“How about this?”
Loran looked at Kiro.
“You deliver the letter. How long will it take to go there and come back?”
“How should I know?”
Kiro answered irritably.
“If I ride there, half an hour? An hour? I’ve never been to that damn place before.”
“Good. Let’s say one hour.”
Loran nodded.
“I’ll wait here for that hour. As long as you deliver the letter and come back safely, then from here to Callu Baptismal Church, Torrent is yours to ride the entire way. I won’t duel you for it.”
Kiro’s eyes lit up.
Riding rights for the whole way.
No duel.
That condition was very tempting.
[Kiro’s Affection toward Loran: -120 → -110]
“That’s not enough.”
Kiro immediately began bargaining.
“You have to add something else. Otherwise, I feel like I’m getting ripped off.”
“What do you want?”
“When we get to Callu Baptismal Church and pick up the incantations, if there are any monsters guarding the place, you have to go in first and tank for me!”
Kiro opened with an outrageous demand.
“Fine.”
Loran agreed without hesitation.
“And!”
Kiro pushed her luck.
“All drops and rewards on the way belong to me! You’re not allowed to steal them!”
“Fine.”
Loran nodded again.
Kiro looked at him suspiciously.
He had agreed too readily, which made her feel like there had to be a trick somewhere.
But after thinking it over carefully, she would get to ride the whole way, have someone tank for her, and keep all the rewards for herself.
No matter how she calculated it, she was making a killing.
“...Fine! It’s a deal!”
In the end, the immediate benefits still went to her head.
“You’d better not go back on your word!”
After saying that, she pulled the letter from her waist pouch and waved it in front of Loran before mounting Torrent.
“I’m leaving! You’d better keep an eye on her. If she’s dead by the time I get back, don’t blame me!”
She squeezed Torrent’s sides, and the spectral steed let out a cry before galloping toward Castle Morne.
At the bridgehead, only Loran and the trembling Irina remained once more.
Loran took off his coat and gently draped it over Irina’s shoulders.
“It’s all right now,” he said. “She’s gone.”
Irina stopped trembling.
In Loran’s vision, the status panel above Irina’s head hovered quietly.
[Name: Irina]
[Identity: Daughter of the Lord of Castle Morne]
[Affection: +60 toward Loran]
[Status: Grateful / Dependent / Seeking Protection]
Sixty points.
That number, on Varré, had been the threshold for unlocking the [Confession] option.
But with Irina, nothing happened.
There were no pink lace borders.
No flashing icon.
Not even the color of the affection number changed.
Loran immediately understood.
The trigger mechanism of this Galgame system was not based on a fixed number.
It comprehensively judged the conditions for opening an “emotional route” based on each character’s personality, background, and current situation.
Varré, a fanatic who pursued extreme emotions and heretical doctrine, happened to have his itch scratched by the formal extremity of something like a “confession.”
Sellen, a lonely seeker who had devoted her entire life to magic, required resonance on the level of the soul—in other words, intellectual equality—as the key to opening her romance route.
As for Irina...
What she needed right now was not love.
It was shelter.
It was a knight who could protect her beneath the shadow of death.
Her affection toward Loran was a drowning person’s dependence on driftwood.
It was the trust a lamb placed in a sheepdog.
This emotion was intense, but it had nothing to do with romantic love.
The moment he promised, “I’ll guard you,” his role in Irina’s heart had already been defined as “protector.”
“Thank you...”
Irina’s voice was very soft, with a faint nasal tone.
“My... knight.”
Perhaps she felt that the title “Tarnished” was too cold, and instead used a word closer to the image in her heart.
[Title: Irina’s Knight]
[Effect: When Irina is in danger, moving in her direction consumes no stamina and increases movement speed. When you perform a “protective” action toward Irina, affection gains receive an additional bonus.]
[Note: The countless fantasies a young girl once dreamed of have now entered reality.]
Loran did not respond to the title.
He simply sat down beside her and vigilantly swept his gaze over their surroundings.
Neither of them spoke again.
In Kiro’s eyes, Irina’s death was an already-decided “setting.”
But Loran’s appearance, as well as this Galgame system, seemed to be interfering with the established script.
