Duke's Gathering

The halls of the Rosenthal estate were quiet, except for the soft click of polished shoes on marble floors and the flickering of candlelight on old portraits — some with names that had faded from memory, yet the eyes were still watchful.

Anwir stood just outside the library doors, arms behind his back, a stiff posture as usual. 

Inside the library, Selvaria was positioned at a long, solid, black, obsidian inlaid desk, reading an enormous, heavy tome on imperial jurisprudence. Her crimson eyes scanned the lines slowly, half-reading, half-memorizing with will alone. The tutor spoke in a slow, monotone over the long table so far away, almost not making a sound. The tutor's eyes, regarding only the pages, were not lowered out of respect, but out of fear. 

Anwir watched Selvaria closely through the crack between the doors, noting the way she had her right hand folded beneath the desk and she drummed her fingers like a metronome on her thin thigh. Bored. Restless.

But controlled.

Selvaria Rosenthal was always composed and controlled in showing her emotions.

He stepped back silently as a maid brushed past with tea. The scene was expected, routine, but Anwir could feel it — something was shifting.

And inside him, something was breaking.

How many times have I witnessed this scenario?

He was propped, his back against the cold stone wall, moving light from the torch casting shadows that flickered over his sharp features.

Time had passed.

When the door of the study finally creaked opened, Selvaria emerged — uniform immaculate, expression vacant as always, and without looking at Anwir — as if she needed to, the study hall's silence only broke by the stone creaking of the door. Selvaria remained standing, her hand gliding over the hem of her dress, while Anwir silently gathered Selvaria's notes, and placed her books closed.

"Your next appointment, Mistress," he said softly, voice just above a whisper. "Madam Cirella is expecting you."

Selvaria's expression twitched — only slightly, but Anwir caught it. A flicker of annoyance, perhaps a smothered dread. Understandable. Madam Cirella was not known for kindness. The woman was said to have once frozen an errant noble's tongue mid-sentence during a duel — not out of anger, but because she thought the boy's chanting lacked rhythm.

Selvaria walked ahead, and Anwir followed two steps behind, his mind whirring.

This world… this story.He knew exactly where they were in the timeline now. The tutor segment — a brief cutscene in the original game, but one filled with subtle cues. The old AI couldn't replicate Madam Cirella's menace properly. But here? He could feel it in the air, heavy and real.

And today, Selvaria had to learn ice magic, her specialty, from that woman.

She wasn't just a character anymore. Watching her posture, the slight tension in her shoulders, the cold calculation in her stride — she was flesh and blood. There were no dialogue flags guiding her. She was a person, now. As real as he was.

And I helped write the path to her death.

His fists clenched behind his back. He'd done everything right — ensured her downfall, planted death flags across the route with clinical cruelty, thinking she was just a mid-boss. A stepping stone.

I was a dev working overnight builds and debugging errors from inconsistent death flags.

Now I'm a butler in a family of demons, serving a girl fated to die in every damn route.

Now?

He was part of her world.

'Back then, I was a developer patching bugs at 3 a.m., balancing stats with bleary eyes, not knowing those death flags that I added would become my reality.'

 And worse — I'm Anwir.

A character that his friend created… based on himself.

The echoes of her footsteps stopped. They were outside the private arcane chamber now. Massive double doors stood before them, etched in rune-carved sigils of containment and precision.

Selvaria didn't look back.

"I won't be long," she said.

Anwir bowed slightly. "Of course, Mistress."

As she entered the room, the doors shut behind her with a thud like a guillotine.

And Anwir — no, the young man within the butler's body — was left staring at his own reflection in the polished floor.

The rest of the day passed in silence — skills trained, words exchanged, none of it worth remembering. The real battle, Anwir knew, began tonight.

____

Evening fell with a velvet hush over the Rosenthal estate, the fading sun gilding the halls in honeyed light. Anwir stood in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting the final pieces of his butler uniform with a precision born of both habit and necessity. The ceremonial attire tonight was subtly different—longer coattails, richer fabric, the Rosenthal crest embroidered in silver thread above his heart. This was no ordinary evening.

Tonight was the Duke's Gathering—an event held not merely for prestige, but for power plays.

The celebration was for the successful capture of a barbarian stronghold on the northern frontier—one of many skirmishes the Giant Sun Empire waged to maintain dominance over its vast territories. The Rosenthal name would shine tonight, as Duke Valen Rosenthal himself had led the assault. And Anwir, as his daughter's attendant, had to stand beside her—not just as a servant, but as a symbol.

The Giant Sun Empire was no kingdom of peace. Its structure was forged in strength, led by the Emperor but balanced precariously by the Seven Duke Families, each a colossus in their own right. These families were ancient, powerful, and treacherously intertwined. And among them, the Rosenthals had earned their place through fire and blood.

Anwir adjusted his cuffs, his gaze catching on his own reflection.

That face again. His face now.

The fox-like slit eyes, the deep red hair the color of spilled wine. He looked every bit the enigmatic shadow meant to serve a villainess. But inside… inside, the man from Earth still lingered, coiled with unease.

What am I even doing here?

He had helped build this world. Crafted its darkest corners, designed the very systems that now bound him. Selvaria, the girl he once casually scripted as a mid-boss villainess, was no longer just code or narrative. She was real. Alive. And so were the stakes.

This world is wrong, he thought. Or maybe it's right, and I was always blind to how deep it goes.

Still, he couldn't back away. Not now. Not when that blood-red mission still pulsed at the corner of his status screen.

[Main Mission: Save Selvaria Rosenthal In Act 0 Part 1.]

[Failure: A fate worse than death.]

A warning written in something far too close to prophecy.

With a final breath, he adjusted his gloves and made his way toward Selvaria's chambers. The mansion was already stirring with the hum of carriages arriving, nobles greeting one another in curated tones, and staff scrambling to perfect the night.

Let the game begin again, Anwir thought grimly. Only this time, I'm not on the outside watching the screen as the player anymore.

But a living being within the confines of this world, where I could die.