Chapter 29

i closed my eyes with a proud smile at today’s achievements.

ardal’s favorability must have increased as well, and the pope’s favorability must have exceeded so much that i could aim for both of them, right?

all i had to do was finish my education in the holy land and move quickly to the empire.

‘check affinity.’

i thought to myself as i was embraced by the pope.

[character favorability: you can only view orias and ardal’s favorability level.]

orias –

ardal –

the other characters haven’t even been named yet. i clicked my tongue at ardal and orias’s levels. unfortunately, they didn’t reach max level. ardal has one heart left, and the pope only had three hearts filled. before moving to the empire, i would need to fill the heart to be able to reach the reverse harem ending.

i’ll have to work a little harder. still, if the heart was more than half-full, it was easy to raise the favorability after that.

calmly checking the system window, i found a red system window floating above it.

[warning: 10 seconds before the event ‘sixth sense’ occurs.]

[you may have difficulty logging out if this event occurs.]

i’m already struggling, but you’re saying it’ll get harder? how dumb. if it gets harder to log out, doesn’t that mean i’ll live in the game forever?!

[9 seconds left]

sinking in the pope’s arms from fatigue, i looked at the red system window and straightened my back. the countdown on the window was rapidly decreasing.

[5 seconds left]

[4]

[3]

what should i do… ah!!!

‘close window.’

the favorability window closed. once it disappeared, the dwindling numbers that counted down at a frightening pace stopped.

[2 – event ‘sixth sense’ stopped.]

it reminded me of the description i saw earlier.

[if you open the favorability window in front of a character that uses holy powers, this may trigger the event ‘sixth sense’. please be mindful of usage.]

it was hard to guess what the event would lead to, but it didn’t seem to be good for me. relieved, i relaxed my nervous body. i already saw the red system window for the second time today. reassuring my surprised heart, i clung to the pope’s arms.

“are you tired?”

“a little.”

“ardal, sister haniel is tired, so cancel today’s lesson.”

of course, if today’s lesson were to continue, i’d have to do it three times a day. i don’t want to die from lack of stamina.

“your holiness.”

“yes, sister haniel.”

“ardal really did nothing wrong…”

“so that’s what you’re saying again…”

when i mumbled to the pope, he smiled and nodded his head. i wanted to get a definite answer from him so he wouldn’t kill ardal.

is a game with a lot of freedom, so there could be an ending where ardal died. it wasn’t enough to have it happen before, but a lot of work had already been poured in for ardal.

contrary to me, who was playing smoothly except for not being able to log out, ardal was increasingly burdened with heavy responsibilities. i was really worried that ardal would collapse and die from overwork.

“then it seems ardal will have a hard time being my escort, so i wanted to tell your holiness-”

“no.”

even another character could not handle such a heavy task of being my escort. after tossing between my desire and ardal’s fatigue, i spoke in a pitiful tone.

yeah, it wouldn’t make sense to make ardal collapse for my sake. if ardal collapses, i’ll be the one to regret it, so it’s better to entrust someone else to be my escort.

i thought about it, but ardal immediately shook his head at my words. he looked at me sharply.

why? i said i wanted to reduce ardal’s workload, not increase it.

i stammered and faced his sharp eyes. his sharp eyes, which i had never seen before, seemed to slice me into pieces. his sharp eyes combined with his imposing physique made him look scary to me.

i thought it was cute because he always looked friendly even though he was big… but when i looked at him again, it was a bit scary.

“but still. ardal, you don’t have enough time to rest…”

“it’s not-”

“i wouldn’t know, but preparation for the coronation ceremony can’t be easy.”

ardal, who answered firmly, was suspicious. i already knew how this character sleeps. i also had a lot of restrictions in the game, especially if i was sleep-deprived.

if you get sleep-deprived, it would lead to a lot of confusion and your field of view would decrease. rational thinking becomes impossible and you get easily swayed by impulse. language and physical abilities also deteriorate, and other symptoms of sleep deprivation in the real world are implemented here too.

“it’s fine.”

thinking about whether to stop ardal again, i quietly nodded. unlike me, ardal’s physical abilities should be much higher.

well, you say you’re fine, so it won’t happen… right?