Chapter Text
The chatter of the masses rises up the moment the professor lets his book fall shut making the pressure in Encrid's head rise too, the old, frail voice of the professor barely distinguishable between the scraping of chairs and the noise that comes with students rushing to get to the next class or catch their commute. Something about reading the next two chapters and some tasks they’re supposed to be doing until the next lecture, at least that is what reaches Encrid’s ears. He too is distracted, shoving his books into his bag and also rushing out alongside the drones of other students.
It is nearing the end of fall, and alongside the last leaves dropping from the trees outside the window the temperatures dropped too. Hopefully it won't snow during the night, he really hates shovelling that wet, cold, powdery, white curse from the heavens.
The current of people sweeps him through the hallway until he gets expelled outside the gate, his breath immediately becoming visible in the form of delicate white puffs, and his skin pricks with the cold. A look at his wrist sets him straight again and rips him out of his head. He does not have much time to waste, training starts in less than half an hour, and if he does not catch the next bus he'll definitely be late. His coach has been in a bad mood recently anyway, so that would be something nice to avoid.
Though he probably is a pretty big part of the reason that his coach is as annoyed as he is, understandable, it must be frustrating to teach someone for years just for them to learn seemingly nothing. Not that this fact will lead to Encrid giving up. Never has before and it will certainly not lead to that now. Even if all other people have long since given up, he still holds onto hope.
So luckily he does manage to catch the bus, overcrowded as it is. The drive itself is quite short, which is a blessing. The reason for that being that any time longer spent like a sardine in the tin can would probably drive him crazy. Especially with his steady holding headache.
The studio is incredibly old, the paint, which definitely had to have been painted straight over wallpaper by an absolute idiot, is chipping off the walls, and the wallpaper behind it is peeling off too. Even the floor looks straight out of the last century, uneven, with loose boards sticking up whose wood has been splintering for a long time.
Despite all that, and despite the musty smell hanging in the air, to Encrid this place brings joy. For years he came here, attended every lesson with starry eyes and the vigour of someone wishing to take the world by storm. Over time, with every failure, with every stagnant, never-changing day the stars began to fade, leaving only his vigour, only his dream to become better behind.
They say people die twice, first on the day their heart stops beating and afterwards on the day their name is spoken for the last time, maybe it is the same with dreams, they die once when it becomes obvious that that particular dream will never become reality and die a second time in the moment they are truly given up on and never dreamt again. But his dream would not die, not fully, he would make sure of that.
“You really don't know when to call quits, lad” The voice of the coach would be grating on the ears, with its deep and scratchy sound, but this voice, the only one that didn't send him away after his absolute lack of talent became apparent, sparks joy in his heart too. “I have a dream” “Yeah, yeah, to become genuinely good at tennis, which went great for you in the last decade, in which you have learned…” The coach raises his fist, but does not raise a single finger “... exactly zero techniques beyond the basics, which you’ve barely got down” “Barely is being unreasonably harsh-”
Whatever else Encrid might have pushed out of his mouth crumples on his tongue like ash at the withering glare the old man levels him with. Maybe barely fits quite well. “Let’s just get started, you're the only one who showed up today” “Lucky me”
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Everything hurts. But in hindsight Encrid should have been able to see that coming, training with the old man always leaves him sore, even on his better days. Though today was definitely not one of those, his focus was off, his footwork even more shoddy than usual, and his massive headache had not yet subsided. Swallowing down two painkillers with a glass of water, he empties his bag out on his desk, his books, laptop and assignments he should probably get started on sliding out, too bad he doesn’t really want to. It is not like he would be very productive with his headache anyway.
That begs the question of what exactly to do, it is still too early for sleep, and going out on a weekday also does not sound truly appealing. A quick glance on his phone would probably do nothing to alleviate the boredom, there would be no new messages waiting, from whom would they be after all. After leaving the orphanage and beginning to study at university he has not really kept any contacts, save for the old man.
He was right. There were no new messages, no missed calls or anything of the like, just one notification from his appstore, //Eternal Love ♡ The romance to sweep anyone off their feet//. He does not know what possesses him to tap the notification, he does not spend his time playing games, especially not ones like this.
The cover seems to be pretty generic, a blond young lady, probably intended to appear around his age, surrounded by a bunch of different conventionally attractive-looking guys making heart eyes at her. What manages to catch his eyes is a figure in the background, clutching a sword and looking at the group that practically oozes with conventional attractiveness for the sake of marketability with an expression of anger and contempt.
