Another long night in the office, I really cannot do this anymore. There’re at least 10 cans of energy drinks on my desk and this stupid project is nowhere near done. No one’s been able to go home for pretty much the whole week and most of my co-workers are sleeping under their desks.

My eyelids are heavy, and my muscles feel sluggish. The clicks of the keyboard are loud and obnoxious. I try to look over at my co-worker to my left but even that just feels like hell.

“Hey…” I call out, “wake me up in 4 hours alright?”

He just grunts, I’ll take that as a yes.

I lower my head onto my desk and my consciousness drifts off. Finally, some rest, even if it’ll be short lived.

Light shines through my closed eyes, rousing me from my slumber. I sit up with a stretch and yawn.

“Man, that was the best sleep I’ve had in a good while.”

I open my eyes and am greeted by an unfamiliar room. The furniture was fancy and posh, I am sitting on a bed, the bed also has a canopy with red curtains. This doesn’t look like my office. Where am I? Is this a dream?

I look down at my now small hands and clench them repeatedly. The small pink nightgown I’m wearing also feels real. I pinch my cheeks and it hurts just a bit. Guess this is all I can do with my small body in this new reality.

I hear a knock on the door before it swings open. A Victorian era looking maid walks in and announces.

“My lady, it’s time to wake- Oh? You’re already awake?”

My lady? I guess that explains the nightgown. Why am I not amazed at this? I’m suddenly a little girl now.

“Come now, it’s time to get dressed.” The maid beckons me over to the mirror.

Standing in front of the mirror, I look pretty damn cute if I do say so myself. Nice blonde hair, emerald eyes, a cute but slight resting bitch face. Sorta looks familiar but honestly, I can’t remember where I’ve seen this.

Once I was dressed, I was escorted to the dining room, walking through the halls I can tell we’re pretty wealthy since some of the fancy décor look expensive and there’re even paintings of what seems to be my ancestors. I feel a little lost seeing as half an hour ago I was slaving away in my office and now I’m in this posh place.

Entering the dining room, a well-dressed man sat across the table and to his right, a well-dressed lady. I assume they’re my parents but I am no longer the man I used to be so I might as well adapt properly and greet them in the most posh way I know how.

“Greetings Father, Mother, a pleasant morning is it not?”

I try to curtsy as best as I could.

“Morning dearie.”

“Angelina.”

So that’s my name huh. It’s not bad.

I walk to my seat and the butler kindly moved it for me to sit on. As expected of a well-off family.

As I sit down, I see my mother lean over and whisper something to father.

“That greeting sounded a bit distant. I wonder if we did something wrong and got her displeased.”

“I doubt it, maybe she’s just practicing for when we meet Derek next week for the engagement.”

“It’s possible but I feel a little sad that our daughter is like this suddenly, she used to greet us so cheerfully too.”

As they whisper between each other, the servants arrive and put our breakfast on the table. It was some soup with a fried egg and meat on the side. I thought it’d be a lot more fanciful, but I was grateful for something other than instant noodles, energy bars and energy drinks entering my system.

As I ate, I felt so happy, for the first time in a while, I woke up not feeling like shit, and I got to eat a decent breakfast that’s not fucking shit either. I’m so happy that I didn’t even notice the tears running down my face.

“Oh my, what’s wrong dearie? Why are you crying?”

My mother’s question prompted me to touch my face to confirm that I do in fact have tears running down my face. I swallow my food before replying.

“I had a bit of a bad dream last night, it felt so real that I’m so grateful for what we have right now.”

“Oh, my poor darling.”

Mother walks over and pets me gently, oh how long have I felt the touch of another person?

Father also looks over with concern in his eyes.

“It must’ve been a horrible dream for you to cry like this. I wouldn’t want you to recount it but know that we are here for you.”

What a pair of caring parents.

After breakfast, it was time for some lessons. Holy hell, I’ve never been this awake I’m so fucking ready. Etiquette, history, language, etc. bring it the fuck on. I could take the world if I woke up fresh as fuck every day.

 

So today, I’m going to be meeting my fiancé. Great. Except that I don’t really want to but as we’re on the road to the royal fucking castle I don’t really have a choice. I feel like I’d be in for a lot of stress but at least it won’t be a 60-hour work week, right?

