Conquest Complete, So Why Is the Affection Dropping? - Chapter 56
“But not all victories are glorious. You should know that.”
The black-haired beauty smiled sweetly.
At that moment, Kaint’s figure dispersed like mist before my eyes.
“Kaint!”
I tried to run towards where he had vanished in panic, but the air bubble blocked me. The black-haired beauty turned his gaze towards me.
His cloak fluttered, revealing both arms. Though they had clearly been cut off by Kaint’s thin sword, now his arms were perfectly intact.
As if they had regrown in that brief moment.
“Teleportation is meant for moving locations. I figured implementing the actual process of movement would be a waste of data, so I omitted it. That’s fine, right?”
“What?”
I was too shocked to notice earlier, but the surroundings had completely changed. The dock filled with blood-caked flesh and the destroyed ships were nowhere to be seen.
Everywhere I looked, there was only a blue sky filled with clouds.
The man and I were floating in the sky.
“Wh-where is this?”
Don’t tell me I’m going to fall again. I really don’t want that. As I shrank back in fear, he strode towards me.
A bridge of light appeared in the empty air, and as the clouds surrounding us parted, a massive tower was revealed behind them.
“Welcome to Valhalla, Miss Savior of Destruction.”
***
The Tower of Destruction, Valhalla. While the Dark City Niflheim was underground, this tower was up in the sky.
‘Even the temple where Shin Joo lives is on the ground, who would have thought there’d be something up in the sky.’
The Dark City was Niflheim and the Tower of Destruction was Valhalla, but I wonder why the Holy City wasn’t named Muspelheim but Shangrila instead.
‘The worldbuilding lacks consistency.’
I followed the black-haired beauty into the tower. Though I wanted to escape right now, even I didn’t have the courage to jump straight down to the ground from here. After all, I’d been brought here by a man I didn’t even know.
‘I hope Kaint is alright.’
The dock had become complete chaos – could he handle cleaning that up alone?
As much as the citizens loved Kaint, he never hesitated to serve them. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the despair of someone who lost what they were trying to protect right before their eyes.
Above all, he lost me right in front of him. Just when I had started feeling like being with him, I didn’t want to part ways like this.
‘First, I need to persuade this man.’
He’s a mage, right? Though he’s clearly crossed an irreversible line by massacring all those people, such a mass killing event couldn’t have happened without reason.
There must be some reason, and there must also be a way to fix this. If I can find that method, I should be able to return to Kaint.
‘…Though even if I go back, it’ll probably be a bad ending.’
After such an incident during the wedding ceremony, there’s no way the married life could proceed normally. First of all, I wasn’t even sure if Kaint would be mentally stable.
No matter how strong someone is, they’re likely to break down when losing someone close to them.
…I didn’t want to see Kaint broken.
‘But I can’t avoid it just because I don’t want to see it.’
Given the system’s characteristics where you can’t log out without reaching the ending, my possible actions are already determined.
Following this man, understanding why this nonsensical massacre event occurred, and clearing the event.
I made it back fine when Marvis attacked too. I can do it this time as well.
I activated my profile window.
Name: Shin Joo-ah (Player)
Not Shin Joo, but Shin Joo-ah.
Not protagonist, but player.
‘This is inside a game. Don’t forget that.’
I’m not a bride who was kidnapped by a frightening villain during her wedding ceremony to the man she loves.
I’m just confused because an unexpected event occurred while trying to see the ending with a capture target, derailing the story flow.
Fortunately, perhaps because it was a tower standing in the sky, the sense of reality quickly faded. The scenery of the blood-soaked dock blurred in my mind like a wrongly loaded screen, and my emotions stabilized rapidly.
‘The Dark City felt very different from the Holy City too, but this really feels like a game from a different genre.’
From the outside, the tower gleamed white in the sunlight, but inside, the walls were the color of the night sky, decorated with golden sculptural pieces carved with geometric patterns hanging like stars.
