It Begins

“Argh! Curse this old machine.” The sewing machine snarled, fabric rippling and gathering under the foot. A strange grinding sound came from within it, accompanied with an acrid smell and a gush of smoke. All in all, it didn’t seem like something sewing machines are supposed to do. Then, as if to cap it all off, the smoke alarm started blaring.

“C’mon, don’t die on me just yet! Five meters more of trim and then I swear I’ll hand sew the rest and let you retire …” She continued grumbling as she opened up the panel to access the thread compartment, “Just my luck, honestly. The fan-meet is tomorrow and I’m going to be sewing well into the small hours at this rate. Huh? That doesn’t look right…”

Exposed wiring – that Naomi could have sworn hadn’t been there last time she refreshed the bobbin, just a few hours ago – sparked brightly. Slightly too late, she realised it was right by her fingers. Almost touching them in fact –

“Oh, damn i-”

She had a vague sense of drifting outside of her body, watching it as it slumped over onto the machine. Her foot sank onto the pedal, further shredding her sewing. At first, she was frustrated to see her hard work ruined, but then again, she was dead or something. Bigger problems. Still, that trim had been expensive! And the brocade was imported!! The coronation gown was supposed to make her popular enough for the fandom to finally listen to her about how none of the male leads were good enough for the female lead … Stupid novel with its stupid romantic plots!! Stupid mediocre writing! Stupid author too!

Fairly quickly, everything faded to white – at least she didn’t have to watch her own gormless dead face any longer – and then to black.

A melody echoed – da dudu de do, du du dee du do. Naomi caught herself humming along – or whatever the ghost version would be. Darn. Do ghosts hum? Was she being weird? Was she alive somehow but just, like, unconscious? Oh, balls. That would suck ass. She’d miss the fan-meet! If she were dead, she wouldn’t have to see the photos later. With whatever ghost limbs she had, she tried to thrash about. It wouldn’t do anything, probably, but it made her feel better. The melody returned, cutting through her mild (mild!!) panic.

A mechanical voice chimed out.

USER <SUB2> HAS BEEN MATCHED WITH HOST <PRINCESS3>

Naomi had an entire second to think about how weird that was until she was suddenly jolted into a body that felt awful. Her whole body felt as if it had been tenderised with one of those little spiky meat hammers, each panting breath making her muscles tremble like an overtightened string. There was this bitter taste in her mouth, like grain liquor and vomit, and an unpleasant bitter, powdery … thing was clinging to her teeth. Something dry and unpleasantly sticky was all over her chin. Clothes were sticking to her cold-sweating skin. Through the ringing in her ears, she could faintly hear voices. Paramedics? Was she hallucinating? Was every major religion just very wrong about the afterlife? Also, her stomach really hurt. Ouch.

When she finally managed to open her aching, bleary eyes, she saw a few people-shaped blurs against a bright-coloured pointillist world. With each effortful blink – seriously, what was going on? – the people came into focus. This was a weird looking hospital. Naomi wondered if her glasses were anywhere around here. She was always losing them somewhere, and with a prescription of -5 that was a real problem. Why had she chosen a clear plastic frame, again?

As the world swam before her, Naomi tried to sit up in bed – okay, seriously, this definitely wasn’t her room, and she didn’t know how many hospitals looked like the abandoned set of a Chinese historical drama. The room had clearly once been luxurious and bright, but now the blue walls were faded and water stained, the ghosts of frescoes just visible and the red paint chipping off of the stone columns. To be honest, parts seemed more in line with Egypt or Greece than China, but a Classics degree really didn’t make you an expert on all the different architectural styles throughout countries and dynasties in the whole Classical period. There were a lot of bull ornaments, which hadn’t been super popular in ancient China (as far as Naomi could remember from the dramas her roommate at university had made her watch). Maybe this was some very strange waiting room for the dead. The Picts or something thought that there was some … mirror world for the dead, right? Oh, man, she probably wasn’t doing well for the Pict equivalent of karma. All she could remember was that the Picts thought armour was cowardly and liked blue face paint, from that sexy Pict Halloween costume someone had worn to some party. The girl who’d dressed up as a sexy Pict had been drop-dead gorgeous too – maybe Naomi should have gone into Celtic history instead of Classics, since it seemed to give such a boost to your appearance stat.

All of a sudden, one of the people-blurs was at her elbow. Okay, definitely not Chinese afterlife – people-blur number 1 was wearing some sort of draping garment, with a loose veil over dark, coiled hair. Naomi was confused as to how she was seeing much clearer than she should be, albeit a little blurrier than usual if she was wearing her glasses. Did this afterlife give you free laser eye surgery? But, like, a dream version of laser eye surgery that doesn’t have a good chance of making you go blind or die or stuff. Scary. Naomi tried to say something – aiming for a practical statement like “Where am I?”, but probably more likely to end up with a mumble of nonsense – but all that came out in the end was a hoarse croak. Blur number 1 seemed startled, letting out a cry.

“Princess!”

Before she could ask any questions, Naomi fainted again. This time, though, a strange screen appeared in front of her.

HELLO USER <SUB2>. WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF “FEMALE GENERAL IN THE NIGHTINGALE COURT”. USER MAY PICK A “NICKNAME” FOR SYSTEM TO CALL THEM.

That damn mechanical voice from earlier was back.

Naomi, feeling a little shellshocked, managed to mumble out, “My name is Naomi. Um, what’s happening? Why am I – wait, I’m in the book? Is this book canon or visual novel canon?”

