A Trivial Extra in a Dating Sim

Thin lips rose into a smile as the man walked into the light of the banquet hall.

“This will be fun.”

Evanessa was unlike anything he had ever heard of.

***

Upon returning to her room, Evanessa stared silently at the status window floating in the air. Below all of her rotten stats, right at the end of the screen, [Affection points: 1] could be seen.

“Wasn’t that a system error?”

Affection points were only awarded when she was able to make a good impression on the male characters. In fact, less than five was actually considered good as it could be seen as a curiosity and rising interest.

Evanessa unconsciously reached out and hugged the pillow as she sat on the bed.

‘What could it have been for?’

‘No, was it that easy to get an affection point in the first place?’

Unintentionally, on the first day of starting the main story, Evanessa got one affection point. Even when playing the game religiously, getting a point was incredibly difficult.

‘I barely managed to collect three.’

Yewon collected the three points by playing tenaciously and carefully choosing her options while progressing along Daniel’s route. But even that was a failure, as the minimum amount of points required to open the hidden stories were five.

In the game, you had to unlock each and every hidden story of a male lead to achieving a happy ending. Favorability and intimacy were important to unlocking hidden stories.

In the game, Evanessa couldn’t even unlock a single hidden story for any of the male leads.

“Ah, my head hurts.”

Evanessa wondered what the identity of the minister was. She thought he was just a significant extra in the game.

‘So, is he the suspicious extra?’

He seemed like a sharp person who had even noticed that she was a transmigrated soul from another world.

Evanessa reflexively tightened her hold on the pillow and bit her lip.

‘I should avoid him for now’, thought Evanessa.

Although he was an unnamed extra, she had a strong feeling that it would do her no good to get involved with him.

However, Evanessa would encounter the suspicious extra again, just a day after making such a firm decision.

***

In order to survive effectively in an unfamiliar world, general information about the world is essential.

The only information Evanessa knew was the approximate worldview of the game, the basic personalities of the male leads, and the routes she had learned from her many gameplays.

‘There were also some hidden stories I learned while playing as Beatrice.’

However, even if she had some basic knowledge of the ‘Grancia Empire’, the main stage of the game she will be living in, it was still inadequate.

‘Because I do not know what unexpected variables might occur.’

Evanessa got up early in the morning, organized her thoughts, ate a simple breakfast, and headed to the Imperial Palace’s library. Of course, she didn’t do anything rash like heading out to find the library by herself as she was a natural airhead when it came to directions.

Only

“Thank you.”

Evanessa politely thanked the attendant who had brought her to the library. The attendant bowed with a blank expression and then walked away.

The Imperial Palace’s library was a large and spacious three-story building; incomparable to the place where she used to work. In order to find a librarian, she entered the first floor of the library and went to meet the librarian.

Tall bookshelves were densely packed together like trees. In the center, there was a wide solid wood table where books could be read. Morning sunlight poured in through the arched windows that were arranged around the room. The library was quiet this morning; the air was a pleasant harmony of the scents of old books and wood.

“Oh?”

Evanessa managed to find a place that looked like an information desk, but the librarian was absent. Even in the library, she worked at, they were usually busy organizing the returned books in the morning. She was forced to go back and forth between shelves, looking for the ‘historical culture’ section.

Then she saw her. A little girl with a petite and delicate silhouette.

The girl, with her hair woven into a braid, was leaning against a window and flipping through a thick, illustrated book of animals.