Even if I completely disappeared from this world, that would be better.

“You really won’t give me any answer?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Even now?”

To confirm his reaction, I took out the ring and tried to put it on my hand. Count Lindsey’s face twisted in pain.

“What would happen if I put this on my finger?”

“Ah, that’s…!”

Count Lindsey seemed flustered, like he hadn’t expected this action. He approached me with a troubled expression.

He could have stopped me with magic, but he didn’t—there must be a special reason for that.

Seeing that expression, I was certain. What the System told me not to do would put him in a difficult position.

Then shouldn’t I put on the ring even more?

Before Count Lindsey could stop me, I hurriedly slipped it onto my fourth finger. It fit perfectly on my hand, like it had always been mine.

The moment I put on the ring, brilliant light burst forth. I couldn’t see anything because it was so blinding.

That’s when it happened, while I was shaking my head with my eyes squeezed shut. Suddenly, certain memories began flooding into my mind.

Four men stood beside me. The Crown Prince, the Northern Duke, the Knight Commander, and the Magic Tower Master Count Lindsey.

Along with their images serving at my side, memories I had forgotten all this time surfaced.

* * *

I had played a romance simulation game before. There were three conquest targets. It was about the female protagonist meeting various men and conquering them.

My name back then was Angela, just like now, and it was an academy game for women.

The game began when the female protagonist enrolled in the academy and met the conquest targets. Since there was one female protagonist and three male protagonists, they formed a rivalry structure over one woman.

There were three male characters: the Crown Prince, the Northern Duke, and Knight Commander Sir Chalmonte.

No wonder they felt like protagonists when I first met them at the ball—they actually were the main characters of the game.

Back then, I was living a boring and tedious daily life. While searching for something stimulating, what caught my eye was a cutting-edge game that let you actually feel virtual reality.

And I became so absorbed in this game for a while that I forgot about my current life’s boredom. My favorite back then was the Crown Prince.

His brilliant golden hair, deep blue eyes like the ocean, and elegant, dignified atmosphere were exactly my type.

Of course, I liked the Northern Duke and Sir Chalmonte too. It was a 19+ game, and all three were exceptionally skilled—plus I could feel sensations much better than in my actual body, so I was overwhelmed by the intense stimulation.

According to the game’s settings, you normally chose only one person per playthrough, but once you reached a certain level, the path to a reverse harem opened up.

The character who appeared at this point was Victor Lindsey.

Though he was introduced as Count Lindsey now, back then Victor was the Magic Tower Master. The reason he wasn’t a main character was because he only appeared in the reverse harem ending.

Victor was a hidden character. A character you could only meet after conquering all the main characters.

I wasn’t particularly fond of reverse harems at the time, so I hesitated about going for the hidden ending. The reason was that characters who were pure-hearted when conquered individually changed personalities when switched to the reverse harem ending.

The three main protagonists would abandon their duties and roles to constantly monitor me—to see if I was getting close to other characters.

In other words, it could be called character collapse. But since this was the only way to meet the Magic Tower Master, as a fan of this game, I successfully entered the hidden ending by capturing the hearts of all three simultaneously. That’s when I first met Victor.

Did he say he first met me eight months ago? I wondered why the System didn’t explain it to me—it wasn’t part of the setting.

I actually met Victor six months ago. Six months ago in the real world.

The Magic Tower Master Victor’s appearance went like this:

People around them became worried about the three men who didn’t do their work and just followed me around, so they commissioned the Magic Tower Master to check if they were under some kind of black magic. That’s how Victor and I came into contact.

In the process, seducing the Magic Tower Master who was wary of me and making him my captive too was the game’s setting. The charm point of this ending was watching a shy, gloomy man transform into an obsessive one.

I reluctantly tried the reverse harem route to lure Victor, but when I actually did it, it was different from what I imagined.

The main protagonists abandoned their respective duties and just followed me around, thinking only about getting close to me. I thought I wouldn’t like it because their personalities changed, but actually I did.

Having three men obsessed with me sent thrilling pleasure through me. So this was what it felt like to have multiple handsome characters serving me.

