What the System Refused to Save

"This is wrong. I don't understand a single thing of it..."

"My lady, compose yourself first. You seem badly shaken."

Atar, who had been staring at Presepe as she raved like a madwoman, spoke as if to soothe her. Now that she thought of it, he still didn't seem to know who she was. At most he took her for the young lady of some noble house, and since this was their first meeting, that was only natural. Just as well.

"In any case, you ought to be going. If you have no objection, I will see you back."

"Ah—no, no!"

See her back where? Presepe, whose only destination was a tower shoved into a corner of the Imperial Palace, shook her head hard.

"I can go alone. I was truly rude. Let me apologize once more. And thank you, as well... Yes. I'll be going now."

With that she set off at once, not once looking back. A persistent gaze seemed to cling to her spine, but that was not the problem now.

"......"

Left alone before the stairs, Atar watched in silence the way she had vanished, then let out a soft, scoffing breath. He stared at the hand that had closed around Presepe's ankle. A white, slender ankle. One that would suit a thick, solid shackle all too well...

Fastened on that woman, it would make quite a sight. Her frame was slender through and through; crushed beneath heavy iron, she would suffer all the more...

Atar grinned, ugly and pleased. Then he staggered, just a little. A headache had come over him without warning.

For an instant a sobbing voice and a deep moan brushed his ear, and with them came the image of that strange woman who had just disappeared—leaning strengthlessly against a wall like a wilted flower, staring blankly into empty air.

"This is..."

What? He had no memory like this. Atar knotted his brows.

"Lord Atar, it would be best to return. The hour is already quite late..."

An escort knight who had been standing well apart edged closer, reading his mood. Atar nodded as if he understood and started down the corridor, his face still faintly puzzled, turning over by himself what the vision he had just seen, and the voice he had heard so clearly, could possibly be.

And so he never knew. At the far end of the opposite corridor, deep in the dark, someone's eyes had been fixed on him without once looking away.

Presepe came back to the tower out of her mind.

"......"

Slumped on the old, filthy bed, she stared at the thing clenched in her hand. It was the scrap of dress she had torn away herself, and the dress was still torn.

What set her trembling was not only that strange things had come one after another. While she had been capturing the five male characters—before the shift into Secret Mode—she had died over and over, even before any ending. Beheaded, hanged, by her own hand, by poison, by an arrow... more ways than she could count, because she had chosen wrong and driven affection that began at zero down into the negatives. And every time, she had lived again. She had still been able to save.

What if that safeguard was gone now, like this torn dress? What if it would not even save? What if dying inside the game meant dying for good?

Presepe, who had been sitting in a daze, lurched to her feet.

"Save."

Her lips moved in a rush.

"Save. I'm saving!"

And as if to prove her fear was real, a notice window rose.

Presepe's face went blank. She still remembered, more or less, the routes she had cleared in Normal Mode, but Dietrich and Atar alone had already shown her that the story had shifted in subtle ways. She had died countless times while capturing them before, and now she could not even save? So I'm just supposed to die like this?

The notice she had seen earlier flashed through her mind.

Only now did she begin to understand the real meaning buried in those words. Either live by safely repeating endings with the other men, over and over. Or find the true male lead, and accept a danger in which she could not save and might die at any moment.

And what was that strange choice supposed to mean? True to its reputation as a ruined game raining bugs, she had seen plenty of them even after transmigrating in. As if some error had struck, the game would sometimes freeze of its own accord, and whenever it did she was trapped alone in the stopped space, unable to do a thing. That was why she had saved with a near-pathological obsession. Sometimes Siegfried spoke lines that belonged to Dietrich. Sometimes the affection of Siegfried, whom she was in the middle of capturing, swapped places with Noah's, whose ending she had already seen. Once, Ivan's face had turned into Atar's. All of it had been petty bugs, and given time they put themselves right. The sort of small glitch one could simply let pass.

This was not something she could generously overlook.

"What kind of garbage game even is this!"

And it still hasn't gone under?

Presepe glared into empty air and shouted.

"I don't even know who the true male lead is... You won't give me a single piece of information, and now you won't even do this—what am I supposed to do!"

And it was at that very moment.

"...What?"

Across Presepe's wildly trembling eyes, things she had never imagined began to gleam.

What is this now?

At the notice that had sprung up out of nowhere, Presepe's face went blank. And before long, over those same wildly trembling eyes, the window rose once more.

...And with it, a strange screen she had never once seen before.

"Incident... Log?"

With Presepe's dazed murmur, a great screen rose.

"......"

Something like this exists? She had never expected it, but it would clearly help.

"Show me the information on the true male lead."

Presepe spoke in a rush.

"What the... insane..."

Is this thing seriously screwing with me? It wouldn't even hand over the one thing she actually needed. She felt as if she were being toyed with.

"So that's all?"

If I can't save, and I can't learn what I haven't found, shouldn't it at least give me something more? Presepe shot the question back, her voice sharp with anger.

...Review Past Memories? Past memories? It was utter nonsense.

Whatever Presepe felt, the system paid it no mind. Beside the notebook, something shaped like an album revealed itself.

"Ha... Really. Nothing but a parade of things that don't help at all..."

She let out a sigh closer to a lament, then gathered herself and faced the screen again.

"First, explain what the Book of Memories is."

That, at least, sounded a little tempting.

In truth, the only place she could use system settings such as the save function was the tower. She could no longer save, but this meant the Incident Log and Review Past Memories would work even beyond it. And hints, no less.

"The true male lead, too?"

"......"

She thought she understood why. To be in a position to capture the true male lead was to have already seen an ending with every character in the game, so a hint would hardly matter. And since Secret Mode would not even allow a save, finding him would grant her a certain benefit in return. Turn it the other way, and whenever someone roused her suspicion, she could open that book and try the name as a password.

She could not check the contents just yet, but she ought to see what it was, shouldn't she? Or simply try some name at random.

"Then show me the Book of Memories."

But something was wrong. After displaying only that short line, the notice window showed her nothing at all.