VILLAIN'S HAREM IN OTOME GAME

"Last time I learnt about churches," Eren said, leaning back with an amused smirk, "the wielders of divine light come under the protection of the church. They don’t typically wear a circus mask and hack people into cutlets. So how does an assassin wield high-tier cathedral miracles?"

"None of your damn business, clown," she snapped, her breath catching with another jolt of fatigue. She leaned forward, her amber eyes burning with intensity. "Stop deflecting! How do you know Violet?! Is your team tracking her? Are you planning something against her?! Answer me! If you lay a single finger on her—"

"Whoa, hold your horses, Goldy," Eren chuckled, raising his hands in mock surrender while the cub on his lap chewed happily on his knuckle. "Why on earth would I want to harm her? I have zero hostile intentions toward the girl."

"Then how do you know her name?!"

"If you genuinely want to know who I am," Eren said, his voice dropping into a smooth, leisurely baritone, "you have to pull your own curtain back too."

She gritted her teeth. "Why the hell should I show you anything?!"

"Because it’s only fair," Eren replied, flashing an easy, dazzling grin. "A mutual trade of high-stakes leverage. Tell you what: I give you my word of honor that I won’t reveal your identity to a living soul, so long as you swear the same courtesy for mine."

She glared at him, pure suspicion radiating from her rigid posture. But the desperate need to confirm whether Violet was in imminent mortal danger outweighed every shred of operational caution.

"Fine," she spat, clicking her tongue with venomous disgust. "If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I will slit your throat from ear to ear while you sleep."

Reaching up with trembling hands, she unlatched the leather straps behind her ears.

Clack.

The shattered half of the skull mask came off, dropping onto the floor.

Then she reached up, catching the hem of her hood, and swept the fabric backward.

Blonde hair spilled free in a golden cascade, tumbling over her bruised shoulders. The grime and dried blood smeared across her cheeks couldn’t diminish the breathtaking, ethereal symmetry of her features. High cheekbones, a soft, straight nose, and those blazing amber eyes—she looked like an immaculate painting of a warrior angel, a literal textbook definition of unattainable, classical beauty.

But Eren did not admire it. He had no reason to admire it, even with beautiful girls around him.

But he was shocked.

His heart gave a violent burst against his freshly healed ribs, his blue eyes blowing wide. His spine locked up, a phantom electric shock detonating through every nerve ending in his cerebral cortex.

’WHAT THE ACTUAL UNHOLY FUCK?!’

His mind didn’t just stumble; the entire gears of his sanity ground into powder.

She was Alice.

The chosen saintess candidate. The celestial prodigy of the Holy Church. The absolute, canonical, righteous protagonist of this godforsaken otome-fantasy world.

’Why?! Why the fuck are you here?!’ Eren screamed internally, the panic threatening to bubble out of his throat.

In every single canon route, cutscene, and story branch he had ever memorized, Alice was the quintessential beacon of gentle grace—kind-hearted, compassionate.

She didn’t lead a secret hit squad!

She didn’t snap mercenary throats with her knees! And she definitely shouldn’t even know what The Substance was at this early Chapter of the main storyline!

Yet here she was: covered in blood, spitting teeth, cussing like a dockside sailor, and glaring at him like she was five seconds away from skinning him alive.

"A... Alice?" Eren squeaked, the name slipping past his lips before his brain could engage emergency protocol.

He physically recoiled, leaning so far back against his crate that he nearly tipped over, pointing a trembling, bewildered index finger at her face.

Alice’s brows snapped together, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You... you actually know who I am?"

Eren broke out into a cold sweat, swallowing a massive lump of panic. He forced an awkward, thoroughly unconvincing chuckle, his eyes darting frantically toward the snoring Baron, then to the ceiling, then to his own boots—anywhere but her piercing gaze.

"Uh... nope. Never heard of you. Total shot in the dark. Just guessing popular feminine names," Eren stammered, letting out a weak, desperate cough. "You know what? I suddenly realized. I think we should forget this whole mutual reveal thing. Total mistake. Let’s just pretend we never crossed paths—"

Alice glared at him in deadpan skepticism.

"That earring," Alice murmured, her voice dangerously quiet as she stepped forward, reaching out to his earpiece. "That’s what’s shifting your perspective magic... isn’t it?"

"Wait, hold on, timeout! That is my family heirloom—"

Alice didn’t give a damn about his heirloom.

Moving with ruthless speed, her fingers darted past his guard like vipers. She pinched the cold silver ring and wrenched it sideways with zero regard for his earlobe.

"Ow! Mother—watch the cartilage, you violent brute!" Eren hissed, clapping a hand to his stinging ear.

The microsecond the silver stud tore free, Alice froze.

Her fingers hovered mid-air. Her amber eyes dilated until the pupils were pinpricks, her breath completely abandoning her lungs. Her face went through three distinct shades of paper-white, then flared into incandescent, volcanic crimson.

"You..."

The single word came out as a strangled, squeaking wheeze.

"Hey there, Saintess," Eren managed, offering a pitiful, one-sided grimace that desperately tried to masquerade as his usual dashing smirk. "Fancy meeting you here, right?"

"YOU?!" Alice’s voice shattered into a shriek.

She lunged forward, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him so violently his dark bangs whipped across his forehead.

The Shadow Cat cub decided that the drama unfolding was insufficient entertainment, launched itself to Eren’s lap again, and immediately began batting at Alice’s golden hair. Pawing at the strands, chewing on them, treating her like a particularly attractive climbing post.

Alice didn’t even flinch. Her eyes remained on Eren with intensity.

"Why the fuck are you here? And why the hell are you searching for The Substance?"

Eren raised a brow, his expression shifting from panicked to irritated. "You know, Goldy—sorry, Alice—I’m getting rather tired of this interrogation. You’ve been questioning me since we met. ’Who are you?’ ’What do you want?’ ’Why do you know Violet?’ ’Is that a kitten or a small demon?’ It’s exhausting."

He stood up, dislodging the cub from his lap entirely, and stepped down from the crate to face her properly. The movement made his fresh scars pull, but he ignored the pain, meeting her fury with his own brand of unhinged calm.

"So let’s make this clear," he continued. "Why are you murdering people when you’re supposed to be the Saintess-in-Waiting? The girl who wouldn’t even defend herself when I—when someone was stalking her. The same Alice who never dared talk back when Aria bullied her in the academy corridors. The same Alice who was supposed to be kind, compassionate."

"So tell me. What are you doing here? And how the hell do you know about The Substance? That’s not in your curriculum. That’s not in any book you’ve been assigned. So where did you learn it? Who told you?"