Chapter 2. Growing Cracks

Episode 9

I stared blankly at the strange sight.

The green bar displayed above Daniel’s head was gradually increasing towards the maximum.

‘Is this a good feeling?’

Looking at it, the interface of the original game was the same.

A simple bar-shaped good feeling was also marked with a number, so it was quite intuitive to know the good feeling.

I looked down at the shiny marbles.

I looked around to see if there were any other functions.

I was spinning the marble, and suddenly, a white hand appeared in my field of vision.

“Don’t touch it!”

Tatiana came back and took her bracelet from my hand.

The way she stared at me with a lot of vigilance was quite foreign.

Behind Tatiana, Lily held up a wooden tray.

“Lily, would you like to go out for a second? Don’t let anyone in this room.”

“Okay, miss.”

Tatiana let out her breath of relief as Lily left the room with a pouty face.

Then she shot at me straight away.

“You saw?”

“What?”

I deliberately pretended not to know anything.

Tatiana’s eyes fluttered anxiously as if she had been caught stealing.

If what I saw was correct, though, she was caught stealing.

“Are you talking about the strange figure that appears when you wear that bracelet?”

“Uh… What are you talking about?”

At my words, Tatiana panicked and hid the bracelet behind her back.

“It was very strange. I could see Daniel’s liking rising in real time every time you spoke.”

I got up and stood in front of Tatiana, who was standing in front of the door. Her bright blue eyes were drenched in anxiety.

I pushed one shoulder of her a little below me with the tip of my finger.

“You’ve been seducing my ex-fiances by watching this all this time?”

Unknowingly, my voice trembled with anger.

What was Tatiana thinking as she saw her own actions and her words change their liking in real time?

It wasn’t all about playing with men.

She intentionally increased her contact points with them, raised the affinity for them, and broke the marriage with me.

Even so, she was standing in front of me casually.

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

Tatiana bit her lip and her body shook.

It was an action that the male protagonists would have thought pitiful if they had seen it, but I didn’t think so. Read only at pm tl.

It was just disgusting

“After doing that to me, you dare to be jealous of me meeting Aster?”

Tatiana stepped back from me, startled by my momentum.

“His Majesty… His Majesty is different. He is special.”

At this point, I wanted to open her head to see what the hell she was thinking.

Already married and having all the male candidates in the fishing pond, what is she lacking?

“Tatiana. You are a married woman. Isn’t it enough to have three more men besides your husband?”

“You don’t know anything. How I married Andrew.”

Tatiana looked at me with her weeping eyes.

For some reason, she even looked unfair, so it was absurd.

It’s like you’ve taken away my lovers and forced them to marry you.

All I could do was laugh at Tatiana’s new evasion method.

“Why do I have to know? I didn’t make you marry Andrew.”

“…”

“You’re too greedy, Tatiana. If you hold something, you have to know how to let it go.”

Behind Tatiana’s bewildered face, a man’s shadow appeared over the opaque glass hanging on her door.

Daniel seemed to be following her.

Tatiana in the head of the male protagonists was a pure, innocent girl who knew nothing of jealousy.

He couldn’t have imagined her absurd possessiveness like this.

“Surely, even after getting married, you didn’t think of holding them and wielding them, did you?”

I provoked her on purpose.

“They are all key figures in the empire. Even if it’s not him, one day you will get married and become another husband’s wife.”

“No!”

Tatiana took a step closer to me and she shouted.

“They were mine from the beginning.”

Tatiana said as if screaming at her.

“They were my people assigned to me from the beginning! Daniel and Raymond, yes Wilhelm…!”

I don’t know how she got this power, but Tatiana looked like a perfectly crazy woman.

I wondered if there was an ending where everyone lived together in the original game.

“So I won’t hand them over to other people. Karin, what do you know?”

It was more serious than expected.

Tatiana’s eyes shone more eerie than ever.

In the place where she cast off her good and graceful mask of being the heroine, and there was only a shallow bare face.

“Titi…”

And there was a man who had the same expression as me.

Tatiana’s face turned pale as she looked back.

“Ah, Daniel. This is…”

Tatiana’s young and innocent figure to Daniel melted.

She could see disappointment and confusion in his eyes.

I smiled broadly at him and said,

“Look, Daniel. Are Tatiana and I still friends?”

Daniel looked at me with a blank face and blinked slowly.

And soon after realizing something about her, his face went red.

“Sorry. I’ll just go. Titi, please go back alone today.”

“Daniel! Wait a minute.”

Daniel hurriedly leaned back and left the room.

‘Are you crying?’

Was it because of the shame of being teased by Tatiana?

Or was he upset that she was playing with another man besides him?

I don’t know for sure, but this one was definitely known even without the bracelet.

Daniel’s liking for Tatiana must have been cut in half.

“You provoked me on purpose. So, are you satisfied now?”

Tatiana looked at me and said.

“No.”

Can I be satisfied with this?

I smiled and looked at Tatiana.

“I don’t intend to collect the trash, but shouldn’t they at least know how you played with them?”

“They won’t believe you.”

“Well, you’ll have to go and find that out.”

At my words, Tatiana put on a terrifying expression on her face.

As if carrying all the misery of the world, she grabbed the bracelet and shot at me.

“It won’t be that easy, because I’m special, unlike you.”

“You’ll have to find out.”

Tatiana closed her eyes for a moment and caught her breath.

She then returned to her usual graceful appearance as the Duchess.

She bowed her head to me with a doll-like expression that had lost all her emotions.

“Then, see you on the foundation day. Miss Pioneer.”

“Please stay healthy until then.”

After the greetings, she turned around and went outside.

It wasn’t until she completely disappeared from my sight that I went out too. Lily, who was waiting at the door, lifted her head and looked at me.

“Lily, let’s go back to the mansion quickly. I have something to check.”

“Yes? Suddenly? You haven’t even looked at the perfume properly yet.”

“I’ll come back later. I don’t think it would be very interesting to look at it in the same way now.”

Lily nodded her head at my words. We cleared our seats and got into the carriage waiting outside.

~*~

As soon as I returned, I took out the bracelet from the side table drawer.

I looked at it again and again, but no matter how I looked at it, it was an ordinary bracelet.

‘Is mine supposed to have no powers?’

The bracelet didn’t seem to appeal to everyone.

Maybe it only shows the targets of the game.

Even though Tatiana clung to him like that, Aster didn’t seem to like her.

‘But, just in case, let’s check it out at this establishment.’

I fiddled with the bracelet with my hand.

Since Daniel got it for me, I thought it wouldn’t be bad to ask for the source.

At the same time, Daniel’s face, as if shocked, came to mind.

I don’t know what he was feeling.

Tatiana, who he thought was a pure lover, says she wants all men.

But for me, it was the perfect opportunity to shake off the sense of defeat I had so far.

“It was so ridiculously easy it passed.”

My heart felt lighter when I realized why men had left me so easily.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but lose my self-esteem.

Not one, but four.

I cursed Tatiana and the men who were shaken, but I was worried that maybe there was something wrong with me too.

“It’s disgusting.”

I took off the bracelet, put it on the table, and started writing down letters.

It was sent to Aster.

Although I couldn’t attend the founding festival as his partner, I wanted to do the first dance together.

I don’t know why Tatiana wanted my misfortune.

But it didn’t matter.

What’s the point of knowing what a madwoman thought?

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

As much as I suffered, I just wanted Tatiana to suffer as well.

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