"Okay, Grandaunt, this is how the game works. You know the original novel, right?" Elyza shifted into full teacher-gamer mode, adjusting her imaginary glasses with a serious face.
Viviana raised an eyebrow. "More like I memorized it. It's the last gift my mother ever gave me," she said, her voice softening as she glanced down at the floor.
"Well, that's perfect! Even better!" Elyza grinned. "Let's start with very easy mode." She picked up the console and powered it on.
The screen lit up, and the title appeared in flashy letters: The Droopy Rose: Ikemen Otome Game.
Viviana sighed and turned away slightly, muttering under her breath, "I'm too old for this."
Elyza chuckled. "Anyway, Grandaunt, did you have a first love?"
Viviana looked at her, unamused. "I did. But you don't need to know." She took the console from Elyza and started fiddling with it, trying to figure it out.
"Just one sentence about him?" Elyza pressed, turning on the puppy eyes.
Viviana sighed again, clearly reluctant. "He was my first love… and I was wrong. Turns out he was a murderer. That's all." She shrugged like it meant nothing, but her clenched jaw betrayed the emotion beneath her cool expression.
Trying to distract herself, she shifted her attention back to the console. "Anyway, how do kids even play this thing?"
"Why didn't you find another one?" Elyza asked while helping her grandaunt adjust the console. She clearly just wanted to keep the conversation going.
"Men are jerks and completely untrustworthy," Viviana said flatly. Her tone was calm, but laced with arrogance and obvious irritation.
"Not all men are jerks, Grandaunt," Elyza replied sweetly. "Like Grandpa! And your brothers are total green flags. You know that, right?"
Viviana rolled her eyes. "I'm just tired of their crap. Besides, I'm literally the chairwoman of Carsten Electronics. Why on earth would I waste my time on something so useless?" Her brows were furrowed in annoyance, like the very mention of romance offended her.
"Love isn't useless, Grandaunt," Elyza said gently, still helping her navigate the game. "It's something you'll need someday. Something to cling to."
"Tsk." Viviana clicked her tongue, looking away in disgust. Then she raised a brow and turned to her grandniece. "What? You've got a boyfriend or something now? Aren't you just a kid?"
Elyza turned a bright shade of red and quickly looked away. "Um… no. I don't call him a boyfriend. And I'm not a kid, I'm seventeen!" she muttered. "But I wouldn't mind if he was…" She pulled her hoodie up, trying to hide her face.
Viviana smirked. She couldn't resist. "Oh? Does your mother know about this?" Her grin widened. "You do remember your grandfather is my brother, right? I could tell him everything you just said. It's his responsibility anyway, since you're basically his granddaughter."
Elyza gasped, eyes wide. "No! Please, no!" In a panic, she lunged forward and covered Viviana's mouth with her hand. Then, realizing what she'd done, she quickly pulled away and dove under a blanket, hiding her face completely.
Viviana wiped her mouth with dramatic disgust. "How dare you touch my mouth with your filthy hand?" she snapped, her arrogant, cold demeanor fully back in place.
"I'm sorry, Grandaunt," Elyza mumbled, bowing her head slightly under the blanket, still flushed red with embarrassment.
Viviana let out a sigh and handed the console back. "I think the game's starting. You said there were different modes, right?" She turned her attention to the glowing screen with a raised brow.
Elyza peeked out from under the blanket and nodded. "Yeah… there's 'Very Easy,' 'Easy,' 'Normal,' 'Hard,' and 'Very Hard.'"
Viviana smirked as she gripped the console like it was her next battlefield. "Well, I love a challenge. And I hate failure."
Despite her age and her pride, she looked determined. And for the first time in a long while, something about this silly game seemed… exciting.
"Well… we should start with the Very Easy mode, since that's the most basic," Elyza explained, slipping smoothly into gamer-teacher mode. "If you really memorized the novel, Grandaunt, then this'll be a breeze. This mode is based on Aurelia's perspective."
Viviana narrowed her eyes slightly, adjusting her grip on the console. Elyza tapped a few buttons, bringing up the tutorial.
"As you can see, the rule of this game is to make all seven male leads fall for you, hard. Their affection scores must hit 100% max. If you miss even a single percentage point—" she slashed her finger across her neck dramatically, "—you die in the game."
Viviana blinked. "So you're saying… just follow the novel's storyline through Aurelia's perspective, right? With the same ending?"
"Exactly," Elyza confirmed, nodding eagerly as she launched the animated intro. "And the choices are already pre-set. You just need to pick the right ones. That's why it's called 'Very Easy Mode' because it sticks pretty close to the original book."
Viviana leaned back, a mix of curiosity and skepticism on her face, but she kept listening.
"Now, the next one, Easy Mode, that one's from Eldena's perspective," Elyza continued.