USER <NAOMI> HAS BEEN TRANSPORTED INTO THE NOVEL. USER <NAOMI> MUST FINISH HOST <PRINCESS3>’S ROUTE WITH THE PROTAGONIST AND ACHIEVE A SATISFYING ENDING. FAILING KEYSTONE QUESTS OR LOSING ALL P-POINTS WILL RESULT IN TERMINATION.

Termination sounded scary … but being something of a nerd herself, Naomi felt like she could do this. No one knew the world of “Female General in the Nightingale Court” better than she did. It was her favourite book ever. She’d found it at a few dozen views on a webnovel site, after hours of trawling for the perfect read, then learned a new language to not have to wait for the fan-translations to come out. Special editions, DLCs for the game, she’d collected as much media about it as she could. Speaking of which, the system hadn’t answered her third question.

“C’mon, System, book or visual novel canon? There are differences. Loads.” There were characters who were exclusive to the novel, but the Emperor romance route was only mentioned in the visual novel DLC – not to mention the rumoured “super-secret route” that she’d only heard whispers about, where the General could become Empress in her own right and avoid the curse.

THIS WORLD IS NEITHER JUST THE BOOK NOR JUST THE VISUAL NOVEL: IT IS THE PUREST VERSION, AS CONCEIVED IN THE MIND OF THE AUTHOR.

Naomi sighed. This whole internal dialogue was really quite tiring. In the space of a few hours, she’d died, been transported into the body that felt like it had been turned into a schnitzel, and now she has to do quests to avoid being terminated. Plus, it had been past 11pm when she died. She may not have had the best sleep habits – cough cough reading webnovels online until far too late – but her 10:45pm bedtime was sacred on a normal night. Her novelty Female General pillow would get lonely if she went to bed late!

“Okay. Just explain the points and quests stuff to me and then we can both take a nap.”

SYSTEM DOES NOT REQUIRE “NAPS”.

Oh, great. The mechanical overseer in her brain was pedantic. It’d been starting to grow on her a little. What was it that you were supposed to do to computers at the end of the day?

“Um, shut down your systems?”

THIS SYNONYM IS SATISFACTORY. SYSTEM WILL EXPLAIN THE POINTS AND TASKS NOW.

Tired, Naomi gave a spiritual thumbs up.

P-POINTS ARE “PLOT POINTS” EARNED FOR IMPROVING THE PLOT. USER WILL BE PENALISED FOR ACTIONS THAT ARE TOO INCONSISTENT WITH HOST’S PREVIOUS PERSONALITY (LOSE P-POINTS). USER CAN ALSO EARN “L-POINTS” BY RAISING THE “AFFECTION” STAT OF OTHER CHARACTERS AND “R-POINTS” BY CAUSING REGRET. L AND R POINTS AFFECT RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE CAST. USER MAY ALSO EARN ACHIEVEMENTS BASED ON POINTS OR BY TAKING CERTAIN ACTIONS. DOES USER UNDERSTAND SO FAR?

Naomi restrained herself from yawning. “It’s a lot all at once… can I have a tutorial guide for the first few days?”

SYSTEM IS HAPPY TO PROVIDE SUCH A THING. THERE IS MORE WORLD INFORMATION: DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?

“Thanks. Sure. Maybe I’ll need a refresher course in the morning too.” She’d never been good with remembering details when put on the spot – her former co-workers had always complained about that.

SYSTEM IS HERE TO HELP. “KEYSTONE QUESTS” ARE TASKS OR MISSIONS THAT ARE A “KEYSTONE” IN THE PLOT OR INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER STORIES. THERE ARE ALSO TWO OPEN-ENDED OBJECTIVES: ‘FIX THE NARRATIVE’ AND ‘SURVIVE’. USER CAN SEE THE “RELATIONSHIPS” PAGE, CORRECT?

Squinting to focus, Naomi saw a new system page called “Relationships”. However, both her – the host’s – profile at the top and the names of the other characters were blank. Seriously, softlocked already?

AH. USER HAS NOT UNLOCKED THIS INFORMATION YET. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHECK YOUR POINTS?

“Okay, but after this I’m going to sleep and you’re … shutting down?”

SYSTEM APPRECIATES YOUR USE OF CORRECT LANGUAGE. USER <NAOMI> EARNED 10 R-POINTS EACH IN THE LAST SCENE FROM THE TWO SERVANTS PRESENT.

If Naomi had been sipping a drink, now was the moment she would have sprayed the system page with it. It probably would have come out of her nose, such would be the force.

“Ten whole points? I’m – I’m a princess, though. The servants shouldn’t be upset that I’m conscious.”

SYSTEM DOES NOT KNOW. PERHAPS THEY FEEL TO BLAME FOR HOST’S CONDITION.

Somehow, Naomi doubted this. It would be just her luck for this princess to be unpopular. Or evil. Or both. She’d read enough novels to know that sort of thing happened to people in this situation – that is to say, people transported into the body of a fictional character. It felt quite surreal, to be honest, but she was trying to roll with the punches. She could feel a crisis looming on the horizon but was tactically ignoring it. This was just like getting through final exams, except she had to stay alive until the General’s victory parade – whenever that was – instead of just the end of exam week.

“Oh well. Goodnight, System.”

GOODNIGHT, USER <NAOMI>. THERE WILL BE MORE TO EXPLAIN IN THE MORNING.

Naomi groaned, “Okay.” At long last, she allowed herself to truly drift off into unconsciousness. Man, this had been a long day.