The Numbers Above Their Heads

Even as they arrived at the village's shared storage and the village chief handed over the sack of herbs, Natalie still hadn't managed to untangle the mess in her head.

"Miss Pereira? Will one sack of herbs do? Miss Pereira?"

"Oh, forgive me. I was lost in thought for a moment. Yes, that's plenty. Thank you, Chief. Here, let me take that, Sir Lindhardt. I'll carry it. Hm?"

She was just giving the chief a gracious bow and reaching for the herb sack in McLane's hand when she caught sight of the message updating above his head with fresh content — and her eyes went wide all over again.

"No, I'll carry it. It's heavier than it looks, so I'll take it... What's the matter? Is there something up there?"

"N-no, nothing at all. There was just a huge bug flying around up there. Shall we head back, then?"

Natalie flapped her hands at the empty air like someone genuinely shooing away gnats, then finally turned around, as if to say the coast was clear now. McLane shot her a sidelong glance and a puzzled frown, but she had no spare attention to spare on him. Her mind was already tangled up in the far more pressing question of what course she ought to plot from here on out.

Granted, that course was likely to diverge quite sharply from whatever the man himself was thinking.

Unlike the blurry, half-formed text that had first appeared, this time she'd been able to make out almost every word of the notification. And that wasn't all. The content, every last line of it, had been announcing her own favorability rating and the rise and fall of that number.

Which meant she had no choice but to interpret those system messages as divine revelation from the system itself: raise the characters' favorability ratings and prepare your ending.

And all she'd confirmed so far was McLane's rating, of all people's.

Of course, it was possible such a message only appeared because McLane was the male lead of How to Marry the Hero of the Century. But it was equally hard to abandon the hope that, once she got back, she might find favorability messages of a similar shape floating above the other members' heads too.

For now, she had no way of knowing whether a 2% increase — the jump McLane had shown — counted as large or small, or whether a rating of 12% was even high enough to justify squaring her shoulders and hunting for a romantic ending all over again.

And if someone did turn up with a higher rating than McLane's... would it really be fine to swap out the male lead? Would it be all right to let this man escape in his own way? A vague unease settled over her, and Natalie stole a glance at McLane. Whether he felt her gaze or not, he spoke in a low, quiet voice.

"Don't worry too much. You'll find a way out of this place as well. I'll do everything I can to help you."

An oddly gentle word of comfort, so unlike his usual self — and it stirred a strange twinge of guilt in her chest.

She decided it wouldn't be too late to figure out her next move after checking the others' favorability ratings.

With that settled, she finished the departure preparations and made her way back to the crew members waiting for her — and her eyes went round for the second time that day.

Because she spotted the enormous numbers flaunting their presence above the crew's heads.

The first place Natalie's gaze flew was Orlando. No — more precisely, it was toward the favorability rating glittering brilliantly above his head.

Orlando Blythe. Since Natalie had joined the expedition, he was the man who had shown her the warmest manner of anyone, helping her in every way imaginable, materially and otherwise. Fittingly, his rating had soared well past the halfway mark to 54%. Compared to McLane, who had inched up 2% to a measly 12%, the gap wasn't even worth measuring.

The corners of Natalie's mouth curled up in satisfaction.

"Did the errand go well, Miss Pereira? We've finished our departure preparations, completely."

Orlando said it with a refreshing smile, apparently having sensed her gaze resting on him.

She'd always thought him strikingly handsome, but up close he looked positively radiant. The golden hair waving so vivaciously above his brow made his already lovely face seem softer and sweeter still — and then there were those thick, perfectly sculpted eyebrows, drawn as if by an artist's brush, and those blue eyes glowing with the intoxicating depth of the purest sapphires.

It was the kind of face that brought to mind the elven prince from that famous fantasy film she'd watched ages ago. Sure, he leaned more toward the Prince Charming of Cinderella than toward the black-haired northern grand duke who ruled the current rofan male-lead trends — but so what? She honestly suspected that excluding beauty like that from the male-lead shortlist would be a sin in its own right.

"You've worked hard, Vice-Captain Orlando. We've got a generous bundle of herbs too, so all that's left is to get moving."

"Just Orlando, please. I keep telling you."

"Oops, I forgot again. I'll be careful from now on, Orlando."

She answered him with a fond smile, and the rating above his head seemed to glimmer for an instant before a message — unmistakably announcing a change in the number — layered itself over it.

Oh? So favorability goes up this easily? At this rate, I'll blow past 100% in no time.

She was busy schooling her expression so she wouldn't look too delighted when Munash's voice drew her attention this time.

"Should have gone with you. Regret it. Next time, I come too."

"No, I want to come along too, Miss Pereira."

"Yes, let's definitely do that, Mr. Munash. Mr. Muki."

Turning her head, Natalie checked Munash and Muki's ratings one after the other — and was startled all over again.

She'd more or less expected it, but the ratings floating there were still far higher than she'd anticipated. The message had even gone so far as to spell out the full names of the Munash and Muki brothers, which she'd never once heard before. Truly, there was no denying it — a marvelously all-knowing system.

Even as she resolved to be careful never to let slip that she knew their full names, she found it impossible to hide the sudden, swelling richness in her heart.

The truth was, the two brothers had made such an overwhelmingly intense first impression that she had never once considered them as romantic prospects. They had both been consistently warm toward her, but they treated her with such easy, brotherly casualness, and their communication was imperfect at best, so she'd assumed there was no room for anything to develop.

But now that she'd seen their high ratings laid out in plain numbers, she couldn't help the way her thinking shifted after the fact. Their bulging, rippling muscles — inflated almost to the point of caricature — looked like the honest fruit of disciplined training, and their darker skin, deeper than any of the other crew members', seemed to radiate an almost palpable exotic allure.

Her first impression of them, which she'd privately filed away as barbarian warrior, had quietly revised itself somewhere along the way to warrior brimming with untamed charm.

She was standing there, utterly failing to suppress her rising smile, when McLane's command — inexplicably several degrees sharper than usual — rang out across the clearing.

"If everyone's ready, we leave at once. All of you, to your positions."

She barely collected herself in time and started walking toward the carriage — where, in place of Bertel, who had driven on the first day, the taciturn Jorel Hato sat in the driver's seat.

"I'll be driving the carriage today, Miss Pereira. Bertel has already set out ahead for the next waypoint. I'd appreciate your patience until we arrive."

"And I yours, Sir Hato."

Even as she dipped into a polite bow, Natalie's attention was entirely consumed by the space above Jorel Hato's head — by the favorability rating, to be exact.

"You may simply call me Jorel, if you like."

"I will. Thank you, Jorel."

Astonishingly, even Jorel — a man she had scarcely exchanged a dozen words with this whole time — was posting a rating high enough to raise eyebrows. His rate of increase, no less, rivaled Muki's.

At this point, Orlando, the Msamati brothers, and Jorel Hato could all take their places on the male-lead shortlist without a single complaint. She hadn't been able to check Bertel's rating yet, but somehow she doubted his would be any lower than McLane's.

"Move out!"

Inside the rattling carriage, Natalie, making not the slightest effort to hide her curling lips, was absorbed in drafting one hopeful scheme after another.