Mate with Me, Hans!
A woman had suddenly barged into my house, loudly proclaiming that she was Khagan.
At first, I thought she was just a fellow female warrior impersonating him. As the chieftain of the Great Plains, Khagan had plenty of worshippers who idolized and mimicked him. More than anything, while her face bore a passing resemblance, the most critical detail—her sex—was completely wrong.
Yet the male leads reacted to her arrival in a way I hadn't anticipated at all.
"Khagan...?! Are you... are you really Khagan?!"
"Indeed! Can you not recognize me either? Khagan is deeply hurt!"
"You bastard, did you actually drink that?!"
"Mmh! I drank it! If it is what Emily desires, Khagan will do anything!"
"Oho... I wondered if it might come to this, but to think you truly drank it... I must express my respect for your resolve."
"Hm? I do not quite understand your fancy words, but if respect is being offered, I shall take it."
"Doing that just makes the rest of us look bad for not drinking it..."
Watching them treat this sudden woman as if she truly were Khagan, my eyes darted back and forth between them as I tried to make sense of the madness.
The real Khagan actually turned into a woman and showed up? Why the hell would he do that?
No matter how hard I racked my brain, a man on the verge of his own wedding had no reason whatsoever to do something so deranged. Come to think of it, what did they just say he drank? Don't tell me... he drank a potion that swaps your gender?
Hesitantly, I stepped toward him—or rather, her—and asked.
"Are you... really Khagan?"
"Indeed! Do you finally believe me, Hans?"
"Well... tentatively. But why on earth did you suddenly turn into a woman?"
"Because Emily desired it."
"...Emily did? For what reason?"
No matter how furious she might have been, turning her prospective husband into a woman? Sure, Emily had an unmistakable sadistic streak, but she wasn't the type to pull a stunt like this right out in the open, was she?
As my confusion mounted with every word, Khagan puffed out her chest and boomed.
"Naturally, to clear my name! By the sacred name of the earth, Khagan has never lusted after anyone besides Emily!"
"Ah, right... sure. Everyone else here said the same thing. Me too. Like I'd be crazy enough to do that kind of thing with you bastards."
"I know! And Emily knows as well! But she said words alone will never convince the masses! If one wishes to earn their trust, one must prove it!"
Suddenly, Khagan leveled a thick, calloused finger straight at my face.
"Me? What about me? You're not about to beat me up, are you?"
"I will not hit you! However, I require Hans's aid! Though if you refuse to help, I might hit you!"
"Aid? What the hell do you want me to do?"
"It is simple. Hans, mate with me!!"
"...What?"
The moment those words left her lips, my brain screeched to a dead halt.
What did this creature just ask me to do?
Mate? The kind of mating I was thinking of? Or was there some obscure tribal meaning I was unaware of—
"Why no answer? Did you not understand my words? Copulation! I speak of copulation! Hans, copulate with me this very instant—!"
"Hey, hey! Shut your mouth, you crazy bas—bitch! What if someone overhears?!"
Her roaring declaration drove the final nail into the coffin, instantly shocking me out of my daze. Had this lunatic completely lost her mind? She had always been known for pulling off outlandish stunts, but this was a brand of sheer, unadulterated madness I couldn't have imagined in my wildest nightmares.
I desperately tried to calm my racing heart and ask why on earth she was behaving like this, but Khagan merely insisted that it wasn't complicated at all—all I had to do was mate with her.
In the end, I had to turn to the other male leads to ask what had happened, finally prying the full story out of them.
And once I heard the entire tale, only a single thought echoed through my hollow mind:
Emily... just what kind of drugs have you been taking to pull off something this insane...?
One hour before the male leads arrived at Hans's house.
Following the spread of that scandalous article, the Empire was plunged into absolute turmoil. The shocking news that one of the Empire's greatest heroes had cheated on his fiancée before the wedding was irresistible gossip, regardless of whether it held a shred of truth.
Of course, a few pragmatists argued whether infidelity even held any meaning when they were entering a polyandrous marriage in the first place, but the damage was already done. The spotless purity and unyielding devotion they were purported to hold for Emily Bellerose alone had been struck with an ugly, permanent stain.
And the ones who could bear this disgrace least of all were the male leads themselves.
The moment they read the article, each man rushed straight to Emily's residence, inevitably crossing paths on the estate grounds. Given the gravity of the situation, the glares they traded were sharp enough to draw blood.
Only Khagan sat comfortably among them, blissfully devouring tea snacks without a trace of worry on his face.
Before long, breaking the suffocating silence that choked the room, Imperial Prince Leonhardt was the first to speak.
