I Refuse to Believe This (1)

Wake up, work, come back home, game, and sleep. That was my old routine as a streamer. Yesterday was a great Sunday for a speedrun, so I decided to take on a new internet challenge called RGS.

"Hey chat! How's everyone doing? This week we're diving into an RGS, so start sending your suggestions while I share the live stream!"

After sharing the live stream, I took a break because the viewers were suggesting games that took way over four hours to complete. The worst part was that I couldn't complain since RGS stood for "Random Game Speedrun."

It was time to pick a random comment. My hand trembled with excitement. I was pumped for my second RGS… Or so I thought.

"'Machist Kingdom Love School'? What kind of bad joke is this, chat?"

A darn dating game! Or, for those familiar with this genre, an otome game. To make it worse, this game was on the speedrunning site, and the leaderboard was packed with names!

An otome game…

I quickly did a lightly search about the game contents. At first sight it seems like a dating game set in a world with outdated, sexist values. Great. Just what I needed. My stream website gonna love to ask me about it.

"How can an otome game be so competitive? It makes no sense! It's just a game about wooing guys in a world where women are treated like property! And just with the title, that should be banned or something, right?"

"How did they even managed to sell a game with this theme?"

I installed the game and inspected it: progression, characters, locations, story, speed, and for some reason, battles. I get it that they tried expanding the genre, but fighting and romance don't mix…

But oh boy it fucking did.

And the way that the company didn't got sued for having the explicid word "Machist" in the tittle, is that the female lead after getting into the capital, saw how bad the world view was.

So she with her powerful element of light and water starts cleaning the woman view by being the center of the events of the story line. A cool feature about the game was that after every grand episode, a jornal appears at the end of the episode showing Razelitta's impact.

I suppose I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is David, or as I was known back then, "Quake Play's" (my streaming channel). Because… I might be in an alternate reality right now.

But first, let me explain how I ended up here.

I played the game blindly at first and then after watching videos and runs of my RGS opponents, I felt ready enough for my speedrun and started it.

It was decent! 3 hours and 45 minutes, but that time meant twenty-fourth place on the site. Don't think it was bad, there were more then five hundred places.

Frustrated but also excited, I decided to take this challenge to another level with my chat:

"Chat, I'm going for the gold medal in this game just for you guys!"

And there went my sanity. That's how my fanatical pursuit in this game began: dialogue length, screen time, routes, items, bugs, glitches, button combinations, game system mechanics, and notes. A bunch of notes might I add.

All because I was frustrated that I couldn't even get third place.

Then three days later, without going live, I achieved my first-place record, but since it wasn't on a live stream, there was no proof. So, I started another live stream and made more attempts.

I tried, tried, and tried, but that 1-hour and 57-minute run didn't repeat itself.

During my fifth and final attempt, something strange happened.

Right after the character selection (post-start), several confirmation screens appeared. Trying to speedrun, I clicked too fast and didn't read what was written…

That's a mistake I can't forget. If I had noticed that those weren't natural or scripted to appear, all of this wouldn't happen.

And then literally one micro-second while doing that button smashing, I found myself staring at a mirror. And I don't mean on the monitor, there was no monitor anymore.

In that situation, I continued staring at the mirror, confused.

"What just happened?" I wondered aloud, not understanding my situation.

I decided to scan my surroundings. It was a spacious room. In the middle was a huge bed, a black-painted wooden wardrobe, a balcony, a hallway leading to three doors, and where I was now, a vanity with a mirror above.

And indeed, looking into the mirror, it was me…?

Me? A red-haired girl with sparkly silver eyes?

To confirm my appearance, I touched my face, and as expected, the mirror did the same.

"This can't be happening. Right?" I shook my head, the mirror did the same.

I noticed something else strange again. My voice wasn't the same as before. It was looking more like a girl's voice than my usual masculine voice.

'Okay, maybe not so masculine'

"No, no, no, no, NO!" I screamed, and slammed the wall but the only result was the walls lighting up in small blue diamonds.

I scratched my head in search of an answer. Everything had drastically changed. The only thing that convinced me something had happened was the computer controller. That stayed with me, in my hands.

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, searching for answers...

To my surprise, an answer came! Amid my memories, there were flashes of 2D Images with dialogue boxes.

A bit strange to say the least, these memories seemed to have come straight out of a 2D visual novel game.

…

Then the light bulb finally went off in my head. I had entered "Machist Kingdom Love School." I didn't pull this idea out of thin air; there was more proof that I was here.

These implanted memories in this body. They contained various information, from this girl running away from home to being found and interrogated by Captain Kevin. One of the dateable characters.

The fact that I met a Captain Kevin eerily similar to the one in the game wasn't my only clue. The city I was in now was called Marabeal, the same name, appearance, and history as the game.

And lastly, I — or she, whatever — was enrolled in Burialle Academy. A school teaching magic, swordsmanship, and general knowledge.

As you can see, everything pointed to me being inside the game.

"System, time and date!" In this world, there's a magic called "System." It transmits information and blah blah blah. It's like a virtual assistant. But in the game, the System was just the game's system, so the dev's inserted a self-insert object to explain some game features.

"15 minutes until your classes start, Auka Geevolaince."

"Auka Gee-vo-laince"? Who's that? Never heard of this name in the game. And this beauty, either.

I grabbed some things the old Auka had to take to school and left the dormitory.

Apparently, I'm now Auka Geevolaince, a class D student enrolled in the swordsmanship faculty and obliged to take general knowledge classes. I'm 18 years old and a first-year student.

My talent with swords is garbage, and I was dumb in general knowledge. I'm only enrolled in Burialle because the law requires women to be educated. It was just luck.

Since Burialle is one of those premium schools where only the best students can get in.

But that's going to change.

With my gamer and speedrunner knowledge of this game, I'm definitely going to get rich and live peacefully until the underworld dragon is resurrected by the cult of whatever and defeat the dragon.

Apparently, based on this girl's memories, today is the second day of classes. For those outside of S and A classes, it's the day to choose a magical tool.

So, let's see if Burialle will evaluate me correctly or not, shall we?