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Chapter 6
It wasn’t as though they had put any effort into securing it tightly even after writing “Never Open Under Any Circumstances” on the jar; the lid opened easily with just a little force.
“There’s nothing inside…?”
She reached her hand in and rummaged around, even flipping it upside down and shaking it, but the jar was completely empty.
That was when it happened.
Tiling!
Accompanied by a clear notification sound, a rectangular window materialized right before her eyes.
“Ack!”
Startled, Pandora fell backward from her squatting position and landed flat on her bottom.
“Th-This is…!”
“Pandora! What’s going on! Are you okay?”
Hearing her scream, the man rushed over in a single breath and swept her up into his arms, but Pandora was so entranced by the rectangular window obscuring her vision that she couldn’t give any answer.
What on earth is this…! I can’t see a thing…!
It seemed like some text was written on it, but the glare was far too intense.
Pandora grabbed tightly onto the front of the man’s collar and glared at the rectangular window.
“Pandora. This won’t do. Let’s find the painting later, let’s just head to the bed for now.”
“Wait, just a moment.”
“You look injured, you shouldn’t keep overexerting yourself.”
“No, that’s not it… Doctor, by any chance, can you see this?”
“Pardon? See what?”
“This light right here…”
Was it invisible to other people?
She reached out toward the white, hazy glowing rectangular window before her eyes and waved her hand through it. Her small palm passed right through the window without touching it at all.
Pandora rubbed her eyes, stared hard at the window again, blinked to squeeze out a tear, looked again, rolled her eyes up, down, left, and right, and looked once more.
Ugh, damn it!
Talk about an inflexible game. Even if Pandora’s setting was that she was half-blind, would it hurt to make an exception for something like this?
Chewing mentally on <The Guide Love Villain’s to> and “Enchanted Love,” the company that made the game, Pandora closed her eyes and leaned against the man.
“Let’s go to the room.”
Whatever this thing from the jar was, she intended to ignore it.
As if reading Pandora’s apathetic mood, the rectangular window hurriedly reduced the brightness of the light and adjusted the font size.
In addition, some unknown force cleared Pandora’s eyes just a bit.
Oh?
Pandora opened her eyes and finally read the screen that had become visible.
[ The Divine System has been activated. ]
A hidden path has been unlocked through the player’s extreme interference.
[ Select an option ]
Receive the six disasters of the world.
Receive all the gifts of the world.
The choices were… heavily biased.
“What are the six disasters supposed to be, and what on earth does receiving all the gifts mean?”
All she had received were this damn time loop and her frail body…!
Carried in the man’s arms as they climbed the stairs, Pandora pressed option 1.
Seeing her gesture of poking the empty air with her finger, the man glanced down, but Pandora had no spare attention left for anyone else’s gaze.
Because something new had popped up above the rectangular window.
Upon reaching the room, the man set Pandora down on the bed. He hesitated for a moment, muttered just to rest well, and bolted out the door in a hurry.
Pandora reached out her hand, but the man’s escape was faster. This time, the sound of receding leather shoes was distinctly audible.
I still haven’t figured out his identity yet.
Pandora wiggled her fingers regretfully and stared fixedly at the rectangular window.
In the center of the window was a flat, elongated rectangular search bar. When she placed her hand over it, a large typewriter materialized right underneath.
Pandora cautiously tapped the typewriter. The round buttons printed with letters clicked up and down. Letters appeared in the search bar exactly as she pressed them.
“Ohh…!”
Pandora marveled and lifted her finger.
At the upper-left corner of the search bar, a date and time were written, but it was neither June 9th nor the current time.
[ Current Time: Year 2026, August 11, Tuesday, 7:41 PM ]
“This is…”
Time was flowing by at an abnormal speed.
The jar had clearly told her that it granted her the qualification to peek into the “World of the Gods.”
The World of the Gods.
The world of those who created <The Guide Love Villain’s to> and forged Pandora.
So this… was undoubtedly the clock of the gods.
Fascinated, Pandora looked it over and then typed <The Guide Love Villain’s to> into the search bar.
The 71st June 9th dawned.
Pandora had figured out quite a few things over the course of yesterday.
The fact that the first episode of <The Guide Love Villain’s to> began with the red-haired female protagonist Vivian being betrayed by her closest friend and saddled with the false accusation of being a “villainess,” and that in order to easily boost the affinity of the romanceable male leads, users had to spend money—otherwise known as microtransactions.
And that Pandora’s appearance in <The Guide Love Villain’s to> occurred only once, right between Episode 14 and Episode 15.
“So that’s why.”
The reason Pandora’s life could never move forward.
