– The male leads disappeared. Is this a bug?

There was a post on the official cafe of the romance simulation game <Villain’s Way of Love>.

On April 1, all of the male protagonists, who are the main characters, disappeared on April Fool’s Day.

In addition, NPCs, which are non-aggressive characters, were occupying the space where the male protagonist should be.

– Everyone, I’m so confused right now.

(Episode 15 Play Screen Capture)

Where are the male leads and why is some bearded dude saying lines like “In my eyes, you’re more beautiful than a flower?”

? No, what’s going on here? Kekeke

? I thought I was the only one!!!?? The blacksmith uncle came out, and he came out as a butler unexpectedly;

? I rather like middle-aged characters with glasses.

? Kekekeke [expletive]

The user who wrote the article recently got hooked and spent a lot of time and effort on the game.

She knew every event in the game and had seen all the endings with three of the four playable characters.

In <Villain’s Way of Love> you could only see the ending if you built up a rapport with the male leads over the course of the story and achieved the highest rapport with the male lead.

There were also three types of endings: a steamy happy ending that culminates in marriage if you reach 100, a normal ending that starts a budding relationship if you reach 70, and a catastrophic bed ending if that doesn’t work.

After viewing one ending, the story and likability resets and you had to start over.

The user had collected nine endings and was on a mission to collect the remaining three.

The special event, “Exciting Art Museum”, sandwiched between Episodes 14 and 15, was a great way to gain some much-needed favorability.

Crown Prince Eric, Northern Archduke Frederick, Escort Knight Eugene, and Priest Noel had all been on museum dates at one point or another, so users already knew what was going to happen and what their lines would be.

So she didn’t have any expectations and asked Noel, her current target, out on a date.

<Noel: An art exhibition? I’m not good with paintings, but…… with you, I’d love to.>

<Noel: Meet me at 1:00 p.m. I’ll be dressed to impress.>

A character with lovely pink hair and eyes as clear as the blue sky appeared on the screen. An angelic man with a shy expression, a light blush, and ascetic attire.

She wanted to find out who the illustrator[1] was, and where he was, and bow to him from east to west and north to south.

‘He’s so beautiful!’

The user quickly dismissed the line, which she had seen once before, and followed Noel into the museum.

As they entered the quaint entrance, an NPC with a cane approached them and greeted them.

<Pandora: Thank you for coming. Ms. Vivian, and Priest Noel.>

Plainly braided brown hair and bored, lethargic gray eyes.

A young woman in a blindingly blue dress walked with an elderberry cane.

Pandora has a pretty detailed and burdensome setup for a non-critical NPC that only appears once in each story arc, and only in this museum event.

An up-and-coming artist who came out of nowhere and took the salon world by storm, a woman who bought a failing art gallery and organized the world’s first solo exhibition…… or something like that.

She has glaucoma from painting with toxic paints every day.

Perhaps because of her blurred vision, Pandora appeared to have a slight frown on her face or a blank look in her eyes, even as she spoke kind words.

Her dreamy gray eyes were always tinged with boredom as if she was dreaming without sleeping.

<Pandora: Well, have a good time.>

But in this playthrough, she noticed Pandora’s expression as she recited her lines.

She waved, trying to hold back her laughter, like a child excited to play a prank and pick on the adults. Her dull gray eyes sparkled with life.

The user flipped through the lines, puzzled by Pandora’s subtle changes.

And when they walked into the showroom

“Gasp”

While looking at her phone, the user spits out her drink.

‘Exciting Art Museum’

It was an event in which an art gallery with inherently reverent and beautiful paintings experienced a sudden power outage and the paintings on the walls turned into strange and scary pictures painted with fluorescent paint, and a romance between a man and a woman blossomed with a spooky swinging bridge effect.

The mood of the lit exhibit was solemn and serious, as it needed to immerse players in the story and give them chills.

For some reason, all of the pictures in the background had been changed to something ridiculous.