They granted whatever I wanted, so within the virtual world at least, I felt like a queen. I did things without hesitation that I wouldn’t have done in reality.

Even when I showed arrogant and cocky behavior, they loved me. I liked that I was their entire world.

Since I knew their feelings weren’t genuine anyway, I enjoyed it lightly.

Among them, I liked Victor’s c*ck the best. Even though he was a gloomy but pure character, honestly the s*x was best with Victor. I also liked that it was obvious Victor was a virgin.

When we first had s*x, he couldn’t push his c*ck into the narrow hole. He fumbled around, unable to find the hole properly.

“I-I’m sorry.”

You don’t know how cute he looked apologizing with tears welling up in his eyes.

Back then too, the sensitivity was the best, so the ecstasy was indescribable. Naturally, I ended up mixing bodies more often with Victor, who matched me so well.

“Victor, how wonderful it would be if you existed in my actual life.”

It was disappointing to only enjoy him in the game. So at least when I mixed bodies with him, my heart was sincere.

“I’ll always be by your side. Please love only me.”

Then Victor would say what I wanted to hear. This was when my happiness peaked.

Things went wrong with him near the end of the game. I wanted to keep all four men, but Victor didn’t want that.

He wanted me to look only at him. That’s where our opinions clashed.

I could understand if it had been Victor’s ending from the start, but this was reverse harem ending mode—how was that possible? It didn’t make sense from that point, but I didn’t notice.

I simply planned to toy with and dump him using his sincerity. Because I thought it was okay to do that in the game world.

They moved as the System commanded them anyway, didn’t they? But even when I tried to log out, Victor clung to me.

“Please don’t leave. Stay by my side forever.”

I desperately wanted to take him into my daily life and make him my pet, but how could that make sense?

What I said back then was cruel, even by my own standards. But I had to live in reality too, didn’t I?

“Sorry, but you’re not even my favorite, and you’re gloomy.”

“Did you truly only want my body?”

“That’s right. I only like your c*ck. If you wanted my heart, you should have seduced me somehow.”

Even I thought I was a truly terrible woman.

I could say things I wouldn’t dare say in reality because back then I was briefly intoxicated with myself having four men clinging to me.

“And your feelings for me are fake anyway.”

If another player started the game instead of me, they’d feel the same way. That’s why I took Victor’s feelings lightly.

It was natural to see those feelings as insincere—feelings that said anyone was fine, not specifically me. So before logging out, I told him various things.

“This is a virtual world, and everything just moves according to the scenario. I knew how to conquer you, so stealing your heart wasn’t difficult.”

“Do you really have no feelings for me at all?”

“…”

“You hate someone like me after all, don’t you?”

“…”

I didn’t hate him, but I couldn’t bring myself to say I didn’t. Because his feelings were burdensome.

Then Victor started shedding tears, and I felt sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I just wanted to distance myself from him because it was just a game.

“Please don’t leave. I’m begging you.”

I had no choice but to forcibly shake off him clinging to me and log out.

This ending felt strange somehow, so I planned to start the game again after logging out. But I couldn’t log out as I wanted.

The current one was a small gaming device, but the previous game was different. It was a virtual reality (VR) game where you could feel sensations, and you could access the game in a comfortable position after putting on VR goggles.

So I thought I could easily log out by taking off the goggles, but strangely, my body in reality wouldn’t move as I wanted.

“Why isn’t this working?”

“You cannot return.”

Not only could I not remove the goggles, but the System crackled like it was lagging.

What’s going on?

I belatedly realized Victor had used black magic to hold me captive. How does this make sense? How can an NPC interfere with a player?

“The moment I gained will, our relationship changed.”

That’s impossible!

A bug must have occurred. Hey, System! Fix this somehow. No Status Window appeared, like it had actually broken down.

Panicked, I looked at Victor, and his smiling appearance felt eerie. At this moment, I felt like a herbivore caught in a trap. Like I was caught in a predator’s trap.

An ominous feeling hit me at that moment, and that hunch proved correct. After that, I was kidnapped by Count Lindsey and imprisoned in his mansion.

Huh? Was there an imprisonment ending?