Dania's Route... Cleared?

"Why... are you so hostile toward someone else...?"

"You don't even know him at all..."

The curtains in the dorm room had all been drawn, leaving it dim. The girl sat alone on the sofa, clutching the doll she carried with her.

Unlike before, it was no longer in pristine condition. Its body was now worn and covered in patches, much like Dania herself, whose mind was on the verge of collapse.

She didn't know what was wrong with her. Even as she desperately tried to forget her memories of Lu Guan, her mind kept drifting back to what had happened last night.

At the very beginning, she had instinctively chosen to approach Lu Guan simply because she had sensed something kindred in him, or perhaps... something else that drew her to him.

Even after the president had warned her, she still couldn't help feeling a nameless anger rise inside her whenever she heard the other students speak ill of Lu Guan. She had no standing to be angry on his behalf, yet she was angry all the same...

The girl's bare feet gripped the edge of the sofa tightly, as though she could suppress her impulses and ease the anxiety and unease in her heart that way.

Click~

The dorm room's trapdoor was pushed open, and a ray of light shone in.

Dania raised her head and looked haggardly at the figure in the doorway. Suddenly noticing something, she hurriedly lowered her head to hide the sorry state she was in.

By the time she looked up again, she had regained control of her expression and put on her usual faint smile. "Entering a girl's room without permission... isn't very polite, you know~"

Lu Guan showed no sign of guilt. "...I'm worried about you," he said bluntly.

Dania's lips twitched violently, and she nearly failed to maintain her facade. "What... what are you talking about?"

"I said..." Lu Guan took a deep breath, came to Dania's side, and leaned down to place his hands on her shoulders. Looking directly into her eyes, which kept darting about to hide her inner panic, he repeated himself.

"I'm worried about you... Dania."

"Me? What is there to worry about?" Dania suppressed her emotions once more and forced herself to say, "What about you... aren't you afraid of being arrested as a pervert for barging into a girl's room?"

All this time, Dania had been studying and imitating other people, trying to hide her true self.

But while she could fool everyone else, she couldn't fool herself.

[Beep! Dania's affection +???]

[Notice: Dania's affection has reached its limit. Accept the affection level breakthrough quest?]

Lu Guan ignored the system's notifications. He brushed the messy strands of hair away from Dania's temple and said earnestly, "I... know you're carrying some things no one else knows about..."

"Actually, I could tell from the very beginning. You've been doing your utmost to pretend to be a normal student at Stardust Academy."

"I don't know what happened to you... but I don't want you to face it alone..."

"Enough!" Dania cut him off sharply. "Please leave!"

Then, seemingly realizing that her emotions had gotten a little out of control, she adopted a gentler tone.

"Please... leave!"

[Beep!!! Warning: The host's next choice will affect the course of the final ending. Please assess the current situation carefully.]

The system had given him a warning. It seemed this was the end.

Lu Guan didn't care whether changing Dania's state of mind now would affect the plot of the original game. Since he knew the president was putting pressure on her, he couldn't stand by and do nothing.

So what if I'm impulsive? It's better than being a turtle that does nothing.

I'm a transmigrator with a system cheat. If I let a beautiful girl I like suffer persecution for no reason because I'm afraid of changing the plot or facing the president of the Fractsidus...

How am I any different from trash?!

Lu Guan didn't even need to guess to understand that there was a ninety-eight percent chance Dania's change in attitude was due to threats and intimidation from the naturally evil president of the Fractsidus.

Every beep as her affection bounced up and down had felt like a heavy blow to his heart. Lu Guan never wanted to go through that again.

"If I leave, will you just keep crying here alone?"

"What's it to you?" Dania bared her teeth in a show of ferocity. "You came into a girl's room and said all these things that make no sense..."

"Lu Guan, you really-really are annoying!"

"Annoying? Maybe. Back in Ming Court, plenty of people said I was annoying too. They called me a scourge and even said I should never have come into this world."

Lu Guan smiled, not bothered in the slightest.

"But I never took their slander seriously, because I know that only people who can't truly control their own fate make unwarranted comments about other people's circumstances."

"Just live the way you want to. Why let other people's words lead you around by the nose? Can't you live without other people?"

"No... you don't understand at all..." Dania kept shaking her head. "And under His influence, nothing has any meaning..."

"Is the He you're talking about the Tacet Discord of Nihility, Aleph-1?" Lu Guan asked. "Thinking of the worst possibility... Dania, are you His resonator?"

"No... that's not right." Lu Guan shook his head. "If you were a Threnodian Resonator, there's no way the Deep Space Union wouldn't have reacted at all..."

"Then... is it because there's a future in which you become a Threnodian Resonator?"

Lu Guan's words pierced straight through what Dania had been concealing all along. Her defenses crumbled completely under those words, and her body began to tremble involuntarily.

"You... stop guessing." Dania's voice was thick with tears. "If that person finds out... she'll never let you off, and I'll be abandoned because I've lost the value I was supposed to have..."

"Please... leave... mmph!!!"

Dania's eyes widened. Lu Guan had actually forced a kiss on her!

She instinctively wanted to push him away, but the warmth from the tip of his tongue spread down to her heart, making her once-frozen heart burn hot again.

The girl closed her eyes and began to respond.

After a long while, their lips parted. When Lu Guan saw Dania's face again, her eyes were brimming with tears. They no longer looked as they had before; crimson and deep blue now coexisted in their depths.

The girl's hands and feet were covered in traces of Void Matter erosion. Unlike in the game, Dania, who had yet to fully become a Threnodian Resonator, had no black-hole-shaped crown above her head.

"Ugly, isn't it... what I really look like..." Dania lowered her head and eyes, not daring to look Lu Guan in the eye. "If you're scared, then leave. I can pretend nothing happened just now."

"No... I like it." Lu Guan grasped Dania's hand. Because of the Void Matter, a burning sensation of erosion struck him where their skin touched.

But Lu Guan didn't so much as frown. He knew that none of this could be blamed on the innocent girl. Everything she had been through was merely the result of the Fractsidus' inhumane experiments.

"Don't... don't joke about that..."

As she spoke, Dania tried to pull her hand away.

"No... I'm serious." Lu Guan held her hand tightly, his eyes full of sincerity. "Or rather, I really like the real you, revealed when the illusion covering the surface is stripped away."

[Beep! Detected romanceable character: Dania. Affection has exceeded the threshold. Adjusting breakthrough quest...]

[Breakthrough quest completed... calculating results...]

[Rating: EX. Distributing rewards...]

[Dania's affection limit is no longer restricted...]

[Distributing special CG...]

[Beep! Notice: Error code 401...]

The system then fell into a series of busy signals. It seemed to have started repairing itself because of some bug.

"...Sweet talker." Dania shoved Lu Guan away irritably, then sat up and returned to her previous disguised form.

"Now please leave! I'm going to sleep!"

"Hehe... you're not angry anymore?"

"Honestly... I've had my fill of being angry! And of course, once you're full, it's time to sleep!" Her face bright red, Dania pushed Lu Guan out the door with both hands, then slammed the dorm room door shut.

Lu Guan looked at the door to Dania's dorm room and scratched the back of his head.

"Does that count as a success or a failure?"