I Became the Harem King the Moment I Set Foot in the Academy
I had made it to the Academy and finished preparing for class, but the atmosphere in Class 1-5 was anything but normal today.
What they had just witnessed was this: the moment Peace walked in, she ran straight to my desk and delivered a merciless smack to the head of an utterly unfamiliar beauty.
"Uh...? Did that gorgeous woman just hit someone? Who?"
"No, there was nothing there. Why'd she hit thin air? Don't tell me... Shiota's been hiding an invisible beauty with magic?!"
"Hey, look at Lucia's face. She looks about ready to interrogate Otonashi on the spot."
Even Yuzuru, my sister, had let her jaw hang open and dropped the attendance book she was holding.
Of course, none of them could have known about the secret and utterly absurd meeting of great beings that had just taken place inside this very classroom.
Let's wind the clock back just a little, to right before all hell broke loose.
Yuzuru had gone out first to find a women's uniform for her. That left just the two of us—me and Peace—alone in the room.
"Otonashi, why do you fidget so?"
"Because if you move too vigorously, your clothes are going to split. It's making me anxious."
It was genuinely a difficult situation. The tight blouse clung to her body, laying every curve bare in scandalous detail—so much so that I was the one embarrassed just looking at her.
"So you're worried about a woman who looks like a full-grown adult enrolling at your Academy. I see. Well, with maturity like mine, if I insist I'm a student, everyone will simply believe it."
"...That's truly impressive, Your Majesty."
"Was that sarcasm just now?"
"It was precisely accurate. Ah..."
I had unintentionally fed Peace a perfect setup. But moments later, Yuzuru came back with the uniform, timed to perfection.
Born a model, as expected, Peace in a crisp school uniform looked like a photo spread no matter where you placed her.
Seeing her look like an actual student, I couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief.
"Don't relax just yet, Otonashi. Once I'm inside a school, the seat next to you is mine, without question."
"...Do I have the right to refuse...?"
"No."
"Otonashi, Peace—someone has to handle her transfer paperwork, so I'll head over first. Oh, and since she's a student now, I can just call you Peace, right?"
"That's fine."
"Great~ Then see you both at the Academy~"
And with that, Yuzuru left. The memory of the bathtub incident was still fresh, so being alone with Peace still put me awkwardly on edge.
"Otonashi, why have you gone so stiff? Afraid This One might devour you?"
Peace whipped her head around toward my face. With hers suddenly inches from mine, I felt the heat rush up my nose all over again.
"Peace?! You're a girl, and I'm a boy!"
At my outburst, Peace stared at me blankly for a moment—then burst out laughing, clutching her stomach.
"Pfft. A 'student,' is it...? You think you can bind This One with such antiquated rules?"
She caught my chin lightly in her fingers once more and added, mischievous.
"And besides—does being a student come with some law against kissing?"
"!! You said you hated humans!! Then why are you seducing me?!"
"I said I hated how people stare at me with those dreadful eyes. I never said I hated the existence itself."
Just as that strange atmosphere threatened to stretch on, my smartphone alarm mercifully went off. Time to head to school. Bless you, smartphone.
On the way to the Academy, Peace looped her arm through my right with a strangely sly gleam in her eyes.
"...Um, Peace? Walking arm-in-arm like this is a bit of a problem."
"I hear this is how couples normally walk."
"Why do YOU know that?!"
"That's a secret~"
Once she started acting like a high school girl, Peace looked—on the surface at least—exactly like a girl my own age.
"Hey, when we get to the classroom, could you maybe drop the overbearing imperial tone?"
"I could manage that. Why, though?"
"Because it's a problem if 'ordinary' me has to sit next to 'extraordinary' you."
"Hmm... then how about this..."
Peace thought it over carefully, and then delivered something utterly outrageous:
"Master~ shall we go together?"
"Why am I YOUR master?!"
And how does your speech switch on and off like a light flip?!
"I merely borrowed the way I once spoke with my Master... Is that not acceptable...?"
At those words, I felt a strange mixture of exasperation and genuine curiosity about what kind of person Peace's Master had actually been.
"I only resemble that person. I am not him."
"No. Now I'm certain of it. You are our Master."
"Stop joking around!!"
And 'our'? Master of WHO exactly?!
'Myself, the Heavenly King, the Dragon King, and the Demon King, of course.'
Don't read my thoughts AND use telepathy on me!!
And so I resigned myself to being called 'Master' by Peace. Me, the 'ordinary' student... But when I looked at her face, she seemed genuinely, deeply happy.
We arrived at the Academy, and with Yuzuru's help, the transfer procedures went through without a hitch.
The moment we stepped into the hallway, the eyes of countless students swung toward us.
Among them, naturally, was Lucia's bewildered stare.
In front of the classroom, Peace was pulled aside briefly by Yuzuru, while I got cornered by Lucia for a lecture.
"Shi. O. Ta. Exactly who is that woman?"
"...A relative. She just came back from overseas and transferred in..."
"As I said yesterday, Shiota, you're easier to read than you think. Do you know why I can't believe you? First, her mana resonance is far too different for her to be a beastkin. Second, that beauty is absurdly, unfairly overpowered. And third—the decisive one!"
Lucia's voice dropped low.
"Why is she calling you 'Master'?"
