Divorcing the Duke to Buy the World

Chapter 88: Smiles Achieved From The Duke: 0/3

A red padlock slammed shut directly over the golden button. The entire screen shifted from a calm blue to a flashing red.

[SYSTEM ERRORS FIXED: INFLATION POLICY ENFORCED! DANGER UPDATE!]

Sorry, what?

Evelina paused.

[Error: Host’s mind rejected the Villainess Vengeance System last night, breaking the power source.]

[Emergency Mode Activated: The System is now powered entirely by Ace’s feelings.]

Evelina stared at the glowing words, completely lost for words. What on earth was this?

[Notice: All your gold and skills are locked up tight. To get your wealth and use special powers, you must directly manipulate Ace’s emotions.]

Before she could even think about how ridiculous this new System update was, she heard a soft groan from the side of the bed.

Ace blinked, and his dark eyes snapped open suddenly.

The exact second he realized Evelina was awake and looking at him, he jumped to his feet so fast that his wooden stool tipped over, crashing loudly onto the rug.

"Evelina!" Ace blurted out, his voice completely rough and hoarse.

He immediately reached for her shoulders.

His hands hovered just an inch away, shaking slightly as if he were terrified she would disappear if he touched her.

"Are you alright? Does your head hurt? I already had the royal physician brought to the estate by force... he must be waiting downstairs!"

...By force?

"I am fine, Your Grace," Evelina replied calmly as she sat up, pulling the blankets to her waist.

The sheer contrast between his panicky face and the flashing red warnings in her vision was giving her a massive headache.

Before Ace could say another word, there was a knock on the door.

"Who?" Evelina turned.

The doors to her bedchamber burst open.

Her head of logistics rushed inside, his face pale and holding a fresh imperial notice.

"Your Grace! Duchess!" the man gasped, completely out of breath. "The city gates... Prince Elian just reinforced the lockdown! He has posted three hundred more imperial guards at the northern transit lines."

The clerk swallowed hard, his hands shaking.

"Our twenty wagons are being forced to turn back into the mud roads. If we don’t bypass them now, the remaining fabric will rot in the damp weather by tonight!"

Ace turned around and reached for his broadsword, which was leaning against her nightstand.

"I’ll take the cavalry and break the gates myself," he said, his voice dropping into a cold whisper that made the temperature in the surroundings drop.

"No," Evelina snapped, her green eyes sharpening, "I already told you, that plays right into his hands."

She looked back up near his head, where a new notification had just popped up right in front of her face.

[URGENT MISSION: The Northern Blockade.]

[To unlock the Premium Skill: ’Border Pass’ and safely sneak your twenty wagons past the imperial guards, Host must satisfy the System core.]

Evelina waited for a standard challenge, that she had grown familiar with. But the text typed itself out in a cheery font that made her blood run cold.

[SYSTEM ULTIMATUM. Host has two choices:]

[Option A: Make the brooding Duke smile three (3) times in the next two hours.]

[Option B: Go to the capital gates and publicly insult the Crown Prince’s fashion sense in front of his army.]

[Time Remaining: 01:59:59]

Evelina sat frozen in her bed, her mind completely blank.

Make Ace Alvarez smile? Three times? In two hours?

The man hadn’t smiled a single time in her previous life, and in this life, he only looked at her with the kind of emotions that changed like weather itself.

He was a human thunderstorm, completely unpredictable. At times, his range of emotions confused her too, so she shut her heart and didn’t pay attention to it.

And Option B was even worse.

If she went to the gates and told the future emperor of the realm that his gold-lined cloak looked ridiculous, she would be thrown into the dungeon for treason before she could even collect her profits.

She was technically one of the wealthiest woman in the capital right now with about sixty thousand gold coins sitting in her hands just like that, yet she was completely trapped by a System that had suddenly decided to run on her husband’s emotional state.

"Evelina?" Ace asked, noticing her long, silent stare directed at his head.

He stepped closer, his fierce voice softening into that awkward rumble again as he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Why are you looking at my head, and not my face? Did the smoke affect your eyes?"

"_"

Evelina slowly turned her head to look at him.

His face was streaked with black soot, his hair was a messy disaster, and he looked ready to go start a civil war just to protect her linen trade.

He was the most intimidating, serious man she had known in both her lives, in the entire empire.

One hour and fifty-nine minutes, her mind raced.

"Your Grace," Evelina inhaled a deep breath, her green eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at his rigid jaw, "Sit back down. We need to talk about agriculture."

Ace blinked, "Agri... culture?" He looked completely lost.

The most feared military commander in the empire, a man who could terrify hardened generals with a single glare, stood frozen by the side of her bed. His large hand was still hovering awkwardly in the air, his fingers trembling slightly.

"Agriculture?" Ace repeated, his voice dropping into a low tone of sheer confusion, "You just woke up from a collapse. The capital warehouses are in ashes, and Elian’s guards are blocking our transport lines. Why are we talking about agriculture?"

"Because I asked you to," Evelina deadpanned.

Behind her calm expression, her eyes were locked onto the floating text hovering right above his messy hair.

[Time Remaining: 01:58:42]

[Duke’s Current Mood: Utterly Un-amused]

[Smiles Achieved: 0/3]

She had less than two hours. If she couldn’t make this walking thunderstorm of a man smile three times, her twenty supply wagons would rot in the mud roads.