The Hero's Principal Wife, Mandarin (1)
“Huh…?”
A woman dropped into some remote, unknown place blinked her wide amber eyes and looked around in every direction.
“Huhh…!?”
The utterly dazed lady’s successive gasps echoed through the palace interior. She still seemed unable to grasp the situation she had been thrust into.
The vast cavernous hall filling Darin’s vision possessed a scale and splendor that her home, House Bayorn, could never hope to match. This place was the domain of the Hero, who had been granted a ducal title by the Empire.
“Hey, you’re so cute. How old are you?”
“Silphia, step aside. She looks like a child—won’t she feel pressured if you crowd her like that?”
“She’s smaller than me, but why is her chest…?”
At the noisy chatter, her gaze naturally lifted upward. Unlike her own petite frame, most of the women looking down at her were tall and statuesque.
And “How old are you?”
I’m… I’m thirty-eight…
Even if they were all long-limbed, their appearances made them look far younger than she was. Still, she could not openly flaunt her age and put on airs. She had never told Lucas, and he currently mistook her for a woman in her early-to-mid twenties.
But even if she was small, calling her cute and treating her like a child?
I’m probably the oldest one here…
They all looked about the same age as her own daughter. Darin’s pride stung a little.
“Oh my, what am I going to do? You’re just too adorable!”
A tall beauty with pink hair suddenly stepped forward, pulled Darin into an embrace, stroked her vermilion hair, and drew her against her chest.
Wh-what? This is completely unheard of…!
Darin was a woman with two fully grown children; being treated like a little girl did not sit well with her.
Above all, she had been forcibly kidnapped by Lucas. From her position the whole thing was absurd. Even while being abducted she had stubbornly protested that this was her home and she was going nowhere, but—
I have no intention of letting you stay with that crazy bastard for even a single moment.
After using some strange artifact and realizing that the woman he liked had been raped, he had apparently decided he would no longer back down. Lucas had wordlessly taken her hand and dragged her to this place by force.
And then he had simply left her stranded in this empty corridor, saying he would see her that evening. Darin was left speechless by the Hero’s high-handed behavior—acting entirely on his own whim without ever asking her opinion.
So when rare beauties she would never normally meet expressed goodwill toward her, she might have been glad…
What on earth is this? What kind of situation is this supposed to be?!
Because nothing was going her way, the vermilion-haired girl’s cheeks puffed out roundly.
Ordinarily Darin would never have sulked like this, but one helpless situation after another had been forced upon her. Even with her gentle nature, she could not help growing angry.
That resentment built and built until it finally exploded, pouring out toward the women who were freely touching her all over.
“How rude!”
Yes—truly rude. It was obvious without looking. Except for the elf watching her with curiosity from the back, none of them could be older than she was.
“All of you, let go of me!”
The married woman flailed her arms uselessly, thrashing about as she tried to push away the hands that were fondling her. Unfortunately, Darin was a delicate woman who could not even repel other women.
In the end, her best efforts at resistance were suppressed in less than a few dozen seconds.
Yet Lucas’s harem members found the situation just as absurd. To their eyes, Darin looked like the youngest one present.
“Heh heh. Rude, you say? You look no older than fifteen at most…”
The pink-haired woman who had first embraced her let her gaze drop to Darin’s chest. The girl who looked so young possessed a pair of heavy, swaying mountains.
“…Well, from the neck down you certainly have a body men like. Still, sixteen at the absolute most? Does that mean you’re a long-lived race? You look completely human on the outside.”
“Th-that’s not it, but…”
Darin desperately wanted to confess her real age right then and there. Yet she could not casually reveal it for fear of exposing her relationship with her son. She could only hem and haw and watch their reactions.
“If you’re not a long-lived race, then you really are the youngest, aren’t you? The next youngest would be that blonde young lady over there… Ah! She’s the daughter of Duke Tile. Seventeen years old. But no matter how I look at you, you don’t seem older than her.”
Thus the ten harem members, including the pink-haired woman, had no choice but to treat Darin as the baby of the group.