The other NPC characters showed their faces sporadically in each episode, living their lives by surrendering to the flow of time.
However, because Pandora was created solely for the art gallery event, she could never blend into that flow.
“Good morning, Pandora-ssi.”
Right on schedule, at the exact same time, the doctor appeared. Pandora rubbed her dim eyes and stared intently at the doctor.
Was this yesterday’s fake quack? Or was he the real one?
The eyes that had grown considerably clearer when looking at the rectangular window reverted right back to their original state whenever she looked at anything else. So petty.
No. Since it got better and then worse again, it feels like it actually got worse than before. Is it just my imagination?
“Is there no pain in your eyes?”
The doctor asked.
“Has your vision perhaps not grown blurrier than yesterday?”
“I don’t know…”
Her heart dropped with a heavy thud. Had the real doctor returned?
Did she think she had changed something, achieved something, only for all of it to be a futile struggle?
It couldn’t be this anticlimactic.
Mid-sentence, Pandora shut her mouth and just fiddled with her eyes when the doctor stepped up abruptly and asked,
“What’s wrong. Do your eyes hurt?”
“!”
It was the quack.
Pandora waved her hands toward where the voice was coming from. Her fingers brushed against a solid arm covered in muscles.
The man didn’t bat her hand away with displeasure or pull his body back to avoid her.
He just stayed still. Frozen, looking slightly startled.
Playing the piano with her fingertips, Pandora crawled upward over the man’s body.
The shudder running through his massive frame was transmitted directly through her fingertips.
“Pandora-ssi.”
The man caught Pandora by both wrists, bringing her movements to a halt.
The palms wrapping around her wrists were soft and intensely hot.
“Because I can’t see ahead.”
Leaving his hands dangling from her wrists, Pandora traced past her straight collarbones, shoulders, and neck to find his face.
She felt his breath against her fingertips.
I need to remember this face well. So I don’t get confused anymore.
Besides, who knew?
Just because it changed once didn’t mean there was no law saying it couldn’t change a second or third time.
If someone new who was neither a doctor nor a quack kept showing up when she couldn’t even see well in front of her, even someone like her would likely find it hard not to get confused.
“…Can you really not see at all?”
The man asked in a subdued voice.
Her vision was the same as always, but since she could only see a tiny bit in the center while everything on the periphery was a blur anyway, Pandora nodded shamelessly.
Pandora’s fingertips traced the man’s jaw and cheeks, then brushed against his glasses. Carefully removing the man’s glasses and setting them down to the side, Pandora raised her hands again.
Her fingers swept down his eyelids, his straight brow ridge, and his bridge of the nose in sequence. Past the tip of his nose, over the philtrum, and finally to his lips.
Even without seeing them clearly, she could tell just how pretty the shape of his lips was, with their clearly defined cupid’s bow and plump fullness.
When Pandora’s fingertips lingered a little too long on his lips, the breath of the man, who had been sitting quietly while leaving his face to her, came to a dead halt. His thick adam’s apple bobbed heavily.
Pandora let out a small chuckle.
“Doctor. I had no idea you were such a handsome person.”
It was a sculpted face.
With pretty violet eyes.
She wished her eyes would clear up. She wanted to observe him in detail with clear eyes and capture him on canvas.
Pandora felt the skin beneath her hands grow a little warmer.
Was he running a fever?
Fascinatedly, whenever they touched, this person was always as cozy and warm as a heater.
His lips were hot, too.
Pandora pondered, enjoying his temperature.
“If I reveal that I know you aren’t a doctor… will he try to run away?”
She didn’t want that.
This was the first time someone had lent her their side so closely.
He was also the first person who didn’t rush her daily routine, instead checking on her condition and worrying about her.
After all, Anna the maid had forced her onto a carriage and sent her off to the exhibition even when Pandora had injured her leg so badly she could barely stand.
Don’t game characters even have human rights?!
Suddenly feeling aggrieved, Pandora applied strength to her hands and accidentally pinched the man’s cheek.
“Ah.”
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
As she quickly pulled her hand back, a sudden curiosity struck her.
This person was a “fake.” It was practically equivalent to a bug in the game, so then… unlike the real doctor, might he remember yesterday’s “today”?
Before the man could grab his medicine and leave, Pandora urgently grabbed the collar of his clothes and clung to him.
“Doctor. Did Anna happen to find my cat painting?”
Whether he said yes, no, or that he didn’t really know, it would mean he definitely retained his memories.
However, the man shattered Pandora’s expectations.
“Pardon…? A cat painting?”
Because he asked it back with a completely clueless face.
