The world I transmigrated into is a dark romance fantasy RPG. Naturally, the focus is on the "dark romance" part.
The goal of the Saintess Route is to help the Saintess and her party grow stronger. Eventually, they all fall for the Demon King, Chloe, and watch her die in their arms. They feel a heart-wrenching pain but are powerless to stop it.
The goal of the Demon King Route is to help Chloe grow stronger and then force the Saintess and the other female characters into her harem. They run, she chases, and they have no hope of escape.
However, there was no place for Luo Lan in any of this.
The youth rubbed his chin as he thought. 'A tool man is called a tool man because his key attribute is being thrown away after use.' He had died in the last playthrough after helping the Saintess party grow. To avoid the same fate after helping the Demon King grow in this life, Luo Lan decided to fully exercise his own initiative.
He began to manage the stats for Chloe.
What kind of drama is the most interesting? A rivalry.
What does a good rivalry require? It needs the parties to be evenly matched so the combat feels satisfying. If the gap between the two sides is too large and one side just stomps the other, there is no excitement at all.
Fact one: In the last playthrough, the Saintess party only defeated Demon King Chloe because he gave them everything he had.
Fact two: The perfect ending for the Demon King Route is for Chloe to subdue all the members of the Saintess party with no deaths. A perfect curtain call.
Fact three: He would face a plot kill once he helped Chloe reach her peak level.
Therefore, the solution was obvious.
He had to delay her growth and keep her just a little bit stronger than the Saintess party, but not enough to actually win. If he let these female characters pull each other's hair out, he could develop his own power and avoid the bad ending.
However, the plan was sexy, but the reality was bony. Luo Lan's only cheat was a cube with unclear functions. Currently, it could only turn into a book and show which spells were available to learn. The problem was that this little bit of help was not enough for a genius like Chloe.
Except for the spells restricted by bloodline or seals, Luo Lan had taught Chloe everything he knew within the first year. He had only survived until now by cramming at the last minute and relying on his retained "Secret Strategist" class. This class allowed him to skip chanting and manipulate mana elements directly to fake his way through teaching.
But even the deepest well eventually runs dry.
Luo Lan flipped through the book created by the cube. The once-crowded table of contents now only had a few lines left.
"I really didn't expect that managing her stats would almost kill me."
He was afraid the Demon King would suffer, but he was also afraid she would be too brave.
At first, he was worried Chloe would learn too fast, but now he was facing a situation where he had no skills left to teach. If that day truly came and Chloe's progress stopped, everything would return to the starting point. It would lead back to the ending where the Demon King is pierced by the Holy Sword and he dies silently in the smoke as a disposable pawn.
One thing was better than the last playthrough. Because Luo Lan helped Chloe get a head start this time, their relationship was quite harmonious. They weren't as guarded as they were at the beginning, but she had developed a habit of sneaking into his room when she couldn't sleep at night.
Thinking of this, Luo Lan closed the book and rubbed his aching temples. The moonlight passed through the window frame and cast a dappled shadow on the table in front of him.
Time was running out. In a few days, it would be the Royal Capital Festival. It was the prologue where the Saintess and the Demon King meet for the first time and the first main quest of the game.
Suddenly, a draft blew through the room from nowhere. it fluttered the heavy curtains and the thick book made from the cube. The pages flipped rapidly and finally stopped on a page he had never seen before.
It was a line crossing the paper. It wasn't a single color, but a mix of gold and purple lines that glowed with a faint light. They pulsed on the page like a living thing.
"Hmm?" (What is this?)
Luo Lan picked up the book to take a closer look, but a sharp pain shot through his fingertip. He pulled his hand back and saw a drop of blood seeping from a paper cut. It landed exactly on the black line.
What... is this?
The blood was instantly absorbed by the black line, and then it came to life.
It first formed the words "Valgard," the Royal Capital of Lucifenia, on the page. Then, the gold and purple lines branched off to the right and extended into two parallel paths leading to the end of the page.
Luo Lan stared at this scene with his mouth open. 'Is this explicitly telling me that the day of the festival is a major branching point?'
But there were so many dialogues and events in the plot. Who knew which one would actually affect the future? It would be a disaster if the reason was something stupid like "stepping out with the left foot first."
Just as the boy was about to close the book, the pages flipped again. A rush of strange information flooded his brain. The massive dizziness almost made him pass out with his tongue hanging out.
The good news was that the content was about the cube's true ability—
[Conceptual Fantasy]
— Can copy a skill possessed by a target in your memory.
— Can mimic the target's thinking patterns.
— Requires a deep enough memory of the target for a successful copy.
— Can be used to obtain the target's true information.
The bad news was that this function could only be activated once he entered the range of the Royal Capital, Valgard. This was understandable. After all, everything he was doing now was considered a "head start," while the festival in the capital was the actual start of the story.
Luo Lan rubbed his aching temples. 'Is this a hidden cheat for the second playthrough? Or is it a compensation reward for skipping the cutscenes?'
