Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage (17)
The familiar weight of the system interface flickered before my eyes, its usual mocking glow replaced by harsh red characters that screamed failure. I stared at the error for a long moment, fingers twitching with the urge to smash something.
This isn't how it was supposed to go. The plan had been meticulous—every variable accounted for, every historical figure's gender-swapped counterpart mapped out in my mental ledger. Yet here I was, facing the digital equivalent of a slammed door.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my thoughts back into strategic alignment. In this rewritten Three Kingdoms where legendary strategists and warriors wore beautiful feminine forms, even the invisible rules seemed determined to test me. The mind control protocols I'd carefully cultivated, the subtle threads of memory manipulation I'd begun weaving around key targets—none of it mattered if the system itself rejected my approach.
Perhaps I'd grown too confident after the previous encounters. The way those proud, intelligent women had gradually bent beneath my influence had made me forget that the world still had teeth. Three visits to the thatched cottage, they called it in the old tales. But in my version, the cottage might very well burn if its occupant continued to deny me.
My lips curved into a dark smile despite the error message still hovering mockingly in my vision. Fine. If polite requests and system-sanctioned advances were blocked, I'd simply find another path. After all, conquest was never solely about following the rules—it was about rewriting them until they served my desires.
The sensual weight of upcoming political intrigue settled comfortably in my chest, mixing with the sharp edge of revenge I'd carried since the beginning. Somewhere out there, a brilliant tactician with a woman's graceful form was waiting, unaware of how thoroughly I intended to subjugate her.
I dismissed the error with a flick of my wrist, watching the red text dissolve like blood in water. The game continued. And I had never been one to accept "access denied" as a final answer.