Roel found himself seated at an elegant dining table, a sumptuous breakfast spread out before him. The walls were adorned with masterful artworks, and fine music was playing in the background. The current situation was, honestly, very overwhelming to him.

  For many years, he prided himself on being an honest, amiable, and helpful person, but he knew that good people didn’t thrive in the circle of nobility. Nobles were all about shared interests; being too individualistic would only make one an outcast. So, he had no choice but to adapt to the circumstances.

  Fortunately, Roel was unexpectedly talented in acting. Be it portraying an envoy of justice or a shady businessman, he was always able to get into the role and capture the tone accurately. He never expected that a day would come where he would meet his match.

  Earlier, laying on the princess bed in Charlotte’s bedroom, Roel found himself witnessing the overflowing acting talent that a successor of a massive business conglomerate possessed.

  Charlotte didn’t even give Roel a chance to make a comeback at all. Right after attempting to gaslight him about the agreement they made previously, her eyes began to brim with tears.

  “Darling, please don’t make such a cruel joke ever again, alright?”


  “Ah? W-wait a moment, t-this is……”


  “You also know that our engagement was decided by our ancestors a hundred years ago. This is a legacy they have entrusted to us as their successors; it’s sacred and inviolable. How could we possibly make a deal out of something like that?”


  Watching as Charlotte uttered those words with tears in her eyes, Roel was stumped.

  Is this really the same woman who dumped money on me back at the Ascarts’ manor to annul the engagement? Is it possible that I have been teleported to a parallel world instead? Maybe a mistake occurred while we were leaving the Witness State?

  No no no, how could that be?

  Shocked by how easily his fiancée had almost made him doubt his own sanity, Roel quickly shook his head to straighten his thoughts and calmed himself once more. He was alarmed at how powerful Charlotte’s brainwashing ability was.

  To be honest, if Charlotte refused to acknowledge the agreement, there was very little that Roel could do. Since it was mutually beneficial to both of them to annul the engagement back then, he didn’t think that there was a need to affirm it on paper. As a result, he had no evidence to prove that the agreement had really existed.

  This made Roel’s head hurt a little, so he decided to turn his attention elsewhere for the time being—his System.

  The Witness State this time around had been fraught with dangers. Roel and Charlotte had encountered numerous life-and-death encounters over the short five days, but in exchange, the high stakes were repaid with high rewards. The greatest example was the spell ‘Glacial Touch’, though there were many other things too.

  【Evaluation: Perfect (115)】


  【Congratulations, you have successfully awakened your bloodline】


  【You have obtained: Kingmaker’s Bloodline (Silver)】


  【An old contract and the broken fragments of a crown; the King has fallen. Glory and prosperity fade into ashes. Raising the dirt with both your hands, you transcend the boundaries of worlds and return back to reality.】


  “.……”


  When Roel read the System’s description, he was reminded of the scene of Peytra absorbing the golden mana he subconsciously produced before rising into the sky to subdue Sire Darkness. Actually, he harbored many doubts regarding that matter. For one, he had no clue what the golden mana was. It was likely a new bloodline ability, and he had a hunch that the description had something to do with it.

  “Yup, it’s all gibberish.”


  Roel stared at the abstract description for a long while, but in the end, he could only shake his head and give up. Instead, he decided to try a different tact and began to review exactly what happened back then. He felt that there was a good chance that it was some sort of enhancement ability, but as for how to pull it off……

  Do I need to mould butterflies? It can’t be, right? That’d be too troublesome, and it looks weird for a guy like me to conjure swarms of butterflies too.

  He took a look at his tattered body and sighed deeply. There didn’t seem to be much point thinking about it for now since he was in no state to test things and wouldn’t be for a long time. Bloodline abilities tended to come with side effects, and it would be a huge joke if he were to accidentally kill himself in the midst of his experiments.

  In any case, the emergence of a new bloodline ability was exciting news to Roel. It was not as if his bloodline ability would suddenly vanish into thin air, so it was only a matter of time before he managed to grasp and master it.

  Aside from the new bloodline ability, there was another breakthrough that Roel was very pleased about, and that was the awakening of his bloodline to Silver-tier.

  There was only a tier of difference between Bronze Bloodline and Silver Bloodline, but there was a drastic decrease in the number of bloodline possessors. Most transcendent houses and organizations valued possessors of Bronze Bloodlines, but they wouldn’t go to the extent of devoting a vast amount of resources to grooming them. However, if one of them was lucky enough to awaken their Silver Bloodline, that would make for a very different story.

  Having a Silver Bloodline was basically a free-pass ticket to reaching Origin Level 3 and becoming a high-level transcendent. That was usually a high hurdle to overcome; many prodigies found themselves locked outside its door, unable to advance any further. However, this hurdle was basically nonexistent to possessors of Silver Bloodlines as they possessed a much higher Degree of Assimilation, making it not too difficult to have a breakthrough.

  For this reason, if a member of one’s house possessed a Silver Bloodline, it was like winning the lottery. As long as no mishap occurred, the house was guaranteed to obtain an Origin Level 3 or higher expert within the next few decades. That would usually be more than enough to ensure the prosperity of the house for many years to come.

  Therefore, when it came to possessors of Silver Bloodlines, transcendent houses would unhesitatingly devote all of their resources to groom them since they were almost guaranteed investments.

