– Thane

As the guards spun a lever on both sides of the massive castle wall doors, it slowly started opening up. Bit by bit the city, which lay around the castle at the bottom of a small slope, came into view. A view that I never saw from this position but only from my room a few stories up.

With a whip of the leash, the carriage started moving and I was full of energy. So much that I could hardly contain myself and kept staring out the window on the right of the carriage.

“Son, I know you are curious but please sit down. We will be having our first stop in a few min.” Dad looked at me with a big smile. He probably thought I was overjoyed that he would be showing me the city. He couldn’t be more wrong though.

The only reason I was so hyped was that I could set my plan into motion and pull the heroin of the story out of her desperate living conditions and into the palace. Hopefully, marry her, or myself depending on how you look at it, and bugger off into the future without following this stupid game’s storyline.

After a minute or 2 of traveling into the city, the carriage arrived at some fancy marketplace. There were luxury products everywhere and everything looked nice. A far departure from the environment Selene lived in.

Stupid nobility. These people have a wonderful life with nice things while people are dying in the streets from hunger on the other side of the city. For some reason, my thoughts trailed off like I really cared. Well I do care a bit, I’m not that sadistic. I might not want to involve myself with others too much, as an introverted gamer, but that doesn’t mean I have no soul. Anyway, my father helped me down from the carriage door where I tried to put myself on some sort of autopilot. More or less to just focus on getting Selene to the place I need her to be.

– Selene

“Mom, Dad, are you ready?” I said excitedly while making small jumps.

“We are coming, sweety.” Mother said with a hint of enjoyment in her voice.

Seems like my energy is rubbing off on her. Seems like my excitement combined with that of Thane, gets both of us jumping around.

After a minute Mom and Dad came from the Kitchen and grabbed our bags before we all left our home.

“Selene,” Dad called out questingly. “Why are so energetic? I know you wanted to try your hand at swimming but it is not that big of a deal, is it?”

Well of course it isn’t but he doesn’t have to know what I was planning.

The reason I chose the swimming location of the river is because it was 1 of the stops that the king decided on. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the plaza near one of the gates to the castle would be used for the trip.

“I don’t know either dad, I’m just really happy we can go together!” I said with a massive smile on my face, jumping around around my parents.

We got some looks from people that we passed and some comments from people we know.

“You like cute as always Selene, where are you off to?”, “Well, Well, look at you Selene, what an energetic young lady you are today.”, stuff like that.

–Thane

“Next up is the plaza near the south gate. The view of the castle is really beautiful during the evening with the setting sun. The people there are poor but they are still people of our city and kingdom.”

The way he said that last part irked me. Most likely because I was partially one of those poor people living there. But I couldn’t let things be ruined because of his comments. I had a mission to complete and I was about to reach its final stage.

When we got out of the carriage the sun was starting to set and the castle was slowly starting to get illuminated an orange glow that framed the castle beautifully. The hallways inside the castle were starting to be lit with candlelights that gave a nice sort of light show as you looked at it.

“Well son, what do you think? Do you like the city? Tell me, are you up for it to take over my position in the future and rule over these lands?” He said all that while looking at the castle and didn’t notice I was only like towards the river where a bunch of children were playing in the water.

That was the moment I was waiting for. The moment I would set my plan in motion.

I saw her, Selene was right there, playing in the water with her parents.

Now I only have to make her look my way and I can start the process.

–Selene

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*splash* “aaahh” I yelled as water was splashed in my face by my dad and I fell backward into the river. Meanwhile keeping my attention on where Thane was.

The moment is here! I thought. I just have to look at Thane and we can start my masterplan!

I got up and acted like I had a feeling someone was watching.

Now is the time! Here we go! My thoughts were racing. It took me 5 years of living a normal life to prep for this. LETS GO!

I turned around and…

“What is happening?” Everything around Thane and me froze. Nothing moved, No sounds, no wind, absolutely nothing.

I turned towards the plaza where I saw Thane standing with the same confused look when suddenly a familiar female voice came from nothing.

“Seems like you are not really following the plot are you?” She said somewhat annoyed.

