With her appetite gone, she picked at her remaining food. McClain, having emptied his bowl in an instant, stood up from his seat.

The scraping chair made a loud sound, abruptly silencing the intermittent clinking of dishes.

“If you’ve finished eating, everyone get up. Orlando, check once more to see if we’ve missed anything, and the rest of you prepare to depart immediately. Now then, Pereira.”

“Yes, I’ve finished eating too.”

He nodded for her to follow and swiftly left the dining room. Natalie hurried after him with quick steps and cautiously asked:

“Um, did I perhaps make some mistake yesterday…?”

“No.”

His unexpected denial didn’t immediately put her mind at ease.

“No, I’m usually quite good with alcohol, but yesterday my memory cut off strangely early. I really didn’t make any mistake with you…?”

“I just said there wasn’t any, didn’t I?”

“Ah, yes.”

His expression was so fierce that Natalie found it difficult to continue the conversation.

If she hadn’t made any mistakes, why was he making that face?

As she walked with her shoulders hunched, McClain asked in a slightly softer voice:

“Have you definitely given up now?”

“Given up what?”

Given up what?

She blinked in confusion, not understanding what he meant, and the man added in a dry voice:

“The romance fantasy ending.”

“Ah, yes. Well. I suppose so. Your stance is so firm, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s not something I can make happen alone…”

Natalie shrugged and pretended to be nonchalant.

In the current atmosphere, she couldn’t let him know she was still looking for opportunities.

His expression softened considerably, perhaps relieved by her answer.

“I’m sorry, but I hope you understand my position. I can’t choose a detour when I have a definite escape route. I need to get back to my company quickly too…”

“Ah, you have a company too. Right. I understand. It’s just unfortunate that you had to transmigrate into the male lead, but what can we do? I’ll have to find another method. Maybe try changing the genre. Anyway, it seems the misunderstanding has cleared up, so I hope we can get along from now on. After all, we’re the only transmigrators here.”

“As I said last night, you should give up on expectations for a status window. From what I can tell, you weren’t even a player of this game originally, so there’s no way you’d suddenly be given a status window. Especially not in the middle of the game rather than right after transmigration. I understand your desperation, but it would be better to consider other methods…”

But Natalie wasn’t listening to the man’s unusually friendly voice.

The moment he began saying “you should give up on expectations for a status window,” a more complete sentence than before appeared above his head.

“Hmm?”

McClain Lindhart’s a؃tion has incڣڒ৶ed by 5%.

McClain’s a؃tion: 5% ▶ 10%

The word “affection” appeared alongside the character’s name. And the numbers next to it.

There was no need to guess the meaning of the remaining illegible letters. Anyone could see that the message indicated changes in affection.

Natalie frowned at this unexpected situation, deep in thought.

But affection? Was that game perhaps a dating simulation?

She tried hard to recall her pre-transmigration memories, which were already becoming distant, but couldn’t remember the details.

She had loved the romance fantasy 〈How to Take the Hero of the Century as Your Husband〉 enough to follow the webtoon adaptation, but regarding the game, she only remembered hearing about its release.

She might have briefly thought that the author would be making good money.

But that was all. She hadn’t looked up the game afterward or searched for what happened after its release.

If it had been created focusing on the relationships from the original novel, there was a good possibility that the released game was a dating simulation.

After all, the title was 〈How to Take the Hero of the Century as Your Husband〉.

But after chewing the inside of her lip thoughtfully, Natalie soon shook her head.

She had a feeling that wasn’t the case.

Her doubt stemmed not from memories of the game, but from McClain’s attitude as someone who had transmigrated into it.

If this were truly a dating simulation game, McClain, who was determined to reach max level and return to reality, wouldn’t have been so defensive and wary of her.

He would have begged her to join his expedition instead.

No, he would have approached her before she faced difficulties due to her family’s bankruptcy and proposed a contract marriage. After all, she was the female protagonist character from the original novel.

