Rosa's plan was simple: Avoid all potential events that might make her entangled in the other routes except for one, who had the greatest probability of making sure nobody died during the four years she spent at the Academy or soon thereafter. Also known as, her second least favorite target out of the five possible.

She shuddered as she walked down the hallway, her shoes clicking softly in the empty corridor. The Crown Prince, Alexander Forbias, was the perfect prince too good to be true-- except he was, of course. With silvery-white hair and blue eyes, he'd been way too cheesy for her taste and had only completed the route to complete the entire game, <Love Academy! – Love Love Catcher 3>. 

If she had to pick favorites, she would say she preferred the Prime Minister's son instead, Leonard Avelaide... who died in almost all the possible routes except his. He was one of the biggest problems Rosa had when she'd been planning, since every! Single! Route! Would inevitably lead to certain death one way or another. In fact, in one of the bad endings, he died because an elephant crushed him.

But if she went his route, everyone else died.

Anyhow, she now had an 89% chance of succeeding if she went Prince Alexander Forbias's route, give or take 5%. So to Forbias, she must go, and to everyone else, she must hide from.

Thus Rosa marched into the administrative office of the Academy and demanded a change in her schedule.

"Excuse me?" the immaculate secretary said from her desk, lowering her cat's-eye glasses to raise an eyebrow at the bold 16-year-old student. "Did you just say you would like to drop your magical arts class?"

"Yes!" announced the girl. She crossed her arms and raised her head up high. "I must attend the fine arts class no matter what!"

She peered down at her records. "But it appears you're already in fine arts."

"Oh." She cleared her throat. "I meant etiquette. Please place me in etiquette."

The secretary's eyebrow rose a smidgen more. A student asking to be placed into etiquette? That was new. And it just happened that the noble father of a student in etiquette and manners had been pressuring them to change him into magical arts. The secretary readjusted her glasses and coughed. "Though it is a bit late for changes, Miss Chesterfield," she said snippily, "I suppose your previous status may have prevented you from a timely request. Very well, I will take this matter up to the Academy grandmaster and see what we can do. We will send a notice to your dorm room in two to three days."

Rosa beamed, and the jaded secretary tasted a surge of delight for no reason, for the first time since she had been hired at the Academy. Momentarily stunned from the sparkling atmosphere, it took her a few moments to regain her senses and give her a wobbly smile back.

"Thank you very much, Miss Plentis," Rosa said, dipping into a clumsy curtsy. (Miss Plentis the secretary later swore that the infamous Rosa Chesterfield had the most elegant curtsy known to mankind.) The heroine then sped away, leaving the secretary in a blissful daze.

Ah, the effects of the Heroine Buff never fails.

But the Heroine herself was in a hurry, for she had three deeds to do in one day so that her Plan remained successful, and she had only finished the first.

Next item on the to-do list: get a boxed lunch from the cafeteria and hide in her room until three in the afternoon. Rosa needed to avoid meeting her least favorite character of all five, the playboy knight, who would be on campus starting from noon to three.

Rosa grit her teeth. Drew Zimmerman. If she remembered correctly, he'd been a winking, slinky, sly, beautiful man with dirty blonde hair and red eyes. And he'd been the most bothersome target ever! Every time she went towards another route, he'd pop up and not take no for an answer?! In Rosa's past life, she'd always called him Drew Glitcherman: the glitch that got in her way of completing the game. If Glitcherman ever got one event successfully finished, she could work on the Crown Prince's route for the rest of the game and still get one of the Glitch's endings. Now, how was that fair?!

Rosa could've cursed him out, but then she caught herself. It wasn't really his fault he was the Glitcherman, after all. That's right! It was the game developers' faults.

"Go die, producers," she muttered to herself as she reached for her cup of milk.

The lunch lady (she had fairly good hearing) looked up, alarmed, then checked her stew again. What did she mean, go die, produce? Was she- was she cursing the vegetables?