Our carriage brings us past the gates, and I can soon see the castle.

“Remember Ange, make a good impression on the prince so that your engagement goes smoothly because you’ll be seeing him a lot from now on. Once the first impression is set, your relationship with him should be smooth sailing so long as you treat him nicely.”

“I understand.”

The carriage stops and we were escorted to the garden where the King and my fiancée sat.

“Greetings to your Majesty, and his Highness Prince Lucian.”

Father and I both bow to the King.

He waves his hand with a chuckle, “Please don’t stand on ceremony, Duke Langard.”

We both rise and father walks toward the kind and gives him a firm handshake.

“It’s good to see you again Derek.”

“Likewise, Lloyd.”

Yep, Father and the King are old friends, and I am the villainess in the world of a mobile otome game I was into during my university years. The original Angelina was one of the roadblocks in the prince and harem route. The others being the other male leads vying for the heroine’s love and their fiancées.

The endings for me are less than stellar as I die or get exiled or get cheated on and be left as a miserable mess of a queen.

I don’t want too much of that, I’ve gotten used to waking up well rested and only exile seems like it’d let me continue doing so, except for the stresses of trying to live!

But even in the exile endings, either I die in transit, or become an unwilling prostitute, or just end up committing suicide after overwhelming depression hits.

I’ve tried many times to find a happier end for Angelina, even going so far as to email the developers to include one. But it seems no one else shares my sentiment as when the devs released a poll on whether they should implement one, the percentage who rejected the notion won by a third of the votes.

Twas a sad day indeed back then. Us Angelina sympathisers even banded together to write fanfiction to make our girl have a happy end. Well, at least now her life is in my hands and this time, I can guarantee mother will not die of illness. Which is, I think , a rather cliche way of falling to the dark side.

While I was recounting background information, father introduced me to Prince Lucian and so did the king for Lucian to me. Then the two started reminiscing about the old days leaving me with my fiancée.

I don’t want to stand around doing fuck all and there’s nothing much of conversation around here, so I guess I’ll ask father if I can get Lucian to show me around. He should be able to right?

I walk up to my father who has sat down with the king and tug on his sleeve.

“Father, may I take a walk around the castle grounds with Prince Lucian?”

“Well, that sounds better than standing around hearing two old coots talk.” The king raises his hand, “Fynn! Watch the children while they walk around!”

A dark skinned knight walks over at the king’s order and bows silently. I guess that's our escort settled then.

As we start our walk, I completely forgot to mention we have magic here. It’s based on the four basic elements plus light and dark and a hidden one that’s only used by divine beings and somehow the heroine is able to use it too. I guess they wanted to make her busted or something.

As for lil ole me, I can use dark and water. Which is very fun because I can be a nerd and make shadow clones then have them throw water javelins or even ice javelins.

The prince can use four, Light, Earth, Wind, and Fire. Guess he’s not fluid enough haha.

We walk around the grounds with the prince giving unenthusiastic, curt, and very bored explanations of the places we’re going. Honestly, I get him. He probably thinks there are better things to do and that this whole shebang is tedious. Well, let’s spice things up a bit shall we?

We end up at an open space, perfect, this is where the real game begins.

I turn to Lucian with a grin on my face, “Hey, Lucian, mind showing me your magic?”

“What for?”

“I’m just curious about it.”

“If you want to sate your curiosity, why not ask Fynn?”

“But I want to see your magic.”

“I’m not doing you any favours, even if you’re the fiancée arranged by my dad.”

The sass this bitch is giving me. I thought he’d be more interested. I glance at Fynn who’s a fair distance away from us, he should be able to be a fair judge.

I summon a shadow clone from Fynn’s shadow and ask him to be the witness to my plan to make his royal ass less of a killjoy, surprisingly, this man agrees to it.

Time to spice shit up!

 

“I hope that every student here has an enjoyable time at Brynholt Academy.”

With that ends the opening ceremony and the auditorium erupts with applause. Lucian bows lightly and exits the stage. This is where the game begins in earnest and I’ve already caught a glimpse of the heroine. Her characteristic orange coloured hair is unmistakable. In spite of the multicoloured hairdos of everyone else.

