“Although I’ve heard that political marriages without any love involved actually go better when the husband tends to stay out of the house,” Isabelle added.
“I think Harold would rather stay single forever than go through all that trouble.”
“Yes, I daresay I agree…”
As a matter of fact, Harold had already received several marriage offers. They had been rejected on account of his current absence, but some of them had been rather persistent.
One of the reasons Harold had been hunting for so long without ever visiting home was probably so there was no way he could be shown the family histories or portraits of his own fiancée candidates.
In this world, at twenty years old, Harold was at the perfect age for marriage, but he’d just be a college student in their previous lives. Plus, he had just started making his way in the world as an adventurer, which had been his life-long dream. He probably wanted to carry on with his adventures for quite a while longer.
However, the biggest reason for his marriage aversion was that Harold just couldn’t be bothered with anything he wasn’t interested in.
Amy and Isabelle returned to the living room and sat on the sofa. Tigger immediately hopped up on Amy’s lap. As Amy blissfully pet his soft fur, Isabelle leaned over and whispered: “It doesn’t even seem like Harold has a girlfriend right now, so you may very well get married before he does!”
“What?!”
“Am I that off the mark?”
“B-But I’m—I’m just a candidate!” Amy’s cheeks flushed at the unexpected 180 the conversation took.
“Are you still worried about that otome game?” Isabelle asked, tilting her head to one side.
“No, not as much as before,” Amy answered after some thought, raking her fingers through Tigger’s long fur. “I guess I just feel…confused. Prince Jahal looked exactly like one of the characters too, and that just felt like…confirmation.”
From the time Amy had remembered her past life, including the otome game she used to play, until now, she had dedicated her life to practicing magic. She pushed her limits every day and had experienced so much in that time, she had stopped openly feeling suspicious that she was nothing more than a character someone had made, living in a video game world.
But some worries still lingered.
The fact that several people she knew looked exactly like characters from the game was too much of a coincidence. She hadn’t found definite proof that the similarities were totally unrelated to the game, either.
Even if Amy wasn’t sure whether or not the girl she saw at Wallum was the heroine of the game, she feared that the “heroine” would soon make her appearance and be the catalyst for the “invisible hand of the game” to start influencing the trajectory of the plot. This fear had been slowly and steadily building in her chest like a thin stream of sand.
And ironically, the two people who stirred up her anxiety most were her friends Edward and Alexander—doppelgangers of two of the love interests from the game. As they had matured, they’d started to look more and more like the characters she could remember from the opening screen until they were perfect replicas.
Amy tried to accept her reality in this world. But the closer she got to them, the more she remembered that image from the game… Amy’s existence felt like it was being pulled in two different directions.
“That does sound like it would be hard,” her mother sympathized.
“What I do know is that this is my reality right now.”
Whether it be Amy’s reincarnated family members or the young men who appeared to be love interests from an otome game, everyone’s thoughts, actions, and lives were guided by their own will.
Amy slipped her hands under Tigger’s front armpits and, with some effort, hoisted him up. Turning him to face her, Amy planted his front legs on her shoulders and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Tigger’s happy meows rang in her ears. With his velvety fur and warmth pressed against her cheek, she couldn’t help smiling.
Tigger was Amy’s closest piece of reality, one that she could believe in unconditionally. If she believed that she was inside a fictional world of someone else’s creation, that would mean denying the reality of Tigger—and there was no way Amy could do that.
“That’s why, if the heroine makes an appearance and the invisible hand of the game starts to intervene, then…”
“Then…?”
“I’ll go away somewhere with Tigger!”
“Running away as fast as you can?” Isabelle chuckled. “I’m not quite sure if that makes you optimistic or pessimistic!”
If a piece of the game were to go missing, that would probably alter the course of the plot—if even only by a little bit.
Specifically, if Amy (who was likely the story’s villainess) were out of the picture, it’d be impossible for her to interact with the heroine at all, much less mistreat her in some way.
From whichever angle Amy examined the matter, leaving seemed to be the only way the period in which the game played out could end without her family getting torn apart, or anyone else getting hurt.
But it would mean I’d never be able to see Ed again…
A throb of pain stung Amy’s chest.
The pendant necklace Edward had given her swayed as she took Tigger off her lap in an attempt to obscure the inexplicable tears that threatened her eyes.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Isabelle. “Living your life, even with an emergency plan B, is much better than just cowering in fear over some hypothetical future, right?”
“Right. I’ll keep giving it my all!”
Isabelle chuckled.
“Don’t overwork yourself, okay?”
Isabelle smiled as Amy unknowingly clutched her pendant.