0 and 1 Chapter 1.1 || Just What Game Is This?

A new semester started, and I took on another part-time job. As a result, school became just a place to sleep.

I sat in the very back row and slept until homeroom ended. Every time I dozed off and woke up, I could see the back of the guy in front of me slumped over. The guy in front of me had been dozing all day too. Feeling comfortable, I put my head down to sleep, but only I got caught by the teacher and scolded.

After about a week, the other students in the class recognized both me and the guy in front of me as the ones who always sleep. The guy in front’s name was Yoo Yeonho. When Yeonho wasn’t sleeping, he was playing games. He said with his own mouth that he probably spent hundreds of thousands of won on games every month. I replied that he must have a lot of money, but he just said that he didn’t really have anywhere else to spend his allowance.

Yeonho talked a lot. Throughout lunch break, he would talk about what games he had beaten and how terrible those games were. According to Yeonho, there were only garbage games in the world, yet it was amazing how he always stayed up all night playing new games.

Occasionally, Yeonho would recommend games to me, but you couldn’t tell if they were fun just by listening. I was just nodding along when one day Yeonho suddenly asked me,

“Don’t you want to try playing a game?”

“I don’t have money.”

“It’s not that expensive. Even paid games are at most a few ten thousand won.”

“I’m telling you, I’m broke.”

Yeonho shrugged.

“Man, you’re so stingy. Your life needs some romance. Romance, love! Play games, my dear friend. Everything exists in games.”

“Yeah, and I still have no money.”

”You romance-less asshole.”

Yeonho grumbled. This is really fun, just try it once, okay? He started whining. He said that although the illustrations were kind of trashy, it was fun, and that the true joy of games doesn’t come from appearances. Oh, really? I answered, but I didn’t play the game.

While working at my convenience store part-time job after school, my phone rang. There was a notification that Yeonho had gifted me a game. It was a dating simulation game, and the protagonist was a girl. Looking at the intro screen, it did seem full of romance.

What a cute brat.

Considering his thoughtfulness, I downloaded it. It took quite a while to download. Will this even run on this old phone? Thinking back, the last game I had played was Minesweeper. Still, given all I’d heard from Yeonho, I should be able to beat it.

Throughout my shift, I played it in bits and pieces and saw one ending. The player character was executed for insulting the royal family. Wait, what did I do? It was quite brutal for a dating game.

Anyway, it was fun. I wanted to share my thoughts with Yeonho when I went to school tomorrow. I was planning to tell him it was harder than I expected and ask if he had seen all the endings.

Then I heard a sound. Car tires scraping against asphalt.

Something was coming at me. When I looked up, car headlights pierced my eyes.

There was no time to react. It felt surreal as my body was hit by the car, thrown into the air, and then dropped to the ground.

I was hit by a car while crossing the crosswalk. My mom had told me not to look at my phone while walking. I was usually an obedient son.

With the headlight’s glare still imprinted on my retina, a ringing in my ears came before the pain. Through my ringing ears, I could hear someone saying to call an ambulance.

My phone had fallen some distance away.

Through the cracked screen, I could see the executed player character.

What shitty luck… That was my last thought.

***

The first thought I had when I regained consciousness was that this couldn’t be a hospital room. When my father passed away, I was too young, but as I grew older, I learned that my father’s hospital bills had drained all our family’s money.

A sharp light pierced my eyelids. So it was a hospital after all. This was the worst. But the light felt like sunlight rather than artificial blue lighting. I could feel the warmth of the sun and the touch of grass on my cheeks and limbs.

“Joffrey!”

Suddenly, noise rushed in as if someone had turned off mute mode.

My whole body ached. I was being held in the arms of a woman I had never seen before. She was a striking beauty with black hair. She was crying with her face distorted in anguish.

“Oh, God! Thank you, thank you!”

She kissed my forehead and sobbed. I tried to ask who she was, but only a half groan escaped my lips. Had a car run me over? My whole body felt like it was breaking apart. If she kept holding me like this, I’d truly die.

“Joffrey, my baby, are you alright? Joffrey! Why aren’t any of you calling for a doctor immediately!”

The woman shouted. At her words, people dressed like old Europeans rushed off somewhere.

Where’s the road? Where are the cars? This wasn’t the neighborhood I knew. In fact, this didn’t even look like Korea. I rolled my eyes around and ended up meeting pitch-black eyes.

Clear eyes that couldn’t read thoughts, long and beautiful eyelashes. When the wind blew, thick strands of hair swayed above a long neck.

Is that a horse?

In an instant, my sense of reality vanished. I was staring at the horse with my mouth open. Then something happened.

Smack!

A child rolled on the ground. Golden hair and bright blue eyes caught my attention first, followed by a reddening, swollen cheek.

“How dare you! How dare you!”

The woman who had been holding me was glaring at the boy with a terrifying expression. When the child didn’t move, the woman raised her arm again. I was surprised and grabbed her hand.

The woman’s expression crumbled instantly. Ah, she murmured, then kissed my forehead and cheeks, rubbing her face against mine as she sobbed.

“Thank goodness, really, thank goodness.”

I was dumbfounded and turned my gaze. The boy was still lying there. There were many people around, but no one helped the child get up. They just stood like still life paintings with their eyes downcast. Are they all crazy? This is child abuse!

After a while, the boy dusted himself off and got up on his own. Without crying.

He looked at me.

From head to toe, moving only his eyes, he examined me. Then he took the horse’s reins and walked away. The horse that had instantly blown away my sense of reality was following the boy and getting farther away.

No, wait. Where are you going?

The child was walking away alone, and no one seemed to care.

Someone placed a wet cloth on my head, and a man picked me up. He was very strong but seemed to have poor eyesight. Even though I was pointing at the child and saying something, he only said, “I’m sorry, we’ll arrive soon.”

With each step the man took, it felt like my bones were dislocating. I couldn’t even think about where I was or what was happening.

“Joffrey, my baby.”

The woman who had just committed child abuse called me in a voice dripping with affection. The hand that had slapped the child’s cheek was now touching my cheek, stroking my hair, and holding my hand. It was warm and soft. To the point of bringing tears to my eyes.

***

In the game <Love Trap Marriage>, the protagonist, Idella, is a pragmatic noble-born girl. Born into a family that had already fallen on hard times, she grew up doing all the housework without even a servant despite being a noble.

Her dream is to graduate from the academy as soon as possible and get a job that can support her family. One day, striking her like a bolt from the blue, her father orders,

‘As soon as you graduate from the academy, get married for the sake of the family.’

The intended groom was a merchant older than her father, with children already older than Idella. Desperate to avoid this fate, Idella made a decision: to find a husband at the academy and marry him first.

At the academy, Idella can meet a total of five men, two of whom are princes.

First Prince Edward and Second Prince Joffrey.

Edward has blonde hair and blue eyes – truly the appearance of a prince. He excels academically and is skilled with the sword, giving an impression of perfection and flawlessness.

Joffrey, on the contrary, is average in every way, but has a good personality that allows him to get along well with many people.

When playing as Idella, I chose Edward as my route. His specs seemed the most impressive. After all, isn’t he the prince who will become king?

But when I raised my intimacy with Edward, Joffrey approached me.

Unlike the aloof Edward, Joffrey was affectionate. Having grown up being compared to his excellent brother, the prince knew how to comfort Idella’s inferiority complex and weaknesses. Maybe what she needed wasn’t success but someone who would love her?

Because I felt sorry for the female protagonist, after seeing a few Joffrey events, I changed my route to Joeffrey’s.

And then my female protagonist was murdered by Edward.

In the ending, Edward holds the dying Idella and says,