Chapter 103
“Marvis, what do you mean by limit…”
“Shut your mouth.”
A large hand covered my mouth. His firm fingertips pressed hard against my jaw and cheeks, causing pain.
If he had gripped with all his strength, my bones would have been crushed, so he must have been controlling his power, but it still hurt.
“Mmph, mmm!”
“Stay still. If I hear your voice now… I might go crazy.”
Marvis closed his eyes, breathing heavily. Beads of sweat ran down between his deeply furrowed brows.
With clenched teeth, visibly restraining himself, Marvis trembled.
I could see the tendons in his neck rising and falling.
“Damn it…!”
Marvis slammed his fist onto the bed. The sheets crumpled and shifted.
As his hand covering my mouth weakened, I tried to escape by turning my body, but he grabbed my neck.
“Kuhak!”
“Don’t go, Joo-ah.”
A cold, knife-like voice pierced my ear. He was gripping so strongly that I felt my collarbone might break.
“It hurts, Marvis! Let go!”
“If I let go, you’ll run away.”
Who wouldn’t run away when someone is acting this frightening?
The Divine Master was immune to disease but helpless against injury. This means I could lose my life from one careless punch from Marvis.
Of course, endings where the player dies at the hands of a romance character are rare in dating games, but I wasn’t brave enough to calmly wait, trusting only the system, when a man twice my size was behaving threateningly. This is instinct.
“Don’t, Marvis. Don’t… Ack!”
Sharp teeth sank into my nape. My body instantly froze as if turned to ice, then became burning hot.
Marvis, who had pinned me down so I couldn’t move, nibbled on my skin and exhaled hot breath.
Fortunately, there was no smell of blood, so it seems he didn’t tear my skin.
…Should I consider this fortunate?
“I want to swallow you whole.”
“Huk, it hurts…”
“If I chew and swallow you, putting you in my stomach, I wouldn’t have to worry about losing you to someone else.”
What terrifying things are you saying?
I understand he has demon blood mixed in, but this setting is excessive. Cannibalism is a preference only accepted in the shadows.
If there really was a bad ending where I get devoured by Marvis, this wouldn’t be a matter that could be dismissed with just an adult rating.
“Marvis, please calm down! Why are you doing this?”
“I can’t calm down.”
Marvis buried his head in my shoulder and exhaled hot breath again.
I was the one being painfully gripped and bitten on the neck, yet he, who should have been fine, was panting like a wounded beast.
“M-Marvis?”
“Ugh… ah…”
His large hand moved from my shoulder to my collarbone, then up to my neck, wrapped around it, and quickly fell away.
“Marvis?”
“No. I won’t do that… Kuhuk!”
As if unable to breathe properly, Marvis made a choking sound and tightly gripped the bed sheets.
The tendons over his armor-like muscles repeatedly bulged and subsided without rest.
“Marvis, what’s wrong?”
Unable to move for fear of suffering worse if I escaped from his arms again, I lay pinned under Marvis, only twitching my hands and feet.
I could feel his heart violently pounding beyond his swollen muscles. When I met his half-open red eyes, every fine hair on my body stood on end.
Those blood-red eyes, filled with killing intent, promised death by his teeth. It felt like being tied to railroad tracks with a train rushing toward me, spewing smoke.
In my confused vision, Marvis’s status window, glowing red, caught my eye.
[Marvis]’s current affection level: 90
Until the next bomb: D-2
There were still two days left until the bomb exploded. That might have been a misjudgment.
Cedric’s bomb triggered the bad ending the moment it reached 0, but there’s no reason there should only be one type of bad ending where the world suddenly ends.
Rather, it’s more convincing for events that amplify anxiety to occur as the bad ending approaches, steering the story direction.
Just like now.
‘Marvis was in an abnormal state even when there was plenty of time left on the bomb.’
When I returned after meeting Cedric, despite having 5 days of leeway, he fiercely pushed me and kept me in the bedroom for two days. If Hexion hadn’t come to rescue me, that torturous process might have continued.
If there’s a predetermined bad ending where Marvis kills me when his bomb explodes, then his increasingly erratic behavior driven by anger and hatred toward me with each passing day on the bomb’s countdown, would be a kind of warning.
“Joo-ah…”
A trembling sigh poured over my lips as I shook, afraid to even speak for fear of being bitten if I made a wrong move.
“…Help me.”
It was a voice like someone cornered, pleading. When his eyelids covered his red eyes that were looking at me pitifully and then rose again, this time his pupils glowed ominously.
With a gulp, Marvis held his breath, trembled, and his red eyes rolled around.
He seemed like someone restraining himself from killing me right now. It was as if the urge to chew and swallow me, the impulse to become one by putting me in his stomach, the desire not to let me go, and the self-control not to harm me were all fiercely battling each other.
But what could I possibly help with? I’m the one who wants someone’s help to escape this situation.
‘If you could change numbers, you should change the bomb’s D-day rather than the pass… wait?’
With a sudden thought amidst my lament, I looked at Marvis’s status window with wide eyes.
One number.
Marvis had clearly said he could change one number.
“Marvis. Can you change numbers?”
“…What?”
“Find 90 and 2.”
Items that fluctuate in value are usually managed by designating them as flags. Affection is stored in character flags, so the bomb’s D-day probably is too.
“Shin Joo-ah, what are you saying…”
“I don’t know the flag numbers. So you need to find them through the debugging mode’s result values.”
“What…?”
“Quickly. We don’t have time!”
As I urged him, Marvis took a deep breath and widened his eyes. His expression was so frightening that I momentarily flinched, but I folded my hands quietly and waited so as not to provoke him.
Translucent letters floated in the air.
;Marvis’s CFLAG list (values of 0 omitted)
[CFLAG:3 = 90]
[CFLAG:13 = 1089]
[CFLAG:23 = 150]
.
.
.
[CFLAG:103 = 2]
‘Found it.’
Character flag 3 is affection, 103 is the bomb’s D-day.
“Marvis! Switch 3 and 103!”
At my cry, Marvis reached out and touched the numbers. As if existing in another dimension, the fragmented numbers emitted a brief electrical signal when touched by Marvis’s fingertips, then vanished with a soft electronic crackle.
The change in the status window came next.
[Marvis]’s current affection level: 2
Until the next bomb: D-90
The affection level and bomb date had switched.
“Huh…?”
Marvis’s rough breathing calmed down. The ominous light disappeared from his red eyes that had been filled with killing intent, and the movement of his muscles, which had been bulging as if about to explode, stopped.
A moment of silence.
Marvis looked at me with disbelieving eyes.
“Shin Joo-ah. What… did you just do?”
“Flag check.”
“Flag… what?”
I didn’t know what engine this game used, but if the code was similar to text game code, I thought the method of finding flags would be the same, so I tried it, and it worked.
With the bomb’s date extended to the point where displaying the D-day became meaningless, Marvis’s condition also became peaceful.
Although his affection level plummeted, having raised it from the depths of negative numbers before, a level of 2 wasn’t really problematic.
“Marvis. Are you feeling alright?”
“….”
Marvis still seemed unable to believe it, stroking around his neck and chest before exhaling a light breath.
“I’m fine now. But Shin Joo-ah, you… is it okay for you to do this?”
“You’re the one who asked for help.”
If there had been plenty of time, I would have just extended the D-day, but I was also anxious and could only think of switching the numbers.
‘But another problem has arisen.’
If flag manipulation is possible within the game, it means cheats can be used.
The title “Not Just Anyone Can Build a Harem” seems like it might end with literally anyone being able to build one.
Wasn’t this game just a bad game after all?
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