Chapter 17: Damn It, She’s Coming for Me!

Thus, the moment the black-haired girl appeared before her, Su Na had already guessed who she was. After all, in the Roriman Kingdom, only this girl possessed hair as black as her late mother’s.

Grand Duchess Yulia.

This future Grand Duchess was arguably the most clear-headed woman in the entire novel, a character who would create countless troubles and crises for the protagonist in the future.

This was because her goals were perfectly aligned with the male lead’s: she wanted the entire nation, the entire world!

Logically, a girl as pampered and favored as Yulia should have grown into the standard template of the sheltered, clueless, “silly-sweet” heroine.

Unfortunately, she was anything but. While she was born with a silver spoon, her birth had permanently damaged the health of the Duchess, who was already an older mother, and the Duchess had passed away early.

And since the Rose Duke hadn’t been “hung on the wall” yet, it was obvious he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life mourning his wife. In fact, he quickly found young Yulia a stepmother, who then gave birth to several sons in succession.

At this point, Yulia’s status became rather awkward.

The author never wrote about her childhood experiences, but by the time she officially debuted in the story, she had already legitimately inherited the Rose Duke’s title and was the sole master of the house—and the strongest supporter of the Regent.

Yulia was a woman highly adept at exploiting her advantages; even the Pope himself was her godfather.

When the Regent fell from power after being tormented by the protagonist, it was Yulia who personally sent the Regent to his end, fully absorbing his remnant forces and even swaying half of the Church to her side.

Coupled with the foundation of power the old Duke had cultivated for years, she suppressed the protagonist in every possible way—from personal charm and family influence to ability and background, especially in terms of IQ.

The reason her IQ was emphasized was that in the plot, the male lead had been thoroughly played by Yulia. She had even managed to achieve many goals she couldn’t accomplish on her own by leveraging the protagonist’s influence.

That was why Su Na suspected that the “operator” in the sky might not be human. If the protagonist had been played like a puppet during his growth and accumulation phase, what hope did he have now, when he was currently a total nobody?

Wasn’t sending a character like this over just pure sadism?

The only logical explanation was that Su Na’s “cold-treatment” of the male lead had caused his growth to fall short of the script’s expectations.

Su Na hadn’t abused the protagonist, just ignored him, but that alone had created a bug in the narrative logic. As a result, the system had introduced Yulia—a “plus-sized” version—into the storyline ahead of schedule to force the plot back on track.

Judging from the author’s apology post in a later chapter of the novel, the original Su Na—the “love-addled fool”—had sparked intense protests and verbal wars among the readers when the author wrote her to death.

People are like that sometimes; the original owner’s silly, brainless infatuation was a pitfall for herself, but it benefited the male lead. Readers often had a soft spot for characters who devoted themselves entirely to the protagonist, no matter how “brainless” they were.

Many readers who projected themselves onto the male lead actually enjoyed the plot where a beautiful younger sister showered them with attention.

Furthermore, she had been killed off. How could a childhood friend who was already dead lose?

Forced into a corner, the author had hastily added a new female character with a similar background and personality to the original owner, but “perfected.” As for how the author eventually twisted her character into a “black-bellied” manipulator later on, that was anyone’s guess.

Perhaps he felt the protagonist’s later journey was too smooth and wanted to “torture the fans” a little?

Regardless of the inner workings, the character of Yulia had been sculpted quite successfully. In the later stages of the book, she was the character the readers loved to hate, effectively stabilizing the novel’s metrics.

If the entity above was indeed some sort of machine, it likely only saw these superficial statistics regarding Yulia.

She could perfectly fulfill the duties originally assigned to Su Na, so the plot had naturally shifted to allow Yulia—a character who shouldn’t have appeared until much later—to enter the timeline early and keep the narrative moving.

Watching the two of them interact now, Charlie was smiling radiantly and brightly while speaking of something, and Yulia was covering her mouth and giggling.

Su Na, standing across the crowd, began to smile as well.

Go ahead, be happy. Yulia’s nature was one of extreme arrogance and dominance, yet she was remarkably adept at reading the room. She was a born actress.

In the novel, due to her needs, Yulia had even shared a brief, ambiguous period with the male lead.

Whenever a conflict or argument arose, Yulia would remain gentle on the surface. Even when angry, she wouldn’t shout, scream, or become hysterical, nor would she deliberately pick a fight. Instead, she would make the protagonist suffer in silence, using all sorts of subtle, invisible methods to keep him in perpetual agony.

Although the protagonist had held the dominant position during their “dating” phase, and she had only caused him minor discomfort, her modus operandi had already been clearly established.