Chapter 1

The system’s words left me ice-cold.

I could not believe I had wasted ten whole years.

[Host, it’s my fault. I suddenly fell into a deep sleep ten years ago and failed to explain who your love interest was. I could only leave you a photograph.]

[That was why you mistook the love interest for someone else by sheer coincidence…]

The system brought up the photograph from back then.

It showed a timid young beastman.

He looked only seven or eight years old.

He looked almost exactly like Gavin when I first met him ten years ago, so I naturally assumed it was him.

His age also seemed to fit better.

Only now did I learn that the photograph showed Quentin Cole as a child.

Quentin had already been fourteen at the time, and his youthful features had begun to mature.

That was why I failed to recognize him.

I wasted ten years for nothing.

I slowly exhaled the stale breath in my lungs.

I raised my eyes toward Gavin Cole, who was protecting someone else in front of me.

His hair was dyed an eye-catching yellow, and several piercings decorated his ears and face.

He even had tattoos on his arms, written in the beastmen’s exclusive . I could not understand them.

I did not want to.

The moment Gavin noticed my gaze, he became even more wary.

He pulled the girl behind him closer and spoke impatiently.

"Lacey, move. Rose told me everything. Beastmen have the freedom to choose their own masters, and we also have the right to terminate our contracts!

"I was young and naïve when you tricked me back then. I’m grown up now, and I want my freedom!"

Gavin spoke with complete conviction. The girl behind him also looked indignant on his behalf.

I only found it amusing.

Freedom?

Tricked?

It seemed Gavin had truly forgotten that, back then, every beastman in his family had been weak and bullied throughout the Beastman Realm.

When he was covered in wounds and hovering between life and death, I appeared and spent a fortune to save him.

For ten years, I never stopped helping his family.

Yet every single thing I did became proof, in his eyes, that he was forced into it and that I did everything willingly.

What he owed me went far beyond one life.

It seemed I treated him too well and was far too gentle with him all these years.

I protected him so carefully that he never experienced even a glimpse of the outside world’s cruelty. That was why he became so arrogant and spoiled.

[Host, since you have pursued Gavin Cole for ten years, I received special approval from headquarters to give you one chance to change your love interest.]

[Would you like me to change your target?]

I barely found the chance to answer.

Gavin had already run out of patience when he saw me standing blankly at the door.

He assumed I refused to back down and would not let him leave, so he shifted into attack mode.

The fur all over his body stood on end, and his cat ears flattened against his head.

He looked at me as if I were his enemy.

He smashed everything inside the house like a madman, including all the memories we built together over the past ten years.

Flying shards cut into my calf, and blood poured from the wound.

Even that did not seem to satisfy him.

He raised my arm and sank his teeth into it with all his strength.

He stopped only when the girl behind him reached out to intervene and gently patted his back. She soothed him softly.

"Gavin, don’t do this."

He finally stopped and snorted. "Why do you care about her? She deserves it."

A photograph of the two of us, torn in half, lay by my feet.

A vicious curse aimed at me was scrawled across it, dated three years earlier.

I stared at the photograph.

Then I suddenly laughed.

So, this was how badly he wanted his freedom.

Gavin continued ranting.

"Lacey, if you refuse to terminate the contract, I don’t mind seeing you in court! You're old, while I’m still young. People should know their place."

I took one last, deep look at Gavin and the zero beside his obedience score.

My heart died completely.

[No need, System. Find out where Quentin Cole is right now.]

The system paused for a moment before speaking in a trembling voice. [Host, turn around.]