Viviana's brows lifted. "Oh! You mean the fake Aurelia?"
Elyza beamed. "Yes! I'm impressed you remembered that." She sounded genuinely pleased that her grandaunt knew so much about the characters. "So, in this mode, the story starts even before Aurelia gets lost. Eldena and her brother are still beggars back then. Before she ever took Aurelia's identity."
Viviana gave a short nod, already intrigued despite herself.
"Bonus tip," Elyza added, holding up a finger. "You start with a 60% affection score from Eldena's brother. All you have to do is raise it to 100%. But don't forget, you still need to max out the other male leads' affection levels too. It's just slightly more challenging because this version goes off the book a little."
Viviana smirked as she processed the information. "Hmph. Fake Aurelia, beggars, affection scores, death by percentage. This game's more dramatic than half the real people I know."
"That's why it's fun!" Elyza chirped, clearly delighted.
"The next mode would be Normal Mode. This one's from Louisa Kalem's perspective," Elyza continued, navigating through the game's main menu.
Viviana's eyebrows rose again in recognition. "Isn't that Aurelia's lady-in-waiting? The baron's daughter?"
"That's correct!" Elyza grinned. "Wow, Grandaunt. I'm seriously impressed. And you haven't even played the game."
Viviana sat back with a subtle, smug nod. "When it comes to this novel, I know everything. I even made weird theories about the random characters." Her tone was calm, but the proud glint in her eyes gave her away.
Elyza chuckled. "Honestly, I shouldn't be surprised." She cleared her throat and continued her mini-lecture. "Anyway, Normal Mode starts when Louisa is twelve, during her older sister's debutante ball hosted by their grandfather."
"The one where she wore the ripped dress?" Viviana interrupted.
"Yes!" Elyza gasped, impressed again. "Exactly! The family's poor, so while her sister is elegant and polished, Louisa looks...well, like a tragic background character. And here's where it gets rough, players have to endure the bullying. If you try to skip or avoid it, you get a bad ending."
Viviana tilted her head. "So the only way to survive… is to suffer?"
"Yup," Elyza sighed. "If you don't endure it all, the male leads will either hate you or not even show up in the route. And if that happens, affection scores drop, and that means...yeah, death. Game over."
Viviana blinked. "Harsh."
"Don't worry though," Elyza added quickly. "Resets are still free in this mode. So I keep resetting. Over and over." She exhaled deeply, reliving the frustration. "Some of the choices are so confusing, and the bullying scenes...ugh, they even have swearing! Like actual brutal stuff. The realism is insane. It's like the devs wanted to make the novel even darker."
Viviana leaned back, arms crossed, intrigued despite herself. "They really turned that poor girl's trauma into gameplay mechanics?"
"Mhm. Real pain gets you real points," Elyza muttered dramatically.
Viviana smirked faintly. "Remind me to buy your developers a fruit basket full of rotten tomatoes."
"Deal," Elyza giggled, tapping the screen.
Elyza switched into another tutorial screen. "Okay, here's another trick. You remember Genevieve?"
Viviana furrowed her brows, confused. "The game developers included the personal maid too? Wasn't her story...like... never really mentioned?"
"Exactly!" Elyza nearly screamed, throwing her hands up. "She only shows up after Chapter 2000 of the novel! And she was practically invisible until then!"
Viviana scoffed, eyes narrowing at the absurdity. "Wow. I'm honestly surprised they even bothered to include an extra like her. How did they even write a backstory?"
Elyza sighed, clearly exhausted by this mode's existence. "They basically fabricated her story based on tiny fragments from the novel. You know how game studios are, they build tragedy from crumbs and turn it into a 'realistic experience.' That's how they lure players in. It's twisted, but it sells."
Viviana gave her a puzzled look. "Why are you like this?"
"Because I've never won on this mode, Grandaunt. Not once. It's complete emotional torture!" Elyza gritted her teeth.
Viviana crossed her arms, now intrigued. "How bad could it be?"
"Unlike the other modes, there are no multiple-choice options," Elyza explained, already looking drained just thinking about it. "You have to type every action, every line of dialogue, every decision yourself. This mode and the one after it are only playable on mobile."
"Yikes," Viviana muttered, her brow raised.
"You have to max out the affection scores of all seven male leads before the villainess's coming-of-age ceremony. And if you fail?" Elyza pointed to the screen. "You wait ten days before you're allowed to restart. Ten. Days."
Viviana's jaw dropped slightly. "That's not just harsh. That's psychological warfare."
"THANK you," Elyza groaned. "And the mode starts when Genevieve is still living in her peaceful little village. But if you mess up even once, the village gets destroyed and...ugh."