Though it was embarrassing to say herself, Natalie could confidently claim she possessed perfect beauty that would be recognizable as a protagonist anywhere.

Yet McClain had recoiled at words like dating and romance. Hadn’t he pushed her away, suspicious that she might be trying to make advances on him?

The “max level” he spoke of clearly wasn’t related to a dating simulation game.

Then why had the affection appeared…?

And that wasn’t the only strange thing.

She couldn’t understand why this man’s affection had suddenly increased.

Even after reviewing their recent conversation, she still had no clue.

Finally, Natalie looked up sharply at McClain, who was oblivious to her thoughts and offering various advice about things that might help if she wanted to switch to a game-style approach.

The man flinched at her sudden gaze and closed his mouth. After awkwardly checking her expression for a moment, he cautiously asked:

“Why, why are you looking at me like that? Do you think you don’t need to know about those things?”

Natalie, who had been lost in thought and hadn’t heard what the man was saying, shook her head and replied somewhat urgently:

“No, that’s not it. I just had something I wanted to ask.”

“What is it? Ask away. I’ll answer as best I can.”

The man’s expression had become unprecedentedly generous and kind.

It was an unbelievable change in attitude from someone who had always been prickly toward her.

Natalie suddenly felt burdened about asking her intended question.

What if asking about the affection message only made the atmosphere hostile again?

After carefully choosing her words, she spoke as if it were no big deal:

“That game you transmigrated into, its name is 〈How to Take the Hero of the Century as Your Husband〉, right?”

“Ah, yes. That’s right. The name changed a bit when it was released as a game. To 〈Century’s Hero Maker〉.”

“Ah… The name changed…”

Hero Maker? That changes the nuance quite a bit—no, a lot—from the original title.

It seems to focus much more on “hero development” than “taking as a husband.”

As Natalie narrowed her brows, McClain observed her concerning expression and carefully asked:

“But why are you suddenly asking about that…?”

“Ah, the original was a famous romance fantasy novel, wasn’t it? So I was wondering if it might have been released as a dating simulation game…”

“Ha, no way. It’s a fantasy RPG focused on character development.”

Having not played many games before, she didn’t exactly understand what development elements or idle RPGs were.

One thing was clear though: it wasn’t a dating simulation game.

“Right. If it were, you wouldn’t have acted the way you did.”

Even as she nodded in agreement, her mind remained filled with thoughts about the message that had just appeared.

By the time they reached the village’s common storehouse and the headman handed over a sack of medicinal herbs, Natalie still hadn’t sorted out her complicated thoughts.

“Pereira? Is one sack of herbs enough? Pereira?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I was lost in thought. Yes. That’s plenty. Thank you, Headman. Let me take that, Sir Lindhart. I’ll carry it. Hmm?”

Just as she was politely thanking the headman and reaching for the sack of herbs in McClain’s hands, she noticed a message updating above the man’s head and widened her eyes once more.

McClain Lindhart’s a؃tion has incڣڒ৶ed by 2%.

McClain’s a؃tion: 10% ▶ 12%

“No. It’s heavier than it looks, so I’ll carry it… What’s wrong? Is there something above me?”

“Ah, no. It’s nothing. Just a large insect flying around up there. Shall we head back now?”

Natalie waved her hand in the air as if she were really shooing away a fly, then turned around as if everything was fine.

McClain glanced at her with a puzzled expression, but she had no time to worry about him.

Her mind was occupied with complicated thoughts about how to proceed from here.

Though her direction would likely be quite different from what this man was thinking.

Unlike the blurry letters that had appeared initially, she could infer most of the content from this notification message.

Not only that.

The content was all about affection toward her and changes in those numbers.

She naturally had to interpret these system messages as the system’s revelation to prepare for an ending by increasing character affection scores.

Plus, she had only checked McClain’s affection so far.

Of course, such messages might have appeared because McClain was the male protagonist of 〈How to Take the Hero of the Century as Your Husband〉.