Are you all right, Miss Guevera? She snapped her head up and swallowed the lump in her throat as Instructor Ignatius stood over her desk. He looked sowhat concerned. You dont seem as attentive as usual.
He glanced down at the few papers in front of her. Tori followed his gaze and her stomach twisted. Her usual page or two full of notes had two or three sentences and none of her doodles or charts she used to visualize concepts.
She looked back at her instructor with guilt. Im sorry, Instructor Ignatius, Im a bit distracted today. This wont happen again. Ill be fine tomorrow.
Her words didnt seem to reassure the man. He thought for a mont. If you need to review todays lesson, co see after class this week and well go over what you missed.
She took a deep breath and nodded. Thank you. Im sorry about this.
Instructor Ignatius gave her a small nod. I know you have a lot of things going on, but dont take more than you can handle. If you do beco overwheld, dont be afraid to ask for help. He stepped away from her desk and Tori closed her eyes. She leaned back against her seat and let out a low, frustrated breath.
It was inevitable that personal problems could affect her ntal state and then spill over into work, or in this case, school. She was still human. Forty-years-old or otherwise. After running a hand down her face, she collected her belongings and began to walk towards the practice grounds for sword.
Halfway there, she ca to a stop. Wielding weapons when she was in a daze was not a good idea, no matter how decent she thought her reflexes were. She had so skill, but she wasnt reckless. The last thing any sort of athlete or martial artist wanted was to be injured.
Tori turned around and took two steps in the direction of her dorm.
Ilyana would be there soon and start doing her afternoon reviews. Knowing her, if she noticed Tori even moderately sad, shed imdiately try to find out what was wrong and no reviewing would be done. She appreciated her friends loyalty, even if it was programd into her, so Tori didnt want to bother her.
The only other place she could think of to be alone was Cafe Fortuna.
When she stepped through the doors, Madam Lillian Jager, Tobias mother, was at the counter. She welcod Tori brightly, but the plump and rosy womans smile waned as she saw Toris face.
Whats wrong, my lady? She had a deep, rural accent from the northeast that Tori liked. Perhaps because the tones and fluidity of it reminded her of her original worlds grandmothers accent. She wasnt sure what it was, but it was comforting. The woman rounded the counter and walked across the empty cafe. She raised her hands and cupped Toris face. You are...tired?
Tori nodded her head silently. Mama J, can I get so chicken soup? It was her comfort food of choice, no matter what world she was in.
Yes, yes, Mama J will make it for you. You go to the boss room. I will bring you soup.
Tori thanked her softly and trudged to the stairs. She didnt question being treated like a child in need of comfort. She was distressed. She welcod it.
The door to Piers private room was at the end of the hall upstairs, right above the front of the cafe. Shed only been there once, when Axton invited her and the others up the day he found her seething about the stolen vests. She pushed open the door and walked into the warm room with a large table, chairs, and a plush, oversized settee by the window.
She put her bag on the table and then went to lay across the settee. She needed a mont to decompress, then she could think clearly. As she sprawled on the soft, purple velvet, the weight around her body seed to sink and she closed her eyes. Her breaths were low and even.
Laying on the settee reminded her of when she first woke up in the ga world, trying to make sense of everything. Shed lay on the fancy bed, staring at the canopy, trying to understand who she was and the world around her. Back then, she didnt see a point in panicking or being afraid, though the feelings were there.
Her situation was what it was and without knowing the situation of her original life - whether she was dead or just in a coma - she wasnt about to kill herself to see if shed go back. Thats not the type of person she was and frankly, she thought doing so was ridiculous.
Whod rather put themselves through the montary pain and stress of death just to see if there was even a chance of returning to her original world when they could live and see what it was like be the beloved daughter of a wealthy and influential family, and explore a fantasy world?
Of course, she missed her family, friends, and carefree life, and the world she grew up in and was used to. To this day, shed have monts where she was reminded of her original ho and her heart would ache. There were nights shed wake up with tears in her eyes after dreaming of her mother crying over her dead body or her best friend of 22 years suffering a panic attack after finding out about the accident when she didnt reach Osaka to et them.
The words Im fine; dont worry about always died in her throat just as she woke up. All she could do was swallow her cries and turn her back to Ilyana, hoping she didnt wake her.
If she could go back, she would...within reason.
A chance at returning wasnt worth the finality of death if it failed. At least, not to her.
Even if in eight years she was going to die in this world, she certainly wasnt going to rob herself of an interesting life experience before then. Tori opened her eyes and stared at the exposed wooden beams above her. She narrowed her eyes.
I can do a lot in eight years.... she said to herself. Even if she spent most of it in school, shed get to experience new things, which was always a thrill for her. It was why she took so many classes and learned random things. It was why she traveled the world and enjoyed varied interests that served no practical purpose in her career. Huh....
A knock ca from the door.
My lady, I bring you soup!
Tori swung her legs over the edge of the settee and rushed to open the door so Mama Jager didnt have to hold the tray for too long.
Thank you, Mama J. Tori reached out to take the tray. I can get it. Do you want to bring it downstairs when Im done?
No, you leave it here. Eat and rest, okay? The fifty-sothing year old woman reached out and patted Toris cheek affectionately. If you need anything, we are downstairs.
She headed back and Tori turned around, using her foot to close the door while she held the wooden tray with the rather large bowl of chicken and vegetable chunks floating in thick soup. There was a hot cup of coffee with milk next to the bowl and her favorite Cafe Fortuna dessert, custard tart. She placed the tray on the table and smiled softly. This was more food than she expected.
Tori sat down and ate what she could before rummaging through her bag for her pencil and so paper to help straighten her thoughts. She needed to at least have an idea or suspicion on what was happening to react. How she chose to react would determine how she faced the world, and how she faced the world, even if she died in eight years, would determine how well she lived.
