A cold, indifferent girl’s voice suddenly tore through the howling night wind. Annabell, who everyone thought was a “tragic heroine forced to compromise,” had somehow ended her meditation and stood up.
Her silver hair danced wildly in the night wind, and in her beautiful face, those red-and-blue heterochromatic eyes blazed with arrogant confidence.
“So what if it’s the old hag’s orders?”
“Even if the world sees him as a good-for-nothing, even if he never casts a single spell in his life…”
“This time, I won’t compromise.”
Annabell looked down at Charlotte, who was dumbstruck by the campfire. “I will never, ever break the engagement!”
The whole crowd erupted! The senior students were so shocked that their jaws nearly dropped into the campfire, and the junior girls shrieked wildly with their hands over their mouths, their eyes filled with fanatical admiration.
In the corner, Charlotte lifted her mud-smeared but beautiful little face in shock.
Looking at the arrogant silver-haired girl on the boulder, Charlotte’s beautiful eyes shimmered with moisture, and she was utterly captivated.
End.
The next morning. After all the new students handed in the low-level demon beast materials required for the training, Annabell, wearing a cold, expressionless face, announced the successful completion of the survival training.
The large group broke camp in a mighty procession and left the Demon Beast Forest, heading back to the Imperial Capital via the Teleportation Array Town at the foot of the mountain.
But in the moment no one was paying attention, Charlotte quietly threw on a cheap invisibility cloak, resolutely turned around, and plunged back into the perilous Demon Beast Forest. On the other side, Annabell made up an excuse and directly left the team.
According to the original game script, at this point she should be under the coercion of the old hag from the academy, ruthlessly marching to Charlotte’s family to go through the “engagement-breaking trope” plot.
Her original plan was to publicly fake the broken engagement, then privately slip Charlotte an expensive “mana reconstruction potion,” thereby first belittling and then uplifting to skyrocket her wife’s affection level.
But plans changed—the butterfly effect caused Charlotte to flash in front of her with residual health, rendering the initial plan completely useless.
However, a blessing in disguise—through her CEO-style declaration last night, she successfully made her stance clear and pulled a massive wave of affection points. Next, naturally, strike while the iron is hot and forcefully cut into the heroine’s hidden dungeon!
‘In the original plot, Charlotte was guided by the pendant into the Demon Beast Forest, was chased by enemies, then met the male lead, and the two fell into the Ancient Secret Realm together, where they bonded through hardship…’ Annabell pondered, stroking her chin.
Now the timeline had changed, and that damn blond male lead hadn’t appeared yet. Since she was the one who saved Charlotte, then this chance to fall off a cliff with her wife, crawl through the woods, and explore a secret realm together should naturally be inherited by her, Annabell!
Fortunately, in that bottle of potion she had tossed to Charlotte last night, she had secretly mixed a trace of her unique ice magic imprint. Although Charlotte, with her Protagonist Halo, couldn’t die even if she courted death, Annabell decided to follow her darkly just in case.
With that decision made, Annabell cast an advanced invisibility art on herself, followed the faint magical trace, and silently pursued deeper into the forest.
After the near-throat-slitting lesson last night, Charlotte was extremely cautious this time entering the forest.
Not only did she wear the invisibility cloak, but she also gritted her teeth and spent her last bit of savings to buy several low-grade “aura concealment scrolls” and a large amount of “demon-repelling powder” from the black market merchant in town.
After confirming that Annabell dared to defy the world for her, Charlotte was determined to seize that opportunity. Succeed or die.
gulp
Swallowing an anti-poison pill, Charlotte pushed aside waist-high bushes. The deeper she went, the thicker the purple miasma in the forest became.
For low-level mages outside, this would only obstruct vision, but for her, who currently had no magic at all, breathing too much of this stuff would send her straight to heaven.
As the path grew more difficult, the flickering of the spirit jade pendant on her chest became faster and faster, and it even started to feel warm.
The “demon-repelling powder” on her helped her safely get through the outer area, but Charlotte knew very well that once she entered the middle region of the forest, this stuff would completely lose its effect.
The mid-tier demon beasts lurking there had very high intelligence and would never fall for such low-grade powder tricks.
Charlotte walked on thin ice through the thorny jungle; every step had to be careful. But… something strange happened.
From the moment she stepped into the warning line of the middle area, she walked for over two hours, but didn’t even see a single Slime, and it was so quiet that there wasn’t even a bird call!
“This… this demon-repelling powder from the black market is actually this effective? It can even keep away 4th-tier demon beasts?” Charlotte looked at the cheap powder bag in her hand, falling into deep self-doubt.
Unable to make sense of it, she could only attribute it all to the protection of heaven and her own ridiculous luck, so she quickened her pace and continued deeper.
However, about two kilometers behind Charlotte, completely unnoticed by her, a magical bombardment comparable to a natural disaster had just subsided.
As a 6th-tier “Earth Demon Bear” as large as a small hill was viciously impaled against a rock wall by a thick frost spear, the icy mist slowly dissipated.
Annabell expressionlessly withdrew her magic staff, gasping for breath. At this moment, the ice princess had not a trace of her usual elegance and nobility.
Her expensive pure-white cloud-patterned mage robes were covered with mud stains and the stinking blood of demon beasts; her once immaculately combed silver hair was now somewhat disheveled, falling over her shoulders.
Although she looked dirt-stained, her red-and-blue dual pupils, filled with killing intent, added a wild and brutal touch. Annabell kicked the obstructive bear corpse aside and gritted her teeth as she massaged her temples.
She calculated: from the time she started tailing Charlotte while invisible until now, in just two short hours, she had killed no fewer than thirty 4th-tier or higher demon beasts!
The Heaven’s Chosen Daughter’s Protagonist Halo was indeed awesome; she always escaped danger. But! The setting of this damn game was too ridiculous!
The protagonist got lucky, but all the disasters were transferred to the nearest supporting character! Like now, the poor Annabell, following behind as a bodyguard, had become a bona fide “patsy” and “taunt MT.”
Not long after entering the forest, Charlotte ahead didn’t even step on a twig, but Annabell was blocked by three rogue Dark Mages.
Those blind wanted criminals immediately came up with harsh words: “Yo, little girl, you look pretty fresh. Hand over that valuable space ring and come with us to explore the mysteries of the human body through dark magic, and we’ll spare your life!” Annabell almost laughed in anger.
She waved her hand and cast three “Frozen Tombs” directly, sending them to discuss mysteries in the freezing hell.
After finishing the bandits, next came a group of low-tier Demonized Baboons that seemed to have taken berserker potions. Then came 4th-tier Shadow Wolves, 5th-tier Poison-Tailed Scorpions, 6th-tier Earth Demon Bears…
These demon beasts seemed to collectively suffer from intermittent blindness, ignoring the magic-less Charlotte ahead, but all simultaneously sniffed out the scent and madly charged toward the hidden Annabell behind.
Although these pests didn’t pose a fatal threat to Annabell, many ants could still bite! Going through all this bombardment, her mana had been exhausted to a large extent, and her head was buzzing.
‘I’m so done with this shitty protagonist constitution!’
Annabell washed her face with Cleansing Stream Art, looked at Charlotte’s back as she cautiously made her way ahead, completely unaware, and sighed helplessly.
‘Forget it, she’s the wife I chose. To pull the FLAG, to not be killed for loot by the protagonist… I’ll see this babysitting job through to the end.’