Trapped! I Was Played In A Ruined Romance

Chapter 05

Ada Williams

I couldn't sleep.

Not even for five minutes.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw:

* the floating messages,

* White Hill burning,

* or those memories that weren't mine... but somehow were.

So I lay there on that hard bed, staring at the wooden ceiling while my mind slowly spiraled into collapse.

Great.

Perfect.

Now, on top of being poor, I was also losing my mind.

Luckily, at some point, I drifted off without even realizing it.

And I regretted it immediately.

Because I woke up to a blinding explosion of light right in my face.

“AH!”

I jumped out of bed so fast I nearly hit the floor.

My heart raced as several glowing windows appeared in front of me.

[DAILY QUESTS AVAILABLE]

I stared at them in complete silence for a few seconds. Then I covered my face with both hands.

“No...”

More windows appeared.

[Feed the animals — 0/1]

[Tend the crops — 0/1]

[Collect fresh eggs — 0/1]

[Check food storage — 0/1]

My eye started twitching.

“No.”

“No, no, no.”

So this was it?

Even in another world, I still had to work?

I slowly looked up at the window.

What time was it? The sun didn't even seem fully up yet.

“God... do You hate me?”

Because that had to be it.

There was no way anyone could naturally have this much bad luck.

Was I doomed to work forever?

Even in a medieval parallel world, I ended up as an agricultural wage slave?

I rolled my eyes and threw myself back onto the bed.

“I'm not doing this.”

“Today, I'm taking a vacation.”

Did the bed feel like a rock?

Absolutely.

Was this place depressing?

Very.

But I still refused to get up.

Five seconds later, a new notification appeared.

[WARNING]

I frowned.

Below the quests, new words slowly materialized.

[FAILURE PENALTIES]

[Failure to complete daily quests will result in a RANDOM NEGATIVE EVENT.]

My entire body froze.

“...”

Random negative event?

What the hell did that mean?

My mind immediately started imagining terrible possibilities.

Disease?

An accident?

An attack?

A curse?

I stared at the words as the hairs on my arms slowly stood up.

Things were already bad, and they could get worse?

Of course they could.

This was my life.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds.

Breathe.

Maybe the system was just trying to scare me.

Maybe nothing would happen.

But...

What if it did?

I didn't even know how this world worked yet.

Dying from laziness on the first day would be embarrassing, even for me.

“Ah, damn it...”

Defeated, I got out of bed. I opened the small wooden wardrobe, looking for somemassacreightly less miserable to wear.

Eventually, I picked a simple light-colored dress that looked a little less strange than the others. It still looked like something a background character in a low-budget historical drama would wear.

But what choice did I have?

While changing, I caught a better look at myself in an old mirror hanging on the wall.

I paused for a few seconds.

Okay...

The fictional Ada's body was beautiful.

Very beautiful, actually.

Slim waist, fair skin, long hair. Delicate features.

She looked like a version of me after eight hours of sleep, therapy, and an expensive skincare routine.

How unfair.

I sighed and tied my hair back as best I could before leaving the room.

The kitchen looked even more depressing in daylight.

And there was absolutely nothing ready to eat.

So on top of being a farmer, I also had to cook.

I opened a few old cabinets, trying to figure out what was inside.

Oats, fruit, eggs.

Some vegetables.

Stale bread.

At least the food looked relatively normal.

Thank God I hadn't woken up in a universe where people ate insects for breakfast.

I grabbed a piece of fruit and stared at the wood-burning stove.

How was I supposed to use that thing? I'd probably end up setting the whole house on fire.

But then some memories surfaced.

I knew how to do this?

Or rather, fictional Ada did.

I tried to follow what I remembered, and after several minutes, a lot of ash, and even more charcoal, I finally managed it.

“Thank God!”

In the end, this body knew what it was doing.

With the fire going and an old pot, I threw together something barely edible using eggs and oats.

It wasn't good, but it wasn't lethal either.

I think.

After that, I took a deep breath and decided to face those “quests.”

The chicken coop was my first traumatic experience of the day.

“OW!”

I almost got pecked trying to collect the eggs.

Those chickens clearly hated me.

I'm certain of it.

“What is your problem?!”I screamed as I tried to dodge one of them.

One of them literally chased me.

Then came the pigs. The smell nearly killed me.

“Oh my God...”

Next was the cattle pen.

And that was where I realized something truly horrifying:

Rural labor was infinitely worse than office work.