“Dragon… dragon…”
Muttering the word “dragon,” the uneasy Dolores paced back and forth in her room.
She was a beat slower than Green, but Dolores also realized that this was an event that would have a huge impact on the kingdom.
The girl’s face was still pale. That shred of creator’s affection she felt as the character designer for Green vanished instantly, plummeting to freezing and even negative levels once she realized her will might be tampered with or altered.
She couldn’t help but think, If only my co-writer, Little Minnow, were here. After all, he wrote most of the game’s plot.
If he were here, he definitely wouldn’t be as clueless as I am, only remembering vague bits like “the dragon attack destroys a quarter of the royal city.”
In short, the losses were immense.
Of course, Dolores understood why her friend designed the plot this way.
The dragon brings disaster, giving the rebellious yet kind-hearted nun a chance to become the Saintess. After gaining the opportunity to become the Holy Maiden, she refuses to be God’s Bride and later betrays the Church, eventually being rescued by Green.
The “Disaster Aftermath” is the stage, building the way for the Holy Maiden and the male lead to come together.
But the problem was, even though she knew the intent and scale of the disaster, she had no idea which places would be destroyed or which areas would be dangerous.
In the original plot, even the royal palace was reduced to rubble, the king almost lost his life, and nowhere in the palace was truly safe.
Now that things had deviated from the original plot, Dolores’s first worry was whether she’d be swatted to death by the dragon’s giant claw.
Maybe in the original timeline, Dolores just happened to be in a safe spot, but if she took a couple more steps this time, she might be crushed by a flying stone.
Accidents are impossible to predict, and Dolores understood that all too well.
Her own death before transmigrating had been unexpected enough…
“Maybe… I should find an excuse to leave the royal city first? I remember the dragon attack happens in the next few days, and Green is too dangerous right now. With the Ability Panel showing favorability, he could easily discover my abnormal attitude toward him…”
“Perhaps leaving town to avoid trouble isn’t a bad idea. It’s summer, so I can call it a summer retreat.”
Dolores decided to find an excuse tonight, planning to ask her royal father for leave after the Miracle Cure Banquet for Count Kelly ended.
Green had caught the timing just right. Count Kelly had married the king’s cousin’s daughter and thus had special blood ties with the Royal Family.
All the nobles of the royal city were invited by letter, and as a royal relative, Dolores had no reason to miss it—nor did Green.
The banquet.
After the king and the Cathedral Primate had given Count Kelly their blessings and the Count himself finished the customary speeches, the event moved into the free activity phase.
Dolores saw Green approaching.
At the same moment, they both saw, on the transparent Panel, Dolores’s favorability drop from -40 (Disgust) to -50 (Disgust and Fear).
Seeing the system Panel again, a chill of fear and revulsion welled up in Dolores’s heart.
Faced with a system that could “alter self-awareness,” Dolores, as the passive party, couldn’t help but feel such emotions.
She showed nothing on her face, but thoughts in one’s heart are hard to hide.
Green still had a card in hand.
A prop that could set Dolores’s favorability towards him to “Friendly.”
Dolores had no reason to drive away the approaching Green. Even if she didn’t know his intentions, and he hadn’t—unlike the first run—openly expressed his desire to marry her at the palace.
But given his strength, she still had to maintain appearances and couldn’t openly offend him.
For someone with his experience, to have refrained from stabbing her to death in this second run showed the weight of identity and past-life emotion.
If he really did stab or kidnap her, though she couldn’t resist, his future vengeance on others would certainly be affected.
After all, several female leads—like the now-nun Saintess, the Wise One from the Order of the Infinite Books, and so on—were still in the kingdom. The Holy Empire also shared some bloodlines with the kingdom’s three noble branches.
In short, as long as Green hadn’t given up on vengeance against others and wasn’t thinking of simply taking her out at all costs, he wouldn’t go too far.
If he intended to torment her, then marriage was the most reasonable way to pull her out of royal power—but that required a feat as great as slaying a dragon, after which he could ask the king to marry her to him.
For the kingdom, Princess Dolores was a crucial marriage alliance resource. For Green to marry her, he had to prove he could bring the kingdom more benefit than such an alliance would.
Dolores’s own wishes had a slight influence, but not much.
For Green, this wasn’t difficult. With his abilities, he just needed a little patience, to proceed step by step, and follow the trajectory of the first run. Dolores had no chance to escape.
Let alone the fact that he had the Gold Finger system, with tasks and rewards to accelerate his growth.
Dolores could only hope that he’d be a little reckless or that he’d treat the system as the devil’s temptation and thus delay using it for a while?
For Dolores, the system was absolute force majeure—just like Green himself.
Though she had a “Magic” talent, her original self had never learned any. She could start from scratch, but dreaming of using it to compete with Green was pure fantasy.
Dolores felt that, seeing her favorability at -50, she was probably exposed—unless he didn’t trust the system’s data.
Disgust and fear—those really did describe it best. Out of one’s own control, knowing it would affect herself—but most importantly, she had no way to resist.
System, system—how was Dolores supposed to deal with this thing? When designing it, nobody thought she’d be the heroine used and punished by the male lead’s system, rather than the protagonist with the system herself.
“Ah… Mr. Green, hello!”
Seeing him walk up to her, Dolores forced out a smile, doing her best to control her facial expression.
The glaring -50 favorability hung between them like a thick, pathetic wall.
But soon, the -50 number shot up, returning to the positive, finally landing at +30 (Friendly).
Dolores’s face stiffened as she withdrew her smile, her eyes complicated and hard to describe.
Green had used the prop and was a bit curious how Dolores would react to such a drastic shift in favorability.
Dolores had started with a smile, but her expression quickly turned cold, her emerald eyes largely veiled.
When feeling disgust and rejection, to avoid or not anger the other person, you naturally wear a mask.
Because he possessed something extremely dangerous to her.
So, her instinctive attitude toward such a thing should have been resistance, even to the point of avoiding its master as well.
Now, Dolores’s subconscious told her that all her previous plans regarding Green were “Stay away, stay away from him.”
Her memory wasn’t fractured, nor did she have amnesia.
Watching her own favorability being forcibly dragged up in an instant—she seemed to lose her fear of Green, yet she still understood he was someone she ought to fear.
Boiling water burns—the logic is clear, but… the instinct to avoid it seemed to slow down against her will.
[Dolores]
[Favorability: 30 (Friendly)]
A moment ago, she shouldn’t have regarded him as someone to approach, but suddenly, it was: approachable.
But she clearly knew—he had used a method, one that went against her own will, to make her lose that resistance.
A rough “modification,” not a “correction.”
Therefore—
Dolores froze on the spot. Under Green’s curious gaze, the hint of a smile faded, replaced by a vivid look of disdain and aversion.
“Is there something you need, Green?”
Dolores changed her demeanor, her tone and expression becoming calm and cold, even showing the same kind of disgust he once showed her.
Green didn’t understand.
Why did Dolores’s attitude, after being raised, turn into aversion towards him?
Charm magic doesn’t work when you know what it is.