Chapter 148

Aisys slowly raised her head. Diana’s calm assurance seemed to give her a sliver of hope.

She exhaled deeply, then reached for the laptop on the table.

“Right. What’s the point of panicking? Let’s analyze this.”

She clicked around the screen and looked back at Diana.

“If he’s an S-rank male lead, the first thing we need to check is his net worth, right?”

Diana gave her a skeptical look. “I don’t know if we need to go that far.”

Aisys frowned, determined. “We have to. We can’t use items, we can’t duplicate slots, we only get one shot. You saw the prophecy—this whole disaster was engineered to make us work harder and not get paid. They lured us in with 20 billion, and now they’re locking the gates.”

Her voice cracked, falling back into panic. “We’re doomed.”

“No, we’re not,” Diana said flatly.

“Yes, we are! They disabled every single tool we had to help us choose the S-rank male lead. The devs probably already harvested all the behavioral data they needed. Now they’re just watching us spiral!”

Diana stared at her for a long moment, then spoke, her voice cold enough to stop both of us in our tracks.

“If the system truly wanted to destroy everything, no item would’ve helped.”

It was the calmness that made it scary. Not panic, not sarcasm—just certainty.

She looked down, deep in thought.

Aisys and I glanced at each other, unsettled by the change in her tone. The room went still, save for the dust floating in the afternoon light.

Finally, Diana spoke again.

“I started my timeline from birth. Sixteen years, lived straight through.”

It was the same thing I’d heard before. But hearing it again, in this mood, hit differently.

“When I was sixteen, something happened I wanted to change. So I used a 30-minute time-travel pass and sent it to another user.”

She paused.

“When I came back… the item was gone. Invalidated. I hadn’t even posted the request to transfer it. The timeline reset to the moment I learned about the pass.”

I blinked. “The item disappeared? Why?”

“The AI told me it was an ‘alternate timeline.’ I’d diverged too far.”

Aisys looked just as shocked. “Alternate… timeline?”

“I’ve been in the main timeline since I was twenty,” Diana said. “I can’t alter the past before that. It would affect the world’s central narrative.”

She gave a dry laugh. “They tweak a few small things to make it feel different. But the key plot points? Set in stone. The system won’t let you touch them.”

“But how do you know that’s absolute?” Aisys asked, visibly irritated. “You only tried it a few times.”

Diana didn’t answer right away. She just looked at me.

“The AI doesn’t control the world,” she said softly. “The settings do.”

I didn’t know what to say. Her gaze felt heavier than usual.

Then she smiled—gently, reassuringly.

“That’s why I believe it’s a setting that you choose the S-rank male lead, Daisy. Whether you use an item or not, the outcome won’t change.”

“That’s… just a belief,” Aisys muttered, still not convinced. “We can’t gamble on that.”

“You’re right. We don’t know. But that’s why I believe we can.”

Diana smiled again, and Aisys shuddered.

“That attitude. It seriously doesn’t suit me.”

She turned her focus to the trunk nearby.

“Is the info on Alex and Ellen in there?”

“Yes,” Diana said. Then, playfully, “But wealth isn’t everything. You should also look at knight count, bloodline prestige, and, obviously, the number of women involved.”

She pulled out a few books from the trunk and set them down.

I squinted at them. “Wait… what exactly are we doing right now?”

Diana didn’t answer—just opened one of the books in front of me.

Thud.

“Elren Aistars Kaield. Total assets: 230 million gold.”

She sat back with a shrug. “When Alex formed the expeditionary force, the vassals investigated everyone. That data’s still around.”

She tapped the trunk once. “Never thought I’d use it like this. Funny, huh? Maybe we really are destined to find the S-rank male lead.”

Diana elbowed Aisys, who brushed her off with a sigh.

“Okay, okay. Pull up Alex’s asset report.”

As they worked, I stared blankly at the pile of books.

It was absurd.

These two were casually discussing hundreds of millions in gold, plotting as if choosing the right bachelor would save the world.

Aisys showed me the screen of her laptop.

“Ellen’s total assets: 236 million. Alex’s: 4.8 billion. He’s in a different league.”

Diana nodded. “The Autumn Kingdom’s currently the richest nation. It makes sense.”

“But the number of women is the real problem,” Aisys added. “Ellen has about 217 potential entanglements. Alex has 1,324.”

“Excuse me, what?”

Aisys elaborated, completely serious. “That’s counting all noble-born women of marriageable age within Ellen’s territory and everyone he studied with at the academy.”

Diana chimed in with a small laugh. “I’m in that number too.”

“And Alex?”

“Every woman who ever worked in the palace or attended an imperial ball.”

“The female supporting cast count is a serious liability,” Aisys muttered. “Greater than any stat. They can derail the entire plot.”

Diana nodded. “I saw a post last week—someone’s male lead got hijacked because the original FL showed up halfway through the arc.”

They went on, voices overlapping, crunching data.

Finally, I snapped.

“Why are we analyzing Alex and Ellen? Isn’t this about finding the S-rank male lead?”

Aisys blinked, startled. “Oh. I didn’t explain.”

She looked serious again.

“If you choose the S-rank male lead, you automatically enter the top scenario—rank 1, guaranteed.”

My eyes widened. “So?”

“This game pulls its logic from serialized fiction. Web novel data, basically.”

She pointed at the ranking charts.

“So if that scenario exists… it must’ve once been a bestseller.”

Her eyes gleamed.

“We’re trying to find the male lead of the number-one novel in the database.”

The immersion cynic had officially become the data analyst.