Chapter 181: Unexpected Ally in This World (2)
After that, Lovia began recounting everything she had done from the very moment she transmigrated into the novel.
Unlike Yuzuki, who had ended up inside the body of a nameless extra and an ordinary commoner, Lovia had awakened within the body of someone far more important.
Princess Lovia Von Saintinac.
A member of the royal family.
A key side character within the story itself.
In the original novel, the princess had been afflicted by a mysterious illness ever since she was seven years old.
An illness secretly orchestrated by the demons.
After discovering her abnormally high affinity for light magic, the demons had infiltrated the royal palace by disguising one of their own as a servant attending to the princess personally.
Day after day, that servant mixed a corrupted substance into her meals.
A slow poison.
Not one that targeted her life directly, but her Spellcore itself. The poison damaged her Spellcore and slowly ruined her mana pathways each day.
As the years passed, her body became weaker and more fragile, leaving her in pain all the time no matter how much the royal healers tried to cure her.
However, after encountering Zian at Wellencrest, the two gradually became very close. When Zian learned about Lovia’s condition, he decided to help her find a way to cure her illness.
With the assistance of several scholars and researchers, they eventually managed to uncover both the cause of the disease and the possible cure for it.
The cure, however, was not something easy for someone like Lovia to obtain.
To create it, they needed a rare mushroom known as the Lunacryss — a special type of mushroom that could only be found deep inside a dungeon.
To be exact, the mushroom could be found in almost any low-scale dungeon, so obtaining it was never considered a particularly difficult task for Zian.
And based on the original novel’s events, Duchess simply followed that same method after transmigrating into the story.
The only difference was that she skipped the entire research process.
There was no need for it in the first place.
As a proofreader who already knew the plot, she was fully aware of both the cause of the illness and its cure from the very beginning.
The only thing she truly needed was someone capable of entering the dungeon and retrieving the mushroom for her.
However, she could not carelessly rely on the royal knights.
At that point, she still had no idea which among them had already been replaced by demons disguised as traitors within the palace.
Because of that, she desperately needed Zian’s help. And that was exactly why she chose to save him first — along with his family.
She needed his trust before anything else, after all.
"Alright, so I can assume you’re fully healed now?" Ruvian asked as he sat down on a chair he had pulled in front of the communication device.
Since the conversation was clearly going to take a while, standing the entire time would have been annoying.
"Yup, completely healed now."
"Well. That’s good then." Ruvian nodded lightly before asking another question. "But... is that all you did after transmigrating?"
"Of course not."
Lovia snorted proudly.
"Along the way, I also helped Zian get stronger, helped a few side characters from Wellencrest here and there — and, obviously, collected some relics from dungeons that were originally supposed to belong to Zian."
"Hmm..." Ruvian rested his chin against his hand.
"So how strong is he now?"
Lovia immediately grinned widely.
"Way stronger than he was during the Vazrun Island Arc. At this rate, he might break through to Grand Magus Class pretty soon."
Hearing that, a faint smile slowly appeared on Ruvian’s face.
But then, as if suddenly remembering something important, he looked back toward the Duchess and asked another question.
"By the way, did you also receive the Editorial System? And what relevancy stage are you at now?"
But it was then...
"Editorial System?"
Lovia blinked in confusion before raising one eyebrow and scratching the back of her head with a puzzled look.
"Huh? What’s that? I never heard that before."
’What? She didn’t receive an Editorial System? But... why? She’s also a transmigrator like me. Shouldn’t she have gotten one too?’
Ruvian could not help but wonder about it.
Meanwhile, Lovia leaned closer toward the communication device with a genuinely confused and curious look on her face, her brows raised slightly.
"Hey, explain to me what that is."
’...’
Ruvian let out a small sigh before starting to explain everything about the Editorial System to her, including the various skills and abilities he possessed because of it.
*****
After he finished explaining everything about the system...
"Holy fuck! What the hell is that!?"
Lovia nearly shot up from her seat, eyes sparkling with excitement as she slammed both hands onto the table.
"Those skills are ridiculously useful! Some of them are straight-up fucking overpowered! What do you mean you can increase any character’s stats just by trading points!? That’s such a damn cheat!"
She stared at him with an openly jealous expression, looking more excited than angry.
"But... why are you the only one who got it!?" she complained while puffing her cheeks slightly in disbelief, her lips curling into a childish pout.
"Fuck it, is the author playing favourites here or what? Is it because you already beta-read up to the latest Chapter while I didn’t!?"
Honestly, maybe what the Duchess said was true.
Perhaps it really was because Yuzuki had read further into the novel compared to her.
But then again...
Why would TheCurator bring both of them into this world if only one of them was meant to receive the system?
That simply did not make sense.
After thinking for a moment, Ruvian decided to share something else with her, his expression gradually turning serious once more.
"By the way, Duchess... do you know about Goddess Althea?"
Lovia gave him a slightly puzzled look.
"Erm... yeah, somewhat. Why?"
"I think actually met her — or rather, she appeared before me during my first day after transmigrating. It happened at Evermere Plaza."
"Huh? Seriously?"
Ruvian nodded slowly.
"Yeah. At first, I didn’t know who she was. I thought she was just some kind of performer or street actress or something."
He paused briefly.
"But one thing for sure... I think she was staring directly at me."
For the first time during the conversation, a hint of worry appeared on Ruvian’s face.
"And then... she disappeared without saying anything."
Lovia immediately fell silent as well.
"Well. That’s... weird."
Somehow, she did not like the atmosphere that revelation created.
"Anyway..." she muttered while placing a finger against her chin thoughtfully. "What you’re trying to say is that TheCurator might actually be the Goddess Althea of this world?"
"Haa... Yeah."
Ruvian let out a tired sigh.
"And that she brought the two of us here to save this world?"
Ruvian nodded.
"That... actually does sound plausible. She has always been the weird one in our DiskBox server anyway. When I tried messaging her through DM, it only said the service was unavailable. So the moment I transmigrated, I already had a feeling she could be the reason for it."
Ruvian went completely silent for a while.
"What? You seriously didn’t know? You never tried messaging her privately before?"
"Well... we always talked on the server anyway. Why would I suddenly want to DM her personally?" Ruvian explained.
Lovia stared at him with a stern expression before speaking in a flat tone. "Right... you don’t even reply to my DMs either."
Ruvian let out a fake cough before quickly looking away.
"But whatever. That’s not what we should be focusing on right now. We still need to deal with the upcoming arc... and, more importantly, the looming fate of this world," he said, clearly trying to change the subject.
Lovia then looked at him and smiled faintly.
"Good point. That’s actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you in the first place."
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[Chapter 181: Unexpected Ally in This World (2)
