Catherine

If Greg had been in the room at that moment, he would have recognized the blonde girl immediately.

Catherine Roman.

The fourth romanceable heroine in the original game, and the daughter of the chairman of the Roman Merchant Association-the largest and wealthiest commercial organization in the Kingdom.

That title sounded glamorous enough to make countless people envious.

But very few knew that Catherine's actual standing within the association was nowhere near as secure or illustrious as it appeared.

She was merely an illegitimate daughter.

Her mother had quietly succumbed to illness in years that had already grown hazy in her memory.

And her powerful father, the chairman of the Roman Merchant Association, had never given her any of the attention a daughter deserved beyond granting her the surname "Roman." Everything she possessed now was something she had fought for herself.

Ahead of her stood several older brothers and sisters with far more legitimate claims.

Some were legitimate children; others were born to more favored mistresses. They had spent years building their influence within the association and had deep roots there.

Unless something unexpected happened, the position of heir would never fall to a nearly forgotten illegitimate daughter like her.

Yet for Catherine, this was not merely a matter of wealth, prestige, and status. It concerned something far more fundamental: survival.

She knew better than anyone that within the vast, cold machine of self-interest that was the Roman Merchant Association, family affection was as fragile as thin winter ice.

Once one of her older brothers or sisters finally secured the position of heir, their general disdain and underlying hostility toward her all but guaranteed that she would meet an unhappy end.

At best, she might be stripped of everything and banished to the frontier.

More likely, she would quietly disappear, and the assets in her name-not particularly substantial, but enough to make certain people covet them-would naturally be swallowed up as well.

For her, then, competing to become the heir was driven not by ambition, but by the instinct to survive.

It was about staying alive, with dignity and in safety.

Through her brutal struggle for survival, Catherine had long since grasped the cold essence of human relationships in this world: self-interest.

Pure, naked self-interest, untainted by any unnecessary warmth.

She had seen too much.

For a lucrative contract from the association, partners who had worked together for years could turn on each other in an instant, trading vicious barbs across the negotiating table as though they wanted to tear each other apart.

To secure the mining rights to a mineral vein, brothers bound by blood could sabotage each other in secret, spread rumors, and even manufacture "accidents."

Had her lofty father not secured his own position as chairman in his youth by climbing over his brothers and uncles, perhaps even staining his hands with the blood of his closest kin?

With enough profit at stake, a loving father and dutiful son could instantly become mortal enemies, while lovers who had sworn eternal devotion could betray each other in the blink of an eye.

Affection, morality, loyalty?

Those were nothing but pretty curtains concealing exchanges of interests, or invisible shackles binding the weak.

The truly strong cared only about bargaining chips and results.

Catherine had done many things to secure the leverage she needed to survive.

Some of them, examined in the light of day, could readily be called vile or even cold-blooded.

But to her, they were merely necessary means of survival, reasonable moves within the established rules.

She had never deliberately harmed innocent people. All she did was offer choices, set a price, and wait for others to willingly step onto the chessboard she had arranged.

Just like the matter the maid had reported moments earlier.

Through special channels, she had secretly funded a small Magic Device workshop to develop a new, unproven, wide-area repellent device.

In theory, it might repel or intimidate monsters below a certain level, but its stability, effective range, and duration were all unknown. It might even carry unforeseen risks.

Catherine needed experimental data. She needed someone to test it under real conditions in the Dungeon.

But she could not use the association's resources or any forces openly connected to her. That would expose her development project too soon, inviting her siblings' suspicion and sabotage.

So she had carefully selected her targets: three upper-year students from declining noble families, all with mediocre talent and an urgent need for large sums of money to maintain appearances or repay their families' debts.

Through an intermediary, she had approached them in the name of a fictitious adventuring equipment testing company and offered them an exceptionally lucrative testing commission.

The contract described the Magic Device as "potentially effective at repelling monsters below LV25." At the same time, an inconspicuous supplementary clause clearly stated, in calm, objective, professional terms, that the testing process involved unknown risks, including but not limited to Magic Device failure, backlash, and attracting stronger monsters, which could result in serious injury or death for the testers.

She had not deceived them.

She had offered substantial payment and warned them of the risks.

The three had read the contract thoroughly. They understood the dangers involved.

But faced with an enormous sum of money and their desperate desire to escape their predicament, they had chosen to sign. They had chosen to take that prototype into the rarely visited depths of the first floor.

It was a transaction. A choice.

They had exchanged potential risks for a guaranteed sum of money large enough to change their circumstances.

So even if they truly met with disaster in the Dungeon, Catherine would not feel the slightest unnecessary emotion called guilt.

They had chosen their own path. She had not held a knife to their throats and forced them.

Her only faint regret was over the loss of experimental data.

Losing contact with all of them meant that not one had managed to bring back any useful information, whether the test had succeeded or failed.

That forced her to find another group of testers and start over, spending more time and money. Troublesome, but not unacceptable.

In fact, a distinctive character like Catherine-complex, pragmatic, and even somewhat cold-blooded-was one of the main reasons Greg had played the original game over and over.

Compared with the conventional dating sims commonly available, whose heroines were either innocent and kind or adorably tsundere, the women in this game had exceptionally vivid personalities and backgrounds, and were... dangerous.

Apart from Sylvia, the second heroine, who retained a relatively normal kindness and a touch of timidity, the other heroines revealed a chilling individuality and danger once their romance routes began and the player delved into the heart of their stories.

For instance, the third heroine, Lilith Kahn, appeared to be a proud, passionate princess of flame. But once her affection reached a certain level, if she noticed that another heroine's affection had surpassed hers, her hidden, almost obsessive possessiveness would erupt.

The game's visuals would abruptly turn sinister, and the background music would grow eerie.

Lilith would smile and invite the player character into the Dungeon for special training, then accidentally trigger an incident that trapped them both in an enclosed area. With those red eyes burning with dangerous flames, she would say softly:

"Now no one can come and bother us."