Show Me Your Stats!-Chapter 74

A few days later, in an effort to make up for the recent drop in favorability, Ayra asked the castle chef to pack up some delicious food and headed off to see Janus. There was no need to pull up a navigation system to locate him—Janus, as usual, was loafing around at home like an idle bum. It was the same every time.

“Janus, I’m here!”

Ayra threw open the door and stepped inside. Janus seemed so confident in his own strength that he barely bothered with locking up. Most days, he didn’t even close the door. With an HP of 9,999,999, it was understandable.

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Ayra, on the other hand, had an HP of less than a thousand. She shut the door tightly. The weather had grown noticeably colder in the past few days, and her body was frozen stiff. Moving with creaks and groans, she retrieved the food from her subspace. Since it had just come fresh from the kitchen, steam was still rising from it.

Janus had been standing by the window, watching people go by. When he saw Ayra, he approached with a smile. She thought he was going to kiss her when he leaned in—but he nipped her nose with his teeth instead, startling her.

“Your nose is red and frozen. Is it that cold out?”

Rubbing the bite mark on the bridge of her nose, Ayra grumbled.

“It’s snowing, of course it’s cold!”

“My poor lover. And real winter hasn’t even started yet.”

Teasing her playfully, Janus moved toward the fireplace to help warm up his cold-sensitive partner. While he lit a fire in the half-burned mana stone that had been rolling around inside, Ayra quickly sprinkled some powder over the smoked chicken dish she'd brought.

Ayra and Janus shared a peaceful dinner together. Afterward, they lay side by side on the bed, nestled in his firm, warm embrace, enjoying light and pleasant conversation. As the mood began to deepen and Ayra slowly reached to tug on Janus’s collar—

Ding! A notification window appeared with a loud chime.

Why! Of all times—she had rushed over after finishing all her urgent work, so why now of all moments? Furious inside, Ayra cast a noise-dampening spell on the crystal ore she had stashed in her pocket. This time, the alert went off with a softer beep beep beep beep. Having heard the noise once before, Janus’s brow twitched.

“Is the castle calling you again?”

“Yeah, seems like something urgent came up. I am a pretty capable mage, you know.”

“Hmm. You are, at that.”

As before, Janus didn’t complain. He simply smiled and saw her off. But the moment Ayra turned around, the inevitable favorability alert popped up.

[Janus Rehzedet’s favorability has decreased by 2!]

Current Favorability: –5

Thankfully, the hit had been to his favorability toward the Lord of Solar—not her. Still, cold sweat trickled down Ayra’s back as she checked the Stat Window. If this kept happening, she was sure the favorability would hit rock bottom.

Ayra rushed to the textile shop. When she arrived, she found thugs trying to extort protection money. After the newly completed tunnel brought in large shipments of fabric, these thugs apparently thought it justified a hike in fees. She had called the guards, but no one came. With no other choice, Ayra donned her robe, subdued the thugs herself, and had them thrown into prison.

She soon discovered why the guards hadn’t shown up. They had their own problems—short staffing and corruption.

Though the army listed over a thousand men in the territory stats, most were preoccupied with suppressing ma-beasts. Only a few patrols roamed the city in shifts, and their response time to incidents was slow. Some guards were outright negligent—because a portion of the extorted fees was lining their own pockets.

To preserve the territory’s approval rating, Ayra worked herself to the bone for several days. She ran from incident to incident, cleaning up messes personally. When thugs extorted residents, it was naturally the lord who was blamed for failing to maintain public order.

In between all this, Ayra continued visiting Janus with tasty food. But just as the mood between them began to improve—like clockwork—another alert would go off. After a few repeats of this, Ayra came to a grim realization.

So the only reason this territory had been running even half-decently... was thanks to the Temple.

And now, all of this unrest was also because of the Temple.

She’d assumed the territory was poor, and that was why tax revenues were tight—but that wasn’t the whole story. Thugs, scoundrels, brothel owners, gambling dens, drugs... Money from “protection fees,” “market stall fees,” and so-called “entertainment taxes” flowed into the underground economy—and then got funneled to the Temple as “donations.” The Temple, in turn, distributed a portion of that money to the slums and the poor to maintain goodwill. The rest went into the pockets of guards and local officials.

