Chapter 35: No Way Out

The matter of supplies was nearly wrapped up.

Cleaning up the remaining monsters and maintaining order were not tasks that could be accomplished in a short time. Most of the king city’s powerful armed forces were concentrated in the palace: the various knight orders and the Royal Guard.

The palace was clearly preoccupied with its own troubles, currently mending the damage caused by the dragon’s assault. The remaining unofficial forces, such as Ulgrich University, the Mages Association, the Adventurers Association, and the Forging Association, were all spontaneously maintaining order in their respective vicinities.

Dolores caught glimpses of them along the way, but because of her tasks, she could only exchange hurried nods. The remaining city guards and army soldiers were generally capable of clearing out monsters that lacked high-level intelligence.

In this disaster, there were only a handful of monsters approaching the Transcendent level. Most were either mortal-level monsters or a small number of those at the Half-step Transcendent level. Only occasionally would monsters nearing the Transcendent rank crawl out from the large cavities exposed behind the sealing nodes destroyed by the dragon.

Those areas had been temporarily designated as restricted zones. Clearing operations, search and rescue, and firefighting were all proceeding in an orderly fashion.

The manpower issue had also been alleviated with Dolores’s help. Monsters at the Half-step Transcendent level, which originally required several people to restrain, could now be handled by a single person wearing the Royal Armor. Dolores had opened several royal storage facilities containing as many as 100 of these suits, which greatly eased the burden on the troops.

Aside from those giant cavities, the area near the dragon was also a restricted zone — the battle between the Elderly King and the dragon was still ongoing.

From what Dolores could see, the dragon was relying on its massive health pool to endure the heavy beating it was receiving. It seemed possible that the Elderly King might slay the dragon right then and there.

However, according to Dolores’s memories, the dragon would at most escape after being heavily wounded. The Elderly King’s strength was fading with the passage of time.

At the same time, Dolores visited two large cavities in the North District. There, she saw guards dragging a skeleton wearing armor toward a building.

“Princess, not long ago, we encountered these undead who called themselves ‘Knights of the Suklan Kingdom.’ They didn’t attack us; they even helped us hold back the monsters,” the lead guard explained to Dolores. He then motioned for the other guards to quickly set up barricades, preparing to withdraw from the vicinity of the cavity. “They saved us, so we plan to find a time to bury them properly after this is over.”

At the second cavity, three knight skeletons and two guards were stationed on the ground. Their encounter with the knight skeletons had been exactly the same as the previous guards’ experience.

After all, the king city had been in total chaos earlier. The guards were both saving others and in desperate need of rescue themselves.

The knight skeletons said their time was short, then prepared to descend once more to spend the remainder of their lives clearing out the monsters. One of the knight skeletons specifically warned the guards that from that moment on, they should not trust any undead coming up from the cavity. Undead could extend their lives by plundering flesh and souls.

Deception or slaughter could both achieve that end. And they had no intention of prolonging their existence by killing the living.

Buried alongside the King of Suklan were the most elite, brave, and oath-abiding knights of that kingdom. They had their own pride.

“We shall vanish here, returning this place to the living.”

“Our mission and the miracle bestowed upon us end here.”

After the knight skeleton spoke, he bid them farewell and stepped into the cavity. The guards who had been saved by them called out words of parting.

“Princess, you’re spacing out,” Grimm reminded her softly.

“Ah, sorry,” Dolores murmured to herself. ‘I really am a sucker for stories like this…’

A creator’s rich imagination could always conjure up stories capable of moving even themselves. The actions of the knight skeletons possessed a certain resolute, tragic romance.

Dolores loved positive stories like that. It was just that an ending like this made her feel a bit sad, reminding her of her friend, Little Albacore.

Little Albacore preferred death—but the kind of death followed by the cheers of the masses, ending with her sleeping in a place where no one could find her. Little Albacore had told her personally that the prototype for her username was the Albacore fish.

Dolores, on the other hand, preferred living a bit more, even if it wasn’t exactly an easy life.

In truth, if everything had progressed to an irredeemable state, Grimm really would have used the system to completely rewrite everything about her. That would have perfectly matched the ending of her favorite character.

It was just that such an ending was too sorrowful.

“I… what’s wrong with me, thinking such negative things,” Dolores whispered.

She didn’t seem to understand why she was associating these events with what might happen after her own potential death.

“Grimm, let me ask you a question.”

Dolores suddenly turned to the Grimm beside her.

“If someone had hurt you, and then one day she told you that she was actually someone else—but she knew some of the motives for hurting you—would you believe her?”

Grimm was a bit surprised and fell into thought.

Why would Dolores suddenly ask him such a strange question? Could it be that she had remembered her past life?

But observing Dolores’s reaction and recalling their recent interactions, Grimm felt that the protagonist of her question shouldn’t be herself, and she hadn’t remembered the past. If she truly carried her past life’s memories, she wouldn’t have failed to prepare for his arrival.

If she had remembered the past halfway through, she should have killed him when he was unconscious beneath the cavity. After all, in their past life, Dolores had been able to kill him even after they had spent so much time together. There was no reason she wouldn’t strike again after discovering he had been reborn.

This was different from Albecco’s situation. In the eyes of someone like Albecco, Grimm was an “investment.” But if Dolores had been reborn alongside him, his existence would be a “threat” to her rather than a future “investment” — a threat involving life and death.

Faced with a threat to her life, Grimm did not believe Dolores would have any reason not to strike. Would she really be unable to bear hurting him, or even be willing to face death, just because he had accepted her unpaid request and saved a few people?

That was too absurd. Grimm didn’t believe anyone could be like that, not even Dolores. Only the “Dolores before the betrayal” might have done such a thing.

Dolores, that “flawless piece of jade,” had already been cracked the moment she killed him.

Therefore, Grimm’s response was somewhat casual.

“I would think she was lying. It’s only natural for someone to instinctively seek a way out when facing a threat, and lying is more common than anything.”

“Besides, as the one who was hurt, even if what she said was true, would he stop? The wounds and hatred the victim suffered are real; they might even be the motivation and support that keeps him alive.”

“Reason might tell him to let go of the hatred, but emotion won’t. And humans are often the most emotional creatures.”

Grimm spoke from the heart. These were the very words Dolores had once said to comfort him.

‘If you just forgive her, then what was the point of all your suffering? Was it for nothing?’

In the past, Dolores had whispered similar things countless times. Now, Grimm was merely taking a portion of it to reply to Dolores’s baffling question.

“I see… I suppose so. That should be the normal answer.”

Dolores nodded, pretending to understand, appearing to agree with Grimm’s answer.

However, system notifications continued to ring in her mind.

[Dolores feels a sense of dislike toward you. Favorability -2]

[Dolores…]

Her favorability dropped all the way to its lowest point, reaching the baseline from which it could not fall further.

[Status Window]
Name: Dolores
Favorability: 50

When Grimm tried to look at Dolores’s face again, she had already lowered her head. From his height and perspective, he could only see her small frame and her flowing white hair.

Dolores bit her lip and gripped her skirt tightly, as if an infinite weight of grievance was pressing down on her.

She was right.

She had no way out from the very beginning…

But she also… found it so hard to harden her heart against Grimm…