Another Notification After Dumping Two Heroines (Part 2)
A new divergence is occurring in your worldline.
“A new divergence?”
Kyle had just drifted awake from an afternoon nap when the notification window popped up right before his eyes. More specifically, the chiming alert had jarred him from his slumber in the first place.
‘The last two times, it was “a minor divergence in the worldline”... and now it’s “a new divergence”...’
Perhaps because Veronica was never classified as a heroine in the original novel, no such prompt had appeared when he poached her. Because of that, he had assumed the notifications only triggered when he derailed a heroine’s storyline.
Yet he had done nothing more than enjoy a blissful nap. For a status window to spring up so out of the blue left him blinking in bleary bewilderment.
‘From a minor divergence to a new divergence...’
After turning it over in his mind for roughly twenty minutes, Kyle reached a conclusion.
‘That’s it! Twisting the fates of two heroines caused the butterfly effects to compound! The changes piled up so high that the plot practically turned into an entirely new story. That has to be it.’
He decided the system was merely reacting to his continuous sabotage of the original plot.
‘Is this damn system keeping a meticulous ledger of plot deviations or something?’
Thoroughly satisfied with his own deduction, Kyle’s expression slumped into bored indifference.
“Ah, fuck. It’s nothing after all. Why the hell wake me up over this shit?”
Flop!
Muttering a string of curses under his breath, he collapsed right back onto the mattress and plunged straight into dreamland.
Not only had her betrothal promise been shot down right to her face, but the final stake had been driven deep into any hope for their future relationship.
A few days after returning to the Arden estate, her mother approached her with a worried gaze. “Elena, sweetheart, are you feeling all right?”
“I’m perfectly fine, Mother. Why do you ask?” she answered with a cheerful smile.
“B-but darling... why are your clothes...?”
“Good heavens! W-what on earth is this?!”
In truth, she was catastrophically far from fine. Behold Lady Elena, wandering the corridors of the marquessate with her petticoat waistband pulled completely over her skirt, the undergarment practically swallowing the dress whole.
‘What is wrong with me?’
Only now, after several days had slipped by, did she finally register that something was dreadfully amiss.
Why had this happened? During the carriage ride from the Rosen ducal estate back to the marquessate, an extreme psychological defense mechanism had seized Elena’s mind. How could anyone calmly accept the sensation of the earth she had stood upon for twenty-three years vanishing beneath her feet in a single breath? To ensure her emotional survival, her brain had essentially pulled the master breaker and induced a voluntary blackout. That state of suspended animation had persisted until this very moment.
‘Right. I was rejected after all our promises of betrothal. It’s only natural to suffer some aftereffects. In fact, it’s completely normal. It just proves I’m human.’
Yet there was a limit to how long such a defense mechanism could hold. When you were wandering around the estate with your skirt stuffed inside your bloomers, daily life was rapidly unraveling. Eventually, she had to move forward.
And what is the next stage for someone who has suffered a massive emotional blow? Rationalization. More accurately, it was avoidance without outright denial. She ignored the agonizing core truth she couldn't bear, cherry-picking only the manageable fragments she could swallow to convince herself she was fine.
‘Why? Why did Kyle have to reject me? Honestly, it was so one-sided! Our relationship wasn't supposed to be like that. Kyle and I have twenty-three years of history between us!’
Yet avoidance and evasion inherently mean that the mind remains hyper-fixated on the subject. That fixation breeds inescapable stress, and to resolve that stress, one must ultimately confront it. The problem was that when forced to confront it, hardly anyone possessed the maturity to reflect honestly upon themselves. Most would do exactly what the fuming Elena was doing: point the finger elsewhere.
‘Just look at these! All these letters! Look at how he wrote, as if he were ready to get down on one knee and propose at any moment! Of course I’m devastated! For him to reject me like that... Kyle practically defrauded me!’
Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!
Her blame was not entirely baseless. After all, fault rarely lies entirely with one party. Elena drew courage from spreading out the mountain of sweet, serenading letters Kyle had sent her over the years. To reject their betrothal after writing all this? Kyle was clearly the villain here.
‘I mean... Kyle wasn't wrong when he said I was much more passive than he was...’
