There absolutely is grind in this game. You have to undergo sandbox point-and-click bullshit that makes no sense and is blatantly intended to frustrate you before you blow a nut from viewing the scenes they lead up to. If that's your thing, fine, but a lot of people hate that and for extremely good reason.
That said, I played this game again and admittedly, despite aforesaid bullshit the dev/s are evidently putting out substantial content regularly so that's commendable. I'll revise my original 1 star review upwards next update.
Hi! and welcome to the thread!
What you are describing is not grind. Grind when you have to repeat a task multiple times to gain EXP or Money or something that forces the player to repeat a scene/task multiple times in order to progress. This is usually done to extend gameplay time and to give a sense of achievement at the end but we have chosen not to do that route.
Playing the game and following the storyline is not grind.
There is also no SandBox either in the game since it is quite linear where the characters will usually tell you or hint what to do next or you can always use the Hints on the right if you get stuck. Sandbox is when you have free choices on what to do next and to choose the path that the game will go or to focus on a certain character. We don't do that either since the storyline is quite linear with many characters needing plot progression from others in order for Lillith to succeed.
That's why you will notice that there isn't even a Sandbox tag on the game thread since the game is not Sandbox even though sometimes it feels like that while playing the story.
I do try to make sense of the story and I am open to suggestions (which I took multiple times over the year both here and on Discord) on how to improve it or if there are any big mistakes and plot-holes (there are a few but minor for storyline progression sake) please let me know as I am all ears!
Thank you for being open to changing your review!