White hair and emerald eyes, with long locks brushing the shoulders.
Standing before the silver mirror was a truly adorable young girl, her slender right hand pinching up the tip of a stray lock, her face full of bewilderment.
Those beautiful, clear green eyes brimmed with curiosity, mixed with a dazed confusion that matched her features, as if she’d barely survived a catastrophe.
Wang Ye—that was her name before transmigrating, and obviously, she had been male.
Her previous memories floated in the bitter sea on her tongue—she’d fallen off a ferry into the sea, and inevitably drowned.
It was excruciating.
But awakening in an unfamiliar place, noticing her voice had become tender and childish, and seeing her reflection in the silver mirror of a luxurious room, she naturally realized she had transmigrated.
Though she didn’t retain memories of this body, just looking into the mirror told her both her identity and her name.
Second Princess Dolores—this proved that she had transmigrated into the world of the game she had helped create, “Reincarnated Hero’s Revenge.”
She had been responsible for designing some of the character illustrations in the game, often discussing ideas with her friend, Xiao Huayu.
These discussions included genre, characters, and storyline concepts.
As she pondered, a purple-haired maid entered to inform Dolores of her afternoon schedule: she would meet with her father to receive the Hero who had traveled from afar.
After sending the maid away, Dolores paced a few steps before the mirror, and with the return of her memories, she realized her situation might not be good.
A Hero from another land, the Main Character yet to become a true Hero, and the current moment… it was likely the beginning of the second playthrough’s storyline.
The plot of “Reincarnated Hero’s Revenge” was just as its name suggested.
It was a game that revolved around revenge, and all the female characters with illustrated portraits had actual actions that hurt the Main Character, whether physically or psychologically.
Although Dolores hadn’t been in charge of the storyline, she vaguely remembered that her own story was rather special in the game.
As the first female character the Main Character encountered, her role in the early and mid-game was like a chair in a galgame, or the “safe room” in a survival game.
The first version of Dolores she had drawn was pink-haired—after all, the theme felt too much like a certain famous character! But on Xiao Huayu’s advice, she changed it to the current white-haired design.
Xiao Huayu wanted her to look gentle, someone who could rise on tiptoe and hug the wounded Main Character to her chest, soothing his pain.
After meeting girls who would hurt the Main Character, there needed to be someone to comfort and accompany him, or he might not last long enough to meet the next female character and progress the story.
“If you ask me what kind of feeling Dolores should give off, I think she should be a gentle person, able to embrace all the Player’s whims, both a safe haven and a guide.”
“After all, first impressions matter most!”
These were Xiao Huayu’s exact words when chatting with her.
Since it was a revenge-themed game, Dolores couldn’t avoid the “betrayal” stage by the end.
Moreover, because of her experiences and unique background, in the first playthrough, Dolores was the one who hurt the Main Character the deepest—etched into his soul, unforgettable.
But after he reincarnated and gained the System, his feelings toward her became the most conflicted, with love and hate the hardest to distinguish.
So, within the story, the Main Character’s revenge against Dolores lasted longer than against others, and compared to physical revenge, the mental side took precedence.
After all, the design philosophy behind Dolores was—
To evoke the Player’s sympathy with her pure and innocent appearance, then, as the Main Character enacts his revenge and the plot advances, to reveal her actions and fade the Player’s reluctance to see her suffer.
She appeared pure and lovely, but the Player had to feel that her suffering was deserved, making her the “tutorial” for revenge in the early game.
Thinking this far, Dolores found her situation deeply worrying.
But not entirely hopeless.
If this was simply the first encounter of the first playthrough, not the second-playthrough’s revenge, maybe there was still a chance.
This afternoon, she would meet him.
Three o’clock in the afternoon, Royal Palace of the Capital.
The Hero from afar, led by the guards, entered the grand hall. Seated on the throne, the King scrutinized him.
Black hair and eyes, a youth in his twenties, muscular and bearing a sword scabbard across his back for a two-handed blade, with light scars on his chiseled face.
He bowed slightly, and at the same time, spotted Dolores, dressed in a formal gown beside the King. His gaze shifted ever so subtly.
Dolores caught that complex look, and all her last hopes vanished.
In the first-playthrough’s initial scene, the Main Character was supposed to be dazzled by Dolores’s beauty, lost in reverie until the King’s voice snapped him out of it.
He was supposed to be captivated by Dolores, vowing impossible feats to impress her.
But before everyone’s eyes, he showed none of these emotions.
That was the biggest sign—he had already been reincarnated.
Because of his memories—and the betrayal by Dolores in those memories—he no longer idolized her.