Yet for all her tsundere prickliness, Elena was fundamentally a soft-hearted girl. As she lingered over the old letters, Kyle’s stinging rebuke echoed unbidden in her mind: “You only ever saw me as a friend, too.”
‘B-but even so, Kyle went way too far! It was far too unilateral!’
Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!
The rapid infiltration of the self-reflection virus was perilous. It risked triggering another mental collapse, one that could spiral into severe depression. Her defense mechanism frantically blared an emergency alert. Hastily sweeping Kyle’s letters aside, she scrambled to push the blame back onto him.
‘Come to think of it... didn't I tell him I'd write the moment I arrived...?’
Right on cue, the parting promise they had made surfaced in her memory. As Kyle saw her off, Elena had promised that once she reached the marquessate, she would send a letter first.
‘Ugh... I was just so out of sorts... No, it wasn't just that, I was exhausted from pouring all my energy into relief work...’
A sharp pang of conscience stabbed at her chest. And what kind of pang was it? The undeniable sting of having stumbled upon incontrovertible evidence of her own fault. It was true her overactive defense mechanisms had left her in a daze, but to completely erase the promise from her mind? Even she had to admit that wasn't how a woman harboring deep affection for someone behaved.
Even so, she couldn't afford to admit it. Her sanity was hanging by a thread. Elena thrashed in a desperate struggle to avert a total breakdown.
‘Wait a minute. With all this time having passed, Kyle hasn't sent a single letter asking if I arrived safely either, has he?!’
The countermeasure worked like a charm. Like Dr. Jekyll transforming into Mr. Hyde, Elena seamlessly pivoted back to blaming Kyle. Yet shifting the blame carried an agonizing dilemma:
‘Kyle... do you no longer worry about me...? Are you not even curious...?’
It was the agonizing dilemma of having to accept that his feelings had changed.
‘Right! Kyle said he was heading to Salvatore...! He must be swamped with preparations... That’s why... That has to be it...!’
No, she refused to accept it. While it was true Kyle was in the wrong for not writing, the reason could not be that his heart had grown cold! To resolve the dilemma, Elena’s defense mechanism fired up once more, supplying a magnificent pretext: Kyle was simply busy. It wasn't that his feelings had drifted away from Elena; he was merely overwhelmed with work.
‘If he’s busy, I should be understanding. That’s what friends do. I’ll wait for him.’
It was an answer so brilliant she found herself nodding along in self-satisfaction. After all, the bond of friendship was just as profound and precious as romantic love.
‘Besides, if I send a letter first, it would feel like I'm forcing him to write back when he's already swamped. That would only burden him. A true friend would never do that.’
A stroke of genius that spared her the humiliating posture of writing first in such an ambiguous situation. And so, Elena waited for Kyle's letter.
One day passed. Two days passed. Three days passed. Even after an entire week had slipped by...
‘I-it hasn't come...’
The long-awaited, desperately anticipated letter from Kyle never arrived. No inquiry asking if she had arrived safely. No teasing reprimand asking why she hadn't written yet when she was long overdue, forcing him to write first. Nothing.
“...”
Elena stared blankly at the empty postbox.
‘He really must be extraordinarily busy...’
At this point, her psychological defense burrowed so deep into denial it bordered on self-hypnosis.
‘Hah... At this rate, I can hardly justify withholding a letter just to avoid burdening him, can I...?’
What on earth was that even supposed to mean?
‘A real friend checks in and lends strength during difficult times. Betrothal aside, Kyle and I are still each other's dearest friend.’
From “As his friend, I shouldn't burden him” to “As his friend, I must care for him even if it's a slight burden”—such was the dizzying mental gymnastics of Elena's self-hypnotic state.
‘Kyle, you really are a fool. To reject a betrothal with such a thoughtful, considerate friend.’
Sitting down at her writing desk, Elena squared her shoulders with a smug sense of pride. She felt as though she had transformed into an exceptionally deep, magnanimous companion.
‘Now then... Kyle...’
She lifted her pen.
“...”
For roughly twenty seconds, she froze.
‘What am I supposed to write?’
