Chapter 02 [arc two]

The twenty-two-year-old sat on the examination table, her face pale as she tried to process her reality. It had been a week since she woke up and she still struggled to accept it. Karilyn hoped it wasn't really still and that she would wake up back home. Her hands shook as she trembled and tried not to draw attention to herself. If she did, she would get scolded, or worse. The staff here acted like she was an animal.

‘I’m in the visual novel “Death Becomes Her” as a side character.’ Karilyn wished this was a dream. To know that she had woken up in a game and a romance one at that was maddening. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘First, I’m hit by a bus, now this.’

“Death Becomes Her” was a romance visual novel set in a futuristic dystopia. The date was unknown but hinted to be WW5 in the US. The main character is from the lower class and was raised in the slums until her father’s death. After his funeral, she uncovers that he came from an upper-class family who desperately wants to take her in. They give her money and gifts. Naively, she accepts the offer and finds herself thrown into an entirely different world.

Her father’s family is corrupt and uses their wealth to abuse their control. They fail at making her a mindless follower. They put her into an arranged marriage with a mysterious man by the name of Kaname. Kaname is an abusive prick who is the stereotype of a tough but loving boyfriend you would find in teen fiction. He treats everyone but the main character like utter garbage. And the main character makes excuses for everything he had done.

Karilyn watched as the staff chit-chatted, ignoring her presence entirely. ‘And I’m in the body of one of the many slaves he owns. And I'm going to be thrown away like trash.’ It disgusted her that her second chance at life would be interrupted so soon. She felt sickened knowing what was to come.

The twenty-year-old had come to realize she was an unnamed slave killed in an early chapter of the game. The main character disobeys Kaname and to teach her a lesson, he kills a young enslaved girl. She was only described as having long, wavy hair that was red like an apple and pale skin. The rest of her character is just used as cannon fodder as they give her to demons to be brutally murdered. Her life and death only lasted ten minutes in the gameplay.

She didn't know what to do. So far, she had pretended to be amnesiac, a product of the nasty beaten given to her. Her "master" had gotten angry after a failed date and whacked her with a candleholder. Because of that, she pretended that she didn't know who or where she was. It was a powerful excuse that made the staff treat her like nothing. They said countless things that they never would if they knew she was listening.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Karilyn knew that she'd eventually face Kaname. He was going to take her to the temple where the demons awaited her. They would tear her to shreds, and that terrified her. If she had any chance of surviving that ordeal, she would have to fight the bastard. Not physically, but mentally against him. If he tried to torment her, she'd have to play along. Any attempts at talking back would lead to another beating that could kill her.

The twenty-two-year-old winced as one of the nurses grabbed at her face. She squeezed it and bent down to her level. "Open your mouth so we can check for cavities." She spoke nice and slow like you would a child.

Another thing that angered her was losing her agency. She wasn't an adult librarian anymore, but a teenage slave. All the independence she had previously been now was gone. "Ahh."

Karilyn opened her mouth, parting her cracked lips to allow her to look. The procedure was invasive, but she didn't bother protesting. If she did, the nurse would just force her mouth open. They had been rough with her when checking her cuts and bruises. When they shined a flashlight in her eyes, she felt dizzy enough to puke. And the bath they gave her was extremely humiliating. They didn't even give her the decency of a locked door.

"Surprisingly, her mouth is normal for a girl her age." The nurse remarked to her colleagues in a snide tone. It was dehumanizing, and she scowled when she was sure no one was looking.

She despised it here. She wished that she could have been reborn as the main character. Or at least, reborn as a character who had power in this world. Being on the literal bottom of the totem pole was sickening. Having finished the entire visual novel, Karilyn knew what happened to slaves. In the futuristic world they lived in, they were products. There are four categories of slaves and each one had its cruel training regimen that they followed.

Worker, Pleasurer, Caregiver, and Soldier. Someone typically forced workers to do manual labor. They tended to die from stress or workplace accidents. Pleasurers were always young, eager to please, and spent their brief lives in whore houses. They were disposed of when they were no longer attractive. Caregivers were the luckiest, as they function as live-in nannies and teachers for children. They considered it a miracle to be chosen as this. And lastly, Soldiers were living weapons.

No matter what category you resided in, all were the same in the end; slavery. You were either born into it or sold if you were unlucky. The character she now replaced was a caregiver but was horrible at it. She was written as soft-spoken, dimwitted, and clumsy. Any family she had was long gone, having been killed by their own master. All of this made her sacrificial death easier for the main character and others to excuse. Karilyn refused to go down that way and to be treated like livestock.