Our heroine (Novel cover)
Shari Azrael is an apothecary who provides potions for people in Dover Village and one day, Shari remembers that she is actually from the real world, her original identity is Song Sari, and she was playing a broken VR Game and had actually been staying in the Virtual Reality world of "Save the Earth" for 2 years until she remembered.
The only way to escape is to actually beat the game's scenario by helping the main protagonists as Shari is an NPC, so she can't take the credit of doing the deed but can instead help the main key players to get there, but things are not so simple as it seems...
Trapped in a Cursed Game as an NPC is a Korean webnovel authored by Gwon Gyoeul (Of Villains Are Destined to Die Fame). The novel
and webcomic adaptation can be found in Kakao, with the webcomic only recently finished with season 1 while the webnovel has been completed.
Warning: A good portion of the Tropes elaborated here contains spoilers from the completed Webnovel. You have been warned.
Trapped in a Cursed Game as an NPC has the following tropes:
- Dreaming of Things to Come: A Nightmare Sequence variant that isn't done out of choice, Cassel's nightmares often manifest into reality whenever he sleeps so he forced himself to stay awake to keep them at bay.
- Fantastic Racism: Elves, especially half-blooded elves are mistreated and sold as slaves to the nobility. Raccon folk are also disliked because they have an unlikable odor.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Played With in varying ways In-Universe.
- Cassel's "Groundhog Day" Loop is similar to a player who played the same game multiple times.
- Gender-Blender Name: The Green Thief has the name Elaine, a name that is usually given to a girls. His effeminate appearance due to being an elf doesn't help either.
- God Was My Copilot: In a literal example, Shari has the aid of the Game Masters throughout the course of the story. They are later revealed to have been actual gods in disguise who sent Shari to the game world to help save the world.
- Gold Digger: Played With. Shari hid her true motives by pretending to be one. Cassel and Adam saw through her, however.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Cassel Ludwig is trapped in a time loop curse where he repeats the game all over again, each run going differently. It ends up being a literal case of Gameplay and Story Integration as Cassel is the reincarnation of the first emperor who was cursed to live through life as Cassel Ludwig over and over again like a Player playing the same game multiple times.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Cassel's backstory is this by no fault of his own. He is a former crown prince who eventually was stripped of his position due to the curse that his nightmares will become a reality and he was referred to as the "Lord of the Nightmares" for it.
- Hidden Agenda Hero: Those who saw through Shari's facade as a Gold Digger was able to see that she has a goal behind her actions, but said actions are ultimately heroic.
- I Choose to Stay: At the end of the story, while Sari was initially happy to return back to her original world after her avatar body died, she eventually realized that her life in the real world isn't as good as she initially believed and used the unclaimed reward she had for beating the game to return and stay in the game world with Cassel.
- I Will Find You: When the NPC body of Shari Azrael died, Cassel vowed to find her again so he was considered missing since the final battle while Shari Azrael is considered "dead", making a deal with the Final Boss of the tale so he could find and bring the soul of Song Sari back into the game world.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Gaming references are done from time to time from Shari's point of view and a literal example has Shari being able to see the game's message box and status.
- Nintendo Hard: In-Universe example. "Save the Earth" is considered as notorious difficult and also had performance bugs occurring more often than not that not even pro-players can beat the game.
- Red Baron:
- Cassel has the title "Lord of the Nightmares".
- Elaine has the Green thief.
- Resurrective Immortality: As an NPC, Shari legitimately cannot die and every time she runs out of health, she'd "respawn" back in Dover Village. This ultimately ended by the finale, after Shari completed the game as her Shari Azrael body perishes while her soul returned to the real world.
- Ship Tease: Shari is teased with Cassel throughout most of the story. By the finale, Shari and Cassel managed to become an Official Couple.
- Show Within a Show: The virtual reality game, "Save the Earth", is the main setting of the story.
- Sue Donym: Technically, the name Song Sari gave to her "Save the Earth" avatar, Shari Azrael, is barely changed from her real given name, Sari.
- Supporting Protagonist: Played With, though Shari is essentially an NPC who becomes the main viewpoint character, she has to engineer and direct the main heroes to the right direction to get the plot moving while getting the best possible outcome.
- Trapped in Another World: Sari is trapped into her avatar in the buggy VR game, "Save The Earth", and was made an NPC and the only way she can return is to help the main heroes to actually save the world and stop the calamity. Sari eventually succeeded but comes to realize that her life in the real world isn't as good as she initially thought it was and chose to return to her original world.
- Willfully Weak: Shari is actually a former player and would be considered overpowered by the In-Universe characters due to Shari having spent many hours in the game before being trapped in her own avatar. However, much of Shari's activities to resolve the plot is to let the heroes handle it and take credit so Shari had been holding back most of her available skills.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Zigzagged Trope. After completing the game, Sari chose to return to her original world, but eventually realizes that she has no place in her original world anymore as she felt that her life in the real world isn't as good as she thought it was and eventually chose to return to the game world.
