Chapter 1

[Welcome to 'The Promise' instance.]

[Starting players: 10; Remaining: 10.]

[Players can clear the game by collecting three S-Class items or higher.]

[Difficulty: S]

[Enjoy the game.]

Standing outside the manor, surrounded by that cold, crushing atmosphere, I replayed the system announcement in my head, confused.

Wasn't this supposed to be a romance game? Why was it giving survival horror?

I wanted to call my manager, but once you entered the game, you were stuck until it ended.

Forget it. I should make the most of this rare chance.

I shoved the heavy gates open.

Seriously, where did the game company blow the budget? The paint was still tacky. They couldn't even wait for it to dry before throwing people into beta.

A stale, rotten smell hit me. I brushed a curtain of cobwebs off a branch and looked around, grinning.

Stone walls. Dark slate roofs. Covered walkways, courtyards, bridges, narrow streams. The manor checked every box for a fancy estate.

Too bad the whole place looked ancient, abandoned, and halfway to falling apart.

I sighed. The set design really wasn't all that.

Still, looking at the upside, I'd been single my entire life, and I was finally about to get the romance of a lifetime.

My heart started racing.

A cold gust swept past, and something pressed against my lower back.

Before I could scream, a deep, ridiculously sexy voice sounded behind me.

"Who are you?"

My whole body tingled.

I jerked and spun around.

A tall figure stood there.

He wore battered armor full of blood-soaked holes. The hand gripping his sword was ripped apart and mangled, but his face was untouched.

So this had to be the manor's owner—General Ironhart.

I felt a little smug. Cheap design or not, that face was completely my type.

Looks like the battle he'd fought hadn't been easy, though.

Still, he made it back alive, and that was what mattered. As his wife, I'd do my part—help him recover and give him a place that felt like home.

With that, I threw myself into his chest.

"My love, I missed you so much!"

His whole body locked up.

The second I slammed into him, blood started pouring from his wounds even faster.

I quickly noticed his shaking hand moving toward his waist.

Flashbacks to all those period dramas I'd filmed hit me, and my face instantly warmed. I grabbed his hand before he could keep going.

"Wow, slow down. We literally just met, and you're already trying to take your pants off?"

Meanwhile, somewhere out of my sight, the livestream chat absolutely lost it:

[Holy shit, did Naomi lose her mind?! She actually hugged General Ironhart! He's the ridiculously overpowered final BOSS!]

[Is she seriously this romance-obsessed?]

[Maybe she's trying to use her terrible luck and curse him to death.]

[Okay, wait. That actually makes sense.]

I'm Naomi Nash, aka the entertainment industry's bad-luck magnet.

The curse was pretty straightforward: every male celebrity paired with me for PR somehow ended up nuking his own career.

One got busted for drugs. One got caught hiring a hooker. Another got publicly destroyed by his ex-boyfriend in a long post for using him and dumping him.

After that, every guy in the industry started avoiding me like I was radioactive.

And me? Almost thirty. Zero dating experience.

When my manager first pitched this romance game deal, I said no. The budget looked painfully low.

Then she hit me with:

"Think about it. A guy who takes care of you no matter what, knows how to flirt, listens to everything you say, and is ridiculously hot.

"Where exactly are you finding that in real life?"

She knew exactly which button to hit. My brain blue-screened, and I agreed on the spot.

Right now, I stared at General Ironhart's horrifying injuries, my eyes getting watery.

"My poor husband. That had to hurt, right? I'll go get medicine for you!"

I hopped off him, ready to run, but someone yanked me back by the collar.

"What did you call me?"

That voice was unfairly attractive. My face instantly heated up.

"Husband," I mumbled.

General Ironhart raised a brow, looking amused, then gestured around us.

"Then do you know where this is?"

I blinked. "Ironhart Manor. Our home."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, somehow looking more confused than me.

Then I noticed it.

His fingers had smeared blood across the bridge of his nose.

It looked weirdly good on him.

"If that's true, come meet my mother first."

"But your injuries—"

"I'm fine."

I looked at General Ironhart, worried, and was about to tell him to get treated first when the system announcement suddenly rang beside my ear:

[Starting players: 10; Remaining: 7.]

See? This world was all about looks.

Bad visuals couldn't even keep players alive.

I felt weirdly smug. Whatever houses everyone else picked, there was no way they beat this manor.