Chapter 5
Perhaps the Chief God decided it was too soon for me to die and sent me back to the mortal realm, because my eyes snapped open.
…There’s a line a man absolutely has to say at times like this.
“Mmph mmph mmph…ma?”
I wanted to recite a line as smoothly as flowing water and gaze up at an unfamiliar ceiling, but something had wrapped itself all around my face.
In the end, all I managed to do was mumble in an unintelligible language and
look around through a field of vision blocked by something gray instead of seeing an unfamiliar ceiling.
Puzzled, I fiddled with my face and felt fabric with a slightly bumpy, finely textured weave winding around it.
It’s a bandage.
…But who wrapped this?
What am I supposed to do if they cover even my nostrils so I can’t breathe?
“…?!”
Had they really thought I was dead and turned me into a mummy?!
Startled, I twisted my body and began tearing the bandage off at once.
Finally, unable to find the last wrapped end, I pulled the bandage tight to make a gap, slipped my fingers into it, and peeled it off like a hat.
“…Phew.”
Contrary to my fears, I hadn’t woken up inside a tomb.
I had opened my eyes in a luxurious bedroom filled with a cozy fragrance.
As I contentedly sniffed the surprisingly addictive scent of the bedroom, the door creaked open, and an unfairly handsome man appeared.
“What was that sound… Huh? Ms. Ria?!”
“…Ah.”
“You mustn’t take off the bandages!”
Riiip—. The moment my eyes met Acard’s, blood spurted from the wound on my head, and my body, which had been sitting up, toppled backward again.
Startled by the sight, Acard hurriedly began wrapping the bandages around me again….
…He’s really terrible at wrapping bandages.
I’ll die of suffocation before I’m healed.
“Hey.”
“…?”
“Aren’t you going to make a hole for me to breathe through?”
“…! I’m sorry!”
“And only wrap the top, you idiot.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
I only cracked my skull, so why was he wrapping my entire head?
He must have been in plenty of fights, so why couldn’t he do something this simple?
“…That’s a little better.”
After I gave him pointers and he wrapped the bandages into a reasonably proper shape, I felt like I could actually live.
The sudden bleeding had been treated with Acard’s healing magic, so I suppose I could say the worst was over for now.
“…Um.”
“No.”
“….”
I cut Acard off before he could get a word out as he sat quietly beside the bed.
“…Ahem.”
…Come to think of it, I felt guilty treating the person who had saved my life so coldly, so I decided to at least keep him company.
It wasn’t that I hated talking to people; I just really, really hated the idea of dating a man.
“If you don’t talk, I’ll go to sleep…?”
I hadn’t specifically meant to speak informally, but I’d somehow been doing it for a while, so I awkwardly changed my tone.
“I’m sorry….”
“…Sigh.”
As soon as I changed my tone, Acard immediately blurted out an apology, and I sighed as if I’d known this would happen.
He was going to launch into the predictable spiel about the Star of Destiny and all that, wasn’t he?
“You were attacked because of me…. …I’m sorry.”
“………?”
What?
“I’ll escort you home once you’ve recovered. I’m sorry for causing you trouble yet again.”
“….”
The three straight apologies, completely unlike what I’d expected, left me dumbfounded.
I hadn’t expected such a polite apology—and besides, this wasn’t even something he needed to apologize for.
My terrible luck was what had caused me to run into those thugs, yet he was apologizing as if it had happened to him.
…Maybe this guy was a better person than I’d thought?
“I’m sorry about the commotion at our house yesterday, too…. I have no excuse.”
While I stared at him wide-eyed, Acard smoothly listed his mistakes and finished apologizing cleanly, without making any excuses.
“Excuse me.”
I became certain.
“…Yes?”
“What kind of relationship do you have with those three?”
The man named Acard had absolutely not built a harem through his good looks alone.
“……They’re my precious wives.”
…Even so, I was still irritated.
No, seriously, how could he pick out only the beautiful women who were exactly my type and make them his wives?
Even as I desperately swallowed down my jealousy, which made me tremble whenever I thought about it, I put on a sociable expression and played along.
“You bastard, I’m jealous….”
“Wow, you’re seriously amazing!”
“…?”
“Oops.”
Somehow, my thoughts and my answer had instinctively come out reversed.
“Ahaha… I get told that a lot…!”
But Acard simply laughed good-naturedly and displayed the social tact needed to keep the atmosphere from turning gloomy.