That is how Encrid himself looks in most pictures, never managing to properly move his facial muscles to form a kind smile when it is actively being demanded of him, something the other kids in the orphanage used to tease him about. But it is not just the face, it is everything, the build, the posture and even the face. It is like a picture of him was used to design this character. Scrolling through the rest of the marketing pictures of the game, each character has a little description panel, the blond heroine, the love interests and also the villain, his contemptuous looking double, with whom he apparently shares not just a face, but also a name.
Encrid Valen, the fiancé of the heroine, who is both cold-hearted and talentless, another thing they both share, yet never lets her stray from their union, and as such is the villain in her potential budding romances with the love interests. What a bullshit plot premise.
But it is not like he has anything better to do. If one ignores the mountain of assignments he has, which Encrid definitely does, it is not his training, and as such does not really interest him. So just a few minutes later the game is fully downloaded and he starts it up, opening it a cheerful melody rings out, sounding just a bit staticky, the fault for that probably lies with his phone's shitty speakers rather than the game.
Navigating the menu, which is just the cover picture with all characters again overlaid with textboxes reading /New Game/, /Load Game/, which is greyed out, /Gallery/, /Options/ and /Quit/ he quickly presses the button startin a new save file and promptly skips most of the preamble, something about a noble lady engaged to the adopted son of a count and now trapped in this loveless affair, until she rekindles her flame with other people she knew and things start to go differently.
The art is pretty enough he supposes, and so Encrid soldiers on. It does not take long to reach the first encounter, himself, or his double, which is starting to become really creepy now that he is actually playing the game. The conversation stays civil for all but two lines until both the heroine and villain start exchanging thinly veiled insults, how the heroine is a whore for frequenting the streets, how the villain is a stuck-up wench constantly drowning in self-pity and on it goes. If that is the tone for the entire game Encrid already knows he won’t be having a particularly good time.
The following interactions are not much better. The heroine, having finally had enough of her verbal standoff with the villain, leaves the manor Valen and enters the surrounding city. She of course immediately encounters one of her maybe will be lovers, a young genius specialising in commerce, Krais Allman. The two bump into each other and the heroine, seeing the marked traderoutes on his papers, offers her expertise, coming from the part of the Sylavan woodland they run through.
They move their conversation into a cafe, and through some very obvious sweet-talking choices Encrid is able to raise Krais's favorability towards the heroine by a whole ten percent. Those interactions conclude the first chapter of the game, and Encrid gets a pop-up /Wanna continue playing? You can either /$ Buy our premium package $/, /⏯ Watch an ad ⏯/ or /⏲ Wait 23 h 59 min until the cooldown is done ⏲/ “What kind of bull- hagh” A deep sigh leaves his lips and he throws his phone to the side, for such a mediocere game to demand so much from its players is really too much audacity. Or maybe the genre was just truly not his thing. But the game also just sucked, in his opinion.
He might as well get to bed, at least in the end his headache did go down, getting up he gets suddenly hit by vertigo, the shapes and colours surrounding him melting into one muddy mass until his desk, bed, the floor and ceiling, and his phone, still being stuck on the damm pop-up screen, are completely indistinguishable from eachother.
His head suddenly hurts again. How cruel that he was only given a few moments of respite. It is not pressure like before, but a stabbing, pulsing pain that leaks down from his head to his back and from his back into his limbs. He loses balance, his beyond blurry vision not allowing much distinction between up and down, he feels himself stumbling, and his suddenly much too heavy body crashes to the ground. It does not hurt, or maybe the pain from the fall is as indistinguishable from the pain stemming from his head as everything else currently is indistinguishable from eachother. His vision blackens, the last thing catching in his eye being the damm pop-up, at least that is what he assumes the glowing rectangle in front of him to be.
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Encrid's eyes flutter open, glancing across the room, he does not find himself in a hospital, but in what appears to be some sort of bedroom, the real fancy kind, with panelling along the walls and waxed wooden floors. Where was he? A hotel perhaps? But why would he be in one? Especially in one so far above his means?
System Notice:
Welcome to your new world, the System greets you soul Encrid
“What?!”
Eternal Love Additional Information:
One of the game's advertisements:
The game Eternal Love was made for smartphones and is fully voice-acted. It offers a branching narrative and three different endings for each of the love interests: a good, a neutral and a bad ending. With the ending you will get entirely dependent on your choices. With the incredibly diverse cast of characters, everyone can find what their heart desires, from the strong and dependable one, the brave and dashing ome to the sweet and kind one every personality trope is represented. What are you waiting for? Download Eternal Love today and immerse yourself into it’s world of romance, political intrigue and power struggles.