Conquest Complete, So Why Is the Affection Dropping? - Chapter 55
“You seem to be having trouble getting up. Shall I help you?”
“N-no need.”
“Haha. ‘No need,’ you say? In the past, I would have taken that as a rejection and withdrawn.”
“It IS a rejection though.”
“But now I know your personality, how you’re too shy to speak honestly.”
“What do you know! This is the first time I’ve… Eek!”
A long arm reached out and scooped me up effortlessly. Despite the overwhelming smell of gunpowder and blood in the air, the man surprisingly carried a fresh, cool scent reminiscent of winter skies.
“Shall we go, my lady? To our world, just the two of us.”
Delicate features like a sugar doll, milky-white cheeks, and a melodious voice.
If I were just going by his lines, this would seem like we’re right before entering a romance ending after a confession event, but what terrified me was that I’d never seen this man before today.
I’m scared!
I mean, I’ve experienced some rushed routes before, but shouldn’t this kind of development be romantically unacceptable? Is this what the system calls bride kidnapping? It feels more like he’s trying to kidnap the player’s sanity and shatter it to help my soul escape this world! Isn’t this just the developer’s malicious power play?
“Wait, hold on! I think you’ve got the wrong person!”
“No, I’ve got exactly the right person, my lady.”
True, given that his status window appeared, he must be a capture target! Though I don’t know when or where I was supposed to meet him, he must have his own route! But getting kidnapped so suddenly here is too random!
“However… I’ll need to check if what’s ‘inside’ is proper.”
The light disappeared from his blue eyes. His pupils dilated as he examined me sideways, as if scanning my form. Though nothing touched me, my hair stood on end.
What’s inside.
Hearing those words, a hypothesis suddenly occurred to me.
‘A bug.’
I remembered what my friend had said while looking up game articles. They definitely mentioned they were fixing a save data bug.
Could this be that my play data got mixed up with another player’s data? Is that why this beautiful stranger broke out of his route to come find me and carry out this bride kidnapping?
‘Hey, this…’
I swallowed the curse that was rising in my throat.
Even free amateur games shut down completely and go into major patching mode the moment bug reports come in for glitches this severe. Not just some maintenance notice!
“Um, listen… Something seems to have gone wrong here. I’ll just restart from the starting point.”
“Indeed. It’s cramped here, shall we go up first?”
He seemed to be completely ignoring what I was saying.
The black-haired beauty leaped up while holding me.
As he landed on the cabin roof, a strong wind blew, making his long hair and cloak flutter. My hair got messed up too, and as I tried to clear it from my vision, I accidentally witnessed a shocking sight.
The sea was dyed deep red with blood, and the grotesque masses of flesh piled up on the dock.
“Urk…!”
Before I could even process what I was seeing, nausea surged up, and I quickly turned away, squeezing my eyes shut.
I wish I had something to throw up, but my throat was so tight I could barely breathe.
What is this? I’m okay with occult stuff, but I’m weak to this kind of gore. It’s inconsiderate to players to show such PTSD-inducing scenes without any content warnings!
I knew without checking that the CS window must be flooded with complaints. I remember there were already plenty of bugs to fix, so I guess we’ll be seeing news about them shutting down soon.
“What’s wrong, my lady?”
“The, the people. The people…”
“Yes, I eliminated everyone who was standing on the dock. It takes quite a high cost to deal with such a large crowd.”
“What… did you say?”
His tone was as if he’d just cleaned up some trash. Unable to believe what I’d heard, I looked up at him, and he responded with the same bright smile as before.
“What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean ‘what’s the matter’? How can you not know? Killing all those people, are you insane? This is massacre!”
“What a strange thing to say now, my lady. The number of people who have vanished by your hand far exceeds those I killed today.”
“What…?”
“When you abandoned them yourself, you treated them as mere ‘numbers,’ yet you call it massacre when I kill them? Isn’t that rather unfair?”
I can’t understand what this man is saying. I’ve never killed anyone. In my previous playthrough, when demons attacked the temple, I got kidnapped voluntarily so there were no casualties. And after coming to Kaint’s castle, no one except Hexion got hurt.
Yet the man before me was looking at me with reproachful eyes, as if gazing at the world’s greatest mass murderer.
I don’t know what crazy things the player who was trying to capture you did, but it wasn’t me, so please don’t look at me so frighteningly.
“I…”
“Shin Joo!”
With a bang, something struck and the beautiful man’s body tilted sideways. His smooth long hair split in two as something small and fast whistled through the gap.
Looking in the direction the bullet came from, I saw Kaint holding a rifle. So he can shoot too. I discovered a new charm of my man, but this wasn’t exactly the situation to purely admire it.
“Step away from Shin Joo. The next shot will be aimed at your head.”
“You should have aimed for the head from the start. Don’t you think it’s ungraceful to try covering up a targeting mistake?”
“Shut your mouth, monster.”
Kaint reloaded and aimed at the beautiful man. Though the man kept smiling while holding me, the blue light surrounding him gave me an eerie sense of déjà vu.
Even if this world’s technology was a mishmash of all eras, it shouldn’t be possible for falling paper to suddenly transform into explosives.
And judging by his attire and the light surrounding him, this man seemed to be a mage.
In a world with divine power, the existence of magic isn’t strange. The problem was that while guns might have an advantage over swords, in a battle between guns and magic, magic had far better odds of winning.
“Calm down, Kaint. It’s dangerous!”
“Please wait a moment, Shin Joo. I will definitely save you.”
“This person is a mage!”
“It doesn’t matter. Victory’s blessing is with me.”
Kaint aimed his gun with a cool expression, seemingly unafraid of the mage who had just massacred countless people in an instant.
This is bad. Someone’s going to end up dead at this rate. And that someone is more likely to be my would-be groom from today’s wedding rather than this deranged black-haired beauty.
In desperation, I grabbed the black-haired beauty’s collar. I hadn’t meant to grab his collar specifically, but being held by him, it was the only thing within reach.
“Wait, don’t attack Kaint!”
“Don’t you think it’s quite appealing to watch two men fight over you?”
“Where did you learn such strange things!”
Of course, a love triangle is the perfect romance setup, no doubt about that. But that’s not exactly desirable in this situation.
It’s foolish to try reasoning with a madman. Just as I was about to strike his face to break free, Kaint’s rifle spat fire.
“Kyaaah!”
Perhaps expecting to miss because he was holding me, Kaint aimed at the man’s legs. Blue light flashed around the man’s legs, swallowing the bullets.
Of course, guns wouldn’t work against a mage in the first place. Before I could even lament this, Kaint’s body drew closer.
“You’ll have to leave those arms behind.”
The gleaming thin sword at Kaint’s waist sliced through the man’s arms. For a moment, my body tilted backward and then flipped over.
I didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, I was floating in mid-air, wrapped in something like a large bubble.
“Eek…!”
Kaint held his sword to the neck of the now armless black-haired beauty. Strangely, no blood flowed from the man’s severed arms. Was he a wax doll rather than a human?
“Is it because this is a clone rather than your real body that you didn’t dodge?”
“Not at all. Implementing flowing liquids wastes too much cost. Besides, it’s rare for things to get cut this far.”
The black-haired mage tilted his head, and his long cloak wrapped around his arms.
“Congratulations, Admiral. As expected of a hero blessed with victory. To think you’d achieve victory even against me.”
“Monster…”
“But not all victories are glorious. You should know that.”
The black-haired beauty smiled sweetly.