His confession to Varré had forced out a “rejection event” that had never existed in the game.
The high Intelligence he displayed to Sellen had made her skip the apprenticeship process and directly enter the “seeking a companion” stage.
And now, he had stayed behind to protect Irina.
Did this mean he might be able to stop that “scripted death”?
The afternoon sunlight gradually slanted westward, casting longer and longer shadows across the ground.
At first, Loran remained highly alert.
But time passed second by second, and the surroundings were so quiet it felt strange.
Perhaps his new title, [Irina’s Knight], had taken effect, causing the system to determine that Irina was in an absolutely safe state while under his protection.
His taut nerves slowly relaxed, and drowsiness surged up like a tide.
The long period of mental focus and the exhaustion from several previous battles made his body begin to protest.
He leaned against a tree, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.
Loran forced himself to stay awake.
Just as his head kept nodding lower and lower, and he was about to lose consciousness, a rapid sound of hooves approached from the distance.
Kiro had returned.
Torrent turned into a streak of blue light and stopped at the bridgehead.
Kiro rolled off its back.
Rather than saying she dismounted, it would be more accurate to say she had been shaken so badly that she collapsed from exhaustion.
She was covered in dust.
Her silver-white hair was a complete bird’s nest, with several leaves still stuck in it.
Her face was full of fatigue and displeasure, the corners of her mouth turned downward.
Anyone could tell at a glance that she had suffered outside.
“Why did you... take so long to get back?”
Loran looked at the sky.
Three hours had already passed.
“Don’t even mention it!”
Kiro plopped down on the ground and threw the dagger in her hand beside her.
It landed with a clang.
[Affection: -110 → -130]
[Status: Extremely Exhausted / Irritated / Full of Resentment]
“That damn Castle Morne is way bigger than it is in the game! And it’s full of those winged monsters everywhere. So annoying!”
As she complained, she pulled a waterskin from her waist pouch and gulped down several mouthfuls.
“The letter was delivered. That father-in-law of yours told me to say thank you.”
She spoke irritably, the resentment in her voice practically overflowing.
“And then? Then he told me to go kill that Leonine Misbegotten bastard! Said he couldn’t leave the castle unless that thing was dead!”
“I fucking died to that damn thing three whole times!”
The more Kiro spoke, the angrier she became.
She held up three fingers in front of Loran.
“Three times! That greatsword of his spins like a damn buzz saw. I couldn’t roll away at all! The last time, if I hadn’t lured him over to the water and he hadn’t slipped and drowned himself, I probably would’ve died again!”
She caught her breath.
Then she took a heavy bundle from her back and threw it on the ground.
The bundle fell open, revealing an enormous greatsword.
“And, as expected, all it dropped was this stupid sword! Strength requirement: forty! With my stats, can I even lift this thing?”
Loran looked at the weapon, then at the furious Kiro, and felt absolutely nothing.
He thought to himself, if you had put even a little of that massive pile of runes into Luck, maybe you wouldn’t have had to die those three times.
Maybe the boss would have run headfirst into a wall and knocked itself out.
Maybe its greatsword would have suddenly snapped.
Unfortunately, you will never understand that logic.
What he said out loud was:
“Not bad. You only died three times.”
Kiro froze.
She raised her head and looked at Loran, confusion flickering in her eyes.
Then that confusion slowly transformed into...
The joy of being recognized.
She completely failed to hear the mockery in Loran’s words and automatically interpreted them as praise.
A subtle acknowledgment of an expert’s skill.
“Right?!”
She immediately sprang up from the ground, slapped her chest, and her face instantly cleared from stormy to sunny. All the exhaustion and resentment vanished in an instant.
[Affection: -130 → -100]
[Status: Proud / Recognized / Confidence Restored]
“I’m that strong, so of course I cleared it after only three deaths!”
She planted her hands on her hips and raised her chin high, as if the person rolling around on the ground throwing a tantrum just now had not been her at all.
“Anyone else might die thirty times and still not get through! Only someone like me, with good mechanics and godlike movement, could seize the opening when he slipped and push him straight into the sea! That’s called using the environment, understand? Strategy!”