She heard THAT?! As I scrambled through excuses in a panic, the classroom door opened and Yuzuru walked in.
"Alright, everyone, quiet down! Those of you who know already know, but we have another transfer student joining our class today."
Just then, the front door slid open, and Peace stepped in.
In that instant, every sound in the classroom cut off. No—it wasn't simply that things went quiet. Time itself had come to a standstill.
—Click.
An abnormal flow in which even dust motes hung frozen in midair. Helplessly suspended within it, I stared at Lucia.
She too was locked in place, eyes still open.
This was... some kind of time-manipulation ability? No—was this phenomenon even within the range of what an ability could do? It was on an entirely different order of magnitude.
Then, prying apart the gap in stopped time, an alluring set of footsteps echoed through the room.
Behind Peace came a woman who, despite wearing no uniform at all, walked into the classroom as naturally as if she belonged there.
Hair like liquid silver, and behind her back, six faintly glowing wings. And a devastating beauty whose overbearing presence yielded nothing to Peace's—no, one that cut sharper and stood prouder still.
The Heavenly King, Flügel.
Peace's face twisted instantly as she glared at Flügel.
"Why is the great Spirit King, Lady Peace, buried in such a trifling human society? And of all places..."
Flügel's gaze traveled slowly until it settled on me, frozen mid-motion. Her eyes trembled faintly.
"Ha! Well, if it isn't the Heavenly King herself, Lady Flügel, parading about on her precious six wings. What brings you crawling into a place like this?"
"Quiet, Spirit King. I didn't come here to put up with your temper."
Ignoring Peace's snarl entirely, Flügel drifted toward me as though in a trance.
Hold on—how was time frozen, yet I could move and speak? Ah... is this because of my ability...?
Flügel stopped in front of me. With trembling fingertips, she gently cupped my cheek—an achingly careful touch, like someone trying to hold on to an illusion that might scatter apart in an instant.
"...You look just like that dear person I lost. No—'look like' doesn't begin to cover it. This soul's very fabric..."
The emotion welling in Flügel's eyes was not curiosity about a stranger.
It was the desperate longing that only someone who, after crossing thousands of years, had found everything they'd lost—every piece of themselves—could wear.
"Could it be... Master...?"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Her voice was trembling so finely it threatened to break apart.
Within the frozen time around us, only the two of us were still moving.
"But... can it truly be? Have you returned? No—you've come back to me once more. I, Flügel, swear myself to you as your slave. This body and this soul—this time, I shall offer them wholly and completely to you!"
Flügel dropped to her knees at my feet. My brain flatlined on the spot, and I screamed.
"Hey, you insane woman!! You can't say things like that to someone you've never met!"
"Ahhng~ and such a deep voice too... it only makes it better..."
"Flügel!! You've lost your mind—get away from him this instant!!"
Kwang!
Peace, out of patience, flew in and landed a textbook knuckle-rap right on Flügel's head. A comment Peace had made yesterday flickered through my mind.
'If the Heavenly King, the Demon King, or that Dragon King had shown up, I'd probably have been eaten alive...'
That wasn't a figure of speech—they literally meant EATEN?!
Kwang!!
Struck, Flügel immediately countered, cracking Peace over the head in return. Apparently, in terms of raw physicality, even Peace would lose ground if she let her guard down.
"Lady Peace~ stopping time doesn't mean you can beat me, you know? If you want to defeat me, at the very least the Demon King—that one—would have to show up."
Flügel smiled with perfect composure and turned her gaze back to me.
"Hold on... Great Heavenly King, why have you come looking for me all of a sudden? I'm not anyone particularly special..."
At my question, she pressed her hands together politely and smiled sweetly.
"Of course~ If it's your wish, Master, I'll answer anything~ The reason I came is simple. Lately I sensed the aura of an anomalous being drifting through the Celestial Realm, and when I tracked it, it led to modern human society. And just then, my bloodline's resonance went haywire. When I came down to find out what had caused it... haaahng~ it was you, Master~♥︎"
Bloodline? The resonance of a being of the Heavenly King's line went haywire and led her to the modern world?
And where, exactly, did all the majesty I'd imagined for a Heavenly King go?!
Kwang!
Peace cracked Flügel over the head one more time, finally subduing her.
"Haah... I apologize, Master. Flügel is, as you can see, a woman of thoroughly perverted disposition. The moment you give the word, she'll be ready to bear your children on the spot."
At Peace's words, the sheer volume of information caused my brain to overload in the most literal sense.
"Haaahngh~ if they were Master's children... ehehehe..."
At that moment, as if a tautly strung thread of mana had snapped, the stopped time began to flow again.
"UWAAAAH! Nobody needed to hear any of that!!"
My scream shook the classroom to its walls.
A devastating beauty, Flügel, kneeling and gazing up at me bashfully. Peace, still pummeling her head. And Lucia and my classmates, jaws hanging open at the bizarre tableau before them.
The classroom, perfectly silent mere seconds ago, was now steeped in a stillness that blended taut tension with sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
That day, everyone at the Academy saw the student called 'Shiota Otonashi' in an entirely new light.
A rumor began to spread: the seemingly ordinary(?) transfer student was, in truth, a Harem King with two mysterious beauties at his beck and call.
No! It must NOT spread!! I'm just trying to attend school like a normal person!!