'Just what the hell is going on in that damn sorcerer's head...?' It's been weeks since that night.

And not only has Anartis shown no sign of wanting to break up, he also decided to send me the time and setting for our next meeting.

This was a common custom to be engaged to a member of the grand duke's family, you would have to meet each other at least once each week.

And since I was the adoptive daughter of the grand duke and Anartis himself, was a grand duke.

It's no big surprise that he made time in his busy schedule for this. But it sadly is considering at that crap I pulled at the imperial ball!

It's one thing if the grand duke was to send the schedule to Anartis and inform me of it, but no. Anartis sent it.

The same man who I had put all my effort into traumatizing just the other day. And he prepared the soonest date possible.

"AHHHHH——" I screeched into my pillow while Ardeat left the room with Teehee to go take care of Vidoro's training.

The brat was getting faster now too since he's been excercising for a while now. Which was also making it harder to catch him when he began sprinting.

Thankfully, we had Teehee to make him run back with his own two feet. But that wasn't the issue right now!

"No... Let's think about this more logically." I sighed turning to my back as I stared at the ceiling as I hugged my pillow as an emotional support.

"... Maybe he wants to call the engagement off in person? That's why he set the date so early?" I considered the possibility of the desired answer.

"Hmm... There's no way." I sprung up as I tossed my pillow at the wall, time to go for a walk.

"Ugh, noooo... I've got no time for that..." I moved over to the desk in which I had kept the journal which held all my schemes.

"The brothers are also an issue right now. No matter how much I ask them to they won't even considering pulling their swords at me." I sighed deeply.

"And since they won't, I still have no idea on whether  they can even really kill me." All I knew at the moment was that I was capable of slowly healing on my own if given life threatening wounds.

Regardless, the pain is still the same. And I have no intention of going through death over and over again. And for that to not happen.

Of course I already had extra case stashed away to run away to the country side if needed. But that wasn't enough to escape death on its own.

The game's called "The String of Life" for a reason after all. And the words that lady with seaweed hair said to me still bother me as well.

I need the information to this game. It's mandatory if I want to survive. Of course that was never my intention in the first place.

But a backup plan never hurts anyone. So first.

'I need to first lay out everything I know about this game.' I opened my journal and flipped to a new empty page.

So first of all, I was in the Empire of Artes. And I was currently preoccupying the vacant seat of the Grand Duke's real daughter.

Pluvia Divinus. Who had gone missing roughly 10 years ago. And returned by the help of the high priest just as she had become 17.

'Oh, so Pluvia was 2 years younger than Sovine.' Pluvia had returned when Sovine was 19.

The duke had found Sovine near the river is what I know. She had almost drowned and was in critical condition with several life-threatening injuries.

The knights informed the Duke of it and he ordered them to send her to a physician.

At that time he still wasn't aware of how Sovine looked so sure, that could've just been an act of pure kindness. But it still doesn't make him any better.

Either way, I've already written down information on the game and Sovine's character description so I'm not wasting time writing that again.

There are 6 main male interest who you are supposed to win over.

The duke's three sons. Impossible to win over, but I at least now know that they won't try to kill me.

Master of the magic tower. I hate this bitch, the second I break up with him, I'm gone.

The crown prince. He would not give a damn, he'd slice my head off in a second if needed.

And the high priest. I have no idea about this dude since I haven't met him yet, not in the game, not in this world.

But I remember clearly that he was the one who brought Pluvia back.

Helped her gain better reputation and even gave her the position of saintess after discovering the rare purity in her mana she had hidden within her body.

And saved her when Sovine attempted to curse and kill her with black magic with his mana which was considered the purest only second to the grand duke Divinus's.

"Ah. That reminds me of the mana class system in this world." I suddenly remembered of the long history behind the Divinus name.

It's said that they had obtained this title at the very beginning of the empire for the reason that they were gifted with Divine pure mana from the moon itself.

Well, I call it bullshit but anyway.

It was the reason for their high standing and the exceedingly rare purity of Pluvia's mana.

The Divinus's were gifted pure mana by the moon and the imperial family was given light mana from the sun.

And thus, came upon the alliance between the Divinus and the Artes for the sole reason that neither would be able to exist without the other.

The Imperial family's light, can only remain pure with the power of the Divinus's. And the Divinus's purity can only be maintained if given light.