The glass making up the windows wasn’t transparent but rather an enigmatic rainbow-colored light that scattered the incoming light, illuminating the interior so that you couldn’t tell which direction the light was coming from.
The large circular staircase in the center extended so high that I couldn’t even guess its height.
The tower looked quite tall, and the thought of having to climb those stairs already had me worried about my knees. Why isn’t there an elevator here like in the Dark City?
“What… what is this place?”
“This is where I reside, lady.”
I can roughly guess. It looks exactly like a wizard’s tower, doesn’t it? In this kind of setting, it’s not surprising to have an archmage as one of the capture targets.
The problem is…
“It’s so spacious, but I don’t see anyone else here.”
Whether fellow mages or magical servants, shouldn’t there be someone to help run such a massive tower?
But there was no trace of people here.
“With you here, I don’t need anyone else.”
“…What do you mean?”
“The world was created for you, so when you leave, it has no reason to exist. The same goes for this tower.”
…I have no idea what crazy things the player who was trying to capture this guy did.
Even with Hexion and Kaint having low freedom, I couldn’t do much besides s*x, did someone hack the client?
This guy’s mind seems far from normal.
Even though it’s common for mage characters to be slightly unhinged from too much studying, this level of deviation isn’t just breaking clichés – it’s more like bungee jumping straight into the abyss of minor character territory.
The initial setting couldn’t have been this extreme, what exactly went wrong?
“And me too.”
“What?”
“If you don’t touch me, there’s no reason for this head or heart to exist.”
The man gently took my hand and placed it against his cheek. His skin looked smooth just from looking, but touching it was something else entirely – it clung to my palm with an unnaturally smooth and moist texture.
“My lady.”
“…Don’t people usually call me Divine Master?”
“You don’t like being called that, do you?”
“….”
I was stunned by his unexpected answer. How did he know? While it wasn’t enough to say I disliked it, maybe because of my name, that form of address did feel somewhat odd.
However…
“I’m not particularly fond of you calling me ‘lady’ either.”
“Then would you tell me your name?”
The man’s face drew closer.
The lights dancing in his blue eyes sparkled like they were alive. Large eyes with perfect symmetry framed by long, delicate eyelashes, red lips, and white teeth.
If he were just on a screen, I would have gone for a kiss regardless of the narrative, but I couldn’t do that with a real man right in front of me.
“My name… uh, well…”
It wasn’t because I lacked courage, but somehow it felt off.
I easily told Kaint, but strangely, I didn’t feel like revealing my real name to this man.
Was it because we weren’t close yet? But then again, I told Marvis my name right when we first met.
“More importantly, you should tell me your name first!”
“I already told you at the beginning.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. I am your Cedric.”
Now that he mentions it, I do remember him saying that name. Why couldn’t I remember? Was I too scared and confused at the time that my brain deleted the information?
“Yes. I understand, Cedric.”
However, even after learning his name, I still didn’t feel like telling him mine.
First of all, he’s clearly insane. Even if this is inside a game, there’s nothing good about giving personal information to a madman. Let’s change the subject first.
“Why did you bring me here? What do you want me to do?”
“Stay with me.”
Every single one of them delivers the exact same confession lines without changing a single word. How do they maintain the same repertoire from before confession to after? Is such lazy dialogue writing really okay?
Instead of planning random creative events like mass murders, they should make confession lines more diverse!
Perhaps interpreting my glaring at the system in some way, Cedric chuckled.
“My lady, what is it that you desire?”
Please send me home.
…But he probably wouldn’t listen even if I said that.
“5 billion, tax-free and legally safe.”
The best response to a madman is to shut them down early. Since I didn’t want to continue talking with Cedric, I gave a perfunctory answer to end the conversation.
“5 billion…”
Cedric tilted his head as if measuring something. A translucent window floated up between us.
[Cedric] has sent you 5,000,000,000 gold.
Do you accept?
Yes / No
