wow, that armchair really is a cuck chair, isn't it?"
Tilting her head, Delphina had noticed something else that was odd. No one had knocked or tried to enter her room since she'd woken up. She hadn't woken up late in the day, and the Sun was climbing up steadily higher into the sky, as the room she was in became brighter practically by the minute.
The fruit and fresh water she had snacked on absent-mindedly must have been laid out right before bed, or shortly before she'd gotten up. Was this her breakfast, or a well-thought-out snack Delphina could regularly look forward to?
Dropping her eyes towards the paper she'd written her notes on earlier, Delphina tried to think of what she might have missed.
"The Families, that's a good point".
"Delphina is a de Velasques, but what were the other notable families again? What was her rank besides being a Sword Master? Why can't I remember that? It seems slightly more important than who was the most popular male lead of the game…"
Drawing out a low hum from her throat, she stood up and threw the few books she'd managed to pick out onto the bed. Reading at the desk seemed better, but just in case anyone did eventually come and found her reading in bed.
She could at least claim she was unwell and didn't want to leave her room as a result. The original Delphina didn't seem like someone who'd laze in bed regularly, or at least, she assumed that was the case.
"After all, aren't Sword Masters stereotypically crazy about training? I can practically smell the early morning private training grounds she must have used from here. It would explain why she mostly has trousers in her wardrobe too- so, trope number two: the female knight who rejects historical femininity."
"Tut tut, I bet she only ever wore her hair in a ponytail and didn't let any maids assist her. Maybe that's why no one's checked in on me yet?"
Delphina nodded to herself before focusing back on the books in front of her.
"A Brief History of Mareveil pre 'The Darkening' 2030-50MA".
"The Four Great Families".
"A Reconstruction of the Imperial Continent".
"An Ode to his & her Majesties failures".
"An Introduction to 'The Gap', for aspiring Martial Artists".
"Let's start with The Gap. I don't recognise that name at all from the game. Maybe it's a different name for The Gates? Regardless, I'll skim read anyway."
With a shrug, Delphina settled herself amongst some bolster pillows to read more comfortably.
Less than 10 minutes later, she'd slammed the book shut and thrown it across the room. A cold sweat seeped through the back of her nightdress as she sat up and stared blankly in the direction she had thrown the detestable book.
"This is nothing like the game, not in the slightest, and quite frankly, the fact that there's some awareness of outside worlds connecting to this one is making my stomach ache for God's sake. That SSS difficulty label for this World wasn't a joke."
Delphina began to pace around the room, hoping the exercise would help clear her head.
"So to summarise, The Gates connect to The Gap. The game covered that much, it just didn't give a name to the space beyond The Gates."
"Then, The Gap is just a plane filled with different Worlds that have been killed off because the Mana was eaten up? And the Mana was eaten by Mega Fauna… Which is what we train to hunt."
"Sword Masters are the peak of those Martial Artists because they use their own 'Life Energy' instead of Mana to cause astronomical damage to Mega Fauna…"
Delphina paused her pacing to look down at her own hands.
"Why does this now sound like something out of a Xianxia novel…"