DI-DI-DING!

[Welcome to "Regret! Escape the CEO as the Missing Pregnant Wife!"]

[Rewards: Double the Affinity Points!]

[Love Interests Ranks Rewards:]

The transparent screens flickered into existence before her eyes.

[Rank 1: Finish Scenario’s Prequel and Unlock Scenario Progression!]

[Rank 2: Escape completely from CEO Husband and get Cosmetic Skin Packs for all Love Interests!]

[Rank 3: Take revenge on CEO Husband and get access to Love Interests’ Alternate Universe Shop!]

[Rank 4: Make the CEO Husband chase you and beg you to come back and get one free custom Five-Stars Item for each Love Interest!]

[Rank 5: Get viral on the internet and get one free requested Five-Stars Skill Orb for each Love Interest!]

[Rank 6: Enter and close a Rift and get one free Return to Scenario Ticket for each Love Interest!]

[Rank 7: Make Love Interests remember their lives outside of this scenario and get a hint to unlock further Bond Rank Abilities for each Love Interest!]

[Completion Reward:]

[Cosmetic Skin Pack for Player, Unlock Player’s Alternate Universe Shop, one free custom Five-Stars Item for Player, one free requested Five-Stars Skill Orb for Player, one free Return to Scenario Ticket for Player, and one free Ask-the-Gods-Anything Ticket!]

Cecilia’s jaw went slack.

The screens hovered in her vision and she read the list again. It had outdone itself.

Her eyes snagged on the completion reward, Ask-the-Gods-Anything Ticket, and her mind, which had been processing the implications of Lilyca’s prophecy and the scenario world’s rifts, ground to a sudden halt.

This...

Why were these rewards better than the School Romance Scenario? Why were they so much more extravagant, so much more powerful, so much more desperate in their generosity?

These... sounded less like a reward and more like a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman.

An ominous feeling settled over her.

Was it that close, then? The dangers of the real world... was the threat so imminent that the gods were throwing rewards at her like supplies to a soldier on the eve of battle?

But Lilyca had said the peak, whatever peak it was, would be in ten years. That was enough time, surely, to prepare and plan and find a way to save Oathran without letting the world collapse into rifts and monsters and black, oily contamination.

Unless—

Unless there were ways to prevent it all that had to happen much sooner, in the near future, within a window that was already closing?

No. This much rapid progression in strength, this many rewards being shoved into her hands with such aggressive urgency... it was a sign.

A deadline? A countdown that she could not see but the gods could?

Perhaps if she did not prevent whatever catalyst was coming, whatever trigger would set the world on its path to destruction, it would be too late to stop it even within these ten years.

The countdown was not until the peak. The countdown was until the point of no return.

"Ahem. Miss Araceli."

Oathran’s voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, and Cecilia snapped back into her body.

The man, this world’s Oathran, placed a bowl of gentle, pureed vegetable soup in front of her.

The presentation was immaculate. A swirl of cream, a scattering of fresh herbs. The kind of dish that belonged in a nobles only restaurant with a waiting list.

She looked up at his smile, visibly trying very hard not to spook her.

"Thank you," she said.

"What is in your mind?" Arkai’s voice came from beside her. He was seated at her right, his dark hair slightly damp as though he had recently showered, his black wolf ears flicking with concern.

In this world, he wore simple clothes. Dark and practical, the kind of thing a working man might throw on after a long shift. But his eyes were the same, the eyes of competence.

Arkai narrowed his eyes a little. "You seemed to have a lot on your mind when you woke up."

"Yes," Eastiel added from across the table, his golden eyes still carrying that dazed glow from the afternoon’s shopping spree.

He had changed out of his grease-stained overalls and into something more comfortable, a soft sweater that made him look less like a welder and more like the golden prince he had always been, in every universe.

"You seemed fine when we shopped earlier. Is there a problem?"

Cecilia looked at them.

