Chapter 4: I Accidentally Triggered the Yandere Route, and Now I Sleep With One Eye Open

  I knew things were getting worse when the moon turned into a poll.

  Literally. A glowing blue projection of Twitch Chat’s test vote now hovered over the night sky like a cursed celestial infographic:

  Choose the next plot twist:A) Secret sibling revealedB) Lucien gets turned into a catboyC) Yandere route activatedD) Bring back the wyvern (but make it speak fluent French)

  The votes climbed, pixel by pixel. I watched from my window, sipping anxiety-ced tea. 404-Chan stood beside me, clutching a notepad beled “Emergency Code Patch Ideas.”

  I prayed. I begged. I bribed the heavens with fresh memes.

  And then…

  Yandere Route Activated.

  “...No,” I whispered.

  “YES”“WE WANT BLOOD AND BLUSHES”“Time to simp for knife girl!!”

  404-Chan turned to me slowly. “Probability of survival: 4.2%.”

  Let’s rewind.

  About twelve hours earlier, I had awoken to the sound of violin music being pyed backwards and a message carved into my ceiling with blood (or possibly jam):

  I LOVE YOU DUKE LUCIEN. I’LL KILL ANYONE WHO DOESN’T.

  You might think that would be the beginning of a horror story.

  But for me, it was a Tuesday.

  This was still a dating sim. Just... now heavily modded with a yandere update.

  I remembered this character. Her name was Elowyn Sincir. A quiet, bookish girl who only appeared in Route 6 of the original game, and only if the pyer gave her five rare flowers and didn’t talk to anyone else for three in-game months.

  She had one CG.

  She was cute.

  And she stabbed everyone.

  “Elowyn’s not supposed to be here yet,” I said aloud. “Her route triggers in Chapter 8, not 4.”

  404-Chan checked her data logs. “She has been fast-tracked. Twitch Chat initiated an override through ‘SimpSummon.exe.’”

  “…They what?”

  “DON’T WORRY KING SHE LOVES YOU”“Yandere route speedrun any%”“We maxed her affection stat before she even spawned lol”

  I groaned and closed my eyes. “We are so doomed.”

  The doorbell rang. Dramatically.

  I opened the door.

  And there she was.

  Long silver hair. Eyes like broken mirrors. A school uniform that didn’t even match this world’s setting. She smelled like vender, ink, and dangerous delusion.

  “Hello, Duke Lucien,” she said sweetly. “I baked you cookies.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “Are they… cursed?”

  She giggled.

  I did not like that giggle.

  She followed me around all day.

  Not walked. Floated.

  Every time I turned, she was there.

  Behind curtains. Inside mirrors. Once, inside a suit of armor that wasn’t even hers.

  She complimented me. Repeatedly.

  “My dear Duke, your posture is divine.”“Your voice is the only sound I recognize as music.”“I rewrote a love poem using only your name and 7,000 lines of ancient rune-code. Want to read it?”

  “HE’S IN TOO DEEP”“I ship it but I fear it”“Let her LOVE you Lucien, LET HER”

  By midday, SoulrenderXx (the talking sword) started giving me dating advice.

  “Yo bro, you gotta lean in. She’s the crazy loyal type.”

  “She has a shrine to me,” I snapped. “In the greenhouse. With locks of my hair.”

  “…Sounds like commitment.”

  It got worse.

  By dinner, Ren (the protagonist) arrived to share news from the capital.

  “I found an encrypted prophecy in the royal archives,” he said, mouth full of potatoes. “It said, ‘The one with silver eyes will break the cycle.’”

  He turned to me.

  “I think Elowyn might be the true final route.”

  I froze mid-bite.

  404-Chan dropped her spoon.

  “TWIST UNLOCKED”“Yandere IS the new canon???”“Lucien you better romance or perish”

  That was when Elowyn walked in, blood on her hands, holding a bouquet of roses she cimed were from the garden.

  There was no garden with roses on the estate.

  “I brought you these,” she said, smiling wide enough to break math. “And don’t worry. I’ve already taken care of your competition.”

  “…What competition?”

  “Oh. You’ll see.”

  That night, I couldn’t sleep.

  Not because of fear.

  But because every window in my bedroom was filled with the words “BE MINE”, written in glowing red letters. Some of them floated inside the gss.

  404-Chan sat on the edge of my bed, holding a debug wand like a weapon. “Sleep not recommended. Potential strangution rate: 62%.”

  “Can’t you just delete her?”

  404 shook her head. “Oracle protections. She’s become a main route now. I can’t touch her unless Chat votes to nerf.”

  I looked out the window again. Elowyn was waving.

  I waved back, slowly.

  “WAVE FASTER OR SHE GETS SAD”“Lucien you fool she’s watching your soul”“This is romance”

  In a moment of desperation, I drafted a pn.

  A fake date.

  A high-stakes distraction event, coded as a “trust-building exercise,” that would convince Elowyn she already won my heart—and get her to lower her murderous guard.

  We’d visit the local fair, win plushies, eat caramel apples, and absolutely not commit any homicide.

  404 helped me design it. It was genius. Foolproof.

  It went exactly one step before it colpsed.

  Because as we arrived at the fair...

  All of Lucien’s ex-routes showed up.

  Princess Aera.The twerking wyvern.The Padin Knight from Chapter 3.Even the bread-child from the West Wing.

  All ciming I’d “ghosted them.”

  And then Elowyn just… smiled.

  “Shall I remove them for you, darling?”

  I nearly screamed.

  “BLOODBATH ARC INCOMING”“FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT”“Lucien’s a reverse harem anime now”

  I did the only thing I could.

  I screamed “FOOD FIGHT!” and threw a pie at the Padin.

  The chaos gave me enough cover to escape on the wyvern’s back.

  It wasn’t proud. But it was fast.

  Now I sit in my study, hiding behind a couch made of corrupted code, breathing in glitch smoke and wondering how I’m still alive.

  404-Chan paces.

  “Elowyn is reprogramming the romance engine. She’s overriding fgs. If she maxes the YandereMeter?—”

  “She what?”

  “YandereMeter?,” she repeats, pulling up a holographic bar.

  It’s at 94%.

  At 100%, she triggers her final route: Forever Yours, or Never Again.

  The one where she deletes everyone else in the game.

  I lean forward, fingers steepled. “Okay. New pn.”

  404 raises an eyebrow.

  “We romance her.”

  She blinks. “You what?”

  “Not really. Fake it. Just enough to soft reset her affection script. Keep the bar below 100. We stall her out until Chat gets bored.”

  404-chan tilts her head. “…I like it. Risk factor: 98.7%. But survivable.”

  “THE FAKE DATING ARC”“Lucien you madman this might work”“This is why we love you”

  So now… I prepare.

  Flowers. Compliments. Backup wyvern. A grenade made of glitter and sedative.

  Lucien Arclight, original final boss of Hearts of Fantasia, will do the unthinkable.

  Pretend to fall in love. With his potential murderer.

  And maybe—just maybe—live to meme another day.

  To be continued...