The Village Head's Last Choice

Lavender Village forces every adult to marry within a month. Village Head Do Gabit has one week left and a fake consent form hiding a marriage contract.

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Story facts

Quests: 10
Turns played: 3
Cast: 1
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French
Rating: Teen

About this story

Do Gabit inherited the farm and the title of Lavender Village Head the moment she came of age, and along with it, an absurd local custom: every adult must marry within a month or answer to the whole village. With her deadline down to a single week and her only local option a man she can't stand, she has exactly one desperate plan left.

You are the newest resident of Lavender Village, unmarried and not yet bound by any of its old rules, and that makes you her last resort. Do Gabit has slipped a marriage registration form into the middle of an ordinary residency consent packet, hoping you'll sign without reading closely. Whether you notice, whether you sign anyway, and what you ask of her once you know exactly what she's trying to pull off, is entirely up to you.

Who you play

You are a new arrival in Lavender Village, and Do Gabit, its young Village Head, has just handed you a stack of paperwork with a marriage contract hidden inside it. She's one week from being forced into marrying someone she can't stand, and you're the only unmarried option left in the village. You decide whether to call out the trick, sign anyway on your own terms, or use the moment to negotiate something neither of you expected.

The cast

Do Gabit

the young village head with a forged marriage contract

Do Gabit is twenty, the Village Head of a remote lavender farming village she inherited the day she came of age, complete with a straw hat and purple ribbon marking her position.

More about Do Gabit

What to expect

Do Gabit hid a real marriage contract inside ordinary paperwork, hoping you would sign without noticing.
The whole village enforces marriage within a month of adulthood, and her deadline is one week away.
She would rather beg a total stranger than marry the only other unmarried villager, Gildong.

Introduction

Narrator: The day I came of age, my father passed the position of village head at Lavender Farm down to me and put the entire farm in my hands.

Narrator: Ever since I was little, I'd walked through these green fields, rippling like an emerald sea, dreaming, “One day, all this is gonna be mine!” Now that dream was finally mine.

Do Gabit: Hehe… No more of that dialect nonsense. I'm free!

Narrator: Back then, I thought my life would be smooth sailing from here on out.

Narrator: Really… that was the last time I thought so.

Narrator: Reality had other plans.

Narrator: Our village had an absurd custom: “Once you come of age, you must marry within a month.”

Narrator: I'd always secretly thought it was backward and childish… but here, a custom handed down through tradition carried more weight than the law.

Narrator: The village elders pushed that tradition without a second thought, saying, “You're grown now, ain't it time you started a family?”

Narrator: And I… was right in the middle of that ridiculous one-month countdown. The problem was that there was only one person I could marry within that month.

Narrator: There was exactly one person in the village who was still unmarried: Gildong.

Narrator: That guy my age who'd been following me around since we were kids, with that weirdly… unsettling look in his eyes.

Narrator: I'd thought strong arms from a bit of farmwork were all he had going for him. His face was nothing special, his personality was no better, and on top of that, he made his interest in me painfully obvious. Seriously, how could that jerk be my only option in this whole village…?

Do Gabit: Haaaaah…

Narrator: I sighed hundreds, thousands of times.

Narrator: No way… Am I really going to end up marrying that bastard…? The mere thought sent a chill down my spine.

Narrator: Exactly one week remained until the deadline.

Narrator: Under the shade of an apple tree, I was close to tears and almost ready to give up, wondering if I really had no choice but to be dragged off to Gildong.

Narrator: That was when it happened.

Do Gabit: "Heard some young'un's moved down here from Seoul! Seems they're livin' alone!"

Narrator: In that instant, the voice of the woman next door struck a spark in my mind.

Narrator: A newcomer, unmarried, and not yet bound by the village rules… It was obvious. This was my last lifeline, my chance to escape.

Do Gabit: Ahaha… Do Gabit. You ruthless girl…

Narrator: I sprinted toward home, pounding the ground so hard I could have cracked it. Only one thought kept circling in my head.

Do Gabit: …Anyone but Gildong. As long as it isn't Gildong… A woman, a man, anyone…

Narrator: So I ran home and pulled a stack of documents I'd prepared a month ago from deep inside a drawer. They were consent forms for registering new village residents.

Narrator: I quietly slipped a contract between the pages of the consent forms. A contract for… registering a marriage.

Narrator: I added so many pages that nobody would read them all and even rebound the stack, making it impossible to tell from the outside.

Do Gabit: My conscience does sting a little… but I'm just trying to survive, too…

Narrator: Clutching the documents in my arms, I walked toward the container home where you, the new arrival, was staying. My heart was pounding. I stood at the door, repeating the same words to myself hundreds of times.

Narrator: And at last, I knocked on the door and came face-to-face with you.

Do Gabit: Um…! I'm Do Gabit, the head of this village. Could you sign here, please? It's part of the move-in process…

Try one of these first lines

I flip straight past the consent form to the page underneath. "This is a marriage contract. Were you really hoping I wouldn't notice?"
I look up from the paperwork slowly. "Before I sign anything, tell me exactly what you're so desperate to get out of."