VILLAIN'S HAREM IN OTOME GAME

"Stop treating things as a joke, Volsver!" Seraphina snapped, her red eyes flickering with irritation as she slammed a palm against the table. "Twenty mercenaries don’t just trip over their own boots and shatter their ribcages!"

"Now, now, princess, take a breath," Aria chimed in with a sweet, calming hum, gently resting a hand over the princess’s tensed forearm. "Let’s not execute my fiance for his stupidity. Calm down."

Eren let out an amused chuckle, resting his jaw casually in his palm as he idly stirred his cup with a spoon. The rhythmic clinking of the spoon against the cup seemed to test Seraphina’s remaining patience by the second.

"Alright, jokes aside," Eren murmured, his blue eyes locking onto the white-haired villainess. "Did your private division secure the evidence from the warehouse?"

Seraphina gave a stiff, reluctant nod. "The confiscated crates are locked in the royal research wing under maximum security. My personal alchemical squad ran initial examinations the moment we brought the samples in."

"And?" Aria leaned forward, her golden eyes glittering with curiosity. "What were the results?"

Seraphina let out a heavy, exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose as the grim reality settled. "They’re matching. It is the exact potion that was slipped into my mother’s morning tea weeks ago."

He took a sip of his warm tea, tilting his head slightly. "And what about the people on site? Did that Santa Claus old man running the smuggling ring cough up any useful handler names by your intense interrogation?"

"They were completely blind mediators," Seraphina admitted bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Dead drops, untraceable gold couriers, and zero direct contact with the actual supplier. We squeezed the merchant dry, but the supply chain went entirely dark the moment the raid concluded."

Eren let out a theatrical groan, dramatically slumping his forehead to the table.

"What’s with the dramatic despair, darling?" Aria asked with an amused pout, playfully poking his back with a fingernail. "Disappointed you couldn’t single-handedly solve a conspiracy instantly?"

Eren slowly lifted his head.

"I already anticipated the dead end," Eren muttered, his gaze drifting upward toward the ceiling.

"A syndicate deploying that tier of biological horror isn’t stupid enough to leave paper receipts with a black-market fence. But we are officially on a ticking clock. I want to locate the primary source and eradicate every last drop of that substance."

The blue-haired beauty rested her chin on her fingers, examining the unusually serious expression on her fiancé’s face. "You’ve been remarkably obsessed with erasing this compound from day one, Eren. Did those mysterious ’future visions’ of yours show you something far worse than just a covert plot against Sera’s mother?"

Eren chuckled.

"Maybe."

"I swear to the gods, Volsver," Seraphina growled, her eyes narrowing like she wanna bury him there, "if I have to hear you utter that infuriating ’maybe’ one more time, I’m going to test whether your neck is as durable as those mercenaries’ bones."

Eren immediately threw both hands up in a gesture of surrender, giving an unrepentant, teasing grin that pushed Seraphina’s blood pressure straight into the red zone.

"Peace, Your Highness."

Seraphina gave a long, frustrated hiss, leaning back against the chair and crossing her arms to keep from strangling him. "Fine. Mock all you want, Volsver. But I have a definitive lead on who orchestrated the long plan of assassination against my mother."

"Oh? Do tell," Eren replied, offering an exaggerated look of wide-eyed wonder, playing along despite having the entire game’s lore inside his skull.

"Who else?" Seraphina stated with absolute conviction. "The Second Imperial Consort. The Emperor’s beloved concubine herself."

Aria took a slow, elegant sip of her tea, humming with an unimpressed face. "Honestly... I saw that revelation coming. It is painfully obvious."

"Exactly," Seraphina continued, her red eyes darkening. "If the Empress falls, the rightful owner of the throne is instead that guy. And if the crown princess is framed or broken by the subsequent fallout, the succession defaults entirely to the Second Consort."

"Which neatly clears the path for Prince Theo to ascend the throne without any problem," Aria concluded, swirling her cup.

Eren sipped his lips as he listened to the two brilliant noblewomen construct their imperial conspiracy theory. Well yeah, it’s true according to the game plot since he completed all routes.

But...

"You’re both undeniably sharp," Eren muttered, setting the cup down. "But you’re currently missing a massive hole in your puzzle."

Aria arched a blue brow, leaning forward in intrigue. "And what flaw did our supposedly genius Volsver spot in our reasoning?"

Eren turned his gaze toward the white-haired villainess. "Did you actually interrogate the Second Consort, Princess? Or at least observe her behavior face-to-face?"

"I met with her earlier this morning," Seraphina admitted reluctantly, clicking her tongue. "Entirely unplanned, mind you. My useless half-brother ambushed me and practically dragged me to her morning tea table."

"And?"

Seraphina’s brow furrowed in deep thought.

"Nothing overtly incriminating. She played the gentle, doting mother to perfection. But... she did slip up once. She casually inquired about a specific maid who went missing from my mother’s annex last week. The Consort seemed unusually fixated on confirming the maid’s current whereabouts."

"Well, there you have it," Aria declared with a flick of her wrist. "If the concubine is desperately probing for the status of an interrogated servant, it’s practically a signed confession. She’s covering her tracks."

"Maybe... or maybe not," Eren cut in.

He leaned back.

"You’re falling into the classic trap of proximity bias. Yes, the Second Consort gains massive leverage from the Empress’s demise. Yes, Theo becomes the default heir on paper. But here is the real question you two political prodigies haven’t asked yet: who stands to gain far more from the total, chaotic annihilation of both legitimate throne owners than a mere concubine ever could?"

The question dropped into the quiet dorm room like a lead weight.

A silence descended over the table.

Aria and Seraphina froze in place, their sharp minds instantly jamming on the realization.