How to Save a Time-Limited Heroine

The light faded away.

The blue flickering flow that had swept through the space soon dispersed as if it had never existed.

Deltain ground his teeth as he took in the entire process.

“Failed again.”

In the tranquil atmosphere of the bedroom.

The woman sitting in the middle of the huge bed giggled and extended her arm.

Her golden hair, which had rested on her shoulder, scattered with her movement.

As it did, the collarbone hidden behind her hair became visible.

Deltain exhaled briefly and lifted his eyelids.

Above the collarbone, tracing a soft curve, was a neck that looked as if it might break if squeezed too tightly. Further up was a thin jawline and lifeless lips.

Stop-

Deltain hesitated to shift his gaze to the smile on the woman’s lips.

She added a note of laughter to her voice as she spoke.

“Why are you staring at my lips like that? Do you want them?”

“… what nonsense.”

“When talking to someone, you should look them in the eyes.”

Her voice was full of mischief.

Deltain knew.

He knew that her mischievousness came from his own troubled reaction of being unable to ignore it.

It was something he could simply disregard, but Deltain was not someone who could do that.

What he valued more than anything in life was his unyielding pride in always being the victor.

A grim look filled Deltain’s eyes.

Soon, his gaze moved higher.

“Is this enough?”

He spoke provocatively, but Deltain felt himself burning inside.

The sight of her spring-blossom-pink pupils and the dark circles beneath them that marred his vision was unsettling.

It was her complexion, which anyone could see belonged to someone on the verge of death.

… no, that wasn’t important.

What troubled Deltain more than anything now was what was about to unfold before his eyes.

Ding.

A contrived alarm sound rang in Deltain’s ears.

Then, a translucent screen appeared before his eyes.

The inorganic sentence delivered its verdict.

<97 days remain until full bloom.>

The inescapable death of the woman.

Deltain Hebron.

He was a man with so many nicknames that it was impossible to list them all.

Among the most notable were.

The First Demon Hunter.

The Father of Magic Engineering.

The Seventh Arch Mage.

And the Hero.

Each nickname sounded like a fantasy, but none of them were exaggerated.

Deltain Hebron was a living legend who, about five years ago, slaughtered all the demons that had torn through dimensions and even annihilated the Demon King.

Some said he was an angel sent by the Gods to deal with the demons.

Others said he was the successor of the lost dragons.

Or perhaps a traitorous demon who hated other demons.

But if you asked Deltain himself, his answer would be different.

The words Deltain Hebron would use to define himself were the most important secret he had to keep in his entire life.

‘This damn game.’

He was a drifter who had encountered this world through a game and got sucked into it.

A stranger with a homeland he longed for.

Where to begin?

The man, now known as Deltain, closed his eyes and reflected on his past.

[Evil Lore]

A game he had started on a friend’s suggestion to pick up a hobby while engrossed in work.

In hindsight, the reason it was a game was laughable.

Could you believe he had started it because of his friend’s taunt, “You’ll never beat this game. Wanna try?”

In fact, that was the only mistake that led him to this situation.

Falling for the taunt that he could never beat the game was the biggest mistake of his life.

Driven by frustration, he played the game for a month.

Amazingly, he cleared the game perfectly.

And in that moment, he was sucked into the game [Evil Lore].

That was how he ended up in this situation.

Deltain clicked his tongue, thinking about his past, which still made his stomach churn.

‘I beat the game ages ago. So why can’t I return?’

Being sucked into the game wasn’t a big problem for him.

It was a challenging game, but since he had already cleared it, it wasn’t difficult even when it became reality.

Using the interface that had appeared before his eyes since the day he got sucked into the game, he completed it in a remarkably short time.

But he remained stuck.

All he could do was grumble at the interface that kept showing .

All that increased was his complaints.

In such a situation, he couldn’t help but be startled by a sudden change.

“What the fuck….”

“… what?”

Three years after clearing the game.

Having been consumed by powerlessness, he was stunned by the change.

<… 100% download complete.>

Faced with this reality, he couldn’t help but curse.

“… what the hell.”

What greeted him after three years of waiting was a DLC for a game he had never heard of.

*

Chambler’s Dream (Complete)

Heart of Gaias (Incomplete)

Token of Endless Winter (Incomplete)

Jewel of the Deep Sea (Complete)

Seed of the Magic Flower Actrias (Incomplete)

Deltain frowned at the interface that appeared as soon as he opened his eyes.

Then he blew it away with a .

After getting up from the bed, he irritably ran his hand through his hair.

His red hair, reminiscent of burning flames, swept back, revealing his golden pupils.

With a face full of irritation, Deltain sighed deeply and headed straight to the shower.

Swoosh-

Cold water poured from the showerhead, drenching his body.

He used it to clear his mind and recall the past days.

-Failed again.

He recalled the woman’s mockery.

‘… it’s been three months.’

It had been three months since the DLC started.

Three months since Deltain began the mysterious quest to collect the materials for the contract.

There had been little progress.

Not knowing what this quest meant, the fact that all the materials that appeared in the interface were unknown, and that this DLC did not exist when playing the game might be reasons, but the biggest problem for Deltain was something else.

‘Fucking damn magic.’

The seed of magic flower Actrias.

It was the only material among the mentioned ones whose whereabouts were known, and it was a material that could not be extracted in the game no matter what.

Deltain was suffering this slump because he failed to extract it.

<96 days left until the blooming of the Magic Flower Actrias.>

Magic Flower Actrias was a curse that parasitized the human body.

And the only way to extract it was to sacrifice the host’s life force to make the flower bloom.

In other words, there was no way to extract it in its form in the game.

Couldn’t you find a way through various experiments?

Impossible.

There was only one living host of Magic Flower Actrias in this game.

