Chapter 458: At a Crossroads
Chapter 458: At a Crossroads
“…What if we say no?”
“Of course, I knew you wouldn’t like it. But…”
“Right. So you want to build a harem that badly. Even if I said I’d leave you if you did?”
“No. That’s… what?”
I was so unprepared for Sara to say something like that, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
Of course, I’d expected some backlash.
I was prepared to be cursed at. I was prepared to be slapped.
But despite all that, the possibility that my girls might actually leave my side had never even crossed my mind.
Because, we were…
“Why do you look like you’re about to cry? I’m the one who wants to cry here.”
It seemed I was making quite a pathetic face.
Sara glanced at me and spat the words out, her voice tinged with the verge of tears.
“…You. The reason we have tolerated so much until now is that we believed you would ultimately love us the most. But is this the path you choose to take…?”
Diana, too, spoke with a heavy expression that reflected her true age, not the cute, youthful face she usually showed me.
Her voice was calm, but she was definitely not calm.
It was more like she was so furious that she’d become eerily composed.
It was a side of her I had never seen before.
“N-No! What are you talking about? I love you girls the most, now and forever!”
“You just said you’re making a harem! That means you’re going to treat other women the same as us… No. It means you’re going to actively go around collecting other women, doesn’t it?!”
I was trying to speak from the heart, but Sara seemed to take my words as excuses, her anger flaring as she shouted.
“…Guwon. Silvia and Cardinal Matilda. Are there already other women you’ve lined up to bring into your harem? The things you told me… were they all lies?”
And then even Leia was looking at me, her eyes completely devoid of light as she murmured darkly.
Like Diana, this was a side of Leia I had never seen before.
Honestly, I was starting to feel afraid to even continue the conversation, but I opened my mouth to clear up the misunderstanding first.
“Wait. Just calm down and listen to me.”
“Making excuses now…!”
“Sara. Please, just calm down and listen! You’re misunderstanding! It’s true I said I’d build a harem, but I have no intention of treating other women the same way I treat you! And I don’t have any other women lined up! At most, the only one I’m thinking about right now is Silvia, and with Matilda, nothing is certain until her curse is broken!”
As I shouted with all my heart, their expressions softened, just a little.
But it didn’t change the fact that all three of them were still angry.
“…Try to explain it in a way we can understand. From why you even came up with a foolish idea like a harem in the first place, to the reason you made such a decision.”
Diana let out a long sigh, as if trying to calm herself, and spoke as if giving me one last chance.
I nodded and confessed everything. From Felicia’s comment that started it all, to all the worries I’d had since.
I told them about the possibility that, through the Goddess’s mission, I might have to perform an Apostle Appointment on other women.
And I explained that I’d reached this conclusion because I felt it would be too difficult to ignore the feelings of the other girls, or my own.
I immediately broke the promise I’d just made to myself not to make any excuses.
So what? Who cares? My relationship with my girls is far more precious to me than some petty pride.
“And even if I do form deep relationships with other women, the fact that you three are my top priority will never change. In fact, I’ll work even harder to love you more than I do now, so you never feel lonely just because there are more women around.”
“…So, you said you’d build a harem, but that’s just a possibility because of your mission as the Saint, and the only person you’re considering right now is Silvia. Is that how I should interpret this?”
After hearing me out, Leia summarized my points, slowly returning to her usual self.
Ah. Thank God. Leia is turning back into an angel.
Of course, she was still a far cry from her usual self, but at least the light was returning to her eyes.
“Yes. That’s exactly it.”
“What, specifically, do you mean when you say you’ll prioritize us?”
“Well, just like now, I’ll sleep with you at night, take care of you the most… If you’re my main wives, the other women would be more like concubines?”
“Then you should have said that from the start, you idiot!”
The moment I nodded, Sara shouted as she drove a left hook straight into my solar plexus.
Keoheok…! S-Sara. You’re already strong, so please, no surprise attacks…!
Of course, looking at Sara’s expression, I couldn’t possibly voice such a complaint.
Because Sara was crying. Sobbing like a little kid.
“I thought you were getting tired of us and wanted other women!”
“H-How could I ever! Don’t say such a cursed thing!”
“Then don’t say weird things like ‘harem’ out of the blue in the first place!”
“Well, it’s still true that I might bring in other women, so I thought it might be better to go for shock therapy and hit you with the full impact from the start…”
“Are you an idiot?! Impact! Did you really think that was necessary?!”
For the record, Sara was still hitting me in real-time.
The same Sara who said impact wasn’t necessary was delivering an enormous amount of shock to my entire body.
S-Sara… I’m trying to endure it for the sake of the mood… but it’s getting hard to take. Could you maybe stop?
I glanced around, but it seemed no one had any intention of helping me.
Leia, who would normally rush over offering healing magic, just watched with a slightly sulky face. Diana had her arms crossed, looking at me as if I deserved to be hit even more.
“That’s right. If you had just said you wanted to accept Silvia, we wouldn’t have been this angry. This time, Guwon, you were completely in the wrong.”
“Hmph. Besides, saying you’ll start a harem because you might have to in the future? There’s a limit to how much nonsense one can spout.”