  Roel had obtained many things out of the Witness State, such as Glacial Touch and the new ability of the Kingmaker’s Bloodline, but the reward he valued the most was still the awakening of his Silver Bloodline. This was something he desperately needed if he wanted to be on the same starting line as Nora, Alicia, and the other prodigious transcendents of the world.

  While Roel had barely been keeping up with their footsteps, it was unlikely that he would be able to continue doing so in the long run. The reason for that was the difference in their foundations. The nature of Roel’s Crown Origin Attribute required him to venture out in search of opportunities to make a breakthrough. How fast he grew depended on how much risk he was willing to take.

  On the other hand, Nora and the others were so talented that they could pretty much make breakthroughs just by breathing.

  It was in recognition of this that Grandar and Peytra spoke that nonsense about him mating with them. Even by their high standards, Nora and the others were considered rare prodigies, making them ideal choices for the continuation of his bloodline.

  Now, after braving many obstacles, Roel had managed to transform from a bicycle into a motorbike. The surge of satisfaction washed away the teeny-tiny sense of inferiority he had hidden in the depths of his heart, leaving him feeling refreshed all over.

  He looked out of the window to gaze upon the clear, sunny sky, and he suddenly felt like the world was a beautiful place.

  “Speaking of which, have we not arrived at the place where we’re going to see the stars yet?”


  Looking at the snowy world outside that was swiftly retreating from view, Roel asked with upshot eyebrows. Typically, one would scout for open, high grounds to go stargazing, but the carriage was racing oddly fast, as if it was rushing toward a certain destination.

  Roel pondered it for a moment, and in the end, he attributed it to the weird quirks of the fabulously rich. From experience, he knew that rich people tended to operate on a different wavelength from ordinary people like him. Perhaps, Charlotte might have a specific place where she liked to go stargazing, and she wanted to bring him there.

  In his previous life, he had heard about rich jet setters who constantly flew abroad just to eat at a certain restaurant and satisfy their cravings. He thought that Charlotte might be doing something similar. There was no way he could have known that Charlotte had already kidnapped him and was currently on the run.

  “Darling, I’ve kept you waiting.”


  A short while later, Charlotte stepped into the room with her hair slightly damp. She was having her morning shower earlier, but perhaps out of fear that Roel might get lonely, she was in much more of a hurry than usual.

  Roel had cleaned himself as well, but with the fragile condition of his body caused by the deep state of undead reanimation he remained in, he chose to deal with it using a hassle-free spell.

  “You showered surprisingly fast.”


  “I can’t possibly keep my darling waiting alone for too long.”


  “You…… Haa, forget it.”


  Roel had no idea how to deal with Charlotte’s endless flirting, so he chose to avert his eyes in the end. Charlotte didn’t seem too dispirited by Roel’s lack of response. She noticed that even though Roel was a little resistant toward her intimate gestures, he had never reproached her for it, and she viewed it as a good sign.

  On one hand, it was because Charlotte’s charms were indeed irresistible, and on the other, it would appear that Roel had already subconsciously accepted Charlotte.

  The bond forged through trial by fire was deep and complicated. The camaraderie shared through tumultuous times made him incredibly tolerant toward Charlotte, regardless of what she did. These blurring lines cast some doubt on their current relationship status: Are we friends, companions, or an engaged couple?

  Charlotte was well aware of this too, so she was planning to make full use of this period while Roel was extremely tolerant of her actions to make him accept her and cement the relationship.

  “Darling, your tea.”


  The two of them began digging into their breakfast, as they had done many times before in the Ascarts’ manor. However, there were some subtle differences. For one, Charlotte wasn’t sitting opposite Roel but beside him. Out of reminiscence of the time they spent in the study, she chose to brew a cup of the usual royal red tea for him.

  “Actually, you really don’t have to personally brew the tea for me.”


  “Didn’t you do it for me many times before too?”


  “Back then, there were only two of us in the library.”


  “I don’t see any difference. You’re the only one I have in my eyes, so to me, there are only two of us here.”


  “!”


  Charlotte’s emerald eyes were locked on him intently as she spoke those tender words of endearment, leaving Roel trembling uncontrollably. He became flustered and started nudging sideward a little in an attempt to avoid her.

  There was nothing more frightening than having a beauty whisper sweet nothings to you. There was no one who could possibly withstand that.

  Feeling that his heart was nearly shot down, Roel quickly took a sip of the red tea to calm his overheating mind. With whatever remaining rationality he had left, he forcefully broke the amorous atmosphere.

  “R-right, Charlotte! Since the request has been completed, it should be time to settle the debt between us, right?”


  Roel suddenly recalled the massive debt he was in, and the pink bubbles in his mind popped right away. Unexpectedly, a conflicted look surfaced on Charlotte’s face, as if she was searching for an excuse to renege on the compensation. Her reaction immediately spurred an outburst of rage from the desperate Roel.

  “Hey, you aren’t thinking of reneging on my compensation, are you? It’s one thing for you to shrug off the agreement we made back then, but you’d really be going overboard if you covet the money I earned by putting my life on the line!”


  Since he had just taken on a high-interest loan from the System, by hook or by crook, he was determined to get some money out of Charlotte. This was the desperation of a man mired in debt!

  But all of a sudden, Charlotte burst out laughing. She leaned over to Roel and whispered softly into his ears.

  “I’m afraid that I can’t decide that on my own anymore. It’s only right for me to seek the permission of my fiancé on how we should deal with our shared property, don’t you agree?”