Viviana leaned forward, genuinely intrigued now. "Wait, wasn't Genevieve that commoner girl whose village was wiped out by House Archiz? The one who survived, became a slave, and ended up being gifted to the Agnesus family?"
Elyza nodded miserably. "Yep. She served both the fake and real Aurelia. And in this mode, you have to live through all that. You see it happen. People burned alive. Blood everywhere. The screams? They sound real. It's not just like watching a movie, it feels like you're in it. And there are no skip buttons. No 'safe choices.' You have to respond to every crisis, every tragedy, and if you say the wrong thing?"
"Death," Viviana finished flatly.
"And then you wait ten days to try again. And scream into your pillow in the meantime," Elyza muttered, face in her hands. "I call it 'emotional damage simulator.'"
Viviana let out a breath, shaking her head in disbelief. "They really made a game out of trauma."
"They really did. And I keep playing it," Elyza admitted, deadpan.
Viviana chuckled darkly. "You need a therapist, not a reset button."
"Tell me something I don't know," Elyza groaned, staring at the screen like it had personally betrayed her.
"Lemme guess, the very hard mode is the villainess, right?" Viviana raised an eyebrow with a knowing smirk.
Elyza snapped her fingers dramatically. "Correct! And let me tell you, this mode is vicious. Only rich people even dare to unlock it." She gave her grandaunt a side glance, slowly eyeing her from head to toe. "But that's not a problem for you, Madam Chairwoman of Five Subsidiaries." She let out a long, suffering sigh.
Viviana tilted her head, intrigued. "Why? What's the catch? Is it that brutal?"
"Brutal doesn't even begin to cover it," Elyza said grimly. "If the hard mode made you wait ten days to reset, this one makes you pay one thousand dollars per reset. No exceptions. No freebies. If you can't pay, guess what? Accept your failure and crawl back to the title screen."
Viviana let out a low whistle. "Sounds like the game developers are swimming in cash." She chuckled. "I respect the hustle."
"Oh, it's more than a hustle," Elyza groaned. "It's practically an investment platform disguised as a game. Because, get this, if you win the mode, they give you ten million dollars. And no, it's not a scam. The developers actually wire the money. They made it public. That's how serious they are."
Viviana leaned forward, smirking wider. "No one's ever won, though?"
"Don't get your hopes up, Grandaunt." Elyza pointed at her with exaggerated warning. "This mode is pure psychological warfare. It frustrates you, destroys you emotionally and somehow, you keep playing. You need to fix it."
Viviana crossed her legs, intrigued. "So what makes it so hard? Just the money?"
"No, the money is just the start." Elyza rolled her eyes. "The real nightmare is this: You're playing as her. The villainess. And yes... I refuse to say her name out loud because you named me after her. It's weird, and I'm in therapy about it."
Viviana tried not to smirk. "What a lovely namesake."
"This mode begins right after the villainess attempts to assassinate Aurelia," Elyza said, waving her hands in the air. "Not before, not during, but after she already ruined everything. The male leads hate you. Your affection scores? Negative twenty percent. That's right, below zero."
"Yikes." Viviana blinked. "You're not winning hearts. You're climbing out of a hate pit."
"Exactly! And the game doesn't let you fix things gently. It shoves you right into the middle of chaos: social ruin, attempted murder, and a palace full of enemies. Every step you take could be your last. One wrong word? Dead. One selfish move? Game over."
Viviana leaned back in her chair, looking a little too pleased. "And yet... since I'm a chairwoman..."
Elyza gave her a flat look.
Viviana slowly pulled sunglasses from her purse and slipped them on. "...Resetting should be easy."
Elyza groaned. "You really pulled out sunglasses for that?"
"I'm a trillionaire." Viviana flashed a smug grin.
Elyza blinked. "...Where did that come from?"
Viviana shrugged. "Just reminding the world."
"I remember now," Viviana said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "That villainess—Elyza, wasn't it? She tried to assassinate Aurelia, the Saintess who only appears once every thousand years. And the seven male leads? They were her sacred protectors. Then bam, imprisonment, and finally... beheading. Brutal."
"Do you have to keep saying my name like that?" Elyza groaned, slouching into the couch as if trying to disappear.
"I'm talking about her, not you." Viviana smirked. "But imagine being reincarnated as the villainess, Elyza. Oof."
Elyza visibly shuddered. "No. Never. Not in a million timelines." She hugged herself. "Even the thought makes my skin launch itself into the stratosphere."
Viviana chuckled. "But your grandfather, your mother, and I all agreed to name you after her."
"Because you forced them!" Elyza whipped around to glare, puffing her cheeks in defiance. "Especially with that whole deal about Carsten Electronics! You practically blackmailed them into it!"
Viviana gave her a smug look. "Genius~" she sang.
TO BE CONTINUED...