“My name is Astesia. You may call me ‘Sia’ if you like.”
It was a bombshell of a name to hear amid the chaos. “Astesia” was the name of the Saintess, the central pillar of the Hero’s party.
“A-Astesia?”
The woman who had been fretting over the age difference immediately grew demure the moment she heard the name. The Saintess was someone even the Pope addressed with respect, age aside. She was not a noble, so one could not simply call her a person of high rank, yet considering her status she stood nearly on par with Darin’s own liege, the Grand Duke of the North.
“I-I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were the Saintess…”
“It’s all right. Rank here is decided solely by how much of Lucas’s love one receives, after all.”
She smiled brightly with a truly saintly, benevolent expression. Her complexion also looked far more at ease than the others. She was clearly high in the hierarchy of this group.
“You’re… the Mandarin Orange young lady, correct? I saw you with Akael at the victory parade.”
That full name was always embarrassing to hear.
But denying it in this situation would only make things stranger. Darin had no choice but to blush and nod.
Perhaps the sight of the tiny girl looking so shy stirred her protective instincts. Astesia’s face scrunched up as if she did not know what to do with herself.
Even I feel this way—how must a man like Lucas feel?
Astesia let out a soft cry of delight at Darin’s loveliness and began examining her from head to toe.
“I didn’t think Lucas would bring another man’s woman into the harem, but seeing you up close, I can understand why.”
The soft, full breasts and childbearing hips were things Astesia herself possessed, yet this girl seemed born from head to toe for the sole purpose of bewitching men.
Vermilion hair and vermilion eyes were not usually features noblemen preferred, yet they harmonized perfectly with the fresh, sweet scent of mandarin oranges that clung to her body. Those amber eyes that looked ready to spill tears at any moment simultaneously provoked sadism and pity.
“It may be a little overwhelming for you right now, Darin, but you’ll adapt in time. Since we’ll be living together from now on, let’s exchange simple greetings first, and then I’ll show you to the private room assigned to you.”
Was it because she was the Saintess? Her manner toward the flustered girl was remarkably gentle.
“I’m certain you’ll be satisfied. Every harem member is given her own private suite, and their size and luxury are enough to leave even ducal daughters speechless.”
Astesia took Darin’s hands in both of hers and smiled, naturally coaxing her to relax.
“Usually when several women share one husband, relations turn ugly. But we are different.”
“…Why is that?”
“Because Lucas hates discord. His commands are absolute to us. So rest easy. We will treat you like a sister.”
The Saintess answered the curious question kindly. The reason she had gone out of her way to add words of reassurance was that the vermilion-haired girl was shrinking into herself, clearly terrified.
“Well then, shall we finish the brief introductions and head to your room? It’s best to at least put faces to names.”
Whether Darin adapted to the rapidly changing environment or not, she was forced to exchange greetings with the ten harem members. Here, that was simply procedure.
“……”
Having been forcibly turned into a harem member in a matter of mere tens of minutes, Darin was not without complaints. Yet the baron’s wife was by nature an affectionate person. With her high social skills, she no longer wished to voice further grievances toward women who were showing her goodwill.
In any case, if she wanted to return to Bayorn Territory she would have to settle things with Lucas, not them. They might well be victims themselves; taking her anger out on the wrong people would be unkind.
While exchanging hurried, brief greetings, Darin realized one fact.
Every single one of them is more impressive than I am…
Including Saintess Astesia, there was the elf archer Silphia, the noble knight Olivia, the youngest Magic Tower Master Lea, and high-ranking noble daughters whose names alone were enough to identify them.
In this place, not a single person held a lower status than a mere baron’s wife like herself.
“……”
Until a moment ago she had been so dissatisfied with the sudden situation that she had thought them rude on account of age.
What was I thinking?
Looking at it now, the impious one was not them—it was her.
What sort of arrogance had she, a mere woman of a provincial territory, shown by letting her emotions run ahead of her?
I was the most pathetic one of all…
And so Darin could only deeply reflect in her heart and grow humble.