He tried to activate the ability, but the lines on the page flickered once and went silent.
As expected, he couldn't use it yet.
However, putting aside Chloe's unstable mana circuit, she had become increasingly powerful under his guidance over the past few years. In the original plot, Chloe only had top-tier magic talent but could only use basic spells like Wind Blade when the festival started.
Now, Chloe was an all-rounder in Ice, Fire, Lightning, and Arcane magic. She was proficient in every spell below Tier 4 and had learned many Tier 5 spells from the little iron book. She had even taught herself several magic techniques. Heh, he was sure she would scare the eyes out of Saintess Ophelia when they met at the festival.
But as he thought about it, Luo Lan stared at the gold and purple lines on the page and fell into deep thought.
"Can we win?"
In the last playthrough, he only managed to reach a draw with Saintess Ophelia by relying on the system's full-scale buffs. Her powerful Holy Light could cover an entire city, and her summoned Sword of Judgment could easily tear the sky apart.
Luo Lan only had this little iron book now. He had no equipment and no levels. If something went wrong with Chloe at the festival, could he really overpower the Saintess?
Although the activation of the support was worth celebrating, the book didn't mention anything about limitations. Luo Lan felt the actual situation probably wouldn't be ideal. He had to find a chance to test it.
The youth sighed softly and closed the book with a bitter smile. The cube restructured in his palm and turned back into a cold metal block.
The snow outside grew heavier and tapped against the window.
...
Chloe was sitting in front of her vanity, humming a song quietly.
The mirror reflected the girl's body as she removed her outer clothes. Her porcelain skin glowed with a warm color under the candlelight. The maids gently untied the silk ribbons of her corset and wrapped her in a silk nightgown.
"Your Highness." Aelia's voice sounded outside the door, sounding as mechanical as ever. "The hot water is ready."
The bathroom was filled with steam. Chloe submerged herself in the water, leaving only her head visible.
Water droplets slid down her silver hair and gathered in small pools in the hollows of her collarbones. She stared at the rose petals floating on the water and reached out to pull them toward her. The hot steam made Chloe's skin turn a lovely shade of pink.
After bathing, the maids changed her into a nightdress and applied a bit of rose essential oil to the ends of her hair. Chloe lay in the center of a large bed that could fit four people, tossing and turning.
The girl was in a good mood because Luo Lan's teaching speed was starting to slow down. This allowed her to spend more time with him.
Of course, she had to control her own learning speed accordingly. Every time Chloe thought about how she used to practice magic with all her might just to finish class early, her heart filled with regret.
'I should have had much more time!'
Mmh... she couldn't sleep.
"Aelia." Chloe suddenly sat up, her silver hair falling messily over her shoulders. "Go and call Luo Lan."
The maid-dressed mage froze for a moment and said softly with a hint of surprise, "Your Highness, it is already very late."
"I know." Chloe hugged her knees and rested her chin on them. "Tell him to come and tell me a story."
Aelia's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
"Your Highness, is this..."
"You are my person." Chloe interrupted her. "He is also my person. Is there a problem with me ordering you to do what I say?"
Aelia opened her mouth, feeling she should remind the princess to be careful about certain things, but she eventually nodded and bowed out.
She arrived at Luo Lan's door with an expressionless face and knocked three times. The door opened, and Luo Lan's face appeared in the warm yellow glow, looking confused.
"Her Highness requests your presence." Aelia paused and added in a low voice, "She wants you to... tell her a story."
Luo Lan's expression went blank for a second.
On the way to Chloe's room, Aelia walked in front while Luo Lan followed behind. Their long shadows stretched across the wall. Near the door, she suddenly stopped and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear.
"Mr. Luo Lan."
"Yeah?"
"Her Highness has the blood of Lucifenia in her veins." She paused. "And you are just a mage from the East."
The words were subtle, but Luo Lan understood.
"I understand," he said softly.
Aelia bowed slightly and then pushed the door open for him.
The room was warm, and the charcoal in the fireplace crackled. Chloe was curled up in the middle of the bed, hugging a velvet pillow. When she heard the noise, she looked up, her ruby eyes reflecting the dancing firelight.
"You're here."
"Yeah..."
Luo Lan suddenly felt a bit at a loss.
He thought of Aelia's words, the two long lines in the book, and the new magic he hadn't learned yet. Tangled thoughts crashed around in his head.
"Come and sit here."
Chloe patted the edge of the bed.
"Your Highness, this is against the rules."
"I make the rules. This castle is mine, and even you are mine." She tilted her head, and her silver hair slid off her shoulder. "If I say it's fine, it's fine."
Luo Lan didn't persist, but he still kept a distance that made the girl raise an eyebrow.
He walked over and sat on the soft stool by the bed, three feet away from Chloe. The girl stared at him for a while, then suddenly scooted forward and threw the pillow into his arms.
"Start," she said. "Continue telling the stories of your hometown."