There were moments in life that defied all sense.

Leon had first realized that truth on the surreal day he transmigrated into this world.

The second time the realization hit him was when he was brutally forced to relive countless, agonizing regressions—each one ending in a failure that no amount of his planning could prevent.

The third time was today.

“Um…”

Leon stared blankly into the wide golden eyes fixed intently on his face.

Across the desk sat the very girl he had traveled across the continent with the explicit intention to kill.

Seraphina rested her hands neatly on her knees, her back completely straight as she looked at him.

And by looking, she truly was looking at him.

There was no trace of malice, bloodlust, or madness lurking within her gaze.

Instead, her eyes were filled with an intense, unblinking curiosity, accompanied by an emotion he could not immediately define—something close to childlike excitement.

The circle of maids surrounding her seat wore displeased and anxious expressions, as if they themselves did not fully comprehend why they had been dragged into this.

Between them stood an awkward, sweating Harold, looking just as out of place.

Leon shot him a questioning glance, but Harold merely lowered his head, a sigh escaping him as though silently accepting that nothing could be done to control the situation.

A long sigh slipped past Leon’s own lips.

‘How did it come to this again?’

◈—◈—◈—◈—◈

[ An Hour Ago ]

“My Lady, please, I beg of you to eat—Ack!”

Seraphina struck the silver tray aside without hesitation.

“Leave.”

Her glare was sharp and lethal enough to make the maids flinch.

Unfortunately for the servants, the Head Maid, Veri, had been called away to assist the elder sons, leaving the rest of the staff to handle this terrifying situation completely alone.

“My Lady, please, you must…”

Another maid stepped forward with trembling hands, holding a fresh tray.

This had become a routine. Expecting her to discard the food violently, they had prepared several duplicate trays in advance, desperately hoping that at least one meal would successfully reach her stomach.

It did not.

Clatter—!

The second tray crashed loudly against the floorboards.

“I will not consume a single bite until I meet that person!”

Her voice carried across the entire room.

“My Lady…”

The maids exchanged uncertain and panicked looks.

“Who exactly are you referring to?”

“The man with the blue eyes!”

She raised her voice, her small fists clenching.

But aside from the anger vibrating in her tone, her words made absolutely no sense to them.

“My Lady, we do not know of anyone matching—”

“I just told you who he is!”

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Another set of porcelain and silver crashed violently to the ground.

The tension within the bedchambers tightened to a suffocating degree.

The Duke had issued strict orders that the Lady must be fed, but simply approaching her was a life-threatening hazard.

Even in her current, starved state, her physical strength remained far from ordinary.

If she truly intended to slaughter them, she possessed the capability to do so before the guards could blink.

Unlike the Head Maid, who acted freely under the direct protection of the Elder Sons, these common servants did not dare cross the line into physical abuse.

Speaking behind her back in the safety of the corridors was one thing.

Facing her directly was another matter entirely.

And yet, something had changed.

Before the 'incident', Seraphina had never been this openly and aggressively defiant.

She had always endured in silent compliance.

Now, she refused food entirely, lashed out without a second thought, and spoke with a hostility that unsettled their very souls.

What exactly had the Duke done to her during that closed-door correction?

No, more significantly, just why did the Master feel the sudden need to punish the Lady so severely in the first place?

“My Lady…”

The maids exchanged glances once more, a resolve settling into their eyes.

They were terrified of her, but they could not afford to fail.

The worst the Lady would do was physically injure them in a fit of rage.

The Duke, on the other hand…

They collectively shuddered.

He would most definitely execute them for incompetence.

One by one, the servants stepped forward, forming a restrictive circle around her bed.

Seraphina realized their intent almost immediately, but her weakened, malnourished body could not respond fast enough to evade the trap.

Before she could muster to resist, four maids desperately seized her arms and legs, pinning her to the mattress.

“My Lady, we are deeply, deeply sorry!”

They struggled with everything they had to keep her flailing frame in place.

“Let… go of me…”

Her voice dropped to an icy coldness that froze the blood in their veins.

“I said I will not eat a single thing until I see that person!”

One of the trembling maids hurriedly lifted a silver spoon with shaking hands, scooping up a portion of porridge.

“Please, forgive our insolence—just a single bite—”

They tried to force her mouth open.

Seraphina clenched her teeth tightly, twisting her torso against their grips, completely ignoring the painful strain on her own muscles.

“Stop this primitive display at once.”

The singular command cut through the chaos of the room like a blade.

Everything instantly stilled.

Harold stood at the threshold of the doorway, his monocle gleaming in the dim light.

A wave of relief washed over the maids’ pale faces as they immediately released her limbs and scrambled backward, bowing deeply.

“Sir Harold, the Lady adamantly refuses to cooperate,” one of them explained in a panicked rush.

The butler did not answer right away. His sharp gaze settled on Seraphina, who remained coiled and tense on the bed even after being released.

“My Lady,” he said as he approached the bedside, his tone measured. “Are you well?”

She offered no response.

Instead, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and attempted to walk right past his frame.

Harold smoothly reached out an arm, stopping her advance.

“My Lady, you must take sustenance. Your internal condition is already highly unstable due to recent events. If this starvation continues, it will worsen.”

She tried to aggressively pull her arm free, but the butler's grip held firm.

“A weakened physical body cannot properly sustain your high-density energies without severe side effects,” Harold insisted, his voice dropping. “If it deteriorates further, the internal pressure will harm your core.”

