Does anyone have a completed save for Gurumin on GOG, or can someone confirm if Gurumin is DRM-free or not on Steam, or does anyone know a workaround to immediately unlock hard mode (or how to transfer a steam save to a gog version)?

I'd like to play Gurumin A Monstrous Adventure, but only on hard mode or higher. I do not play games on easy or normal mode, and I won't be making an exception for this notably easy game, especially. I hate how the difficulty modes are locked behind completion; it's not fair to ask me to waste 10 hours on a game mode I don't want to play to get to the part I do.

I currently have it on GOG, and I found some Steam saves on Steam's community forums that are completed save files, but the GOG version of the game will not read these saves - apparently the files are completely different, as inspecting them with a hex editor in an attempt to modify the Steam sav to work on the GOG version showed that they are completely different in structure, so I don't think I'm going to be able to transfer the Steam saves onto the GOG version of the game.

If nobody here has a GOG completed file to share, nor knows how to transfer a Steam .sav to a GOG release, does anyone know if the Steam version of the game is DRM-free such that it can be launched as a .exe without the Steam client running? I only play games DRM-free, and will not put up with the Steam launcher to play it. I'll just return it on GOG and buy it on Steam in order to bypass normal mode, if that's easier at this point, but only if it's DRM-free there.

Otherwise, does anyone know if there are any workarounds to immediately unlock the hard mode difficulty without having to play through the whole game on normal mode, first, which will completely ruin my experience? eg, an in-game cheat code, known hack, etc.

TL;DR: For the game Gurumin A Monstrous Adventure, I am requesting either a workaround to unlock hard mode instantly, a completed save file for GOG, or a confirmation of whether the game is DRM-free or not on Steam.

No AI responses copied and pasted here please, it never gets the answer right.

Thank you in advanced.