Prologue

I stretch my body as I pull my arm above me, letting out a groan as I push the dozens of weighted blankets over me and onto the wooden floor.

'My head hurts, I can barely feel my limbs'. and it's all due to this shitty otome game [Tears of the Prince, 4th Symphony] or [Totp 4s] for short, my sister's been a big fan of this series and a real bother to me since the 1st game was released.

my sister was the kind of person to have lots of time and no time whatsoever, she could hang out with her friends outside for hours on end and then somehow have no time to even progress through the campaign in this shitty game, so she turns to me, her older brother with "All the time in the world" to progress her save file for her.

I wouldn't even do this if it weren't for the fact that my sister is the one who manages the money flow in this household, she hasn't even worked a day in her life and yet she gets permission to manage all the money in this house? what a load of bull, my sister had always been the golden child in my parent's eyes. Athletic, Smart, and Diligent they say, Tch.. they don't even see the shit she does behind their backs.

Anyway enough of me ranting, the reason I haven't had a good sleep in 5 or so days is that my sister wanted me to progress the game to the point just before meeting the main love interest, The prince of Bahlmut kingdom, and a certified mama's boy in my books, useless other than for his looks and tenacity, prince of the kingdom yet he can't even do his laundry, what bullshit.

My sister is quite a big Simp over this mama's boy, she's got all sorts of merchandise of him, from posters to figures to shirts to even a body pillow. Each costs more than 50$ a piece especially the figurines and body pillow. I get goosebumps just remembering the prices of them 'Who sells a body pillow for 700$?' and the figurines, fucking hell they hurt to look at. she's dozens of them, each costing her more than 1000$.

some might think 'If she's spending this much money just for merch, how could she be the one to be relied on for handling money?' the right question, just the wrong people. you see my parents are those kinds of parents whose mindsets are "My daughter could do no wrong. She's an angel!" while never actually seeing her behind those thousand-layered veils she keeps around herself. the only reason she's still allowed to handle money in the 1st place is very simple.

When you have an older brother without a job and barely any prestige to his name, who else would you blame? so my parents threatened to cut my allowance by 80% unless I did whatever my sister asked me to, because "you used our dear angel's allowance to gamble again didn't you?!" classic excuse honestly. sure I have a troublesome spending habit, but man, that stung a bit. I'm your kid too y'know?

so now here I am, 5 days with no sleep and barely anything to eat or drink. and I'm barely finished with the prologue 'This game's difficulty is bullshit' As a Souls player, I take pride in overcoming whatever bullshit the games tend to throw at me, but this difficulty is just unfair.

the game is a visual novel with a turn-based RPG-styled fighting system housed in a half-fantasy, half-sci-fi world. sounds interesting until you have to play it yourself, the game itself is just pay-to-win even in the prologue when you get stuck on a stage it doesn't offer you words of encouragement or tips, it just offers you its Starter pack of 5.000 gold, 1.500 Crystals, 2 4-star characters, and 50.000 Exp for only 100 fucking dollars.

and the starting enemies are just unfair, sure souls games do get unfair sometimes but at least you can replace character level with skill, with this game there is no skill to be used.

Off rip 5 minutes into the game they make you face a level 45 enemy whilst you're still level 1. It's bullshit I tell you, so after 5 days of non-stop grinding I can finally progress past the prologue, hell I've watched more about the lore of this game than actually playing it and that's saying something.

just as I pressed the circle button on the controller to finally enter the gates of the main city, the game lags an insane amount, it looked like it was in slow motion "This is Bullshit! 5 days of non-stop gaming with no lag and now when I'm THIS close to the prince's part of the story, this damned console just starts fucking up! Bullshit!" just as I was about to stand up and throw the controller inside my grip onto the floor, I realise something.

"Why is everything so slow?" everything around me is moving in slow motion, be it the mosquito flying near me, or the dust particles in the air, hell I could even see the cold air coming out from the air conditioner due to how slow everything is.

then, my vision slowly fades to black 'For the love of-'