Jeanne, master of all known magical elements and the one who gets the attention of all the male VIPs. We’ve already had a run in with her before the opening ceremony, just like in the game. Well, unlike the game, my relationship with Lucian isn’t so scuffed.

So far, the things that differ are that mother is still alive and well, I have not become a hardboiled stuck up bitch, my brother, Crien, doesn’t completely hate my guts, and that I’ve beaten Lucian’s ass at every single magic spar we had since the first one.

My relationships with the other male VIPs are also rather amicable, I’ve done the bare minimum to keep friendly with them and I doubt anyone is in love with me. Lucian is a hard maybe and my brother is familial love, but everyone else I’m confident they have nothing on me.

So the days pass, and as expected, the heroine has started to latch onto the VIPs, all of the VIPs in fact. Is this bitch really going for the harem ending? The audacity! But the sad part is, I don’t have any female friends! Sure, there are a few ladies orbiting me but I feel they’re only really for my status and not that interested in being friends that I can consult with, and with the VIPs being occupied with the heroine, I’m starting to feel a wee bit lonely.

At this point, I’m willing to take my chances and try and make friends with the heroine even though I want to stay out of her way as much as possible to avoid getting fucked over. But I’m lonely, and I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s doing since she’s making strides in getting the favour of the VIPs, save for Lucian and Crien because they don't dislike me here unlike in the games.

Let’s just pull her to one side and talk to her.

“Miss Jeanne, I have something I want to discuss with you, so could you meet me in the garden after class?”

“H-huh?”

“Don’t be late, and I’ll see you later.”

She’ll show up, I’m sure of it. If she follows the plot exactly she needs to meet me where I’ll talk her down and then things happen because of the plot. But it won’t go like she thinks it would go.

 

“You’re here, Miss Jeanne.”

It hasn’t been that long since classes ended so either she had to go to the ladies or she was getting dissuaded by the others from coming to this meeting. Their concerns are not warranted though.

“I’ll just get straight to the point, frankly, I’m jealous that you’ve been hogging the attention of not only my fiancée, but also my brother and almost every other high profile man in this academy. Osborne, son of the Knight Commander, Marlton, son of a merchant conglomerate, Casper, the Magic Association’s Director’s son, and even Sir Flannard, a respectable teacher from the academy.”

I shake my head before taking a sip of water and continuing.

“Just what do you intend to gain by getting your hands on all of them anyway? Sure, you’ll have a group of highly talented individuals at your beck and call but oh my, the responsibilities, being the fiancée of the prince means learning etiquette, economics, leadership, history in-depth, diplomacy, dancing, strategy, resource management, law, urban planning, language, etc. it is extremely taxing, and no doubt if you do get engaged to the prince, do you know how much they would need to cram into that commoner skull of yours so that you can look like a presentable person worthy of being called a queen? You would be stressed out of your mind and would barely have enough time to flirt around with the prince, much less five other men. Trust me, I’ve been having lessons since my engagement and even I’m not fully there yet.” 

I pause to take another sip of water, this rant is tiring.

“Marry Osborne then you say, every mission given to him, every detachment, expedition, escort, etc., is a matter of life and death, you never know if he’ll come back in one piece, missing a limb, or never even return. There’s also a possibility of cheating with an outside woman because he’s stressed from missions or if you don’t keep him grounded enough with your charms. Marry Marlton, he’ll likely be safe right? Merchants travel around, even out to sea which is a very unforgiving place, storms and turbulence can delay trips and maybe even destroy the ship. If not natural causes, pirates and bandits that have the cojones to even fuck with such a - let’s say - well defended ship might have a chance, however slim, to wreck everything. If you’re on board then, good luck to your life.”

Another breather.

“Casper then, he’s a safe bet right? Probably, but the only thing I can imagine happen to him would be you outshine him in terms of magic and magical ability to where he starts to feel inferior to you, his wife, and may even get to a point where he resents you and buries himself in research to try and get a jump on you to try and regain what little ego he can salvage before you crush it down all over again. Though, he probably isn’t so much of a sore loser but I’m running out of ideas. Sir Flannard would just be who in the new batch of students is going to be like you and attempt to woo him over. My brother is… well, sure you have a duchess title, but you’ll never be able to beat me if that’s what you care about. Honestly, being my sister-in-law is such an undersight on my part that I don’t even know how you can fuck it up or get fucked from it.”

