The World Recognizes Polygamy
Present-day South Korea legally recognized polygamy.
During the Great Awakening, the world had burned under the invasion of otherworldly intruders. Before Awakened even appeared, every nation tried to suppress the chaos with their militaries. South Korea was no exception. Though often underestimated, it was a country that could convert half its entire population into soldiers if necessary. Gates opened across the nation, and the government immediately declared a state of emergency, mobilizing reserves and deploying standing forces to respond.
But the military’s firepower proved useless against the monsters that poured through the Gates. To be precise, it wasn’t entirely ineffective. It simply took dozens of high-explosive rounds to bring down a single ogre. This was the moment firearms, which had reigned as the kings of weaponry for centuries, began their decline.
The South Korean military resisted fiercely, yet no matter how much firepower they poured out, they remained powerless against enemies they could barely scratch. Until the Awakened began to appear in earnest, the army suffered one-sided losses. If the emergence of the Awakened had been delayed even slightly, the country might literally have been torn apart.
Once Awakened started showing up one by one, including within the military itself, the tide of unilateral casualties began to ebb. But the lives already lost would never return.
The vast majority of South Korea’s military personnel had been men. Female soldiers existed, of course, but they were an extreme minority. Across society, men began to vanish. The number of people capable of reproduction was devastated, and the gender ratio collapsed along with it.
The South Korean government had no choice but to take drastic measures. The traditional monogamous system could never restore the shattered population and sex ratio. They needed to raise the birth rate by any means possible. Recognizing polygamy was one of those measures.
At the time, the country had been in no position to be picky, so the policy was accepted. But in the present day, social perception of it was poor. South Korea was a traditionally Confucian nation, and both the gender ratio and population were now on the path to recovery. The general sentiment was something like, “It was necessary back then, but is it still needed now?”
Still, for the current Ha Hyun-do, it was a stroke of good fortune. At least on the legal side, there would be no problems with forming a harem.
...
The sun had set, and I was back in my one-room apartment. The midterms that had felt like they would never end were finally over. The exams that had arrived alongside the cherry blossoms left behind a sense of liberation as they retreated. That feeling of freedom, combined with the gradually warming weather, usually led college students toward all kinds of indulgences.
But I still had far too many things to do to fully enjoy that sense of liberation. After all, Ji-ah had named Baek Seol-hee as her next target.
Professor Baek Seol-hee, huh.
I had resolved to build a harem for my own sake, but before that, I needed to redefine my relationship with Ji-ah. She had told me to think of her as nothing more than a sex partner, but I had no intention of doing so. She was the person who had crossed countless lifetimes for my sake. The only one who had ever loved just me.
If I followed my heart, I wanted to make our relationship official right this moment, but the fact that she kept taking a step back left me feeling frustrated. Fortunately, I would have plenty of time with Ji-ah in the future.
I’ll make time for a proper date next time.
For now, I had to focus on overcoming the fate that was closing in. I set my thoughts about Ji-ah aside for the moment and began considering how best to approach Professor Baek Seol-hee.
I opened a notebook on my desk and started scribbling down my racing thoughts. Recording chaotic ideas like this made it much easier to organize them later.
Fortunately, there were quite a few points of contact between Professor Baek Seol-hee and me. First was the ongoing one-on-one lessons. At this point I was the only student left, but her mentoring sessions had originally been one-to-many.
During the very first class of the semester—the orientation—Professor Baek Seol-hee had committed the atrocity of conducting three straight hours of practical combat training. The freshmen, who had been rather arrogant about being Awakened, couldn’t last even a single round and were utterly crushed by her. I had managed to hold on thanks to my Rigid Body ability, but the others hadn’t been so lucky.
The following week, nearly every student dropped the course. Professor Baek Seol-hee’s expression had remained as blank as ever, but I thought her eyes looked a little downcast. The way her eyes sparkled with joy when she saw that I, the only remaining student, had stayed behind was still fondly preserved in my memory.
Although the class had been canceled due to lack of enrollment, the professor was investing her newly freed time in me.
The second point of contact was our recent morning jogging encounter. Professor Baek Seol-hee jogged along the path near the mouth of the Hadong River every morning. I had changed my own jogging route to match the one where we had met. Since she was an active Hunter, it was highly likely she had an established morning routine. I needed to run into her as often as possible to make an impression.
Last time, I had been overwhelmed by her superior stamina, but now that my self-healing ability had fully adapted to my body, I was confident I could keep up with Professor Baek Seol-hee.
The self-healing ability I had awakened after having sex with Ji-ah was, contrary to its first impression, a rather decent special ability. My muscle recovery rate after exercise had increased noticeably, and I could see my stamina growing day by day. My basal metabolic rate had risen, which increased my food intake, but it was still within a manageable range.
“Alright, let’s go with this for now.”
After organizing my strategy for approaching Professor Baek Seol-hee, I stretched and stood up from my chair. I opened the weapon case sitting in the corner. Inside lay the elf’s dagger that Boris and Yoon Seo-yeon had finished imprinting with runes.
I didn’t have anywhere else to store it, so I had simply left it in the weapon case. Maybe I should buy a sword stand. I had experience handling all kinds of weapons while sparring with Professor Baek Seol-hee. Of course, I had used daggers before as well.
Ji-ah had told me that in the future, I would fight with two axes. Indeed, axes or greatswords suited my taste far more than daggers. A solidly swinging axe, the massive weight of a greatsword—those were weapons for a man who reeked of sweat. I wasn’t completely ignorant of how to handle a dagger, but I lacked the proficiency to use one as a main weapon.
I drew the dagger from its sheath. The moment it left the scabbard, the blade began radiating a chilling, blue sharpness. The runes engraved on it had clearly changed from before.
It had a function that let it return to the owner’s hand on its own, right?
I looked around for a suitable target, but nothing appropriate caught my eye. Just as I was thinking I couldn’t use my textbooks, my gaze landed on the wooden cutting board standing in the kitchen.
Boris’s instruction manual said to throw it while infusing the intent to return, then call it back, didn’t it?
I aimed at the cutting board, lightly gripped the blade, and flicked my wrist. The dagger flew straight toward the board. With a heavy thunk, the blade buried itself into the wood. The blue edge was no decoration—the dagger sank in without any resistance.
I tested it by mentally calling it back. The dagger shot toward my hand at ferocious speed. Along with the cutting board it was still stuck in.
Huh?
The cutting board, now one with the dagger, slipped free the moment I caught the hilt and smacked me squarely in the head. Thanks to Rigid Body, it didn’t hurt, but the humiliation of being hit in the head by my own stupidity lingered.
I really need to learn how to use daggers properly.
...
The next morning, I headed to Professor Baek Seol-hee’s jogging route. It was slightly later than usual. Luckily, I found her exactly where we had met before, in the middle of stretching.
Her hair, black as if it had captured the night itself, was tied in a low ponytail rather than her usual high one. The femininity contained within her pure white tank top was so abundant that even a sports bra couldn’t hide it. Instead of her usual workout leggings, she was wearing white hot pants. The healthy lines of her legs, normally concealed by leggings, now shone with seductive appeal.
Every time she moved her legs, the way her thighs strained against the hot pants before springing free was mesmerizing. Between her healthy thighs, which proved the width of her hips, a distinct triangular line stood out clearly. It was an attractive lower body that naturally drew men in.
“Hyun-do? Good morning.”
“Good morning, Professor.”
She had been deeply focused on her stretches when she noticed me. Professor Baek Seol-hee greeted me in a slightly puzzled voice. She looked up at me with eyes that seemed to ask, Weren’t you supposed to jog somewhere else?
Now, the plan begins.