Instead of colorful oil paintings on canvas, the walls were taped with black ink drawings in white sketchbooks, with nonsensical titles like <Thinking Chicken>, <Only for the Eyes of the Beholder>, and <The giraffe with the long neck is the giraffe I didn’t draw, and the giraffe without the long neck is the giraffe I drew!>

In addition, a beard, runny nose, and bespectacled glasses in black charcoal were drawn on a portrait of the emperor, and scrawled graffiti was written such as “idiot” and “dog.”

<Noel: What is this……?>

In addition, the male lead’s lines and actions have changed.

<Noel: What? What did you say?>

<Noel: I, I’m sorry, I can’t focus right now.>

Throughout the event, Priest Noel was unfocused on the conversation, glancing at the paintings and turning his head as if looking for someone.

When the power went out, instead of creepy drawings, there was a big “Merong”[2] scrawled in fluorescent paint and a tongue-in-cheek emoji doodle.

So far, she’s not sure she understands what’s going on all of a sudden, but she’s guessing it’s an update with new content.

After the blind date event, the user chuckled and moved on to the next episode.

But….

<Blacksmith: Ah. I didn’t expect to run into you here, this is probably…… God intervening in your fate for my sake.>

An old man with a bushy black beard, bushy hair, and burly forearms shyly interrupted the male lead’s lines.

The user tapped the game screen with her mouth agape.

<Vivian: What’s going on in the flower market?>

<Blacksmith: I actually wanted to bring you flowers……. I’ve been wandering around looking for the most beautiful flowers in the world, and I ended up here.>

<Vivian: So did you find the most beautiful flower in the world?>

<Blacksmith: No.>

<Vivian: Why?>

On the screen, the blacksmith’s rugged face flushed red with embarrassment. The man replied, looking as helpless as a girl with her first crush.

<Blacksmith: In my eyes, you are more beautiful than any flower.>

<Blacksmith: T, That’s why I couldn’t find it…>

Kyaaaaaaakkkk! Argh! Ahhh!

The user let out an inward scream. Originally, the line belonged to Noel, who had the eyes of a fawn and the smile of an angel.

The incongruity of Noel’s line, which was meant to be about living on dew, and the man who looked like he was about to gulp down dew from a green bottle while eating a whole roasted boar, caused the user to close the game in a panic.

When the game disappeared, a date appeared on the desktop.

April 1. It was April Fool’s Day.

“Ahhhhhh! What the hell, was it April Fool’s Day?”

The user was relieved. It was an April Fool’s Day prank by the game company ‘Enchanted Love’ from <The Villain’s Way of Love>!

“Have you been waiting all year for today? What have you been working so hard on?”

The user decided to enjoy the cute prank by capturing the game screen.

But the next day, and the next, and the next, NPCs were still taking the place of the male leads.

<Butler: Lady. I am your knight, and protecting you is more important to me than life itself, whether it’s the safety of your body or the safety of your mind.>

The bespectacled, middle-aged butler, whose only exercise is breathing, is willing to give his life to protect her.

<Maid: Perhaps you’re meant to sit next to me. The most beautiful and handsome crown prince in the world and the most ignorant and vicious crown princess. A man and a beast. A match made in heaven.>

The cute maid with the bifurcated hair has a haughty expression and throws out a sly joke that you don’t know if it’s a flirtation or a spin.

<Pirate: How many times have I told you to dress warmly, the north is different from the south, are you doing this on purpose, to steal my clothes and wear them?>

A scruffy pirate wearing a raggedy bandana and a pair of shorts comes to a snowy mountain in a blizzard and offers to take his clothes off.

Please, no. No, I’ll take mine off instead. Put on mine, okay?

<Blacksmith: I’ll give you a blessing, may I kiss your forehead……?>

No, no, don’t do it, mister.

It was a terrible mix-up.

[1] For now, I will translate the Illustrator as (he/him) since their gender is unknown

[2] Merong (??) is an exclamation used when teasing someone. Drawn, it looks like this ?

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T/N: Hi everyone, it’s me again, Jaemicy (´?`???) I’m excited to translate this one, the premise is interesting, so far the first three episodes were chaotic, unexpected, and fun.

I will do my best to do justice the work of author-nim ( •? ? •? )? For any corrections, please report in our discord

Happy reading~

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