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The will of this world seemed to be a lot more 'uncaring' when it came to making the hero take the initiative to 'court' the heroine, but that didn't mean it considered Sylvia worthless.
After all, if Cynthia's words were to be believed, it wouldn't have grown so strong without having successfully consumed a series of 'children of fortune'.
It was just that the overall priority of 'another meal' wasn't as high as compared to its 'lifetime goal', so both the hero and the world will had been mostly 'ignoring' Sylvia.
This had also been the case in the original timeline, at least until Sylvia encountered a 'hidden quest' related to the elven forest, which led her on a long journey deep into the hero's kingdom, where she eventually 'fell for him' naturally.
Unlike then, however, this time Sylvia happened to be in a team, and it wasn't strange for the will to take a roundabout route to rope them all in instead of specifically focusing on the heroine alone.
Of course, Emilia couldn't completely rule out the possibility of having been 'noticed' by the world will. But at least it wasn't able to fully realize what she truly was, or its reaction would have been much more hostile.
Emilia smiled. "I will go give it a try first, okay?"
Regardless of its intentions, she could only deal with this move first.
Danielle and the rest of her teammates frowned, but seeing how the enemy was at such a high level and didn't 'seem hostile', they also realized that ganging up on him might not be the best idea.
Once Emilia was close enough to the bleeding corpse and the floating ghost, his previously unfocused eyes immediately pinned her down, and a ferocious smile formed on his pale face. "Another human… will you submit, or die?"
He didn't even bother introducing himself as the 'Blood Monarch', though the aura around the 'ghost' made it impossible for people to not know that he must have been someone extraordinary.
Emilia, however, just smiled. "Although your excellency's aura is formidable, would you really appreciate a subordinate who submits as soon as they encounter someone stronger?"
It wasn't clear whether she was cleanly rejecting his 'offer' or just offering that she be 'tested' first to prove her worth, but either way, the ghost wasn't very pleased.
"You are the first human in the past thousand years to dare to oppose the will of the Blood Monarch…" He sneered. "I had thousands of sluts who were both stronger and prettier than you waiting for me in my palace every night. Just because I can no longer use my physical form now… you think the likes of you can challenge me?"
The phantom's aura surged, but Emilia wasn't afraid.
If anything, she was desperately trying not to giggle. 'Thousands of years? The hero's soul fragment sure has a rich imagination.'
Of course, it was possible for the world will to have 'implanted' this background in the fragment's psyche.
Suddenly, her expression froze as the phantom floating above the corpse of the 'Blood Monarch' suddenly shot straight into her body, and a strong sense of crisis enveloped her soul.
Cynthia's previous words of reassurance still echoed in her heart, but Emilia didn't dare to be complacent, and quickly focused deep within herself to see what was wrong.
But no matter how she tried… the interference of the game made it impossible for her to check the situation properly. And she couldn't just log out, either, as that short period of vulnerability might be exactly what the soul fragment needs to 'tame' her.
"Don't worry, I got it!"
Emilia couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. 'Alright…'
"Luckily, the fragment was quite unprepared, and once it delivered itself to the door, I was easily able to hijack its consciousness." Cynthia sneered. "But it won't be wise to get rid of it now, or the world will might realize that something is wrong."
Although it was impossible for it to observe everything in either the virtual or the real world at once, Emilia also felt that it was unlikely for the world will to not discover that the fragment it had harvested from the soul of its 'chosen' was suddenly 'lost' just like that.
The raven-haired girl frowned. "I should be able to create a 'dummy' to replace this thing, but… there's no way to be sure that it won't alarm the world will."
Everything outside of Emilia's body was its domain, after all, and the only reason Cynthia had succeeded in trapping the fragment of the hero's soul was because it took the initiative to enter her partner's 'body' on its own, completely abandoning its home advantage.
After the two of them discussed it for a while, Cynthia quickly came up with a solution.
"It's just a fragment of a soul, so there's very little 'identity' inside it. I can let you enter its 'memories' so it can 'sync' with you a little, then it should be possible to 'modify' the instructions it carries without alarming the world will."
Of course, these 'memories' couldn't be 'remembered' by the fragment itself, but were just the 'building blocks' that were extracted from the hero.
Emilia hummed. 'So we'll be putting it back where it was after changing it, so to speak?'
Cynthia smirked. "More like we'll leave the castle and the troops as is, but change the castellan inside. We just need to make sure that you also have the memories that make it work."
Shortly after, the crimson-haired elf felt a pull deep inside her soul, and when she followed her, her vision warped and her sense of balance shifted till she found herself in a 'dream-like' state.
Emilia looked around and realized that she was in some sort of school, and all around her were children who appeared to be primary schoolers.
Nobody seemed to notice or care about her existence, and the boy she was following unconsciously also appeared to be quite unremarkable, except for his sharp green eyes. Emilia quickly inferred that he must be the 'hero', Darryl.
"Why do you like that girl?" Another unremarkable boy who had been following after Darryl snorted, clearly dissatisfied, but the hero just smiled in response.
Soon, Emilia realized that not far from them was a group of girls and boys surrounding two young kids, with one just lowering her head silently while the other one argued loudly against everyone else.
"Even if you want to bully my friend, you have to go through me first!"
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