...oh... oh, dear...

"Oh, you didn't? And here I thought you have it all figured out, mister secretive~"

Melinda's raised her brow and snickered teasingly.

"Level 15 against level 1… would one little defenseless noble lady even be able to get away from someone so much stronger than her? You speak about me realizing my role and whatnot, but when I do act, you get all huffy and puffy~"

"...!"

She added, and the intensity of her sharp eyes made the monstrous servant tense up, unable to guess where she was going with her point.

"...what does the difference in our levels have to do with anything...? System restrictions or not, I will not harm you."

Zane shook his head, not realizing that he was walking right into the route the gold-haired girl chose.

"You suggested that we should just run away, didn't you?"

Melinda gave him a prolonged upward glance before leaning back and spreading her arms open towards him in an inviting gesture.

"If you will disagree with me anyway, why not have your way?"

"!!!"

The gold-haired girl declared with a lovely smile that didn't match her voice at all, which worked on the black-haired monstrous servant like a bucket of ice-cold water.

"...this look in your eyes... You look like a lost child, Zane. After all, maybe it is you who has a hard time being turned into a human and having access to all emotions instead of them being fed to you by the script?"

"How did you...!?"

Melinda lowered her arms and instead closed the distance between her and Zane, stopping mere inches away from him and straining her neck to look at his pale face.

While the monstrous servant was trying to find the right words, the girl blinked and lowered her gaze a bit, struck by a sudden reflection.

Zane's hight...

His ability... more accurately, accoeding to the lore his royal-type ability came to be because of the inhuman experiments Zane was subjected to in early childhood after getting kidnapped by demon worshippers.

Such backstory worked perfectly for the AI character, after all after experiencing something like that it was expected from the character to not act completely human so every imperfection of the program ended up enhancing the facade and making it more real in the eyes of the audience.

But now?

Imperfect AI turning into a broken human...

"..."

Melinda looked at her hand that she began to subcosciously reach towards Zane.

A few choices formed in her mind.

...wouldn't... wouldn't it feel best if Zane confessed to her and showed his love after he gained humanity?

And, although the girl wasn't sure whether she had it in her to stay away from the easy lovey-dovey path, her heart told her that the more difficult path would be the more rewarding one.

Such doubts were a bit amusing - having the ability or not, that is.

After all, in a world where the inborn abilities are far more important than levels, Melinda's was a case of said ability never manifesting itself, even though - or rather especially because - she belonged to the noble house most famous for the ability of their bloodline.

Gargantuan.

The ridiculous ability that elevated the basic stats of a character into orbit.

For Brynhild Fenrioette, the buff of his variation of Gargantuan was said to be spread out equally between his strength, vitality, and defense - with the rest of his stats receiving no effect, making him a pure physical juggernaut.

For Lazurii Fenrioette, only two stats were affected. Mana capacity and a bit of strength, with no other stat being higher or lower than an average adventurer of the same level, resulting in him being a one-man artillery battery - which made Lazurii the core member of the party that had to be kept alive at all cost during any of the field bosses encounters in the late game…

For Melinda Fenrioette, none of it applied. In the lore, it was suggested as the carrier of the ability, and it was strongly implied that her marriage with the crown prince was ordained because the royal family wished for Gargantuan to be passed on to their next generations.

"I…! I'm sorry…! I didn't mean to say it like that! I... I don't know what is going on with me... That never happened with the code's restrictions…!"

Zane made a troubled expression and stepped back, creating more of a distance between them then it was originally.

"Zane, take your time. I am not going anywhere. Both of us have plenty of time to figure things out... like the emotions you're experiencing. Hopefully, it's jealousy and possessiveness~!"

Melinda backed off too to give Zane even more space, leaning to the side and showing him her most reassuring smile to convey support.

"For now, do you want to go to the library to read some books? I'd say I'm curious about the in-depth workings of this world myself. It seems that common sense from our past world applies in here to some extent... but not completely."

She put up her index finger and pushed her hand toward Zane before slowly turning around to walk away…

"...thank you... are... are you disappointed with me...?"

Zane nodded his head and took a step to follow Melinda, but then slouched and mumbled in a worried voice.

"EH? Me?! In you?! Pffahahaha~! As if that was possible~"

Melinda flinched and turned around with her eyes round from shock before bursting into cheerful laughter and shaking her hand encouragingly, offering it to the monstrous servant.

"Shall we~?"

"Thank you..."

The gold-haired girl smiled brilliantly as the monstrous servant took her hand.

It felt so surreal, so perfect, that it truly felt as if something that was missing has clicked within Melinda's body.

The feeling of finally becoming complete.

With that, the gold-haired girl faced forward and gently moved her hand to lead Zane to the mansion's library.

...and, the next moment...

"...?!?!"

For a moment, Melinda remained blissfully ignorant, but Zane's body was almost ripped apart when the slightest move of the girl's hand made his feet lose contact with the floor...

*WHOOOOOOSH* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WOBULUWUBULUWUBLU* *KGHRRRRRRRR*

Immidately afterwards he became a speeding bullet flying through the hallway, creating so much pressure with his spinning non-aerodynimic body that all the doors and windows he passed ending up blown open by the shockwave.

True, he lost some momentum after he broke through the wall, but he still tumbled across many of the garden's flowerbeds, fully stopping only after digging a twelve-foot-long trench, parallel to the main gate, with his face.

"...eh…?"

Back in the mansion, Melinda let out a dumbfounded gasp, staring after the monstrous servant in the wake of the destruction, as one strand of her slick hair broke free from her slick-back hairstyle and dropped across her face.