How to Survive as the Horror Game Villain’s Fake Fiancée - Chapter 133

※ This book contains depictions of coercive/dubcon/noncon acts, violence, and gore. Reader discretion is advised.

Maid Cynthia, knowing nothing, obediently followed the young duke who treated her kindly.

She melted the heart of the prickly head maid, Melissa, and ended up living almost like sisters with her, treating the entire mansion as her own home. She developed a secret crush on him, sometimes trying to gently hold his hand or, pretending to clean his room, would bury her face in the blanket and end up falling asleep, leaving him bewildered when he found her like that.

However, on the day of the banquet, when she realized that the Duke had intended to kill her along with the other guests to use them as nourishment, she ran away. In the end, by joining forces with her allies, she succeeded in reaching the ending.

Next, he approached her, pretending to be one of Cynthia’s helpers.

As a detective’s assistant, Cynthia became quite close with him. But before he could even reveal his true identity, she realized he was the mastermind and confronted him. Still, because of her lingering attachment, she felt sorrow, and whenever Segleninde approached her pretending to be harmless, she would let her guard down. Yet she too reached the ending and returned to her original world.

By that time, Segleninde had regained much of his power. He took control of this world and, based on the traces of causal records and information left behind as Cynthia transmigrated into this world in the past, made it easier than before for her to be reborn into new bodies.

After that, what he did was make it harder for her to escape easily.

He set up absurdly difficult traps and puzzles to buy time, and instructed the creatures to keep her trapped for as long as possible. However, in that process, Cynthia died far too easily and, after repeating countless deaths, finally managed to escape even by using extreme methods.

In every round, she neither went mad nor became exhausted, and never gave up trying to escape from this ‘game’.

So Segleninde had to change his method as well. Instead, he adjusted things so that she wouldn’t die so easily, revealed the truth from the start, and tried to get close to her under the pretense of wanting to help and protect her. His plan was to toy with her for as long as possible and then deliver a crushing despair at the end.

But Cynthia never remained in despair for long. In the end, she always escaped.

Whether she suspected him or not, she would inevitably notice his schemes and turn against him. Even so, if there was a period where they built up an emotional connection, she could never quite let go and would treat him with affection.

It was as Segleninde got used to that that problems arose.

At first, he had regarded her as nothing more than a toy, but around that time, he truly began to wish that Cynthia would never leave his mansion. He hid all truths and tried to be as kind a companion as possible, planning to keep her by his side forever at the final moment.

Before he knew it, he found himself wanting Cynthia to stay with him. Always.

Even after dying hundreds of times, Cynthia never gave up on reclaiming her own life, pressing forward toward her goal. Sometimes she would treat him kindly, but when she discovered the truth, she would glare at him with tear-reddened eyes—yet she could never completely turn away.

He wanted to keep Cynthia in his sight at all times.

Whenever Cynthia saw an ending and returned to her own world, Segleninde was left with an overwhelming sense of loneliness, something beyond mere emptiness. So he summoned Cynthia back faster and faster.

He didn’t even know what kind of feeling it was, just helplessly sinking into it as it constricted his breath.

After ‘Mage’ Cynthia, who uncovered the truth and fled, he decided on a new plan.

What if he erased his own memory as well?

He wondered if, with both of them as blank slates, not knowing anything, meeting for the first time as perfect strangers, perhaps things could end a little better.

It was no longer just curiosity as a predator playing with prey, nor the faint goodwill born from making endless plans centered around her over such a long period. What moved him was a heavier and vaster emotion than any of that.

He wanted to meet her again for the first time, not even knowing her name, and be with her for as long as possible. He wanted to see her look at him with those eyes, tearfully resentful yet unable to be truly firm, as she inevitably ended up letting him near.

And after erasing his memories, Segleninde finally learned the name of that emotion.

Love.

By losing his memories and even all the information he possessed as a predator, becoming a true blank slate, Segleninde finally came to love Cynthia with a pure heart.