She had no idea how to begin, let alone how to carry the prose forward. Historically, Kyle had almost always been the one to write first, and Elena had merely replied or reacted to his letters. On the rare occasions Elena initiated correspondence, there had always been an ironclad pretext—a notable incident in Kyle's house, a development in her own, or some formal occasion. Writing to him first like this was something she hadn't done since childhood.
‘I can't just scribble whatever pops into my head...’
As a child, she had prattled on cheerfully with nonsensical chatter. But at twenty-three, by the standards of The Swordsman the Young Ladies Are Obsessed With, she was of prime marriageable age. Besides, how could the daughter of a marquess write so frivolously?
‘It's not as if I can write that I missed him...’
In her agonizing deliberations, Elena's true feelings slipped out unbidden. No matter how hard she squirmed, the reality was that she was acting like this simply because she missed Kyle.
‘N-no! Why would I miss him?! I'm just sending a courteous greeting!’
Her cheeks flushed a fiery crimson. Shaking her head vigorously, Elena clamped down on her thoughts. Friends. This was merely an inquiry into a friend's well-being. Nothing more.
‘Then I should simply ask how he's doing... whether his preparations for Salvatore are going smoothly...’
Skrrrt...
After an agonizing struggle, the tip of Elena's pen finally met the paper.
To Kyle...
Yet having written only that single line, she froze.
‘Is this too stiff...?’
It wasn't stiff in the slightest. But to Elena right now, it felt unbearable.
Kyle, how have you been? I arrived safely.
She paused once more.
‘Too casual...’
It wasn't too casual at all. Her own heart was simply too heavy for anything to feel light enough.
To Lord Kyle de Rosen.
‘Ugh... what is this, an official bureaucratic dispatch...?’
Dreadful. She scribbled it out in a flustered hurry.
Thud!
‘How on earth am I supposed to start this...?!’
In the end, Elena slumped forward, burying her face against the desk in utter defeat.
“Sixty men... Honestly, it’s a bit on the low side.”
Ever since the contract was finalized, Big Sis Veronica and Thomas visited the ducal estate nearly every day to share intelligence and coordinate preparations for our departure to Salvatore. Typically, high-ranking nobles wouldn’t deign to meet mercenaries directly; they would delegate such communications to low-ranking retainers. However, to me—the reformed Kyle—the Red Fox Mercenary Corps were not disposable errand boys, but my closest core circle. Direct communication was essential to building mutual trust.
“No matter how rushed we are, we can't just recruit any warm body off the street, Young Master. I won't stand to see my mercenary band run that way.”
“I completely agree, Big Sis. Even if our workload is heavier, a tight-knit, disciplined unit that follows orders is far superior.”
“See? I knew you and I saw eye to eye, Young Master!”
Salvatore required an initial deployment of at least a hundred mercenaries. In the original novel, when Eugene Caesar crossed paths with the Red Fox Mercenaries, that was roughly their size. However, right now, the Red Fox Mercenaries were still in their underdog days, numbering barely fifty members. Though Big Sis Veronica had recruited more at my request, sixty was her absolute ceiling while maintaining quality.
“With three Expert-level combatants including myself, I don't foresee major security crises in the initial phase. Instead, the majority of the mercenaries will have to take on logistical and administrative grunt work. I'll leave it to you to persuade them, Big Sis.”
Why did the Red Fox Mercenaries start small and explode into prominence? Because this modest outfit boasted two genuine Experts: Sword Expert Big Sis Veronica, and Axe Expert Uncle Ivan. In mercenary circles, an Expert-level warrior carried the same weight as a Sword Seeker in aristocratic society. Sword Masters were mythical legends beyond the heavens, leaving Sword Seekers as the practical apex predators of the continent's battlefields.
“That won't be an issue. By the way, this has nothing to do with our assignment, but call it my personal curiosity...”
Pleasantly flattered by the handsome young lord's reliance and deferential attitude, Veronica puffed up her chest and crossed her arms in a subtly sultry pose. “I noticed earlier you were reading a letter on some remarkably pretty stationery. What was that about? A love letter? From a sweetheart?”
Damn... when did she spot that?
“Not a sweetheart, just a friend. A childhood friend.”
Roughly twenty days after rejecting the betrothal promise, a letter had arrived from Elena.
“Hmm... Is she pretty?”
Ah, there it is. The playful banter of an experienced, unmarried older sister.