“I didn’t think you would be going against the flow like this. But no matter, the system will correct itself. I just wanted to drop by and let you know how futile your struggles are. However, I must commend you for living 2 lives for 5 years and being so proficient in it. Congrats on your 5th birthday. But just so you know, the story is about to kick in, so be careful what you plan to do next.”

The voice disappeared and like a starting record player, the world started to move again.

The story is about to kick in? Was she talking about the backstory of the Heroin and what caused her to become the main character?

I was standing there for a few seconds when Thane and my collective thoughts turned rebellious.

Well if she wants to stop us, she can definitely try but we are not giving up and we will not play your stupid game.

As time started I quickly turned back to my dad to make me not teleport suddenly and turned towards the plaza again. And we set our plan into motion.

At least that’s what we tried.

Thane should wave to Selene where she would in turn wave back. The king would see this and Thane would want to speak with Selene. It would be love at first sight and we will see what happens next.

Well…. that sort of happened but not as easily as you might think. Apparently the “system” is a thing here that will keep everybody on the path that was written by the devs of this stupid game.

The moment I started to wave I felt a pressure. A pressure I never felt before and is hard to explain. I guess it feels like the world is turning up the gravity and you can hardly move at all. My arm didn’t want to go up and the only thing I was thinking about was to not let the system win.

COME ONE! COME ON! COME ON! COME ON!!! Kept shouting in my thoughts.

Eventually, I don’t know if it was the combined mental power of Thane and myself but his hand suddenly flew up but an enormous rumble shook the world. Not like an earthquake but like the fabric of space and time. Nobody was affected but me and Thane. We felt everything shake for a second and weirdly enough I think I heard a ‘ding’ sound. One that you would hear if you did something wrong on your PC and suddenly that ‘ding‘ scares you to death.

Well whatever that was, it means victory for me. Now it's time for my plan.

I waved back and as expected the king saw Thane and me wave to each other. The king however didn’t want Thane to wave to a lowly creature like Selene. His words.

Thane started to walk towards the river bank as I started to move towards him. Mom and Dad didn’t know what the hell was happening and tried to stop me from waving and smiling at the young prince.

Even though the king didn’t want Thane to have anything to do with a lowborn nobody, he was still that stupidly written character that was easy to manipulate. And don’t forget that Selene has a Charm skill. That would prove to come in handy as well. Though I don’t know if I could accidentally use it on myself.

Ah well, No need to charm myself anyway.

“Thane, what are you doing!” The king called out to his son. “You shouldn’t be here. There are far better girls out there for you instead of this ugly, dirty wench.” He said it with a serious, bordering wicket face, and I felt offended by it.

Turning around Thane looked angry. “You are not telling me who I can and can not like. You might be my father but I am still a living and breathing person that can think for himself. If I choose her, you will deal with it.”

Shit, did I go too far? It was a reflex that was initiated by Selene’s part mind. Shit Shit Shit.

Thane kept staring at the king until his father broke and allowed him to go on.

The king was now a mess. Crying over his son being angry at him.

Seriously, who wrote this damn stupid ass character. Anyway, that man was way too easy to manipulate. Though, my Charm skill did work it seems. As the king looked my way at one point I took my chance to activate my skill.

Thane turned around while saying “Thank you” and we walked toward each other. And yes it was very awkward to stare myself, sort of, in the eyes and act all lovely making it look like love at first sight. But it worked out in the end and as my cringe levels were through the roof I finally got my plan set in motion.

“May I ask what your name is?” Thane asked with a very polite and respectful tone.

“S-s-Selene,” I answered in my best shy imitation.

“Selene, would you want to be friends with me and become my future queen?”

The king almost fainted right there, were it not for the guards around him to prevent him from falling. My Mom and Dad jumped in surprise and didn’t know what to do in this situation.

All the people around us were approving of this. Probably because they saw Thane as the person who might get them out of poverty. A royal that didn’t care about class and looked at the people themselves instead of their wealth.

Everybody started cheering and clapping. “Long live the prince!”, “Cheers to the future king and queen”, and stuff like that.

The king quickly told the guards to guide my parents to the carriage and ordered Thane and me to get in as well.

Mission successful!