First thing first: the characters.
Dimitris nonsensical conversation with her that afternoon, asking her to essentially give in to Alessa, was making sense until it didnt. Tori understood why hed ask such a thing: he wanted to help the protagonist. However, Dimitri was supposed to be a sensible character. He was being grood to one day be a Pri Minister.
Tori gave him a reasonable explanation on why she didnt agree and an option that would give Alessa what she theoretically wanted, which was jobs for her village. Yet he acted as if she was dead set on destroying those jobs and harming Alessa.
First Gideon and then Dimitri, and Adrien, who seed to insist she was blaming Alessa for the stolen designs when she never voiced it. Even Fabian had agreed to Alessas suggestion that Tori sit at the front of the class for the midterm exam.
Tori wrote out all their nas and little notes beneath them. Sooner or later, the other targets would also sohow co into conflict. No matter how reasonable she thought she was or how lenient she reacted to try to mitigate any backlash, they ca to dislike her, like the dating sim intended.
She tapped her pencil on the paper.
According to the wiki article, it was Victoria who always plotted against Alessa because of jealousy. It was mostly in the form of bullying, like isolation or verbal abuse. While Tori thought a lot of shit about Alessa recently, she hadnt acted out in any way the ga had her act originally. She never sought out Alessa. When they crossed paths, Tori remained polite, but distant. She even put in the effort to appease her.
So why would Alessa and her love interests retaliate and look badly upon her if there was nothing to fight back against?
Tori drew a line from Alessas na to each love interest, trying to rember whatever encounters she could with each. Technically, Alessa never fought back against Victoria. Victoria would confront her and Alessa would be victimized. It was always the love interests protecting her or coming to her defense.
Holy shit. Tori sat up straight and looked at her paper with disturbed revelation. She earns romance points by beefing with .
If the character Victoria didnt exist, would Alessa need to be protected by the love interests? Of course not. Victoria was a catalyst. She was a plot device and the dreaded cannon fodder.
And now that Tori wasnt causing trouble, Alessa couldnt be a victim. A baby who wasnt crying didnt get attention, after all. It stood to reason that for Alessa to have more encounters and raise her romance points, she needed to have conflict and if conflict didnt co to her, shed proceed to look for it by coming to Tori.
But why does it have to be with ? Because thats what the ga is programd to have her do.
This brought about the question that had been sitting in the pool of dread in her stomach since she spoke to Dimitri hours earlier: was she just in the world of the ga or was she in the ga itself while it was being played?
Ooh.... She tapped her pencil and grimaced. She saw that movie about video ga characters being stuck in their predefined roles and having depression. She knew where it went. I dont like this.
It did cross her mind that perhaps Alessa was in the sa situation as her: a different soul trapped in the body of a mobile ga dating sim character. However, that would an one of either two things: Alessas soul either knew about the ga or didnt.
If she knew about the ga, then she was playing it in real ti. She would know things that Tori knew. More if she played the ga previously. Alessa would already have a massive advantage, but that didnt appear to be the case.
If she didnt know about the ga, she would likely be much more confused and tense, struggling to fit in and make sense of it all.
Alessa fit in fine. She showed no notable hints of another transmigrated soul.
No modern mannerisms. Specifically, no modern Japanese mannerisms Tori was used to seeing in her Japanese ex-pat co-workers and their families. Tori herself carried over mannerisms from her original life: the way she walked, the way she gesticulated when she spoke, and her facial expressions. Alessa did show the traits of a rural girl in the city, which fell in line with her ga backstory.
Alessa also had no significant reaction to the down vest, other than to hand it over to Adrien.
Regardless of whether Alessa was another modern transmigrated soul or not, it didnt change the situation that the ga was in motion and the other characters continued acting in line with the original narrative despite Tori being uncooperative.
Her initial suspicion was that she was just in the world of the ga. She assud the plot could be changed with a sort of butterfly effect once one aspect of a tiline was changed. That change being that Victoria de Guevera was now inhabited by the soul of Tori Felix. She doubted such bad things would happen to her and her family if she didnt cause trouble with the main characters.
But if she was in the ga itself while it was being played, then she was a glitch in the system and the ga was self-correcting to progress as intended. That ant that no matter what she did, shed conflict with Alessa, and her love interests, for one reason or another.
No wonder she had such a deep suspicion of all of them to begin with.
Well, fuck. She tossed her pencil on to the table and leaned back against the chair. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, then reached for her coffee. She took a big gulp and mulled about it for a mont to let the horrible revelation sink in.
The forced scarcity of supplies for the excursion made sense despite, logically, the surrounding stores shouldve had an excess of goods knowing to expect students coming to prepare for the yearly excursion. Scarcity would force an encounter with Adrien.
The red bellied viper appearing in a habitat where it wasnt supposed to be was a plot device to force an encounter with Fabian.
The school letting 180 teenagers into a forest for three days and telling them to cross a river despite it being a massive lawsuit waiting to happen was one big encounter to get closer to Gideon, Fabian, Dimitri, Constantine, and Montan.
She was sure that there would be more instances. Whether or not they would affect her directly, such as the supplies did and the viper did not, was unknown. But they would happen because the ga was in progress and soone had to get a man.
Tori let out a bitter laugh and shook her head.
Her life was in a ga that wasnt going to let her be anything but the villainess used to move the story along.
If that was the situation, how would she deal with it?
She stared at the jumble of nas and words on the paper.
She narrowed her eyes and slowly drew a large circle around the group of nas and then an arrow pointing to where shed written her own na.
Dont waste your energy...work smarter not harder.... she whispered to herself. Let your opponent co to you.
Tori brought her coffee to her wry, smirking lips. Since conflict was inevitable, she would simply have to be prepared for it.
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