Here Lies Claribel [medieval fantasy] [portal fantasy] [mystery] [otome isekai] [romantic fantasy] [city exploration]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Pentiment meets villainess isekai.

Agent Ari Lee’s latest mission is not an assassination. Instead, she must retrieve the Chief’s daughter from the fantasy romance ‘Rosalind by Any Other Name’.

Armed with a single readthrough of the book, she lands in the body of Claribel, a minor villainess, with Claribel is still inside.

Can they learn to work together? Will the Church burn them at the stake for spirit possession? And why is one of the main characters nowhere to be found?

This story offers an exploration across an medieval-inspired city, scouring for clues to solve a murder mystery, featuring visits to apothecaries, taverns and guild meetings.

Character-driven, plot-heavy, romance-light.

Single POV. Arc 1 is completed. Arc 2 will return.

Cover:BenmoranArtist. All illustrations:@bactewia.

Arc One: murder mystery + 1 short bad end branch

Arc Two: heist

At the end of Arc Two, multiple decisions will appear, leading to multiple Arc Threes, allowing you to explore different elements of the world. Each of those will be serialised in turn.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Emm Sisi

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 128
Views: 55,347

Reviews

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Community Reviews(1)

Golden BrownRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Otome isekai handled in the least sexy, yet most compelling way possible. It's difficult to not think of The Holy Grail of Eris, but that's hardly a downside.
Also, this is written by a huge history nerd. Shit gets authentic.
The narration is organic and distinctive, and can sometimes seem like it skipped past something -- don't worry, it didn't. You probably missed something, or it will be addressed later. That's not a knock against the author, that's helpful advice for readers.
A mystery develops -- several do, actually -- and makes this story even more intriguing than it already was from the premise.
You're not going to find typical Royal Road fare here... And if you do, it's not going to be in the way you've usually seen it presented. It is one of the least "same old crap" stories I've encountered on this site.
I enjoyed reading this story, and it deserves a hell of a lot more love than it's gotten.