No wonder the Temple’s popularity kept rising among the people.

If this were a territory management game, the difficulty setting would be pure hell...

With mountains of work each day, Ayra stayed up every night, tugging at her hair in frustration. But no clear solution appeared.

The normal method of purging corruption—arrest the criminals and punish them—wasn’t viable. There weren’t enough soldiers or officials to spare. The current personnel was already the bare minimum required to keep the territory running.

And in the middle of it all, Aterra te Act began playing dirty with public opinion.

One night, after raiding a gambling den with Bloom and cracking down on fraudsters, Ayra returned to the castle and stayed up until morning doing paperwork. Just as she wiped a nosebleed away with a cloth and continued writing with her enchanted quill—

Ding! A new alert rang out.

Reading the alert with bloodshot eyes, Ayra ground her teeth. Her magically animated quill scrawled a long, shaky line across the page. With a deep sigh, she rose to her feet. The current approval rating was exactly 20%—the bare minimum needed to clear the Pebble Quest. It was time to grind herself down again.

For several more days, she wrung out every last bit of her mana and stamina. Fortunately, just before her approval rating dipped below 20%, she managed to complete the quest and unlock a new stat.

But the price was devastating.

[Janus Rehzedet’s favorability has decreased by 5.]

Current Favorability: –26

Just as she was about to collapse onto her bed without even checking the quest rewards, a new alert flashed—and Ayra groaned in misery. Over a week without sex, without even seeing her boyfriend’s face, and now Janus was apparently starting to bear a grudge against the Lord of Solar. Ayra forced her aching body upright. She stopped by the kitchen to prepare a meal, then trudged off to Janus’s house.

“Janus... I’m here...”

Her voice was thick and slurred, like someone drunk. Too tired to even open the door, she just slumped forward and bumped her head into it. With her eyes half-shut, she pulled up her own Stat # Nоvеlight # Window.

HP: 347

MP: 54,783

Physical Attack Power: 125

Magical Attack Power: ???

Favorability: 95♡

[View Details]

Her drooping eyes skimmed over the stats. The newly unlocked Physical Attack Power stood out at 125, but without a comparison, she had no idea if that was high or not.

Wow... my HP’s a disaster. It’s been cut in half. If this drops any lower, I might actually be in danger.

Still half-asleep, she leaned against the door. When it suddenly swung open, she lost her balance and fell forward—only to be caught by a firm arm and chest before she hit the ground. Seeing his nearly-dead lover in such a state, Janus looked genuinely surprised. He clicked his tongue.

“Yikes. You’re a wreck. Should’ve taken a break first.”

“I hadn’t seen you in so long...”

Even as she said the sweet words, Ayra sighed. Ugh... if only he weren’t a dragon, I would’ve just slept first. Or at least if these damn favorability alerts didn’t exist, I could’ve closed my eyes for ten minutes.

But now wasn’t the time for sleep. Complaining could wait until things calmed down. With that thought, Ayra staggered inside—and was greeted by an unexpected, long-awaited notification.

[Janus Rehzedet’s favorability has increased by 1.]

Current Favorability: –25

[Janus Rehzedet’s favorability has decreased by 3.]

Current Favorability: –28

A faint smile appeared on her lips. At least it had gone up—if only briefly. The effort of dragging herself here hadn’t been in vain. She deliberately ignored the second notification.

“Want to eat? I brought something tasty.”

Seeing that small increase made Janus look particularly handsome today, and Ayra smiled drowsily. As she set the food out slowly on the table, she didn’t forget to sprinkle the usual powder. She forgot to take off her heavy robe, though, and her sleeves dragged across the table. Janus, watching her eat halfheartedly and slam her forehead into the table for the tenth time, sighed.

“Let’s go to bed. Sleep first.”

Before she could say anything, he scooped her up gently. He helped her out of the robe, tucked her into bed, and pulled the blanket over her.

Ayra watched him toss a mana stone into the fireplace for her, and then slipped into unconsciousness—like someone passing out cold.

It was one of the best sleeps she’d ever had.