This Isn't a Game

"Goddamn it, what a piece of trash garbage game!!"

The words bled across the center of the monitor in letters as vivid as blood, and a curse slipped through my lips. Blue veins stood out on the back of my hand as I fought the urge to smash the keyboard.

How many bad endings is this now…

This game had five romanceable heroines in total.

Every last one of them was charming, with a heart-wrenching backstory—but every path ended in ruin. Someone always died. Someone always went mad. Someone always lost everything.

And at the center of every tragedy, the male protagonist Basil always suffered.

"Is there seriously… no way?"

Hoping against hope that some new strategy guide might have gone up, I opened the game community window out of habit. As always, the screen was packed with nothing but seething reviews from other players.

For all that sweet tagline, what this game actually melted was players' time and mental health.

No matter how you looked at it, "romance simulation" was a terrible fit. No choice led to happiness, so people called it the "dating sim with nothing but bad endings."

And I was probably the person on this planet who had played it the most.

I had memorized every branch point. I had collected every required stat and item. I had restarted thousands of times and pressed every single choice. I had scoured every domestic and overseas community so I wouldn't miss a scrap of information.

I had done everything I could—no, more than that.

But on the monitor, Basil leaned against a building wall in a world gone ashen, staring at the sky with empty eyes. There was no one at his side.

I couldn't bring myself to press Y.

Hundreds of loops. Thousands of failures.

People asked why I clung to this garbage game, but they didn't understand. Even inside that tragic story, how desperately Basil had fought to save everyone and find ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠happiness.

That desperation, that longing—it felt far too real.

"…Basil, you bastard. I'm going to make you happy no matter what."

The muttered words rang hollow through the empty room. In that moment, anger and pity boiled over together.

"Ah, fuck it! I'd rather!! Just go into that world myself and clear it the hard way!"

As if those words had been a trigger—

The monitor erupted in a flash. Light so bright I couldn't open my eyes, and a sensation like my whole body being torn apart.

My consciousness drifted far away.

A musty wooden smell stabbed my nose.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a ceiling finished in crude wooden planks. For some reason, the scene felt familiar.

"Where is this…"

I tried to sit up against the alien sensation, and the voice that came out was wrong.

Thin, clear, and clearly not mine. I staggered over to the full-length mirror on one side of the room.

Somehow, the shoulder and neck pain I'd grown used to after years glued to a monitor had vanished like a lie. My body felt strangely light.

And the moment I saw my reflection, I froze solid.

Platinum-blonde hair as if moonlight itself had been melted down and spun. Beneath it, mysterious eyes that glittered like freshly cut rubies.

The thickset figure I knew was gone without a trace. In its place stood an unreal beauty of a girl who looked like she'd stepped straight out of a game illustration. And in front of my eyes, a single transparent window floated up.

Through the chaos in my head, a single command flashed.

"If something like that is popping up, then maybe… status window! No—status window!!"

Really.

I had really come through.

Into the world of Melting Recipe.

"Haha……."

A hollow laugh burst out of me. Sure, I'd said I'd rather come into this world myself—but I had never once imagined it would actually happen.

And on top of that…

I muttered at the face of the absurdly beautiful girl in the mirror.

"But…… why a female character of all things?"

From the very start, something was seriously wrong.

"Saya?"

The name written on the status window.

"……Was there a name like that?"

I dug through the memories of a game I had repeated thousands of times. I was at the level of reciting not only the main heroines, but passing side characters—even the dialogue of shop NPCs. A huge chunk of the strategy guides floating around the internet had been born from my own hands, after all.

"Hmm…"

"Hmmm…"

And after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a long stretch of combing my memory, I finally found it. That ridiculous role.

Not particularly needed for the story's progress. Pretty, but without even a function among the extras. A pure "pretty backdrop."

That was exactly what I had become.

If I'd been a side character with actual weight, I would at least have had a pretext to approach the protagonist Basil. A nameless extra suddenly striking up a conversation with the main character? He'd obviously find it suspicious.

Even if I'd been a villain, I might have gotten some broken skill or trait…

But there was no time to just stand around lamenting.

No—actually, this is good.

I forced my positive thinking circuits into gear.

A "weightless extra" drew no one's attention, so I could move without raising much suspicion.

If I'd been an important figure, my actions might have warped the story too much and created too many variables.

"Right. Stay calm. Aside from the developers, I am the foremost expert on this game… even if I've never once seen a true ending…"

I took a deep breath, reclaiming the instincts of a veteran of a trash game.

This world would flow according to a fixed "scenario." That meant the first priority was figuring out what point in time this was.

I looked around the room. A worn but fairly tidy single dorm room. On the desk lay a sheet of parchment labeled "Solaris National Academy New Student Entrance Ceremony Guide."

The date was… tomorrow.

"…Right at the game's starting point."

The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it.

The game's tragedy began right at this academy entrance ceremony.

Put another way, nothing had started yet.

The perfect chance to change everything.

The strategy data for Melting Recipe that I had run through my head thousands of times unfurled like a panorama.

My goal was only one.

To see the happy ending that had to exist somewhere in this game.

No matter how much people cursed it, this game's genre was still a "dating sim." To reach a happy ending, I ultimately had to connect the protagonist Basil with one of the heroines.

So the question was… with whom?

Melting Recipe had five heroines in total.

The young lady of a ducal house, called the Sword of the Empire. Ricotta.

Her competitive fire burned hot, her gaze was sharp as a blade, and past traumas had sealed the door to her heart tight. Touch her temper the wrong way and that blade's tip turned on the protagonist.

The Magic Tower Master's only daughter and a genius mage. Panir.

Innocent and oblivious to the ways of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the world, yet hounded by endless envy and schemes because of her talent—until in the end she could not escape death.

A Saintess candidate who had received a divine oracle. Ravne.

Light that could save the world bloomed from her fingertips, but every ending closed on sacrifice.

The fourth and fifth heroines only appeared from outside once the game story had progressed a fair way, so I set them aside for now…

"Right… the highest odds are still the Ricotta route."

Her personality was difficult, but I already knew the clues that would resolve her trauma. Compared to the other routes, there were fewer variables, and the standard strategy still worked.

Good. First objective: put the male protagonist Basil and the heroine Ricotta onto their destined track. Without a single inch of error, as the most perfect lovers.

To do that, there was something I had to stop.

The game's first event, and the starting point of the snowball rolling toward a bad ending.

At tomorrow's new student entrance ceremony, Basil would get into a fight with Croffle, the wastrel son of a marquis house ranked third in the empire. An event where Basil was helplessly humiliated in front of everyone.

Because of that incident, Basil was branded a "cringing commoner," and the affection of every noble student—including the main heroine Ricotta—started at rock bottom.

In the game, it had been an unavoidable part of the story progression.

Now it was different.

Here, for the sake of a happy ending, that incident would not be allowed to happen.

Clearing the stones out of the protagonist's path in advance—wasn't that the golden rule of any transmigrator?