This Was Supposed to Be a City-Building Game, So How Did I Get a Romance Ending?

【The teaser for Stone Age: The Top Student Simulator is at the very bottom. If you're interested, add it to your reading list!】 【Main story complete, bonus chapters updated alongside the rankings】 You bought a virtual-reality city-building game called Magic Builder. Your starting location is a desolate North America. Humanity here has been petrified for 3,700 years, and civilization has collapsed. As a builder who can imagine and create anything, you decide to rebuild the most prosperous village in the world. You meet two very cute, generous chibi NPCs. One is Xeno, a scientist who gives you gunpowder blueprints and helps you calculate improvements. The other is Stanley, a soldier with maxed-out combat skills and incredible follow-through, who helps you gather materials. 【You have successfully built a bedroom. NPCs can rest now!】 Xeno, who only wants to focus on military construction, comes back every night on time to lie down on a straw mat. 【You have successfully built a field. NPCs will help you farm!】 Stanley, once an ace sniper, is forced to put down his weapon and start tilling the soil. 【You received a blueprint for laser light strips from Xeno. You decide to use them to illuminate the dazzling sign at your eye-catching farm.】 【You built Stanley a private bedroom, then decided to go into his room, shove the NPC off the bed, and sleep there yourself.】 【You use a watering can to fill nitric acid, force-feed a monster to tame it, and take the NPC on a 38,000-mile trek with a summoning staff...】 Thanks to your joint efforts, the village's prosperity level finally reaches Lv. 2. To advance the quest, you must choose one of three future development options. 【As new equipment for the villagers, what would you like to make?】 A. Assault rifle B. Super-plasma magic shield C. Plastering trowel You choose C. So Xeno, who should have built a military empire and become a dictator, reluctantly picks up a trowel. 【As entertainment for the villagers, what would you like to build?】 A. Advanced target-shooting range B. A potion clock tower on a pea-vine stalk C. A swing You choose C again. So the soldier who should have been flying planes and spraying bullets ends up swinging in full view of everyone. 【You have successfully built a landmark in your village, and new villagers are coming to join you! The old villagers must get along with the new ones.】 Joel and Sai, whom the player had brought home ages ago: ? Senku and the others, summoned to America: !!! Xeno: Heh. This time, I absolutely won't let her pick C again. 【You and the villagers can now explore a wider world using vehicles. What would you like to make?】 A. Manned spacecraft B. A magical battleship with twin-headed dragons C. Skate shoes You prepare to choose C. The villagers' NPCs, bristling with indignation: Please, stop picking C!!! * The game has an NPC personal bond badge reward system with extremely generous prizes. The badges represent how well you get along with them. 【You have collected 10 badges. Reward: 3 ultra-rare blueprints】 【You have collected 20 badges. Blueprint material costs permanently reduced by 50%】 To earn more rewards, you keep completing quests, and finally rack up 30 bond badges. 【A system upgrade is required before claiming this tier's reward. Continue?】 You choose Yes. 【Upgrade complete. The game's visual filter has been removed. You can now see and touch him as he truly is.】 The cute chibi NPC before you transforms into a meticulously rendered, six-foot-tall adult man, more stunning than you could have imagined. You're a little confused, but the generous rewards from the badges keep you from thinking much of it. You keep collecting badges, and one day, you finally earn his 40th bond badge. The NPC's profile updates as usual, but this time, it unlocks something different. 【Affection: 100】 【Romantic status: Secretly in love】 Curious, you scroll down and see the entry 【Person he likes】. And clearly written beside it is your name. 【The NPC has the trait “Overwhelming Love.” Please don't stay out of his sight for too long, or something unpleasant may happen.】 【The NPC has the trait “Love and Desire Entwined.” He has oral fixation and seems to love leaving marks on you. Will you refuse him?】 You have broken through every boundary and unlocked a special ending just for you. 【You have received his heartfelt confession. Which will you choose?】 A. Xeno B. Stanley C. Maybe try having them both? It's only two Shelley: ...? Do you really think she dares choose C? I swear, I'm not playing some 18+ dating sim!!! *This is a Dr. Stone fanfic. The original is amazing!! *The game in this story is original, but you'll spot plenty of references to real games. *Pure BG romance, with obsessive male leads! Love-triangle sandwich warning!! Childhood-friends rivalry warning!!! *The two men in the American group are the main love interests. Bonus chapters have separate one-on-one endings. *Not pure city-building; the romance takes up a relatively large part of the story!!! *The protagonist is a self-centered player, and she'll subject the NPCs to plenty of fourth-wall-breaking calamities they can't understand! *The tone is cheerful and lighthearted. Making you smile would be the best! *A short story, under 250,000 Chinese characters. Main story is in third person! *Fanfic characters will definitely be out of character! *There are countless great stories on Jinjiang. If you drop this one, please don't tell me! *My author page also has a completed 730,000-character Dr. Stone otome fanfic. Feel free to check it out. Blurb written on October 12, 2025, and saved as a screenshot. Teaser: The Top Student Simulator Your name is Xue Xizhi. You're an office worker who has just transmigrated and gotten a System. System: All you have to do is come in first place five times, and you can go home! First time. You become an elementary school student. You: Am I going to be a kid with an adult's brain now? Wait, why is an eight-year-old building a rocket? This isn't how the script is supposed to go! Senku: You like science and space too, right? Second time. You end up at a military academy in America. Your rival is a handsome blond boy who gets perfect scores in physical fitness, hand-to-hand combat, and marksmanship. You: You just finished tormenting me with academics, and now you're going to torment me with gym class too? Stanley: Hm? Want to compete at shooting? Third time. You become an elementary school student again, this time taking lessons from a private tutor hired by a wealthy family. You: Why is the nine-year-old next to me studying advanced calculus? Why is that four-year-old studying finance? Sai: ...Programming is fun, right? Ryusui: I want it!! Fourth time. You're back in America for college, majoring in aerospace science. And this time, one of your classmates is a ten-year-old prodigy who skipped grades. You: Another scientist! Bringing it full circle, huh? Fine, fine! Xeno: The allure of science is so refined * At last, you reach your final go-round. You arrive in a strange city where everyone is apparently planning to build some kind of rocket. Then you spot several grown men with striking looks and very different personalities. They were your classmates in your first four lives, and now you have to “defeat” all of them at once. But they were all just second place! Five of them, that's all!!! The second-place finishers: Found you!!! You, already holding a book and ready to study hard: ? * Question: How can an ordinary person become a top student? Xue Xizhi: Have you heard of a study room where time moves slower, a pen you can't let go of until it runs dry, a workbook that gives you a hundred straight days of bad luck unless every answer is right, and a shooting range where you become the target if you don't hit the bull's-eye? Ha ha, I've been through all of it :) *Otome-oriented, with the characters mentioned in the blurb as love interests. *Main story is in third person. Theme: The spirit of building, and the people who build.