The three men who, in this world, were not her husbands but her... something, were apparently roommates.

They were three single men who shared an apartment and split the grocery bills. She had come to find out about their living situation during the brief, blurry period between waking on the sofa and sitting down for dinner.

Eastiel was an underwater welder, he had told her that himself, with such pride, but he also accepted normal welding jobs, whatever that meant. Arkai was a plumber, something she only knew from his scenario role and had not yet had the chance to ask about. And Oathran—

She looked at the soup and the immaculate presentation, and she had a strong inkling that "Burger-Flipper" meant something along the lines of... chef.

"I don’t think trying to explain it right now will explain anything to you," she said, smiling at the three of them.

But then...

"Is it about the divorce...?"

Oathran asked carefully as he took his seat across from her.

Wait.

They knew about the divorce?

"Ahem."

Arkai took a sudden, pointed sip of water, while Eastiel’s golden eyes shot toward the ceiling, clearly pretending very hard not to be involved in something.

Under the table, Cecilia heard a faint shuffling sound, like the scrape of shoes against the floor. Oathran shifted on his chair, crossing his legs after a subtle jolt.

Were they... kicking their Elder Brother’s foot under the table?

But their faces did not change one bit. Arkai’s expression remained stoic. Eastiel’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. And Oathran’s serene smile did not waver, even as his leg twitched under the table.

"Miss Araceli." Oathran still sounded careful and gentle. "Actually, after our last... encounter... you left your signed divorce papers here. In our place." He paused, his pale eyes searching her face for a reaction.

"Was it by accident? Or..." Another pause. Longer this time. "...or did you change your mind?"

Signed divorce papers.

Cecilia’s mind raced. The AU version of herself, the Cecilia whose body she had possessed in this alternate universe, had signed the papers.

Yes, the divorce papers. The ones that would free her from Arzhen Vasiliev, the CEO husband. It was signed, but then... she had left them here, in this apartment, with these three men?

"When... was this again...?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral.

Oathran took a casual glance at the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. "Around a month and a half ago?"

It immediately hit her.

So, the original Cecilia of this world had signed the divorce papers, and then proceeded to hook up with these three men, either on her own volition, or because of Ruby’s trap, or some catastrophic combination of both.

That was when she had gotten pregnant.

She had perhaps forgotten the papers here, in their apartment, and then she had spent one and a half months still legally married to that scumbag Arzhen, carrying the evidence of her infidelity in her womb, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Why?!

She had signed the papers! The divorce was right there! Why had she stayed married? Why had she not simply filed the documents and walked away?

Unless... there were reasons. Complications? Something that had prevented her from finalizing the divorce? Whatever it was, it was something she did not yet understand.

"Oh, yes." Cecilia nodded. She smiled and shrugged. "It is sorted now. I signed another copy of the papers. I am about to be a divorcee now."

"Oh..."

The exhale came from three throats simultaneously.

Cecilia could see it, the way their shoulders dropped by a fraction and the way their expressions lightened. It was akin to hope, or perhaps, renewed excitement?

Eastiel’s lion tail, which had been drooping behind his chair, began to sway gently. Arkai’s wolf ears, which had been pinned back with tension, flicked forward. Oathran’s serene smile warmed by several degrees, reaching his eyes for the first time since she had woken up.

Were they... waiting for her? For a month and a half, had these three men been sitting in this apartment, staring at signed divorce papers, wondering if she would come back?

"Wait."

Eastiel suddenly said, raising his hand. His lion ears, which had been pink-tipped and happy, swiveled forward eagerly. "Is that why... you want to stay with us now?"

COUGH!

Arkai choked on his water. The liquid went down wrong, or perhaps it was not the liquid at all.

"And," Eastiel barreled forward, "is that why you asked me to buy you clothes?"

CLANK—

Oathran dropped a metal ladle on the pot, his smile had frozen on his face and his eyes had gone slightly wide.

Brother, why didn’t you tell us earlier?!