Agnes Levadine.

The legitimate daughter of Duke Levadine, the most beautiful woman on this continent, the first love of many, and a love that could never be fulfilled.

She was a woman that way.

Deltain had to extract the seed from the only sample in this land without making a single mistake.

*

The scenery of Tardan, the capital of the empire, was strange.

To be precise, it seemed strange to Deltain’s eyes.

Ancient buildings reminiscent of a medieval city filled the entire city.

Yet, all kinds of products of civilization that did not match with those buildings were illuminating the place.

Streetlights, cars, and business suits from Deltain’s home on Earth.

Deltain was sitting in the backseat of a luxury sedan, watching the scenery, thinking.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have created all this.’

What was the point of saying anything now?

All of this was the product of civilization that Deltain had created over the past three years after clearing the game.

True to the name of the father of magical engineering, he had overcome the boredom that had plagued him for the past three years by bringing civilization to this land.

‘… no, I would have been inconvenienced if I hadn’t created it.’

Deltain closed his eyes.

It was still 20 more minutes to the destination, Duke Levadine’s mansion.

He needed to catch up on sleep due to the unpleasant morning.

“Wake me up when we arrive.”

“Yes, sir.”

The elderly chauffeur replied to him.

Deltain fell into a short sleep, letting the words pass by.

*

He could immediately tell it was a dream.

“What the heck, how am I supposed to clear this?”

Because the face of the man swearing in front of the computer was so familiar.

Deltain chuckled at the sight of the face he hadn’t seen in a while, crossing his arms.

‘This is new.’

It was his past self.

To be precise, it was him before being sucked into the game.

Deltain moved to look at the computer screen the man was staring at.

[Magic Flower Actrias is blooming.]

[Agnes Levadine dies.]

What appeared on the screen was a scene from the subquest that existed in the game.

‘Ah, this is a dream from when I was doing that quest.’

Agnes Levadine was on the screen.

In line with the characteristics of [Evil Lore], which was fundamentally a dot graphic game, she was lying there with a white flower blooming in the middle of her chest.

Deltain frowned.

The reason was that the mockery she had made the day before came to mind upon seeing Agnes lying dead like that.

-Another failure.

A nasty woman who couldn’t even thank the person helping her, only making provocations.

Agnes, as Deltain thought of her, was that kind of person.

Deltain pressed down the rising unpleasantness.

Then he reminisced while staring at the computer screen.

[Loading the save file.]

‘I was really stuck on this quest at one point.’

He had spent two whole days out of the 30 days of gameplay focusing solely on this quest.

As the name suggested, it was a quest where one had to save a sickly woman and profess love to her.

Deltain had attempted the quest thinking that perhaps there was a hidden piece because of its extreme difficulty, which was unusual for a sub-quest.

‘I couldn’t clear it in the end.’

Now he knew the reason.

‘There’s no way to clear a main quest from the DLC in the base game.’

In hindsight, the malicious intent of the developers was too apparent in its design.

‘They shouldn’t have included it in the base game in the first place.’

Complaints were inevitable.

was a quest that started when the player met Agnes and accidentally awakened the magic flower in her heart.

If not cleared within the time limit, Agnes would die, and the player would face penalties, including having Duke Levadine as an enemy, making it a quest that invited high expectations for rewards.

It seemed to say, “Clear this, and you’ll get something good.”

But they made it impossible to clear, driving players crazy.

“Ah… another failure….”

The man in front of the computer ran his hand down his face.

Deltain smirked, mocking him.

‘Keep trying. If I couldn’t clear it, do you think you can?’

While thinking such thoughts.

-Sir, we have arrived.

A voice echoed in the space.

The scenery blurred.

A sense of light floating enveloped him.

Deltain felt momentarily dazed before he woke up from his sleep.

*

The Levadine mansion was in the prime location of the capital.

To give an idea, if you walked 10 minutes to the left from the mansion, you’d reach the imperial palace, and 10 minutes to the right, you’d find the luxury shopping district.

Such a prime location signified the authority held by Duke Levadine.

Second to none but the emperor.

He was a man fit for that position, being the chancellor of the country.

And he was Deltain’s client.

“Greetings, Count Hebron.”

Duke Levadine, a middle-aged gentleman with impressive blonde hair, gave a short bow.

Deltain, now accustomed to the noble etiquette, received the greeting.

“Greetings, Duke.”

“Thank you for your efforts again today.”

“It’s my duty.”

Duke Levadine smiled bitterly.

“… nevertheless, I must thank you. You are the only one who identified my daughter’s illness. I cannot be ungrateful to my only lifeline.”

Deltain gave a bitter smile at those words.

He felt pity for the duke’s situation.

‘He must be going mad, having his only daughter afflicted with such an illness and no way to cure it.’

In the game, the magic flower wouldn’t have bloomed if the player hadn’t met her, but in the DLC, it suddenly started growing.

A strange and unfamiliar illness that no doctor or priest could diagnose.

In such a situation, the duke had no choice but to cling to the only person who identified it—himself.

“… I’ll do my best.”

With that, Deltain entered the mansion.

He walked through the now-familiar corridors to the third floor, then to the rightmost room.

Taking a deep breath in front of the room with the best view in the mansion, Deltain knocked on the door.

Knock. Knock.

“I’m coming in.”

He didn’t wait for a reply.

Experience had taught him that she would test his patience by not responding until the end.

Creak-

The door opened.

A woman with dazzling long blonde hair was there.

“I didn’t tell you to come in.”

Her cherry blossom-colored eyes turned to Deltain.

Eyes with deep dark circles formed a crescent moon shape.

An almost suffocating beauty.

Deltain steadied his momentarily shaken emotions and responded in a nonchalant tone.

“Whatever.”