Arc 3: Otome game heroine versus fantasy world villainess.
Note: it's a VR game in the heroine's perspective.
Chapter 1-4 is Heroine and runs simultaneously with chapter 4-6, which is Yuri
Chapter 7-9 is Heroine, and continues the story to its end, with chapter 10 being the Queen's background manipulations that spanned all along the arc.
This arc's constitution is special, because the chapters are formed into question, and answer chapters, with eiter the heroine's or Lilia/Yuri's pov.
Chapter 1: A day through the heroine's eyes in game, a demon lord (cough) rages in the west, the heroine ogles both Yuri/Lilia and Nagito, gets scared by her glare of doom and everybody ignores Nagito while he's doing things to Lilia in public. Then , the heroine tries to do the nasty with the first prince and is killed by a falling gargoyle pushed by the rival in the first prince's route.
Chapter 2: Heroine obsesses over Lilia, real world research ensues and she somehow gets it in her head that Lilia is a capture target. It doesn't end well. Like, 'Nagito stabbing you with a very pointy sword' bad, he talks about a 'no save game' to the heroine as she 'dies'. Oh, and apparently the game file is corrupted.
Chapter 3: The game becomes more and more corrupted. Heroine begins to become a creepy Lilia obsessed person and plans to get rid of Nagito, only to be thrown out of a window by one of her dead 'husband''s admirers. The welcome message is completely changed and Heroine can't access the game tools anymore. She uses her newfound knowledge about Nagito and sends it to those who would be interested.
Chapter 4: Yuri-chan gets all philosophical and explains her motivation in destroying Heroine, Nagito's confession doesn't really go as planned, the universe isn't cooperative, we learn Nagito's ex joined a harem and his voice finally breaks. At age sixteen. Council meeting, Lilia makes choices, Heroine gets to be hugged by an ice spirit and Lila has to behave. Then, to get her revenge for that indignity, she gets a rival to kill the heroine for her and realizes she's stuck in a time loop. And the author dies multiple times because romance.
Chapter 5: Yuri-chan's on a killing spree ( Ironically enough, that's the chapter's title), and clinically kills the heroine to reset the timeline manually to abuse the loops for all their worth. She has no idea what to do with romance, makes interesting parallels between Tasuku and herself and concludes an important fact about snakes that she shares with the heroine. Then, Yuri-chan takes a nap and is woken up by the Heroine rudely inviting herself for tea, stalking her for a week, and then Nagito discovers demilichdom isn't all that cracked up, panics and takes the matter in his own two hands.
Chapter 6: Nagito-kun doesn't like stalkers! Yuri discovers rumors of an ancient ring that helps with soul magic hidden somewhere and tries to find where it is hidden. She goes twin tails mode too (Nagito has entirely too much fun with her hairstyles). She absorbs flowers in the fountain and finds a map. And a hero party. Hero-baka feels his first love. Yuri-chan discovers hero party wants to abduct her boyfriend, she disagrees, Hero-baka's first love ends, Berser-tan beats them up. Then, Nagito saves the day and the Queen comes out to play. Gods have mercy on the poor souls.
Chapter 7: Back to heroine! No attempts on her life, she's starting to get scared. End of week 1, she's thirsty, next day, one of the love interests' dried, heart-less corpse is found. Nagito passes by and tells her to run away. End of Week 2, she's cold, next day, another love interest is found, frozen and lacking a heart. Nagito and her play 20 questions, but she loses it, breaks the rule, and Nagito goes away, after having mentionned to her that the responsibility of the murders was more complicated than she thought, left her some cryptic hints and spoke of grudges that won't die out. Once again, he mentions the 'no save game'. End of week 3, she feels a burn. The following day, yet another of her love interests is found, burnt alive.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Chapter 8: Massive panic around, but heroine doesn't care, it's just a game after all. Nagito and her play 20 questions at the library again. Well, she plays with Not-Nagito, as they admit they are not, in fact, Nagito. They speak of the coronation, and Not-Nagito admits to being the killer's ally, which makes Heroine break the 'only one question' rule. Not-Nagito disappears, as if he'd never been here. Heroine tried to shadow the king so that nothing would happen to him, but on the coronation day, a giant bell fell from the tower and killed him. She follows Not-Nagito to a dilapidated house and enters fit an intense foreboding feeling.
Chapter 9: Heroine's headaches get worse, lots of people are there, and they reveal themselves to be Lilia, Nagito, Adeline's mother and sweetheart's ghosts, the first duke Alistair's ghost ( poor guy, nobody ever cares about him). Not-Nagito had Lilia's appearance, while Lilia herself was currently Queen mode. Creepy question gets asked creepily about who's responsible for a murder. Heroine gets scared and tries to log out, only to find she's trapped here. 16 Yo looking girl , Lorella, the game's original villainess in the first duke's route, gives her 3 rules to follow, that she ends up breaking. Not-Nagito is revealed to be Adeline Eles, the original owner of the body Heroine's inhabiting. Adeline's backstory is revealed. The three penalties are finally taking place, and Heroine wakes up drinking tea with the Queen, with no memories and only echoes of past feelings : her boredom with the world, her aspiration for a greater love, and her fascination with Lilia. The Queen names her Ai and gives her her new mission. Spread death and destruction in the name of her love.
Chapter 10: Queen interrogates and ends up blood covered. Nagito doesn't like her at all. Mass necromancer genocide leads her to leaving the country to keep low profile and she swears to take revenge for dubbing her 'demon king'( Ai anyone?). She arrives in the dilapidated estate of the second duke and promises to destroy the one that caused their fall in exchange for their title. Sadly, she discovers Adeline is a victim too, and Heroine is out of reach, thus she devises a plan: creating an otome situation as a bait, a magical trap was installed, who would sink its claws in Heroine more and more as she died. Adeline 's side of things, recap of the murders she committed, resurrection of Lorella. Lorella becomes Queen of Meridiens, And Nagito probably got raped again, according to Yuri.
Phew! That was long ! Well, lot of stuff happened e_e
Queensen is still as extreme as I remember her, at least one thing that doesn't change u_u
I did feel pretty queasy when I wrote those chapters, weirdly enough, world destroying doesn't feel as bad as ruining someone piece by piece and rebuilding them as a subservient parody of what they were.
Welp, here is the résumé of the arguably most polemic of my acts!