Vain

22. Fantastical Stories

Her mind ran with wild with theories, stretching on for miles on end, wrapping themselves around her small brain, as she tried to make sense of it all. But Aileene simply couldn't and the further she delve into her own thoughts, the more questions she had.

How was the book created?

Was this Aileene from a different parallel world?

How was the book able to reach her hands?

Why did the system allow it to exist? Or did the system not know?

The theories that she could come up with were boundless and she felt lost. Her back was up against the wall and she couldn't help but despair in the fact that her normal cleverness or intelligence didn't help her at all. There was no way left for her to go but forward. She had to finish the novel, the more she read, the more she would understand, right?

'Vain, in my world was a new and innovative game. It was one of kind in it's debuted genre, something no one had ever seen before. And so when it was pushed into the public's eyes it immediately gains traction, selling millions of copies all around the world in just a day.

The game market a new type of experience. It was a self-changing game, in which all decisions were made by the player.

Quests were unlocked by actions of the player, and the actions of the player, itself, were unlimited. Players were to type their own speech, dictate their own actions. Which in turn leaves the effect of the players' actions limitless.

The program to this new technology was, of course, a secret. Such an ingenious idea. Who would want to have it revealed to the world? That would just make the game lose all its value.

And the value of the game was really why I brought it. Before Vain, I hadn't played many otome games. It just wasn't my forte, so I didn't delve into the genre much. Though my lack of knowledge wasn't to say that I didn't even know what otome games were. I did play one or two, here and there and I basically knew the essential. So I was better off than most, but not a die-hard fan.

I guess I didn't have an interest in games in general. I don't play many games and the games I do were all mobile since they were ones that were easy to access. Something simple and mindless.

This wasn't the case for Vain though. It was a desktop game and it was a first for me to go out of my way for such a game. It piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a go. Maybe I'd broaden my horizon with it, was my thought process.'

The story was really far too detailed to be something a person inside Vain could write. It disclosed information that sounded reasonably true and could have possibly happened in the real world. But the simple believability of it wasn't any concrete evidence for her to go off of. So from her own small vault of knowledge, Aileene couldn't exactly tell if everything she read was fabricated or if it was an actual real ruminate of a past world.

Furrowing her brows, Aileene continued reading the book silently. Her mind still trying to decipher every question and theory she had, but her thoughts weren't getting very far. She stagnated in her mission, but the more she read, the more the story hooked onto her and dragged her in further.

The Aileene within the story had been "transmigrated," her own defining term, into the otome game Vain. Her experiences and past all link to the real world that exist outside Vain and throughout the story, she uses her future knowledge and real-world knowledge to solve all her problems. From every single destruction flag that headed her way, she would strike them down with extreme efficiency.

This in turn set up a domino effect to things, every action the book Aileene made further changed the original plot of Vain. Good turned into bad, bad turned into good. And so when book Aileene had finally started her years in Austrion Academy, the dominos that had been accumulating through time had started falling. One after another.

Since the villainess within the book was now kind and good. The world collapsed onto itself and the heroine turned vicious and evil. Though book Aileene didn't let any obstacles stand in her way of success and she stared on at the chaos of the falling dominos she had created, taking her steps in stride. In the end, she was able to overturn fate and earn herself a happy ending, despite her original status as a villainess.

Aileene flipped over the last pages of the book and sighed, the events portrayed in the books felt very familiar to her as she was reading. But as luck would have it, she simply couldn't think straight. Nevermind pinpoint exactly what her theory was, maybe it was just her tired and muddle-headedness speaking, afterall she had stayed up so late. So much so that her brain had given up its cognitive ability to remember.

Closing the book and turning to place it on her nightstand. Aileene glanced up at her pale blue curtains, which shadowed beside the hint of light stoning from the slit where the two parts of the curtain touched but weren't completely pinned together.

Seeing the light, she could guess that it was already morning. And instead of simply staying up late, she had stayed up the whole night. Aileene closed her eyes, finally starting to feel the effects of her timeless endeavor. She couldn't manage her time when she was sucked into the novel. So now she had to face the consequences of her actions.

Shifting her body to lie down, she shoved all her worries away. When the evening comes, she'd try to decipher her thoughts.

❅

20.) Do you enjoy books that subvert the expectations in a genre?

Answer:
I honestly love these books so much. Since they make everything new and interesting, even if the concept might have been cliché and unoriginal in the beginning. And I also try to do that in all my books too, cause I think I'm just obsessed with wanting to be "original." But really nothing can be original "original." Since we just think inspiration and ideas from each other.

21.) Now that there is a sliver of hope that an Aileene could reach a happy ending, do you think our Aileene would try to find her own happiness or perform as the system wishes?