S3: Love Convenient Store (Adela After Story)

 S3: Love Convenient Store (Adela's After Story)

Adela's Afterstory is the first installment of a total of 3 to be released DLC's that deal with the girl's Afterstory. The second has been released in its native language with an English version in the works, but due to COVID, the time frame of the English Version has been pushed back. The second DLC is Yena's Afterstory, which leads me to believe that Soohee's is in the pipeline for future production. Each DLC is described to be equally as long as the girl's paths in the main game itself. Adela's DLC cost me $4 which isn't bad for a DLC.

Adela's story takes place after the events of the main story in which Adela has committed to a new contract with Seven Stars and recently thanks to some help from the inside (a plot twist I won't release here...sorry.) Adela has joined two other girls from the agency to create a small group that has started to tour. Because of this though her time with the protag has greatly been reduced and other than the protag and the other two girls no one is aware that Adela and the protag are actually dating.

With her dream of stardom coming true she takes every concert performance she can arrange with the other two girls and hopes to increase their viewability. Soohee decides to create a fan club site for Adela and thanks to the protag taking her weekday shifts she is able to travel to all the events Adela is partaking in and taking pictures. The game reverts back to its business options by making you start over with your shop and work your way up in earning money and upgrading certain aspects of the store. Instead of buying gifts for Adela though you obtain items you purchase to support the fan club which earns Adela fans. 

Time continues to pass and the relationship begins to strain, the continued lack of being able to be with one another pushes both of them into a depression and uncertain way of thinking. The protag does his best to keep Adela on track to achieve her dream by holding his emotions in, he doesn't want to tell her that he wants her to stay with him and not travel any more but to do so would be asking her to give up her dreams to be with him, and that is something he can not do either.

Adela is also feeling the pressure as she wants to spend more time with the protag and goes so far as to change her clothes and hide her appearance to ensure no one knows it's her. Eventually, after some ins and outs with the group, she's in she decides to skip a full day of work and spend it with the protag at a hotel just the two of them. 

After spending time with one another in the hotel pool they leave to find some diner and after spending the day out walking around after eating they make their way back to the hotel where she notices someone taking pictures. To be sure no one sees her she makes off with the protag in tow. It is at this time she decides that she has to go back to the agency and hope they didn't see him and her together. She goes back to the agency but before she does the stress and emotional decay from being forced apart because of her dream is causing her to push herself to her limits, all the while the protag is fighting with his own emotions and deals with bottling them up over time which is causing him a great deal of grief. 

Prior to the start of a performance, the agency announces that Adela will be taking time off due to illness, but the truth of the matter is that she has fled and gone into hiding. Seven Stars turns to the security firm that is located in its building to locate Adela. This means that Yena is placed on alert and sent out to find where Adela could be. At first,
Soohee and the protag don't know where she could be and any attempts to call her on either her primary phone or her second phone she bought just to talk with the protag all goes straight to voicemail.

The protag returns to his apartment where he finds Adela passed out in his apartment. After he wakes her up and asks her what is wrong she breaks down and tries to explain all the emotions she's been feeling. The protag helps her eat something then puts her to bed and then heads out of his apartment to call his mom's boyfriend to ask him something when Yena appears and comes up to him.

They talk about Adela and Yena asks if she is there at his place, he of course tells her that she is. Yena tells him that she will do what she can to stall them from investigating and finding him and her for a time but that is the best she can do for them. If it comes down to it she won't put her job on the line, and she will come for them if ordered. He agrees to this and she leaves him to make his phone call. He calls his mother's boyfriend and former Manger of the store to talk to him about Adela.

He is informed that she is suffering from stress-induced anxiety and panic attack, if left untreated she will get worse, and eventually, she will not be able to deal or cope with her line of work or people in general.  Taking this to heart the protag asks him what he should do to which the only advice he can give him is to get her to a hospital and get her medication to help her for the time being until she makes a choice between the profession or walking away. 

Over the next day or so the protag and Adela spend time together and he helps her get her meds, they share their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and desires with one another including the fact that Adela is starting to question her own desire to be a performer and idol because of how she has to hide the fact that they are dating. After this long story scene, you are given two choices each with different endings, "Good For Everyone" and "A Normal Life".

Now straight up to me personally both endings are both nice so I don't feel either ending was bad. I see what the author was trying to do though, honestly, I also struggled with how I felt about how Adela should handle the situation as I obviously wanted their relationship to work out but also understanding the protags thoughts and feelings on Adela achieving her dreams. So I think both these endings are well done and cater to those who really were divided on what would be the best choice for her and the protag to do.

In 'A Normal Life', while out with one another Adela makes a choice and decision about their future. She removes her mask and having the protag wrap his arms around her she takes a selfie with the two in the picture and posts it to her social media site with the tag, 'Me and my Boyfriend'. As part of her contract with Seven Stars, she is not allowed to be in a relationship, and therefore because she herself went public, she is released from her contract, effectively being fired from her agency. 

She then decides to help the protag with his store and enters a normal life with her and her boyfriend no longer seeking to be an idol of sorts she still gets other agencies wanting her for small contracts and for other shows. She however never signs another contract and simply implies that her dreams have changed from being an idol to simply spending her life with the man she loves, the protag.

In 'Good for Everyone', she and the protag sit down and discuss their situation frankly, and in the end, she comes to a conclusion. With the incident taken care of about her leaving the group for a short time and with the Security Firm putting to rest any investigation into who she was with, Adela decides to go into contract negotiations with Seven Stars and tells them what she wants for them to continue her contract. It was a long-drawn-out fight but in the end, she wins what she wants. 

She signs a new four-year contract with Seven Stars, she will not be forced to do as much touring and is allowed to live outside the agency. Furthermore, she is allowed to spend time and live with her boyfriend if she so decides to. The Agency allows her to have a boyfriend and will not interfere with her love life. This ends with the protag and Adela talking about what she will do when her four years are over with. She says that by then she will almost be out of the idol market and instead will focus on being a singer-songwriter but she won't have to be contracted to do that. In the end, she is able to keep her job, keep her boyfriend, and they are able to plan for the future. 

I have seen people say that Adela is 'Best Girl' and after reading the Afterstory I tend to agree that they made her the 'Best Girl'. While I think Soohee would have been a better 'Best Girl' I can see the appeal for Adela to be it instead. So despite my own thoughts, I can understand their choice here. This DLC is well crafted and done, with emotional twists and new secrets that make it a very good DLC. It makes me want to see what comes next with Yena's Afterstory and to see what they will eventually do with Soohee's after story. 

If you have S3: Love Convenient Store main game I highly recommend the 5$ and get this DLC.