Overworked Otome Gatekeeper

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

He never signed up for this. Seriously. Rosalinde, his sister, is charming, beautiful, and every guy within a hundred miles thinks they’re destined to be her knight in shining armor. They all want her. They all think they can win her heart. All they have to do is get through him first– literally.

You see, Rosalinde’s rule is simple: no suitor can date her unless they can beat him in a duel. And while he’s just trying to live a quiet life, everyday is a new round of “who can outfight the brooding little brother.” It’s exhausting. He’s getting very good at utilizing multiple disciplines of magic at once, if that counts for anything.

The real kicker though– nobody knows the truth. Rosalinde isn’t looking for a prince or baron. She’s not even interested in men at all. But instead of telling anybody, Here he is stuck playing defense, blocking suitors and challengers left and right, while trying to pretend he’s not one bad duel away from a full-on breakdown.

He's starting to think his sister is a full-time job, and he's the unpaid bodyguard.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2025
Author: Kataracts

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.7/ 5.0
Followers: 808
Views: 72,874

Chapters(19 total)

What readers say about Overworked Otome Gatekeeper

“To some extent Otome Gatekeeper has a lot of the tropes you might find in an otome-themed story. The romances, the plots, the behavioral logic that doesn't quite make sense outside of an otome story. But while the typical otome isekai story is something of…”
DaScootRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Full disclosure: I've read up to chapter 16 on spacebattles Way better then I thought based on the title! It has a large amount of depth to it that really invests you in the story. Although based in an otome setting the characters feel like people rather th…”
FireBwlRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

DaScootRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
To some extent Otome Gatekeeper has a lot of the tropes you might find in an otome-themed story. The romances, the plots, the behavioral logic that doesn't quite make sense outside of an otome story. But while the typical otome isekai story is something of a fourth-dimensional look at the typical otome tropes from an outsider perspective, Otome Gatekeeper is more of a step above, a fifth-dimensional look a the tropes within the tropes.
Most of all, I'd say that the story is good at making it so that you never know what to expect in the next chapter. It's not a story about typical otome romances. It's not even a typical story about subverting otome romances. There's many layers going on here, and at thirteen chapters it's still too early to say what's at the center of it. But if you've read too many 'reincarnated as the otome villainess' stories and you want something new, I'd definitely recommend this story.
I'll say that generally I don't start reading stories until they have at least twenty chapters to them (if not more) but I had this recommended to me several times and I'm definitely glad I hopped on early.
FireBwlRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Full disclosure: I've read up to chapter 16 on spacebattles
Way better then I thought based on the title! It has a large amount of depth to it that really invests you in the story. Although based in an otome setting the characters feel like people rather than caricatures! The world feels lived in and well worn, and the style conveys so much without explicitly telling the reader.
JergalRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Lovely characters that really suck you into the world. Pretty much everyone has something wrong with them that makes them so compelling and fun to read about. Action scenes are engaging and the world is slowly being built up more and more. Even the 'bad guys' so far are interesting and multi dimensional, and the building intrigue really leaves you wanting to get to the next chapter.
NebgameRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This...this is a very very good story! the mmc personality is just *chefs kiss*. I couldn't stop reading this thing. It's jumps a bit here and there, and and a couple chapters with diff pov's just don't make sense to me why it's in the story. And I skipped one chapter because it was completely irrelevant to the story. But thats only like 3 chapters and the rest is just awesome sauce. I also very much enjoy reading one of the very few stories that's written above the third grade level. All together it's just....wow! I mean I ignored other authors that I follow regularly just to continue reading this.
NordlendingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
There isn't a single normal person in this story, and I am all for it.
This is one of the few stories I have read in 2025 on Royal Road I am willing to recommend to other people in person.
Characters talking to each other feels like a dying art at times, so it's refreshing to see the author focusing on it.
vesuviusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is an excellent emotionally intelligent and emotionally mature novel. Casian is the brother of the Rosalinde the omome world protagonist. He fights off her suitors nearly everyday for her eventual happiness, when she can marry someone she loves. However this puts great pressure on Casian as he will never allow himself to lose and have her marry someone she doesn't love.
This novel is in a deliberate style and is very well written. The quality of writing is very apparent. None more so then in the dialogue. This is when the story is at its best, with wit and sharp remarks that often hold double meanings. Every conversion was a joy for me to read. This novel also doesn't spoon feed you. It will give you knowledge about the world and characters in its own time. That also means that it asks the reader to invest the effort to find out about the world, magic system, and characters.
The writing style reminds me of Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. Not only with the pacing of information fed to the reader but also the style of fights. When I was reading the fights, my mental movie would often stutter as the fights, and also the story lacks enough descriptors for my taste. There is often sound descriptors or actions descriptors, but I would like more visual and spacial descriptors.
Characterization in this novel is well done and everyone is multilayered and unique. All the characters have anime like extremes that work well in the world presented. However, during some of the main characters emotional climax moments, I felt like there was a glass pane between me and the character. Meaning that I wasn't able to live their emotions as deeply as the character moment would imply that I should be.
One a closing note, I would argue that chapter 19 is less the end of a book and more the closing of the prologue arc.
whowatchlistRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The characters, the sense of tension, the drama, the worldbuilding, are all at a level I didn't expect. I love that this story doesn't pull punches. It treats trauma with a level of care you rarely see, and it warms my heart. The characters are all quite interesting, and the romances and relationships are quite pleasant. I can't wait to see more!
The OxRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Overworked Otome Gatekeeper is an engaging story with some serious flaws. It was very able to hold my interest throughout my readthrough of the first book despite these flaws due to the things the author does very well.
The characters are far and away what keeps the reader engaged in this story. The author is very good, (maybe too good) at writing detailed internal monoloques of their characters as they contemplate their own heart, or they react to the fighting prowess or surly iconoclasm of Casian our MC.
Casian's head in particular we see deep inside. And what a weirdo our boy Cassian is. A person that I'd diagnose on the autism spectrum (if I was qualified), who grimly pounds his dueling adversaries into the dirt while living his every other rigidly scheduled moment for his quiet tea times.
The battle descriptions are fantastic. Detailed and clear and exciting naratives of the duels and the magics used by Cassian and his opponents. Some of the best magical combat I've seen described.
The main weakness is the almost casually vague world building, requiring the reader to be familiar with the "otome game transmigrator" tropes to be able to understand what is going on. The magic system also asks the reader to remember their anime, or you'll be scratching your head.
All the characters are gathered in an "academy" including THREE princes of this mighty kingdom, yet no one ever goes to class, and the only professors we meet are acting as referee/bystanders at Casian's duels. Casian, Rosalinde, and Marcy all have seemingly infinite amounts of time to drink tea, fight duels, and flirt/bicker/chat without ever cracking a book. I wish my school had been that laidback.
linda the litrpg-daRoyal Road
★★ 2.0
not good. Too much giberish. grammar is strange. characters behave erratically and none are likeable. System of magic is not well explained. Displacement of air does not lead to teleportation. Puts politics into too much, I don’t want a biased narrator, sure put a lesbian or whatever but from each individual chapter I have read (until 5) I would easily know your political beliefs. overall bad but not unredemable.
heroinneedRoyal Road
★★ 1.5
The Grammar is all over the place and the story is just too edgy and cringe inducing. He acts like a total, "Woman... You're interesting." ML in shitty Korean rofan villainess manhwa. These two sibling's relationship suck so bad, I just gotta say what kind of self-respecting sister would repeatedly, non-stop let her brother take bullets for her as if he was personal armor against a machine gun.
Okay so he wants to protect her freedom of choice in marrying? Fine! But what has she done to achieve her lesbian marriage happily. She might as well just elope to get rid of all the trouble of her Reverse Harem FMC halo with these love interest characters popping up like wild grass.
The magic system isn't that well fleshed out, bland character chemistry and interaction. It's like reading a book with only half the chapter provided before moving on to the next.
I had such high expectations for this novel but it let me down harder than my school project group mates. I'm moving on to better and more interesting novels.