When I awoke, It was not where I expected to be. I live in a somewhat rundown apartment; The place I am in currently, is what appears to be a very well kept mansion. Furthermore, Instead of being a woman in her mid twenties I seem to have the body of a little girl. God, how much did I have to drink last night to end up in this mess . . . although I don't have a hangover so I probably wasn't drinking.

I should probably slow down and try to remember what happened yesterday and see if that provides any answers. Alright I remember getting up and preparing for work. I started driving to the convenience store where i work. I got stuck in traffic so I was about five minutes late. When I arrived I got chewed out by the manager before he promptly went off to slack off in the staff room. I went to work at the cash register for my shif . . . OH GOD DAMN IT! I DIED DIDN'T I.  About three quarters through my shift, a guy  decided to rob the store at gun point. My dumbass dropped the key to open the register and I was probably shot when I went to grab it under the counter consideringthe last thing I remember is a bang. Did he think I was gonna press a button that would alert the cops under there or something? His fears were unfounded in that case; my shitty ass job didn't even have one of those. One would've been real nice then and there though. 

At least that explains why I'm here, but where is here exactly? Am I in the afterlife? Maybe reincarnated? I suppose all I can do now is finally get out of bed and take a look around. Judging by the position of the sun outside the window, its supper early in the morning. Like 4am early, meaning if this is a reincarnation instead of the afterlife I have time to get my story straight. Speaking of outside the window The scenery is remarkably . . . familiar. The expansive garden, the positioning of the servant's quarters and guard house, the large gate and wall adorned with various depictions of scaly beasts made of gold, the fountain, I've definitely have seen all of it before somewhere. But where? the answer is just out of reach and its bothering me. I guess I'm going to have to begrudgingly leave that issue aside for the time being and explore the mansion.

Of course I need to get dressed. What I'm wearing right now is very obviously PJs. Looking around my room I don't see a dresser, however I do see a door that's likely a closet. Opening it up . . . God damn that's big. The closet is big enough to be its own room and its filled with gaudy dresses. Seriously why would you buy so many clothes for a child? They're going to grow out of them in like a year or two. Wait  . . . is that another door? There can't be more can there? Even if your filthy rich wasting that much money on clothes can't be good. And behind door number 2 is a smaller space (compared to the bed room and closet) that only has a tub and a mirror. Huh, wasn't expecting that. The tub doesn't seem to have a tap so I wonder how its filled? Do they have servants carry up water to fill it? Sounds like an awful job, Also doesn't bode well for what time period I'm in. Am I going to have to live without modern conveniences? I may not have been able to afford many of them with my poor pay, but at least I had running water, electricity and the internet. There very well be none of that here. The foreboding bath tub aside I can finally get a look at myself with the mirror.

Oh.  

OH.

OH GOD, THAT"S BAD.

REALLY BAD.

What stands before me in the mirror is instead of the tired convenience store worker Sam, is the visage of a clearly younger Bernadette Autumburn. THE villainess of a game/dating sim I played way to much of when I was in the later stages of high school. Bernadette's fuck ups when trying to win back her fiancé lead to her execution and reveals an underlying, secret organization trying to take over the kingdom. If the player goes for someone other than the prince, the prince cheats with some faceless commoner anyway. Or at least in most other routes, there is a route where you just systematically cut down every god damn character in the game, including Bernadette, because of a cursed sword and just accidentally uncover the secret organization through process of elimination. That route was one of my favorites; planning a huge conspiracy for DECADES only for it to fail because some idiot picked up the bad juju sword and decided to go on a murder spree has always been hilarious to me. I probably don't need to worry about that one route too much though because no one in their right mind would go out and kill the frankly ridiculous amount of monsters necessary to be chosen by the sword, right? Probably . . . Maybe . . . Ok, first opportunity I get I'm going to make the cave its stored in have a cave in. 

All that aside I'd REALLY like to see the age of thirty this time around. I'd also really like for my life after that to be pleasant and a sham of a relationship that's just a thinly veiled power grab by the fantasy Illuminaty is not conclusive to that. Also the crown prince is like THE most boring capture target. The crown prince Alford Gray Esu is a perfect Garry Sue who comes in on a majestic white horse to gallantly save the player from the evil Bernadette. He honestly comes off as pretentious goody two shoes in the game dialogue and I'm not interested. So how do I get out of this situation? After thinking about it for a little bit I have 3 options. 

Option 1: get close to him while he's young. Presuming I really got to hang out with my would be husband while he was young I could potentially shape him to be a more likeable as well as build up enough affection to make sure he doesn't become a cheating bastard. There's a few problems with this plan. first off he's two years older than me and I'm at least eleven. At this point his holier than thou attitude is starting to take shape. Second off seducing a thirteen year old is gross. Third off staying married gives the secret society an advantage, which is a bad idea. This option is thoroughly off the table.

Option 2: call off the engagement. Simple, elegant, and probably going to fail. This is fucking otome iseaki. Let's face it the ratio of  broken engagements to marriages is very low. The number of protagonists that have the idea of oh I'll just amicably call off the engagement only for it to back fire into romance is astounding. I'll start showing disinterest and start making political moves, then the prince will say "how interesting" resulting in him falling for me. Even if Alford doesn't take interest in me the secret organization will put up resistance to any attempts I make to break things off, Me marrying Alford is important to the scheme after all. If they catch on to the fact Im not on the organization's side early on before I can prepare, I'm done for. This one is also off the table.

Option 3: make a run for it. This is probably my best option. I'm not particularly attached to anything here so I can drop my name, title, and family to run to the hills to hide from the organization. This world is very much a fantasy setting. There's obviously magic. With magic starting fires, securing clean water, and making a shelter are all incredibly easy. Hell with a certain spell I can force plants to grow meaning I'm set on food if I bring some fruits or vegetables with me so I can plant their seeds. Luckily the developers of the game decided to fully flesh out the magic in the setting by making a whole fake language to go with it, which I invested the time to learn for shits and giggles. Hell I can probably invent new spells with my prior knowledge that weren't in the game. Making a lightning spell would probably leave me set to deal with any monsters that I encounter in the wilderness. So with a combination of magic and the fact I binged wilderness survival videos on YouTube, I'm sure I can survive pretty damn fine in the wild were I'll probably be safe from any conspiracy or annoying husbands. If I'm discreet with the preparation I'll be gone before the organization even figures out I'm on to them. Right now The plan is a little bare bones so I'll properly formulate the plan over the next week then execute it when I'm ready.