Alleria

At the sight of Alleria, Duke immediately thought of a crucial question.

The timeline!

Alleria's very existence pointed to an extremely, extremely serious problem.

According to Azeroth's historical progression, Alleria had been active in the world of Azeroth before the Dark Portal event that preceded the First War between humans and orcs. In the game Duke had played before transmigrating, Alleria had already been remembered as a missing hero. There was even a large statue of her outside the gates of Stormwind, the capital of the human Stormwind Kingdom.

"So that means I transmigrated to before the First Orc War?"

Duke immediately realized what he needed to do after his resurrection—the worst-case scenario was that the orcish armies were about to pass through the Dark Portal and invade Azeroth. If the place he was in would be swept up by war, then he needed to build up his strength and prepare for a major battle.

At the very least, he had to become strong enough to protect himself!

But putting that aside, Alleria was so beautiful.

For some reason, when Duke focused all his attention on Alleria, the system activated on its own.

"Ding. In accordance with your wishes, restoring color to the target..."

It was as though colors were being rapidly filled into a black-and-white painting. The bleak gray-white vanished, and color began spreading along every line of her body and clothing. It felt like a black-and-white animation had suddenly become a vivid cinematic blockbuster.

In less than a second, Alleria before him became just as real as she would have been in normal vision.

As an immensely popular character in the game, Alleria possessed breathtaking beauty in reality as well.

Every inch of the female elf exuded the gallant, valiant aura of a valkyrie. Yet, perhaps because she came from a distinguished High Elf family, although she was clearly a ranger, she occasionally displayed an air of noble elegance in every glance and gesture.

Other than a green cloak snapping in the wind, she wore only green shoulder armor and a bikini-like inner cuirass. Her brilliant long golden hair made her ivory skin appear all the whiter, smoother, and more delicate.

Her well-trained body possessed the most perfect athletic curves. Her neck was long and snowy white like a swan's, and her collarbones were slender and alluring.

Her slim waist made the twin Mount Hyjal peaks on her chest seem especially towering. Not to mention among the famously slender High Elves—even by human standards, they were practically unfair.

She had no need for a corset or anything of the sort. Her athletic waist, honed through extensive exercise, looked so slim it could be encircled in one hand. Yet the firm lines of her toned abdomen meant no one would worry that applying a little too much force might snap that waist in two!

A pair of knee-high riding boots, green with gold trim, further emphasized her proud figure, making her seem even more slender and tall. Her entire body radiated an exotic charm and an unspoken sensuality.

Before transmigrating, Duke had seen too many internet celebrities with surgically altered faces their own mothers would not recognize, and breasts stuffed full of silicone. Suddenly seeing such a naturally heroic woman left him a little dazed.

If he could still breathe, his breathing at that moment would probably have been as rapid as a bellows.

It was an irresistible attraction. Duke stretched out his hand toward Alleria.

The next instant, he immediately understood what the system meant by the loss of humanity.

He actually drifted over, his claw reaching straight for Alleria's peaks.

Duke instantly froze.

He had merely thought, Those twin fleshy demon mountains are too evil. It'd be great if I could grab them, and his soul had immediately put the thought into action.

Was that something a cultured, law-abiding young man with morals was supposed to do?!

So losing humanity... meant losing all restraint!!

Time seemed to freeze, and Duke felt like bursting into tears on the spot.

This... was not the end.

Duke's nightmare had only just begun.

He had actually been discovered.

Clearly, something called killing intent surged toward Duke. Alleria performed an incredibly agile backflip, and when Duke saw what she held after landing, he froze again.

In the blink of an eye, Alleria had drawn the green longbow from her back. At some point, three long arrows with white fletching had already been clasped in her hand. Their three silver-white arrowheads gave Duke a sense of annihilating threat.

Duke had not even considered why Alleria could see him in his soul form.

Oh, hell! This was a fantasy world! Anything unscientific was hardly unusual.

Abruptly, the system's mechanical voice rang out. "Detected immense hostility from Alleria Windrunner. Loading boss template. It is estimated that she possesses at least one hundred skills. Threat rating: highest level, [Red Skull]. You are advised to surrender or flee immediately. Otherwise, if you are destroyed once more in your soul state, you may suffer a soul loss of over fifty percent."

At that moment, even ten thousand alpacas stampeding through his heart could not have described Duke's feelings.

Why was it that other people transmigrated to Azeroth as High Elf nobles or sons of human grand dukes, while I died the moment I arrived? And immediately provoked one of the Alliance's strongest beautiful heroes!?

Duke suddenly recalled a certain statistic: according to the estimates of some idle people, if an ordinary college student transmigrated to a fantasy world, over ninety-nine percent of them would die on their first day there.

There was no particular reason. They simply could not adapt, were not clever enough, or had terrible luck.

If Duke had hesitated for even one more second, he would probably have become one of that ninety-nine percent. But Duke was still fairly quick-witted.

He stopped. His outstretched claw—oh, hand—suddenly swept downward, and the gesture instantly changed from the worst possible grope into a wave.

"Hm?" Alleria frowned.

From the heroine's reaction, Duke could be absolutely certain that she could see him.

Please allow Duke's inner actor to possess him. He put on a sorrowful expression, then pointed in the direction of his corpse.

Duke refused to believe that with Alleria's sharp senses, she could not detect that damned murderous wild boar nearby.

"That boar killed you?" Alleria asked tentatively. Once her killing intent faded, Duke realized that Alleria's voice was remarkably pleasant, reminding him of an oriole in the woods. Alleria spoke the human common tongue, which Duke originally could not understand, but the system's built-in translation software allowed him to comprehend it instantly.

Duke wanted to say, "Yes." But when the words reached his mouth, they became a burst of static-like soul whispers. He could only nod.

Alleria sighed softly, then released the bowstring.

Twng— The crisp, melodious sound of the bowstring carried a strange beauty.

The next second, Duke's heart nearly leaped out of his chest.

Three arrows that felt capable of slaughtering gods and annihilating demons, trailing green flames, shot toward him at high speed.

Heavens! This woman still didn't believe me? Was she going to destroy even my soul?

Unable to describe the terror that nearly froze even his soul, Duke completely lost the strength to move.

But nothing happened to him.

The arrows had never been aimed at him. He merely happened to be standing beside their trajectory.

Or perhaps that woman had deliberately meant to scare him—oh, scare a ghost!

The arrows, fired in a triangular formation, streaked past him. They tore through the sky, traced a beautiful arc through the forest, cleared countless trees that could have served as obstacles, and flew into the distance.

What was she shooting at?

Though he knew it was somewhat impossible, Duke somehow had a premonition...

"Squeal—" A miserable pig's cry rang out in the distance.

Duke stared dumbfoundedly. Seriously? That worked?

For the first time, Duke gained the most direct understanding of the boss-level heroes of Azeroth.

Overbearing, cool, tyrannical, and utterly badass!