Blissfully unaware, Rosa took her bag of lunch and stomped up to her dorm room in the next building over. She closed the door behind her, exhaling softly. She had a good view of the gate from her window, so that meant that she could eat her lunch in leisure and watch for Glitcherman leaving at the same time. Perfect.

It also gave her time to prepare for her next schedule, which would take a great deal more than just demanding and hiding. Her exhales turned into sighs before she dug into her stew.

Yum.

"One mug o' beer, coming right up!" I yelled, flipping out my handy dandy spoon again for my signature performance. The beer fizzed in the cup and the man grunted in approval.

"Filian!" called one of the neighborhood aunties. She waved at me. "Over here!"

I slid up to her and smiled. "What's up, auntie?"

She motioned me to come closer, and I did. She leaned towards me. In a wet whisper, she said, "Don Rowlandson was seen in town with a beauty last week!"

I gasped. "No way! Mr. Rowlandson?!"

Her eyes narrowed. "I heard she looked much too fine for a village girl, too! Some people suspect she's actually--" she lowered her voice even more. "--a noble run-away."

"Aww, c'mon, auntie Dela," I immediately scoffed. "What would a beautiful noble girl have anything to do with Mr. Rowlandson? He only has a cow!"

"Had a cow," she corrected me. "He sold it, remember? And folks are saying that he sold it because of that girl!"

"What?"

"That's what I said! The girl's rich, so he don't need no cow anymore!" She slapped her thigh. "Now is that something amazing or what?"

I put a hand on my forehead and shook my head. "You know what, auntie, have a seat. Up for some liquor tonight?"

"That's what I'm here for," she said, and she took a seat just as someone tapped me on the shoulder behind me. "Yes?" I said, turning around cheerfully.

"Filian."

The smile on my face froze. I coughed once, then gulped. "Well," I said weakly. "Fancy meeting you here, Mr. Rowlandson."

He glared at me, his gaunt face looming over me. But before I said anything, he shifted his gaze over to auntie behind me. "Dela," he warned in his gruff voice.

"What?" snapped auntie, crossing her pudgy arms. "You got a problem with me spreading your news round here? And you know as well as I do that Filian's a closed mouth as tight as any!"

Now, Mr. Rowlandson was a thin, tall man, his face long and hollow, but he was a farmer. When he drew himself up, you knew not to mess with him. And right now he was obviously bubbling up in anger. My mouth went dry. "Dela," he thundered, "You know exactly what I was doing in town!"

"So what? Does that mean I should be fine with it?" she cried.

"Was it my fault?"

"Did I say it was your fault?"

"You sounded like you were saying it!"

"But did I say it?!"

"Okay! Okay!" I shouted, waving my hands between the two angry people. "Calm down, auntie, uncle. Now. Mr. Rowlandson, why don't you go around and have a seat next to auntie Dela, and then I'll serve both of you jugs of beer on the house?"

Mr. Rowlandson didn't move, seething at auntie Dela.

"Come on," I soothed, guiding him out of the inside of the bar to the seating area right outside it. "It's never good to air out your fights to all these seeing eyes. Just smooth out your differences over some beer. Doesn't that sound good?"

Once he was seated, both of them harrumphed and faced opposite directions. I went back to my station and poured out two large mugs. "Here it comes!" I sang, as heartily as I could, then slammed two spoons into the mugs to make them fizzle. "Okay, auntie Dela can go first. Tell me exactly what you're feeling, and Mr. Rowlandson," I said, turning a warning finger on him, "you don't get to interrupt until she's all done, alright?"

Auntie Dela took a swig of her beer and wiped her mouth, then slammed the cup down, her beer sloshing everywhere. "Hear me out, okay, Filian? Now, this is what happened..."

I sighed inwardly. Here it came, two hours of counseling between the always hot-headed auntie Dela and Mr. Rowlandson. How they'd stayed married for thirty years was a question nobody knew the answer of.

And at that time, I had no idea that one person, pretending to sip his beer in the corner of the room, face covered by a large hat, an oversized coat hiding his figure, was watching my every movement with the eyes of a hawk.