“I do not care.”

Her voice was sharp, cutting through his logic.

“I will not eat until I meet that person.”

Harold paused, his eyes narrowing slightly behind his lens.

“That person?”

“The man with the blue eyes.”

For a brief millisecond, a flash of recognition flickered across the butler's expression.

The Serpentine Escort Knight.

Before Harold could respond to her demand, Seraphina pulled her arm free from his grasp and sprinted straight past him into the corridor.

“My Lady—!”

Harold spun on his heel, but her red hair had already vanished.

The maids scrambled after her in panic, and Harold followed at a rapid pace, his expression tightening as he realized where she was headed.

◈—◈—◈—◈—◈

And that was how things had led to this.

Leon sat behind the desk, his mind working at maximum capacity to logically process the situation.

Seraphina continued to stare directly into his face, her golden eyes completely unwavering, as if she had finally discovered the exact prize she had been hunting for a lifetime.

‘This is confusing…’

In every single iteration he remembered, she had never once behaved like this. The mystery of the "Special Route" aside, the only explanation his mind could concoct was that this was how she originally was before the official game broke her completely.

If that theory held, then a question remained.

‘Has she always been this completely unhinged?’

He considered the thought seriously.

If this was her original personality, then the obsessive tendencies and personality associated with her eventual Yandere trait were not something new, but a direct and amplified extension of what already existed within her psyche.

Still, that didn't fully explain her current state of physical degradation.

Harold had mentioned to him that, for certain "classified family reasons," she had flatly refused to eat for over a month, and that the prolonged starvation had likely affected her mental stability.

That sentence alone was absurd.

Not eating for an entire month?

The butler had also insisted that she wasn't usually like this, and that she normally carried herself as a refined noble lady.

Whatever had happened had clearly pushed her over the edge into an open defiance.

A high noble starving herself to this extent was not normal.

There was something wrong with this family.

More importantly, Leon needed to understand what had triggered this behavior in the first place.

But that wasn't his immediate problem.

Staaaare—

She was still staring intensely.

The silence stretched between them as her gold pupils remained locked onto his.

It was unbroken and unwavering.

Leon suddenly felt the need to speak, or he had a feeling she would keep performing this silent staring contest until the sun went down.

‘But what should I even say to her?’

A standard introduction?

The last attempt in the Duke's office had already ended in disaster, and repeating it seemed unwise.

He had zero intention of dealing with her bursting into a fit of tears for a second time.

Once was enough; twice would become a curse.

‘Then… perhaps directness is the best path forward.’

Leon slowly parted his lips to speak.

Seraphina noticed the micro-movement instantly, her posture and attention sharpening as if she had been waiting for that exact millisecond.

“Lady Seraphina, is there something you require from my end?”

Leon’s gaze traveled slowly from the floor beneath his boots, up to the desk dividing them, and finally settled onto her face.

The expression that met him caught him off guard.

Her pale face was entirely flushed.

Not a light and delicate flush, but a deep, radiating crimson, as though heat had suddenly flooded her skin all at once.

It looked as if the phoenixes of the Armathorne had brushed their feathers against her cheeks.

Leon tilted his head slightly, his brow furrowing.

‘Is she sick somewhere?’

It would make sense given her month-long fast.

Although the massive stores of aether and mana swirling within her body could sustain her for years without food, that survival mechanism came at a severe cost.

It gradually rotted the mind and weakened the body over time.

For someone who had neglected sustenance for thirty days, she didn't look nearly as emaciated as a normal human should.

At most, she resembled a knight who had missed a week of rations.

Even so, individuals like Seraphina—and even the Hero of the game—who possessed vast pools of energy required specific, Unity-Grade meals to properly regulate their internal balance.

For someone of her standing to neglect that for so long was reckless.

It made him wonder what could have driven her to such an extreme.

Leon studied her features in silence, but he still could not tell what she was thinking.

Fortunately, unlike last time, she didn't burst into tears the moment he initiated contact.

So, perhaps that counted as progress.

‘Perhaps… she is only mentally unstable during specific hours of the day.’

He watched with interest as she began to anxiously fidget with her fingers in her lap, completely refusing to break eye contact.

Then, slowly, she turned her head away from his gaze, her lower lip visibly quivering.

‘That's not good… she's shaking.’

Leon noted as her entire upper frame began to tremble.

‘She must be really starving…’

Enough that not even a word has come out of her mouth yet.

“Lady Seraphina…”

Harold stepped forward, his tone filled with expectation.

“Now that you have met with Young Master Leon as requested, will you finally allow us to serve your meal?”

Leon watched as Seraphina remained turned to the side, completely still, offering zero response to the butler's plea.

A full minute of silence passed before she finally made a move, the flush on her face deepening into a crimson that reached her ears.

Leon's attention instantly sharpened as her quivering lips finally parted.

“I…”

She hesitated, her fingers locking together tightly.

“I want…”

“What is it, my Lady?”

Harold and the maids simultaneously leaned in at once, their expressions tense with expectation.

Leon did the same, waiting to hear her first response.

“I… want…”

Her fingers fidgeted even more in her lap as she stole a fleeting glance at him, the heat in her face reaching a boiling point.

Then, she shut her eyes tightly and forced the words out of her throat with everything she had.

“I… want… to be fed… by that man!”

For a fraction of a second, it felt as though a high-tier explosive had detonated directly inside Leon’s brain.

His thoughts went completely blank.

“…Eh?”