"It was only because Emily desired it so desperately that I tore my own heart to shreds and permitted this polyandrous union... Though none of you could ever hope to rival me, I believed our love for Emily was equal. And yet, on the very eve of our wedding, to think a traitor lurks in our midst... How utterly lamentable! Confess your sins before us this instant and face retribution! Do so, and I shall at least grant you the mercy of keeping your life!"
"Calm yourself, Your Highness. No one here is going to step forward merely because you issue hollow threats. Furthermore, we have yet to verify whether that article holds any truth at all. I believe it is far too premature to leap to the conclusion that there is a traitor among us."
"Yeah, exactly! I want to believe none of us would ever do something like that either. The article must have been published by mistake."
"I agree with the Hero. Doubting one another is entirely pointless. The one we should truly suspect is whoever wrote and spread that vile slander."
"What? Meaning there is a high probability the article itself is a fabrication? How dare some petty scribbler spread such insolent lies against imperial royalty...! Impudent cur! I shall command my men to hunt down the wretch this very second!"
As they voiced their thoughts, a tense dialogue formed between the male leads. Contrary to their worst fears, they didn't devolve into tearing each other apart with paranoid accusations.
Though they had once clashed fiercely as bitter rivals competing for Emily's affections, that very history meant they understood better than anyone just how genuine each man's love for her truly was.
Their objective quickly shifted toward capturing the culprit behind the bogus scoop, yet even that proved daunting.
"Regrettably, that is not a problem we can resolve immediately. I already deployed my intelligence network to investigate, but the perpetrators vanished without leaving a single trace. In short, the publishing house had no physical existence from the very beginning."
"Then can't we just release another article clarifying that it was fake news?"
"Yes. I saw to that immediately, but... it will take time before the public accepts it. And inevitably, there will be those who refuse to believe the retraction until the bitter end."
"Hmph, predictably so. No matter how thoroughly we refute it, fools will always believe whatever suits their fancy. Worry not. The moment such vermin are caught, their heads shall roll straight into the guillotine—!"
"Are you insane? You went through all that trouble to be recognized as the next emperor, and now you want to blow it all away? We're getting married soon, so stop flying off the handle. It's unsightly."
"Kh...! Do you think I rage for my own amusement?! If it were merely my honor or yours that was dragged through the mud, I would have gladly borne it in silence. But I will not stand by and watch Emily get hurt!"
The moment the prince barked his raw frustration, the expressions of the other men darkened as well.
Just as he said, their own reputations were of little consequence right now. Their deepest agony was the pain Emily's fragile heart must be enduring because of this slanderous report.
Nor could they banish the terrifying thought that she might read the article and begin to doubt their devotion. If this incident prompted her to call off the engagement entirely, every single one of them would suffer an emotional wound from which they might never recover.
And so, desperate to soothe her heart by any means necessary, they had gathered at her mansion and waited.
Yet, as the minutes stretched into hours without her showing herself, their patience frayed into sheer anxiety.
Right then, the click of a latch echoed across the room. Every pair of eyes snapped toward the door in unison.
As the heavy doors parted to reveal Emily at last, every man rose to his feet as one. Under normal circumstances, they would have called out her name and rushed to her side without a second thought.
Click, clack.
She strode forward with proud, haughty grace, but the piercing coldness in her gaze froze every man in his tracks.
One glance was enough to tell that she was in a foul mood.
Yet even draped in icy fury, she was so breathtakingly radiant that all of them stood half-mesmerized, unable to breathe.
Gliding over to her empty seat, she finally dipped her head in a delicate bow and addressed them.
"I must apologize to you all for keeping you waiting for so long. The thought of greeting my future husbands made me fret over my appearance far more than usual, and I lost track of time."
"I-It's fine, Emily! We didn't wait long at all, right?"
"Mmh. Exactly as he says, Emily. Even the time spent waiting while thinking of you is a joy to us."
"Yes. For Emily, I can wait for as long as it takes."
"Rather, it is we who must apologize for arriving at such an unseemly early hour."
"Fufufu... Thank you for saying so. Since we have all gathered together after so long, I would love nothing more than to share a pleasant and meaningful time, but..."
...but.
Emily let the word hang in the air, cutting herself off.
As the light in her eyes sharpened into razor-edged frost once more, the seated men swallowed hard, clamping their mouths shut in rigid tension.
Her gaze slowly swept across each of their faces before the corners of her lips curled into a faint, graceful smile. It was a smile of peerless beauty, yet her eyes were completely dead and void of warmth. Not a single man dared to smile back.
Then, in a soft, faintly trembling voice, she delivered her verdict:
"It seems there is something we simply must discuss today."
Isn't that right?