Prologue: The Hero Abandoned the Harem
Perhaps we were never meant to be bound together in the first place.
"Hero! Come on, hurry!"
Drawn along by the hand urging me forward, I moved my feet at an unhurried pace.
"You'll be so glad you came, Hero! Because today is... a special day."
Her voice trembled as she said it, and yet it carried a helpless flutter of excitement and hope as she led me on.
The faint green scent peculiar to the forest mingled with the sweet, fruit-like fragrance of her body. All I could hear was the soft hush of grass brushing past, and the bright chatter of birds announcing the early morning. The blindfold she had tied over my eyes shut the world from view.
"...This isn't too hard on you, is it?"
"......"
"It isn't far, so please just humor me for a little while. And... you can't stay shut up in the house forever. You ought to come outside now and then!"
"......"
My silence did nothing to stop her. She chattered on, stubborn as ever, still talking at me. She looked composed enough at a glance, but the tremor traveling through her hand made it plain how hard she was trying.
We kept walking.
"Hero! We're here! You can really look forward to this!"
Look forward to it.
Do I have anything left to expect from any of you?
The question slipped into the hollow of my heart. I swallowed it down, and when her footsteps finally stopped, I let go of her hand.
"You can take the blindfold off now!"
At the brightness of her voice, I pulled it free.
"C-Captain..."
"...Hero."
A crisp wind teased through my hair. What filled my sight was the distant sprawl of the Empire, and a flower field spread vast beneath the sky. Three women stood among the blooms, rigid with nerves.
Tense, shrinking, hesitant—and still they were beautiful enough to seem painted there.
"W-we called you out of nowhere, so you must be thrown off, right...? Y-you were resting at home, and now you're annoyed, wondering why we dragged you out..."
"...It's been a long time since we all gathered like this."
"Today—today we called you because there's something we have to say! Something we need to tell you...!"
One of them kept stealing glances at me, stumbling over every word. Another spoke in a blunt, flat tone. Last came the woman who had led me here, and all three of them stood taut with nerves, each picking up where the last had left off.
I let my gaze drift slowly over them. Trembling pupils. Faces flushed red. Expressions that would not have looked strange if they burst into tears at any moment.
"S-so—so what I mean is...! You've been through so much, Hero, and we're grateful, truly grateful, and that's why... n-no. That isn't what I meant to say. What I want to say is..."
That alone was enough. It was not difficult to see why they had gathered like this.
While each of them fretted over how to begin, eyes darting, the woman who had dragged me all this way spoke first.
"...I love you, Hero."
Her voice seeped in with the sweetness of the flowers. Beneath the brilliantly pouring sun, the white robes of a saintess seemed to shine on her more brightly than anything else.
"For a long time. I've liked you all along—ever since you protected me. Living beside you all this while, I came to like you so much I couldn't help it... I truly love you, Hero."
Saintess Serena flushed both cheeks a peach-blossom pink, like a girl confessing her first love, and laid her heart bare with aching sweetness.
As if they refused to be outdone, the other two opened their mouths in turn.
"C-Captain...! I—I want you! Won't you come back to the tribe with me and live together?! ...If you'd rather, I don't mind being the one to stay at your side..."
Shame flooded her voice, strangely at odds with the healthy bronze of her skin and the lush curve of her figure. Freya, Great Warrior of the Southern Tribal Alliance, ducked her head like a girl in the full flush of youth and finished her desperate confession.
"Hero. You alone are enough for me. I don't need the Magic Tower. I don't need anyone else's recognition. So stay with me. ...Please."
A blunt voice that might have seemed cold at first listen. But the tremor buried inside it, and the uncharacteristic, pleading gestures of that small body, were enough to stir pity in anyone watching. Vivian—Archmage, and half-elf—showed the whole of her longing in the way her trembling hand caught hold of me.
They looked at me, and with one heart and one will, they spoke.
Their reasons differed. So did the moments that had brought them here. Even so, they said they loved me.
"......"
I looked at them in silence.
Whenever I looked at them, some corner of my chest ached, deep and dull.
"Haa..."
A cloudless wash of sunlight. A hillside drowned in the festival of flowers in full bloom. And between them, women turning toward me with faces flushed to the brim. To someone else, it might have looked like a scene from a happy ending.
Accept their feelings, just like this, and let it end on a line like—
And so the Hero who slew the Demon King lived happily ever after.
A dull, typical hero's tale.
"......"
I will admit it. There was a time when I truly pictured a future like that. A future in which I set everything down and simply became happy with them. I wondered whether this life might grow a little easier if I did. There was even a moment when I meant to give in.
But...
"No."
Not now.
I rubbed at the furrow between my brows against the fatigue washing over me, looked at them, and smiled.
"I don't want to."
At my words their faces hardened. Hurt flooded their expressions, and they bit back tears that looked ready to break—and still I felt nothing at all. As calmly as if none of it mattered.
I, the Hero, abandoned the harem.