“Leo? What brings you here?”
As they were finishing up, Leo appeared.
The younger warriors shot him envious glances. It was a harmless display of territoriality, not a challenge to protect the tribe’s precious daughter.
After all… Lena and Leo were engaged. This fact had left Leo flabbergasted when he first learned of it. It made him question if this game was designed to be beatable at all.
This scenario was proving to be as troublesome as the last. In Demos Village, Lena had aspired to become a priestess, a path forbidden to married women. Now, he was supposed to make this Lena, who was already betrothed, into a princess.
If he did nothing, he would end up marrying this Lena Einar, leading to that same meaningless ending.
“It’ll just keep repeating… I can’t keep living like this! I have to go back!”
He clung to the memory of Chaeha with all his might.
It had only been a few days since the scenario began, but Minseo’s consciousness was already fading. If he didn't focus, he couldn't recall anything from the modern world.
If this continued, he felt like he would… dissolve. To break free from this cycle of short, meaningless lives, to be neither Leo nor Minseo, he had to make Lena a princess.
“I’ll have to be mean to her and break off the engagement.”
He felt a pang of guilt, but there was no other way.
He couldn't afford to be cruel from the start. He needed to maintain a good enough relationship with Lena to influence her decisions.
He hadn’t figured out the specifics yet, but somehow, he had to bring Lena and the prince together. Then, when they developed a bond strong enough to rely on each other, he would break off the engagement. It was the only solution he could come up with.
He glanced at Lena, who was observing the butchering process.
Perhaps it was due to Leo Dexter’s influence, but he felt a strong attraction towards this Lena Einar.
She was a beauty with a sharp wit and a charmingly boyish short haircut. The way she had pestered him last night, eyes full of warmth, saying, “You’re acting weird, so let’s drink beer together!” with that hilariously flawed logic was simply irresistible.
How could he possibly break up with this Lena? And for the sole purpose of marrying her off to another prince to make her a princess?
The person who designed this game was clearly a sociopathic schizophrenic.
He wanted to reach out and hold her hand, the one standing beside him. He caught himself and clenched his hand into a fist.
They were going to break up anyway. Don’t do anything unnecessary.
As Leo grappled with his inner turmoil, the butchering came to an end.
“Alright, everyone! I’m off with my hubby!”
“…Being single is such a pain.”
“Booo! Go trip on your way home!”
Lena playfully teased the warriors and snuggled up to Leo’s side. His gaze trembled.
***
A few weeks later, the hunting party, led by Dehorman, set out on another expedition.
This time, Lena and Leo joined them. They had both recently come of age, the sun having set on their childhoods.
Reaching adulthood meant they could participate in hunts, and Lena wasn’t about to miss this opportunity.
Leo, not being an Einar tribesman, wasn’t technically qualified to join their hunts. However, his engagement to Lena and Dehorman’s approval granted him a place among them.
The hunting party ascended the mountain, set up camp, and split into smaller groups. Lena, initially full of bravado, quickly deflated. Hunting was far more challenging than she had anticipated.
She pouted, “Leo, when did you learn to hunt? Why are you so good at it?”
For Lena, embarking on her first hunt was like starting from scratch. But Leo, also a novice in her eyes, performed flawlessly, blending seamlessly with the experienced hunters.
Hunting wasn’t just about wielding a sword.
In fact, swordsmanship had little to do with it. Hunting relied heavily on understanding the terrain, predicting animal movements, setting traps, and tracking fleeing prey.
Lena had envisioned herself locked in thrilling combat with ferocious beasts, but such encounters were rare.
If a prey animal managed to escape their traps and arrows, forcing a direct confrontation, the senior warriors would lead the charge, overwhelming it with their combined might.
“I’m just watching and learning,” Leo shrugged, feigning ignorance.
The lessons he’d received from his father in the previous scenario proved invaluable.
While his current father couldn’t compare to the previous one, Leo had grasped the fundamentals. Moreover, the {Hunting} skill he’d acquired from the previous ending had significantly boosted his proficiency.
He could now tie knots with practiced ease, even with his non-dominant hand, and strategically place traps in advantageous locations. He even surprised the other hunters once by accurately predicting a prey animal’s route.
“Hahaha! I chose well, I did. That Noel fellow, useless at hunting, but his son, sharp as an owl!”
Dehorman beamed with pride, and the other warriors no longer underestimated Leo.
Determined to prove herself, Lena pushed herself harder, but she still had a long way to go before mastering the art of hunting.
Over the past few weeks, observing Lena, Leo realized she had a knack for being… adorably clumsy.
She would misplace things constantly, then frantically search for them. She once mixed up two friends’ birthdays, giving a surprise gift to the wrong person.
Even now, the trap she was setting was facing the wrong way. It seemed more likely to catch a hunter than their intended prey.
Leo chuckled inwardly and discreetly fixed the trap for her. She would probably forget she had set it backward and take credit for whatever they caught.
On the way back, Leo packed some snow and threw it at the back of Lena's head, but that was a mistake.
Lena was incredibly good at snowball fights.
One morning, after fueling themselves with a hearty breakfast of organ soup, Lena and Leo set out to check the traps. Leo had gained enough recognition to be paired with Lena for this task.
“Hey, I think there’s something down there.”
“Lena, wait! Don’t go any closer.”
Lena had spotted animal tracks. Large paw prints led down a slope.
“Wow! I found it! Shouldn’t we go down and check it out?”
Leo held Lena back, his excitement curbed by caution. The paw prints descended the slope without any sign of slippage. This meant the creature was either smaller than its footprints suggested or incredibly dangerous.
Rushing in blindly could have disastrous consequences, so Leo decided to inform the rest of the hunting party.
As it turned out, it was a wise decision.
The creature, hunted down by the entire group, turned out to be a “Noguhwaho” a gigantic fox, more monstrous beast than ordinary animal.
Noguhwaho were deceptively agile for their size, making it difficult to gauge their strength from tracks alone. If they had gone down there alone… they would be dead.
Leo had a hunch that this was some sort of {Event}.
At the time, he hadn’t understood the purpose of such an {Event}. The reason became clear as winter drew to a close.
War had broken out.
Man, Leo looks like blindfoldly reading a map with a broken compass. Its hard to pinpoint whats the main goal or raising Lena in order to escape that limbo
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