“Of course she's pretty. I don't associate with women who aren't.”
“Oho! Does that mean you think I'm pretty too?”
“Haven't I already told you that, Big Sis?”
“My my~ Aren't you quite the player, Young Master?”
Naturally, I wasn't one to be flustered. The original Kyle might have stammered, but I was a veteran keyboard warrior who used to dominate online communities in my previous life. Combine that silver tongue with Kyle de Rosen's peerless physical specs, and what kind of devastating synergy would you get?
“She has a large chest, too.”
“Bigger than mine?”
“Probably not quite as grand as yours, Big Sis. But still formidable.”
“My goodness, quite the catch, then! If she can even be compared to me. And yet she's just a childhood friend? You're leaving a girl like that alone?”
Coarse locker-room banter pouring from the mouth of an aristocratic scion—yet Veronica seemed to relish it, her eyes sparkling with intrigued amusement. For reference, Big Sis Veronica possessed a staggering I-cup bust. In other words, she had assumed she was beyond the realm of comparison, so my remark had tipped her off that Elena was truly exceptional.
“I have a mountain of work waiting for me in Salvatore. Romance is the last thing on my mind. Besides, I have no desire to lose a good friend.”
Even I had to admit, my tongue was practically lethal. Despite being caught off guard by her teasing, the smooth excuses rolled off my lips as if greased with oil.
“Wow... You've got real backbone, Young Master. Every handsome nobleman I've known would bend over backward trying to bed one more woman. And you're passing on a childhood friend who's practically offering herself to you on a silver platter?”
“I wouldn't say on a silver platter, but she certainly had the home-field advantage.”
As expected of an unmarried older mercenary who had weathered the gritty underworld, her perception was razor-sharp.
‘Still, I can't just ignore her letter. If I leave it unanswered, this could escalate beyond Elena and me into a full-blown feud between our ducal and marquessal families.’
When Elena had departed after I saw her off, her mental state had looked utterly shattered. I had assumed I wouldn't hear a peep from her for several months at least. Yet here she was, writing back after barely twenty days. I briefly entertained the idea of severing ties entirely, but it was unrealistic. My father would probably beat me half to death.
‘Fine, let's just write something...’
After wrapping up business with the Red Fox Mercenaries, evening fell. I sat down at my desk to pen a reply to Elena's letter.
“...”
Gripping the pen, I stared down at the blank sheet of paper for two full minutes in total silence.
‘Fuck me, I have nothing to say.’
If this had been the original Kyle, he would already be halfway through the page, spinning elaborate serenades and poetic inquiries dripping with sweet flowery prose. He would have babbled about how he was so sick with worry over whether she had arrived safely that he couldn't even grip his sword, or that his delayed response was only because he had deliberated endlessly over how to express his adoration.
Unfortunately, I felt none of that sappy sentiment. To me, Elena was just a pretty girl with a big chest and a nice ass. And ultimately, a future bitch destined to join Eugene Caesar's harem.
‘Sigh... still, gotta write something...’
I racked my brain for half an hour. Left with no other choice, I—the reformed Kyle de Rosen, bearing the heavy dignity and responsibility of a ducal heir—carefully drafted my reply.
“My Lady. A letter has arrived from Lord Kyle de Rosen.”
The eagerly anticipated letter from her childhood friend had finally arrived!
‘I knew it! Kyle was just terribly busy! The moment I sent mine, he wrote back immediately!’
The instant she took the envelope into her hands, Elena experienced a surge of dopamine and euphoria unlike anything she had ever felt before. Her heart pounded wildly, and her brain felt as hyperactive as if it had been injected with a stimulant. All the sleepless nights spent agonizing over whether he might never write evaporated as though they had never existed.
‘What could Kyle have written? Did he apologize for not writing first? Hmm... it’s a bit mischievous of him, but as his friend, I suppose I should magnanimously forgive him.’
Elena smoothed down her dress and sat gracefully in the plush armchair of her study before gently opening the letter. Her mind was already projecting a panoramic fantasy of her subsequent reply.
With eyes sparkling in breathless anticipation, Elena read the contents.
‘Huh...?!’
The radiant smile frozen on her lips, Elena’s face turned stark, bloodless white.