I sigh, I’ve lost all ability to even stay as a proper lady with my language usage. I drink even more water as I look over at the stunned heroine. She surely never saw this coming, her jaw is literally on the floor.

“Y-Y-Y-You’re…”

Ah, she’s rebooted.

“Y-Y-You’re just saying all that because you’re jealous that I’m stealing away your fiancée aren’t you!? Well I’m not having none of it!”

You couldn’t be further away from my intentions.

“I won’t be deterred! I’ll show you! You’re just a game character! I won’t fall for your tricks! I’ll get my happy harem ending!”

Oh my god she’s delusional.

“No.” I sigh, “There is no trick here, I’m telling this out of concern for you. This is the real world. Not a stupid mobile otome game. Plus, your assumptions are off the mark, I’m jealous that no one’s been paying attention to me and I’m lonely so I’d like to reach out to you to at least form some kind of relationship with you as a confidant.”

“No, no, no, You can’t fool me with that bullshit.”

I thought she’d at least be an intelligent person given she’s going for the harem route but I guess I overestimated her.

“Here I thought that as a fellow player, you’d be reasonable and at least give Angelina an out to her doom. But your selfishness and blatant disregard of reality and the wellbeing of others seriously makes me worried and sad. Come on girl, do you really hate Angelina Langard that much?”

“Hah! You’re badmouthing me now that things aren’t going your way! I’ll expose you to them then you’ll see!”

She’s such a headache, I thought I’d be able to have a friend but now I’ll have to start with showing her the reality of it all. What to do…

“Ah! It’s Prince Lucian! Perfect timing.”

She starts to totter off towards him, I need to silence her before she calls out anything stupid. Ah! I know!

“Pri- Mmmpgh!?”

I grab her arm and yank her towards me. If I can’t use my hands to cover her mouth lest it look malicious, I’ll use my mouth instead!

I break away from our ‘kiss’ and she falls to the ground.

“So… Have you kissed any of them yet? Probably not.”

“Your first wasn’t any of them! IT WAS ME, ANGE!”

I smugly declare while pointing at myself with my thumb.

The shock on her face is absolutely hilarious but it was quickly replaced by a teary face.

“Come with me instead, a queen’s lady-in-waiting isn’t so bad really. I’ll always be there for you no matter what, plus we have the shared history of living on Earth and experiencing the original basis for this world.”

She’s slowly regaining her balance from the shock and still giving me quite the defiant look.

“Come now, you don’t need those tossers. With all that I’ve done, I’m sure I’ve given you enough evidence that this isn’t what you think it is. We all have a semblance of freedom and individuality, things just play out like the game is all.”

She’s up on her feet now, tears are streaming down her defiant face. She’s got some fire. I'll give her that much… aaaaand she’s running off wailing.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!”

She ran past Lucian without even looking at him. I wonder how confused he is right about now.

“What did you do to that poor girl? Why do you look so smug?”

“Don’t worry your pretty ass, I just gave her a heads up.”

“I sure hope that’s what it is…”

 

Jeanne’s attempts at the guys don’t seem to slow down after my warnings but somehow she’s been avoiding me like the plague since then. In the past I used to meet her with my eyes when she looks my way but now she just scurries off. Not that that’s my problem, I think I won’t get too fucked over if she does get the harem ending.

So, the days start coming and they don’t stop coming. In and out, more shenanigans, more chores. Jeanne is losing steam, is it cause o’ me? There’s no bullies from what I see. Can she not commit? Not take a hint? Act fast girl cause you’re losing ground. What is this number, I’ve got no number. I’m but a lady, prim and proper. Can’t busta rhyme, got no drive. Oh look! Jeanne is here, she’s outta breath. What to do? I’ve got no clue.

“Angelina”

I hear her say, what’s she got?

“Take responsibility.”

Was all she said before she kissed me there.

I am lost and so are You. But this is the end and we are through.