Chapter 1 : Heroine's first day at work!

Day 1

I didn't see Lilia much, so I focused on selecting my route.

There are three character that I can choose from.

The first prince, that is a sleazebag, but whoever gets him becomes queen.

The second duke, he's pretty cold, but with our two domains, it would be easy to defeat the Vernieros domain.

The first prince of Oriens. This one often meets a dead end early on at Lilia's hands, but I think that , should I play my cards right, I'll be able to save him. He's also a horn dog, but he's hot.

Of the two Secret characters, only one is reachable, and that would be the first prince of Mana.

For some reason, there is no news of our country's representative to Mana, Councilor Serjo-sama.

The game's "grinding phase" consists of participating to the council and determining what changes would be implemented. Since I am the dowager First Duchess, I have to look after my own Duchy's interests. Sadly, management games never were my forte, so I'll use the game assist mode instead.

Doki doki Kingdom making phase !

There is trouble in Mana, and a demon lord in Occidens.

Whatever should Ranieros domain do ?-Prepare our army for a fight.-Concentrate on stockpiling food for winter.-Initiate a trade route with Occidens.

There is one safe choice, one good choice and one stupid choice. The thing is, there is a specific set of questions per version of the game, so there is no playthrough for me to get my answers.

Let's see.

It would be stupid to trade with a country plagued by a demon lord, so that's the stupid choice.

Preparing an army in that kind of circumstances would be a safe one, because so many troubles were ahead.

So I'll take the statistically good one, concentrate on stockpiling food for winter.

System notice : Food reserves +100, popularity +1

The results are pretty underwhelming, but I guess that's because it's the beginning of the game.

The king got our documents and signatures and announced the choices.

"The First Duchess of Ranieros chose to Focus on agricultural development. The Second Duke of Linieros chose to invest some of his resources towards reinforcing his military budget... The third duchess of Vernieros chose to open trade relationships with Occidens ?"

Ah, yes, I remember now.

In the first game, nobody could choose the same option, and you could only chose by order of rank, so Lilia would have no other choice than to choose the trade option.

Aaaah, how pitiful, perhaps I should go easy on her, that's only the beginning after all.

I tune out the speech to look at my enemy in more detail.

Here she was, smiling sweetly at the king. If I didn't know what kind of monster she was really, I would be bewitched right now. How sad is it that the most beautiful fruit are rotten at the core ?

Her butler is standing stoically behind her. A bit on the young side, but you could see he would grow up into a very handsome man. I can see why people would go for his route.

He has beautiful, willful violet eyes, silky black hair tied up in a short, low ponytail, pale skin and an elegant face. His uniform was the regular black and white butler outfit, with golden button and a dark violet, silken lining.

I feel a bit jealous of his face, no boy should be allowed to look this pretty.

I then look at his master.

Soft, slightly droopy ( tareme) sky blue eyes, long, wavy golden hair and double eyelashes, snow white skin and soft pink lips. She wore a white laced headband with a jeweled blue rose, a tied blue lace as a choker, a puffy, long sleeved, ruffled white and blue Lolita dress that left her shoulders exposed, with lace running up around her waist to be tied up on a neat bow on her right shoulder.

That girl didn't look human.

This is so unfair.

If there was a eight sin, it had to be her !

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Then, she noticed that I was looking at her, and her blue orbs bore on me.

I suddenly felt shivers running up my spine, as if something was looking at me through them, something fantastic and dangerous. I finally get why one of her nicknames was 'imperial dragon.'

The shivers aren't stopping, and her eyes are still on me, it had to be more than a minute, and she still stared at me unblinkingly.

I feel cold

Cold

coldcoldcoldcold and those eyes are still on me ...!

The feeling stopped suddenly and I averted my eyes, releasing the breath that I didn't know what I was holding.

I looked back again and didn't really believe my eyes.

Butler-kun had stealthily snaked his hand through her hair, and I could see his white fingers ghosting against her cheeks.

D-don't they now where they are ?!

I knew there was rumors about their relationship, but to see it firsthand...

Lilia closed her eyes and let him, in front of everyone ?!

Wait, how is it that the others didn't even notice ?

CG Unlocked : Children of sin.

Thanks game, I didn't need to have that image stuck on my retina any longer !

The council's over, I'm off. I need to gather my thoughts.

"Ah, Adeline!"

I fake a smile and turn towards Oriens' crown prince Eshel Landafia.

I guess I'll go for that route first ?

He took my hand and looked at me, bestial green eyes against brown skin causing an entirely different kind of shivers to appear and told me in a low voice.

"Would you do me the pleasure of your company ? I so missed you."

Eshel requested your companyTell him you'd like to go to the gardensTell him you'd like to go somewhere more privateTell him no, you're still mourning your husband

"A-ah, erm"

My heart's pounding faster, and my mouth is dry. While the first game is designed with a younger audience in mind, the second game is after the marriage and consumption with the first duke, and has a strict 21+ age limit. While considering that, this character becomes dangerous for an entire different reason...

"I..."

I look at his white smile and cave in. His route was always my favorite anyways, I only played the First duke in the sequel to meet that legendary rival.

"I'd love to meet with you too, but people would talk if they saw us together..."

His smirk became a smile and he started to lead me away.

We were speaking in low tones, close to eachother, when a flash of blue was caught in my periphery.

Hands linked, the young couple were reading in the rose garden, the girl using the boy as a pillow. She noticed me and smiled, before her mouth formed a surprised 'o' and she looked above me.

I looked up and saw a big gargoyle falling. I didn't have the time to scream that it fell on us, sick crunching noises coming from both the prince and I.

As my vision was darkening, I saw Astoria, the rival in Eshel's route, looking down from the building, small pebbles falling and indicating the gargoyle was from there. Her empty green eyes were fixed on me, tears falling, her smile as terrible as ever.

Everything went black, and red thorny vines appeared , growing on the bloody gargoyle, blood red roses blooming.

Dead End 2 Thorny rose princess

I woke up In my room.

I see.

I was so fixated on Lilia that I forget that none of the other rivals had been taken care of.

I won't make the same error again.

Welcome to Heart throbbing kingdom !

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Yay , new arc ! Heroine perspective, cause it's more mysterious, yanno ~

What started as a wanna be burikko turned into Kaori Yuki and Higurashi series' unholy lovechild.

I'm so sorrryyyyyyyyyy T0T