VILLAIN'S HAREM IN OTOME GAME

Empress Rosalie walked gracefully in the private wing’s corridor.

Her eyes distant as she absently traced the ring her finger. That boy’s insolent, smooth words still echoed in her mind.

’Youthful radiance that easily eclipses her daughter...’

What kind of unhinged, suicidal young nobleman walked into the imperial palace, stood beside an beauty like Aria Reedings, and had the audacity to flirt with a half-forgotten empress? Men in this court only looked upon her with either cold disdain, calculating pity, or treacherous ambition. No one looked at her as a woman—let alone dared to voice it with a devilish grin.

"Emily," Rosalie murmured. "What do you know of that Volsver heir? And why on earth did the daughter of House Reedings sever her long-standing, prestigious betrothal with Angulas heir just to leash herself to that boy?"

Emily kept pace half a step behind her.

"The official dossiers painted Eren Volsver as a thoroughly worthless delinquent until barely a few months ago, Your Majesty," Emily reported dutifully, her tone straight. "He possessed zero ambition, negligible skills, and was famous for persistently stalking and harassing Lady Alice, the candidate for the Holy Saintess. However..."

"However?" Rosalie prompted, pausing her step.

"The intelligence reports shift following his sudden life-or-death duel against Reinhardt," Emily continued, a genuine bewilderment in her voice.

"He survived impossible odds, dismantled the golden boy, and completely reinvented his conduct overnight. He has since demonstrated terrifying physical martial arts, cured his little sister from mana disease, and got engaged to Aria Reedings."

Rosalie’s red eyes narrowed in cold slits, her lips curling in bitterness.

"A sudden awakening of hidden genius? Or a manipulative viper shedding its skin?" the Empress whispered, years of trauma hardening her voice. "He speaks with silver poison. If that boy is whispering delusions of grandeur into Seraphina’s ear, feeding her false promises of the throne just to use my daughter as a political stepping stone..."

She clicked her tongue in disgust, turning toward her room.

"Keep strict surveillance on every move he makes within these grounds."

***

"What do we do about the note, then?" Seraphina asked, her voice dropping into murmur as the door shut behind them.

They’re at the secluded outpost hidden deep within the palace’s western woods. The narrow corridor led straight into the underground. It was Seraphina’s personal base where the she hid the messy secrets.

Eren kept a lazy pace between the two women.

He glanced sideways at the Princess. "Your four trusted knights know what’s in Her Majesty’s tea?"

"Not a soul," Seraphina insisted flatly. "I wouldn’t risk her life on a gamble."

"Then relax," Eren replied with a slow, easy roll of his shoulders. "We leave the note issue for now."

Aria scoffed in disbelief, grabbing his sleeve to halt his steps. "Leave it aside?! Eren, someone out there might knew about The Substance and Empress condition! How on earth do you casually dismiss that?!"

"Because whoever slipped that note clearly wants the exact same thing we do," Eren said, his lips curling into a knowing smirk. "They want the Queen kept alive."

Seraphina stared at his calm face, completely bewildered by his lack of self-preservation. "And who was that guardian angel to a powerless empress?"

Eren looked at the silver-haired princess, a glint sparking in his blue eyes.

"Someone like me," Eren murmured with a chuckle. "Just... significantly less unhinged and knows about the future."

The moment the words slipped past his lips, Eren casually turned on his heel, resuming his stroll down the torchlit corridor as if he had just made a passing remark about weather.

Behind him, both women remained frozen in place like exquisite marble statues, their jaws parted in identical, unflattering stun-locks. The torchlight flickered over Aria’s disbelieving golden eyes and Seraphina’s wide, trembling red gaze.

Eren paused, glancing over his shoulder with an innocent expression.

"What’s with the synchronized dramatic pause, ladies? We have an underground syndicate boss to quiz. Did someone drop a hairpin?"

The sound of his voice snapped the silver-haired princess straight out of her stupor.

Furious, the silver haired closed the distance, grabbing Eren’s collar, slamming him against the dungeon wall.

"How can you expect us to stay calm?!" Seraphina hissed. "You just casually dropped that there’s another person out there who knows the future! How is that even fundamentally possible?! Who are they?!"

Eren didn’t flinch. He leaned against the stone blocks as he offered a infuriating shrug.

"Who knows, Princess? It was a deduction. Whoever sent that letter specifically flagged Her Majesty’s tea. They knew about The Substance, and more importantly, they clearly knew the catastrophic domino effect that follows if tea was unchecked. They want to prevent it."

Seraphina’s crimson eyes narrowed, her knuckles twisted his collar tighter, her voice trembling with raw, suffocating dread.

"And what exactly is this catastrophic domino effect, Eren? What happens if we don’t stop it?! My mother gets framed and ends up on the execution block... is that it?!"

Beside them, Aria rushed forward, her hands hovering nervously between them. "Sera, stop! Let him breathe! Choking him won’t give us answers—"

"No, Aria. Let her ask," Eren murmured, his voice suddenly losing its mocking playfulness.

His gaze deepened, heavy, and piercing that Seraphina’s breath caught in her throat.

He looked down into her fierce, blood-red eyes that burned with a desperate terror she had spent fifteen lonely years hiding behind a wall of frost.

"You think her death on an executioner’s scaffold is the worst outcome, Seraphina?" Eren asked, his voice barely a whisper. "It’s so much worse."

Seraphina’s grip on his coat loosened by a fraction, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"Her Majesty dies, carrying her love for you straight into the grave. You find her hidden letters after she dies. The grief doesn’t make you cry—it completely shatters whatever humanity you had left. You abandon the imperial duties. You become the continent’s most feared, blood-soaked villainess, slaughtering half the population until you’re finally put down like a beast by Saintess Alice."

Aria’s golden eyes shrank, her hands dropping to her sides as a shiver crawled down her spine.

"And you drag the people who love you straight down into the abyss with you. My Aria meets her own bitter end right beside you."

Eren leaned down, his face closing the distance until his dark blue eyes bore directly into the trembling crimson eyes.

"And do you know the punchline to that tragedy, Princess?" Eren whispered.

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