“But there really is a high possibility…”
“We knew that much before you even said it. That’s not the issue. The issue is your attitude—whether you’re going to be proactive or reactive about accepting other women.”
No, I was planning on being reactive.
I had no intention whatsoever of actively going around seducing women.
It was more of a… in situations like with Silvia or Matilda, where I end up having sex with them out of necessity, if those kinds of feelings develop, would it be okay to accept them?… kind of level.
Well, since I’d declared I was building a harem, I couldn’t blame them for interpreting it as me planning to actively chase after women.
Yes. I was entirely at fault.
So please, make Sara stop hitting me.
“Honestly, Guwon. It would have been better if you had just consulted with us from the beginning.”
“Well, I felt that a decision like this was something I should make, rather than leaving it up to you.”
“That’s not wrong. It’s good to take the lead. But it’s not good to be a dictator. Shouldn’t you have discussed it with us?”
“That’s why I called you all here now, to coordinate our views…”
“And the first thing you said was, ‘I’m going to build a harem,’ was it?”
…Angel. I’m sorry. I was wrong, so please, please go back to being your usual angelic self.
When someone who’s never usually like this attacks you, the damage is just too brutal.
The combination of physical and emotional damage was piling up, and now I really felt like crying.
“Hmph. In any case, coordinating our views, is it? I see. For now, I understand that you might have to form relationships with other women for the sake of the mission the Goddess gave you, and that you might even have to perform an Apostle Appointment.”
“…I suppose so. We have no choice but to concede on you forming relationships with other women, and even performing the Apostle Appointment.”
“Haaah. Well, I suppose we have to accept that, having a Saint for our man. However! We will only approve of it in cases of absolute necessity. We don’t even know if such a situation will ever arise in the future.”
“…Sniffle. Right. And just because we’re allowing it, if you go around swinging that thing around carelessly, I’ll rip it right off.”
Sara, having finally stopped her assault, punctuated her words by grabbing my junk through my pants.
Rip it off? Coming from you, that doesn’t sound like a joke, so could you please not say such scary things?
Not that I had any intention of swinging it around carelessly, anyway.
Instead of answering her, I pulled her tear-streaked face into a tight hug against my chest.
Sara didn’t resist at all, letting herself be held as she wiped her tears on my shirt.
In any case, though they’d stipulated it was only for when necessary, they had all spoken in a way that suggested they would permit the Apostle Appointment.
Permitting the Apostle Appointment meant they were acknowledging that I could fall in love with another woman.
They had hated the idea of me bringing in other women so much that they’d reacted that violently when I mentioned a harem, yet in the end, they gave their permission.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom how much my girls were compromising for me.
But despite that, I had no choice but to ask them to compromise one more time.
Because the image of Silvia, hesitating to speak her wish, was floating in my mind.
“…I’m sorry. I want to accept Silvia, too. I don’t want to ignore my feelings, or hers. I promise. Even if I accept other women, I will never, ever neglect you. I’ll treat you just like now… no. I’ll treat you even better than now. So please…”
I think Silvia wants to ask for us to go further than we have before.
Judging by her reaction when she was about to state her wish, I was almost certain of it.
But if we were to go any further from here, there weren’t many acts left.
Kissing, performing the Apostle Appointment, or making her my lover. Something like that.
Any one of those would be enough to make Silvia die of happiness.
The fact that she ran away, saying she might die, was completely understandable if that was the kind of thing she wanted to ask for.
No. Did Silvia really hesitate to ask just because she was afraid for her own life?
That was surely one of the reasons, but I felt certain it wasn’t the only one.
Perhaps Silvia felt she wasn’t in a position to make such a request.
After all, from the very beginning, Silvia had been more aware of her place than anyone.
That was also why my girls had accepted her so easily.
So, for Silvia’s sake, I had to be the one to be brave.
She was the biggest reason I had decided I wanted to accept other women in the first place.
Of course, accepting Silvia didn’t fall under the “absolutely necessary” situations my girls had just mentioned.
That’s why, as sorry as I was, I had no choice but to hope they would take one more step back for me.
“…I see.”
“If it’s Silvia…”
“But if we do that…”
It seemed that my girls, having grown close to Silvia over time, couldn’t make a decision easily.
If this problem had only involved Silvia, they might have readily agreed.
But what happens once can happen twice, and a third time. If they made an exception once, another was bound to appear in the future.
That must be why they were all so conflicted.
“Wait a moment.”
In the end, the three of them gathered together and began to debate, as if trying to reach a consensus.
They seemed to be coordinating their opinions, exchanging words in a heated discussion, but I deliberately tuned them out and lost myself in thought until they reached a conclusion.
Honestly, I felt I had earned enough of their trust with my actions up until now.
No matter what, I had only ever had eyes for my girls.
And now, that same me had reached the conclusion that I wanted to accept another woman for the first time.
Of course, if my girls said they would leave me, I would have no choice but to give up. But if it didn’t come to that, I wanted to get their permission if at all possible.
And so, I closed my eyes and thought about how I would persuade them if they came to the conclusion that the answer was no.
“Alright. Guwon. We’ve reached a decision.”
After quite some time had passed, the three of them finally finished their discussion.