WHAT IF when the Mc was still playing this as a game, the ML in the game has been subtly touching the Mc’s wings the whole time but since it’s a game the Mc’s character doesn’t react. So when the Mc first confessed to the ML, the ML doesn’t believe him cause he’s never reacted to his caresses and says he depises the Mc in an attempt to spare his own feelings???
Like maybe the ML after accepting the dark attribute infusion takes it as oh the Mc doesn’t really love me romantically it’s just friendship love like he does to everyone else + I had to go through pain of this transformation -> causing him to say he hates the MC but later regretting it when the Mc disappears
Spoiler about why the grand duke is like this with the mc:
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The grand duke message about his feelings was actually "I love you", but the people behind the system distorted to "I hate you". The mc could not stand and left the game, and the duke thought he was playing with his feelings and in the moment he got his heart he just got bored and left. Why they distorted the message? this would be another spoiler
They needed the mc stop developing his empire, because he was too far ahead of the others. They knew as per analises that if they made him fall out with the duke this would be enough to him to leave the game for some time. The reason why he needed slow down his empire growth was that in the end all the empires need to be equally strong to face a big threat and not only one of them be strong and the others weak. This big threat will appear once some empire finish to conquer the test tower and as the things were developing so far the mc empire would make to this point alone and it would be the only one with some ability to face the threat, but one kingdom is far from enough to this. So they needed he let the others empires catch up with his in strenght and as all this was happening still in beta phases they couldn't just go and tell him directly about all this since for him that was just a game.
Hear me out on my theory fellas
So you know how when the Mc asks a subordinate if it’s ok for the ML to touch his wings cause he’s second in command, and the subordinate is like bro touching someone’s wing is similar to sex and the Mc is like wait the ML is aware of this but still touched me