Besides Lilith, who managed to be a tsundere, a loser heroine, and a yandere all at once, the yet-to-appear Primary Heroine was privately referred to by the player community as the Ultimate Siren, and the extreme danger and resource consumption of her romance route were widely talked about on the forums.
As for the Fourth Heroine before him, Catherine Roman—once her affection reached a certain threshold, her tendency to precisely calculate and exploit every available resource to achieve her goals would become exceptionally pronounced.
She might smile while guiding the player character into the chamber's schemes, or calmly evaluate the benefits a relationship could yield, factoring emotion into her survival formula.
Greg was well aware that the heroines in this game were by no means innocent, clueless moe tropes.
They were beautiful, powerful, and distinct, but each also carried a complex past and a dark side—they could even be called “villainesses.”
Wanting to achieve a harmonious harem ending?
In the face of the original game's intricate, mutually conflicting character logic and hidden dark routes, it was an almost impossible task.
Right up until he transmigrated, not a single harem ending guide had ever appeared on the game forums.
“Lady Catherine.”
The maid’s voice interrupted Catherine’s thoughts. She kept her head respectfully lowered as she offered a suggestion:
“Regarding the three who lost contact in the dungeon... should we consider anonymously leaking some vague information to the academy professors under the pretext of ‘missing students’?”
“Perhaps the academy will organize a search team into the deep area. Even if they cannot find the men, they might discover... leftover traces or data that could be of help to us.”
Catherine gently shook her head almost without hesitation.
The moonlight cast a cold, silver sheen over her expressionless face.
“No, absolutely not.”
Her voice was crisp and cold, carrying unquestionable resolve. “This matter must not have any official connection with the academy in any form.”
For her, she would rather those three testers perish in the dungeon and all experimental data be buried forever in the dark alongside that prototype than allow the academy's influence to step in and investigate.
This new magic conduit was a key step in her secret plans.
If the test succeeded, after refinement and mass production, it would earn her unfathomable prestige and tangible profits within the chamber, becoming a major bargaining chip in her bid for the title of heir.
Its existence had to remain entirely confidential until the moment she was ready to lay down this card.
Once the academy became involved, the nature of the situation would change.
An investigation would very likely trace back to the source of the magic conduit. Even a single clue would be enough to catch the attention of her keen-nosed brothers and sisters.
At that point, she would not be facing a simple experimental failure, but a relentless siege and execution from within her own family.
They would never permit her to possess anything that could threaten their position.
Risk and reward—the delicate scale within Catherine’s mind had long since weighed them clearly.
A temporary loss of data was acceptable; premature exposure meant a potential total collapse of her board.
She paused for a moment, her azure eyes utterly unruffled.
“Wait until the commotion over the intruder completely dies down and the academy returns to normal. Then, immediately scout the next suitable group of testers. Until then, everything proceeds as usual—do not make any extra moves.”
“Yes, My Lady.”
The maid bowed in response, quietly stepped out of the room, and gently closed the door behind her.
Silence returned to the room, leaving only the faint scratching of the quill pen across paper and the distant, fading clamor of the dormitories outside the window.
The moonlight continued to shine coldly, illuminating the golden-haired girl's exquisite yet distant profile and the documents of secret plans before her.
...
“Hey, my other half, do you smell something strange?”
Not long after the two officially stepped into the dungeon's entrance tunnel, Nightmare’s voice suddenly rang out in Greg’s mind.
“W-Who is your other half?! Please be sure to call me Sovereign of Night! Right now, you're the only one in the world who lets me satisfy my vanity with that imposing title! If even you refuse to cooperate, what was the point of me risking my life to win this title from you back then? Am I supposed to talk to myself in the mirror?! That'd be way too pathetic, wouldn't it?!”
Greg practically spewed a long stream of bitter complaints in his mind out of reflex.
Nightmare fell silent for a moment before smoothly switching her phrasing: “Hey, Sovereign of Night, do you smell something strange?”
Greg: “Actually hearing you call me that feels even more embarrassing than I imagined. Forget it, just call me Greg directly.”
Nightmare: “...You are truly troublesome.”
Greg cleared his throat, pulling his focus back to the topic at hand:
“Alright, back to the smell. What strange smell are you talking about? It's... not coming from me, right?”
He subconsciously lowered his head and sniffed his collar.
Although he spent extended periods in the dungeon, as a modern soul with basic standards, he still tried his best to maintain personal cleanliness whenever conditions allowed.
“It is not you.”
Nightmare’s voice carried a hint of amusement. “It is coming from the girl beside you.”
“Silvia has a strange smell on her?”
Hearing that, Greg couldn't help but turn to look at the girl walking beside him.
Silvia was carefully following his steps. Her long pink hair glowed with a soft sheen under the dim light, and her matching pink eyes were focused intently ahead, reflecting the faint glow of the luminescent moss on the dungeon's stone walls.
Her lips were slightly pursed, her cheeks carrying a natural blush. Her slender figure and pure, innocent aura easily sparked a protective instinct in others.
As expected of one of the heroines... her looks really are undeniable...
Greg lost himself in thought for a moment.
“S-Senior Greg?”
Sensing his gaze, Silvia turned her head and met his eyes, a flicker of confusion and hard-to-detect bashfulness surfacing on her face.
“What's wrong? Is there... something on my face?”
“No, nothing!”
Greg snapped back to reality, instantly averting his gaze as he explained with a slightly stiff tone:
“I wasn't doing anything strange, nor was I trying to smell you, so please don't pay it any mind.”
“...Is that so?”
Silvia blinked her pink eyes. Her expression still looked puzzled, but she didn't press further, simply giving a soft “Mhm” before returning her focus to the path ahead.
Greg asked Nightmare in his mind: “Besides smelling a faint scent that's a bit like lily flowers... I didn't smell anything ‘strange’, though?”
Nightmare: “...What on earth are you sniffing, you pervert?”
Greg: “Didn't you say first that she had a strange smell on her?!”
Nightmare spoke in an ethereal voice tinged with a subtle trace of disgust:
“Mhm, there is indeed a scent lingering on her... a scent that displeases me, belonging exclusively to a bitch.”
Greg came to a dead stop, almost tripping over the uneven ground.
“...The one who just said that sounds way more like a bitch, doesn't it?!”
Rate on N.U.
