Chapter 3143: The Charm Conundrum

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Azorheim, Temporal Cave Valley, Temporal Cave No. ES3030

At first, when I learned that a large number of my citizens were willing to spend their hard-earned merits on something as superficial as a face lift, I’ll admit I was a little taken aback.

Especially when I discovered that a surprisingly large portion of those requests came from men.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the priorities of my citizens. They were facing the threat of the five regions and a possible second demon invasion, yet some of them were willing to spend precious merits just to make their cheekbones sharper or their faces more attractive.

I was already preparing to judge them when Hive Spirit filled me in on the circumstances.

Apparently, most of these Card Apprentices, both male and female, had encountered the Frosling race staying in Freedom City at some point.

That explained quite a bit.

Then Hive Spirit explained the part that made the entire situation considerably more ridiculous.

The male Card Apprentices weren’t spending their merits because they had fallen hopelessly in love with the beautiful female Froslings.

They were doing it because they felt threatened by the male Froslings.

The appearance of the male Froslings was apparently so absurdly attractive that practically every female Card Apprentice unfortunate enough to become aware of their existence ended up infatuated with them.

Unfortunately for those men, the feeling wasn’t mutual.

The male Froslings had absolutely no interest in finding female Card Apprentices attractive.

So the poor Card Apprentices found themselves competing against men who weren’t even interested in competing with them.

That was the real reason behind many of the beautification requests from the male card apprentices.

They wanted to improve their appearance because they were trying to keep the attention of women who had already been exposed to Frosling beauty.

It was almost comical.

Almost.

The more Hive Spirit explained, however, the more I understood how the situation had developed.

The Froslings and Snow Elves possessed a racial design that naturally carried an extraordinary charm. It wasn’t simply conventional beauty. Their very appearance had evolved alongside an innate racial charm that made potential prey feel at ease in their presence rather than alarmed by their existence.

In the wild, that trait had an obvious survival advantage. A creature that should have been running for its life instead hesitated. A prey animal that should have sensed danger instead found itself strangely calm.

By the time civilization developed, however, that same racial trait had become something far more complicated. The predators no longer needed to chase their prey. The problem was that the racial charm not only remained but had grown deadly.

So now, instead of preventing frightened creatures from fleeing, it could make perfectly intelligent Card Apprentices lower their guard around Froslings and become hopelessly fascinated by their appearance.

The worst part was that these weren’t brainless beasts being fooled by some crude illusion. They were intelligent people who knew what they were doing, yet their judgment became terribly compromised once that charm took hold.

They couldn’t control their own devices.

And that was how civilization had managed to turn an ancient predator’s survival mechanism into a beauty disaster.

I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the male Card Apprentices.

They weren’t lusting after the female Froslings.

They were simply trying to compete with male Froslings who had accidentally become the benchmark against which every other man was being judged.

No wonder they were spending merits on their faces.

They were fighting an opponent who had been born with a racial advantage that was practically cheating.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help wondering what exactly male Card Apprentices possessed that their female counterparts didn’t, allowing them to resist the charm of female Froslings so much better.

The answer turned out to be rather simple.

The dynamic between the two groups was completely different.

In this case, the female Froslings were the prey, while the male Card Apprentices were the predators. The racial charm of the female Froslings still existed, but it didn’t affect the male Card Apprentices strongly enough to make them hopelessly infatuated with them. At most, they found the women attractive, perhaps unusually so, but their judgment remained intact.

The male Card Apprentices, meanwhile, possessed no comparable racial charm of their own.

So there was no overwhelming imbalance between the two sides.

The female Froslings weren’t being magically drawn toward the male card apprentice, and the men weren’t being helplessly captivated by the women. Neither side possessed an overwhelming racial advantage over the other, leaving the situation surprisingly neutral.

It wasn’t as though they found each other unattractive, either.

They were still members of different intelligent species, and attraction could certainly exist between them. But attraction and uncontrollable infatuation were two very different things.

At the end of the day, they were still more slaves to their hormones than their eyes.

Their instincts continued to push them toward their own species, especially when it came to forming long-term relationships and producing offspring. No matter how beautiful another species might be, biological instincts had their own priorities. The desire for a partner could cross species boundaries, but the deeper reproductive instincts that had been shaped over countless generations still pulled them toward their own kind.

That was probably why the situation between male Card Apprentices and female Froslings remained relatively normal.

The men could admire their beauty without losing their minds over it, while the female Froslings could appreciate the appearance of the men without suddenly developing an irresistible attraction toward them.

Which left the male Card Apprentices in the most unfortunate position imaginable.

They weren’t competing against another man for the affection of their partners.

They were competing against an entire race whose very appearance seemed designed by nature to make their competition hopeless.

No wonder my citizens were willing to spend their hard-earned merits on a face lift. Apparently, higher realm could solve almost every problem except insecurity.

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