Dolores herself didn’t know exactly why the original had betrayed the Main Character, as the first playthrough only offered fragmented recollections, and she hadn’t written that part.
That didn’t mean Dolores was clueless about the plot, just that she didn’t know it as well as Xiao Huayu, who wrote the scenario. Still, she had heard about many design ideas.
For example—the reason the Hero came to this kingdom.
A tailor-made disaster, set up by shooting the arrow first then drawing the target, was created as an experience package specifically for the Main Character.
The Main Character just happened to shine at the right moment, someone reported him to the King, and the King’s problems happened to need someone new to solve them.
Everything lined up so neatly.
After all, there had to be a reason for the Main Character to get close to the princess.
Dolores only half-listened as the King exchanged formal pleasantries with the Main Character, and the Hero’s careful avoidance of Dolores further confirmed her guess.
He had indeed reincarnated, so Dolores now faced the second playthrough, where he would seek revenge.
Next came a classic sequence.
The King propped his face up with one hand, speaking with authority and gravitas, and then the knight on his right stepped forward with a bow.
“Show me your strength, Hero from afar.”
Dolores simply watched silently, knowing that what followed was a battle, danger, an outburst of power, and a reversal of fortune.
After the battle, the considerate “Dolores” would step forward to tend his wounds and speak kind words, leaving a gentle impression.
The knight who stepped up was the Vice Captain of the Royal Knights, who kept to formalities and then asked the Hero for his name.
Dolores didn’t know what this “Hero’s” name was, as the Main Character’s name in the game was always chosen by the Player.
Now that the game was reality, there would certainly be no default names like Harold.
“Grin,” he replied.
This was supposed to be a hard-fought match, but after a few exchanges, the Vice Captain’s sword was easily knocked away by Grin.
Neither side had used any special power, but in pure swordsmanship, Grin won effortlessly and elegantly, a far cry from the struggle Dolores remembered.
The King praised his skills and told his second daughter, Dolores, to escort the guest to his prepared quarters.
Dolores and Grin walked a short distance, then paused in a quiet flower garden. Grin’s sudden halt didn’t escape Dolores’s notice.
She was certain she saw in Grin’s eyes a look of hatred that hadn’t been there in the hall.
“Your Highness, why did you stop so suddenly?”
Grin quickly suppressed his emotions and asked Dolores in confusion, but he found her expression had suddenly become strange.
In Dolores’s memory, the System for revenge appeared for Grin a few days before meeting her, after his reincarnation.
But as for the System, it was essentially like a love game’s design—a panel showing the target’s Favorability as a number.
Since there was a value and a panel, rewards for “patting the head, hugging, kissing,” or other tasks that forcibly raised Favorability were to be expected.
Dolores recalled that defeating the Vice Captain in the duel was a minor task, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the reward was…
Favorability from “Dolores”—from herself.
A line of transparent text and panel, supposedly only visible to Grin, slowly appeared before Dolores’s eyes.
[Character: Dolores]
[Favorability: 10/30 (Acquaintance/Friendly)]
Dolores stiffened.
She remembered—the Favorability System was tiered, and once each stage’s cap was reached, it would never decrease.
Meaning—once you advanced from Acquaintance to Friendly, it could never drop below Friendly again.
At the same time, each Favorability tier would subtly alter that person’s personality.
The same scene would have different dialogue options depending on Favorability.
If the one being altered was Dolores herself, and she was fully conscious that it was about to happen, might happen, or was almost inevitable—
He would use this for revenge, and there was the possibility her personality would be gradually, imperceptibly changed.
Dolores’s face instantly paled.
Grin hesitated, trying to reach out to steady the unwell Dolores, but was unexpectedly brushed off, and saw a strange look in her eyes.
She seemed to be resisting him.
“S-sorry, I have something to attend to and must leave for a moment.”
With that, Grin saw her Favorability plummet from [10 (Acquaintance)] straight down to [-20 (Repulsed)].
Watching Dolores run off, Grin was left with the same doubts as she.
In each other’s memories, the other always acted very differently from what they were doing now—their words and deeds no longer matched the “other” from memory.
Grin took a deep breath, and after Dolores’s figure vanished, there was no longer any trace of that boiling resentment or complex emotion in his eyes.
“Dolores, I think of you all the time…”
Just as Dolores remembered, Grin had been deeply scarred by her betrayal—but it wasn’t pure hatred.
Before coming to the Capital, Grin had spent over half a year pondering how to face Dolores.
But when they met, hatred and pain inevitably overwhelmed all other feelings.