Uncontrollable Puppy, Master’s Love

ML: Master Love, or a player's love for their Master. It refers to a character in a game who loves the protagonist.

"Can a data puppy fall in love with a human player?"

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In 4023, a dating game called Absolute Conquest took the internet by storm. The player-controlled protagonist could experience an incredibly realistic full-dive world, along with five popular male leads available to romance.

Shen Tinghuai, an ace agent with the Cybersecurity Bureau, would normally have had nothing to do with a dating game like this. But a friend who had helped develop the game came to him, explaining that a strange bug had appeared in the game. The game had been offline for a long time because of it, and the planning team hoped Shen Tinghuai could help them eliminate the bug.

A man who reveled in life but had never formed an intimate relationship with a carbon-based life form, Shen Tinghuai agreed. Once inside the game, he discovered that the bug had infected the data sources of the main characters, and he would have to win them over to clear it.

The five male leads in Absolute Conquest were:

A cool, aloof genius and top student;

The top student's CEO older brother;

A rebellious school bully;

A sweet underclassman who dressed as a girl;

A gentle, devoted school doctor.

Each had a distinct personality and his own appeal. As Shen Tinghuai won them over while clearing the bug, he found that, compared with the male leads meticulously designed by the planning team, a pitiful little dog of an NPC seemed to draw his attention even more.

The puppy was clingy. After Shen Tinghuai rescued him, he was always wandering around him, and whenever their eyes met, he'd panic and blush.

The puppy was a good crier. He said he'd had a nightmare, then knelt beside Shen Tinghuai's waist in the middle of the night, wearing a loose white shirt, and asked if they could sleep together.

The puppy was also a bit of a... schemer. Whenever the male leads questioned him about why he kept following Shen Tinghuai, he would get teary-eyed and bite his lip, then burrow into Shen Tinghuai's arms, all aggrieved, and sob, "I just want my senior to be happy."

Shen Tinghuai marveled at how high this background NPC's affection for the player-controlled protagonist was. And the puppy's stats were almost too perfectly suited to his tastes.

What? You say you don't like scheming types? But who could dislike a puppy who's both sly and clueless, with his whole heart devoted to him?

But on the day Shen Tinghuai cleared the bug and prepared to leave the game, the obedient puppy, an NPC, crushed the player's "Log Out" button right in front of him.

"Senior, am I not good enough?" Still gazing up at him with that meek, pitiful look, he asked, "Why won't you stay and keep me company?"

Shen Tinghuai raised an eyebrow.

Oh-ho! At last, this boring game was getting interesting.

[A worldly, free-spirited beauty of a big shot who loves calling the shots top, Shen Tinghuai]

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[A secretly dark, sly, loyal puppy of a pitiful bottom, Chou Wang]

A locked-in couple, a powerful pair, and a mutual pure romance. Of course it's pure love. All that turning dark and imprisoning each other is just a couple's little game~

P.S. Important point: the top is not a heartthrob who attracts everyone! The so-called "conquest" is also very abstract and bizarre (not really), and he's always perfectly clear-headed, knowing that the characters are all data, so sometimes he can be rather cold. Of course, the puppy is different to him~

P.P.S. ML originally came from FGO and has since been widely used. This story just uses the term and has nothing to do with FGO.

[The blurb and premise were archived on 23.1.6. Please do not borrow them.]

Theme: I came for you, crossing every boundary.