It was pretty confusing for me to understand all this while playing the game, and it still is but regardless.

The purity of the Divinus's Mana began spreading slowly throughout the empire's people and now.

Mana can't properly operate unless it is pure. If it's corrupted, it will only grow in the body of its holder, bring about many diseases and eventually explode.

And so the temple became a place for priest with high-level mana purity to prevent such disease's and purify corrupted mana.

But as time passed, the empire's civilians began losing their mana, and those who still had theirs became more prone to corruption.

And no one knows the reason to why the corruption in mana occurs in the first place.

This is the issue the crown prince of this empire is currently facing, since the empire began.

There hasn't been a single child of royal blood who hadn't been born with mana. That is, until now.

The current crown prince of our empire, Luceus De Netarus, has been the first royal to be born without mana.

That was also the reason behind his faded blonde hair which was a trait of the royals as an effect of the gift from the sun.

This came as a shock to the emperor and empress. And they couldn't possibly tell the people of the empire of this and cause panic.

So they decided the best option now would be to name Luceus a child born out of a wedlock, the reason to why his last name was different than all his siblings.

Luceus was originally supposed to be the heir to the throne, but due to this unfortunate incident, that right was taken away from him.

'And they expected him to just take it like that?' I scoffed, I'm surprised this empire lasted this long with such foolish rulers.

Well, it's obvious enough no one would just let their right to the throne be taken away from them. And so Luceus didn't.

He instead raged havoc and killed every single one of his siblings so no one but him would be able to sit on the throne, attaining the title "Tyrant" in the process.

And since both the emporer and the empress were now too old to bear anymore children and there would be no point in adopting any.

That was basically it. Luceus was promised the throne.

And since Luceus had been working his whole life to prove that he was worthy of the throne despite not having mana before the incident.

He was deemed a suitable ruler as well. But that didn't stop the people from worrying about the future of the Artes empire.

That's where Pluvia comes in.

Long story short, they fall in love and now the empress is the diabetes's with rare high level mana purity and the emporer is en exception ruler.

With exceptional talents, and swordsmanship skills, and an exceptional mind so there's no need to worry anymore.

Yay! Story ends. Now what about Sovine? Oh, yeah. Anartis executed her.

"Yeah, so I still don't see how knowing all of this can help we run away." Even after writing all the information I knew on this world from the game and the documents Ardeat gave me.

I still saw no connection, could this just have been a tactic the seaweed lady made to make me waste my time? Probably.

But what concerned me most at the moment wasn't running away or even the seaweed hair lady. It was Pluvia.

What would happen after she arrived? It must be soon since Sovine was still 19 when Pluvia entered the game.

And she was excited on her arrival few months after her 20th birthday. Would the game continue to take its original course after that?

Will it force me to play along too? Or will it remain the same as now? I haven't seen much of the game other than the affection rates after all.

Which I usually forget to check nowadays. Yeah, I really need to start being more responsible. But anyway.

This is good! If the game doesn't matter anymore and I can just continue with my life without worrying about being forced into the role of a villain.

Then I won't have to rush to get one of the live interests to kill me before the arrival of the tea daughter.

And I won't treated as horribly as Sovine was in the game after Pluvia's arrival either!

'Well, they never exactly showed us that Sovine was treated badly after her arrival.' But if she was already being slapped awake.

Splashed with mop water.

Given poisoned food or no food at all sometimes.

It couldn't have been much better after Pluvia's arrival, could it?

I also really need to deal with those issues too now that I think of it. I was also supposed to have a word with the coachman but forgot.

Well all of those can be dealt with later-

"Sovine!" A familiar voice called out as the door to my room swung open while I teeter the journal

"Who just barges into someone else room like that?!" I shot up from my seat, making sure that the journal was hidden before turning back to Vidoro who seemed very panicked.

"Eh? What's wrong with you-" "Come on!" Vidoro cut me off as he grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room.

"Where are we going?" I had gotten used to this treatment from Vidoro but this was a grown-ass man.

What could be so urgent that this kid who never sought Sovine out for anything was acting like this? I don't think I did anything extreme recently, well, at least not after that night I met Anartis.

"The main hall." Vidoro responded rushing to get to the main hall.

"Eh? Where?" I raised a brow at him not realizing that Sovine would've known something like this.

"How do you not know- Ugh, forget it!" Vidoro gave up on explaining anything to me.

To be continued...

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