After parting ways beneath the royal palace, Alberca lingered near the Golden Square.
She kept feeling that Green wouldn’t give up on the Sword in the Stone so easily, not when the cost of trial and error wasn’t high.
Green’s return was within her expectations.
But the restriction coiled around the dragon hadn’t been part of her initial plan. Still, with a little thought, the reason was easy enough to grasp.
If she wrote about an object left behind by some powerful figure, now resting in a certain place…
In a version of the game that wasn’t current, who that powerhouse was could be left a riddle or covered up with certain titles and code names, to be filled in later as needed.
As for why it was lost, that too was left for the future to patch. All in all, what Alberca needed was just that.
For now, what the players knew was this: The Sword in the Stone is a powerful artifact left behind by the First Hero.
As for who the First Hero was, how his story went, or how the Sword in the Stone was lost—these details weren’t considered at the time of laying down the plot holes.
And if Alberca had plugged all the holes in this part, then after she crossed over, the world would naturally form its own logic.
You could even see it from Green’s name.
Dolores and Dolores only learned each other’s names after meeting in person.
After all, as the protagonist, he couldn’t remain nameless.
Only, losing his mother as a child—perhaps that did have something to do with Alberca.
With that in mind, Alberca immediately understood the reason for the restriction on the Sword in the Stone, and seeing his actions only confirmed it.
He must have known about the restriction, which is why he thought to lure the dragon into smashing it. Thinking back, her worries in her loli form were rather silly.
But it didn’t matter—she could always separate herself from that.
At the very least, in his mind, she should still be quite the mystery.
They had only met twice: once when she found an opportunity for a chance encounter to give him a clue.
The second time was now, when she helped him remove the Tree Leaf that could have become his weakness.
In the Song of the Nibelungs, the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried, after slaying the evil dragon Fafnir, bathed in dragon blood and gained an invulnerable body—yet a Tree Leaf left a vulnerable spot, and he was killed by a vassal’s hand.
Alberca hadn’t expected that, after crossing over, she would encounter such a similar symbol in such a similar scene.
Out of personal feeling, Alberca naturally wanted Green to become as strong as possible, so she helped him remove the Tree Leaf without a second thought.
Green was not a tragic hero.
Such symbols of tragedy shouldn’t appear, not on the child born from her pen.
Yet, in this moment, even Alberca couldn’t help glancing at Green a few more times.
After all, he really was handsome.
Two meters tall, solid muscle, scars covering his body from battle—all of it radiated both fortitude and the beauty of strength.
Especially from Alberca’s perspective, looking at him.
She could only marvel at Wang Ye’s skill as an artist. Though they used to bicker, and he preferred pretty-boy or cute types…
In the end, he had conceded to her vision for the male lead.
A thoroughly reliable tough guy.
In Alberca’s eyes, some of his particular scars, given their backstories, were full of beauty and romance.
“Are you going to keep staring at me like that?” Green couldn’t hold back and asked Alberca.
“If it bothers you, I can strip and show you my body sometime.”
Alberca replied.
Her first reaction was actually to say, “Looking doesn’t take a piece off me,” but she quickly realized that sounded far too much like a woman’s response.
After all, when she’d first crossed over, scenes like this would’ve been nothing—just brothers, just pals.
“……”
Of course, Green couldn’t go along with Alberca’s joke, though he had a vague sense she really would do as she said.
“Besides, we’re not the only ones watching over here,” Alberca’s gaze shifted slightly.
Green snapped his head up and looked in the direction Alberca was watching. There, not long after, were Dolores and the purple-haired maid.
The only thing he could be grateful for was that, due to monsters rampaging through Golden Square recently, the residents had mostly evacuated.
Now, the only ones who could see him were Dolores, Alberca, and Viseryan.
There had been plenty of fierce battles before, enough to tear clothes apart, so he wasn’t all that bothered.
Gritting his teeth, Green stepped into the pool of dragon blood. The blood had eaten away at the earth, making a basin large enough for a person to soak in.
“Do you need me to say something to them for you?”
Alberca asked Green. The latter, immersed up to his neck in dragon blood, looked as if he were bathing in magma; his face instantly contorted in pain.
“Tell them to leave. Leave the rest to me. You too—leave. I don’t know what tricks you have, but dragons are dangerous.”
“I hope you haven’t lied about the most important thing.”
Green was referring to what happened on Mercury Street. He still had some worries—it had been a desperate gamble, after all.
He didn’t know exactly where the miracle would occur.
But if things really were as Alberca said, that was the source of his confidence to risk bathing in dragon blood.
Alberca didn’t realize Green was referring to what she’d said in her loli form—she thought he meant the palace encounter.
“You’ve got the Sword in the Stone now, but I didn’t know it had a restriction either. It’s great you knew and could use that.”
“I didn’t lie about that.”
Green grunted, enduring the scorching pain of the dragon blood forging his limbs and bones.
He said nothing, but blood was already seeping from the corner of his lips.
Seeing this, Alberca couldn’t help but admire his toughness. She took out a special bottle, filled two with dragon blood, and glanced at Green’s face, contorted in silent agony.
She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt.
Having finally come into direct contact with Green, her own male protagonist, Alberca found herself unable to help viewing him as a child.
A tragic story evokes pity.
To some extent, it was her own hand that had directly caused Green’s series of tragedies.
Which made her feel a little guilty.
And truly, in the strictest sense, Green was her child. By that logic, he was also Wang Ye’s child.
After crossing over, in Alberca’s new identity, she couldn’t act like brothers, throwing arms around shoulders and adventuring together.
But she couldn’t just stay at his side as a woman either, playing a motherly role, even if—by some definitions—she really was.
But that was already Dolores’s place.
She couldn’t take it, and there was no need to.
Watching her own child grow up, Alberca felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
After bathing in dragon blood, Green would become stronger—even if she didn’t think, “A stronger Green can help me accomplish more.”
Alberca found herself simply glad for him.
“Sigh… If I keep thinking this way, I might end up falling for him. That would be too weird.”
She only muttered this quietly to herself after leaving, and then made her way to Dolores, standing not far away.
She greeted her:
“Your Highness the Princess, I didn’t expect to see you here~”
There’s the flagm