Wow.
…Was this the social finesse of a husband with three wives?
My opinion of the man named Acard shot up from “obnoxious bastard” to “incredibly impressive person.”
“So, who was your first wife?”
“Karina.”
“Really?”
This was another genuinely surprising revelation.
Karina was his first wife.
Judging from yesterday’s conversation, I’d thought Mira was probably his first wife.
Astonishingly, Karina, who seemed like she had joined the group last, was actually his first wife.
“…Then when did you meet Mira?”
“I met Mira about a month after I married Karina.”
“Oh….”
“She called me the Star of Destiny and proposed to me whenever she got the chance….”
“Even though you had Karina?”
“…At first, I was the one who rejected her, but astonishingly, Karina was the first to give us permission to marry.”
This was fascinating, too.
I never would have expected Karina, who seemed like she would be the most rigid, to be the one who allowed the marriage first.
The story was more exciting than I’d expected, and before I knew it, I was completely absorbed.
It felt like one of those drinking stories that wasn’t especially well narrated, but was so fascinating that you couldn’t help listening.
“Then what about Vika?”
“…I married her two years after I married Mira.”
“Oh? That was a little later, then?”
“When Mira first brought Vika to me… she refused to meet me, saying that dark elves practiced monogamy.”
Another entertaining backstory began.
The dark-elf gyaru Vika, who had looked like the most open-minded of them all, had actually been the most closed-minded.
This story is fun…!
“She slapped me when we first met, but two years later, we ended up on the same team for a group quest to slay a dragon.”
“…A dragon?”
“Yes. A dragon is a creature with a lizard-like body and wings, and it’s incredibly large—”
“—I know that much.”
Even though I was from a developed country on Earth, I obviously knew the basics of fantasy monsters.
“…Ahem. Anyway, Vika was in danger while we were hunting the dragon.”
“And you saved her?”
“…I threatened the god of the underworld into bringing her back to life.”
“Hmm…?”
I thought I’d just heard something strange.
“If I’d been even a little later, Vika would have…. Just thinking about it still makes me shudder.”
“…Wait a second. What?”
No, seriously, what was this guy?
He had the guts to threaten the god of the underworld just to save Vika….
“No… this guy’s insane….”
For the first time, my thoughts and my words matched perfectly as I uttered an admiring curse.
Acard had more than enough reason and justification to have three beautiful women as his wives.
“…Ah, go on.”
I cleared my throat and waited for him to finish the story as it approached its climax.
“So I married Vika, too, after that opened her heart to me.”
Clap clap—.
When the conversation ended, I applauded in admiration.
“Are you perhaps a hero or something?”
“Ahaha… A hero? No, I’m not.”
“What a shame….”
At some point, I realized that my previously hostile attitude had softened considerably.
“Then what does that Mira person do? She kept talking about the Star of Destiny to me.”
Since I was at it, I decided to ask everything I was curious about, so I unconsciously supported my chest with one hand, leaned back against the backrest, and asked.
“The Star of Destiny is… simply put, something like an essential, inevitable current of fate.”
Acard rested his chin on his hand and thought carefully before explaining it in a way I could understand.
“Hmm…? Then all that talk about wives and whatnot… Ugh….”
…To summarize, didn’t that mean a fate that absolutely couldn’t be resisted?
After hearing his explanation, chills suddenly ran through me and every hair on my body stood on end.
“…You don’t need to worry. The Star of Destiny isn’t absolute just because it’s called that.”
“…Really?”
“I’ve changed fate myself before. I’ll be sure to change the future in which you become my wife, Ms. Ria.”
“….”
I didn’t instinctively believe him, but since Acard said so, I decided to trust him.
If everything he’d told me so far was true, he was more than capable of successfully changing fate.
“Sigh…. I suppose I’ll believe you.”
Since I didn’t think this man was interested in me right now, I let out a deep sigh and held out my hand.
“Please change my fate somehow.”
“I promise…!”
And so, the two of us clasped hands and announced the beginning of the Destiny-Twisting Project.
“Starting tomorrow, don’t greet me even if you see me.”
“Pardon…?”
“Why not? If we don’t meet from now on, fate won’t matter anymore.”
“…Hmm? I suppose… you’re right?”
Of course, that was both the beginning and the end of it.
All ties between this man and me ended right here!
I was certain my life would return to cruising along a smooth, level road.
I’d hole up in the church, spend my days fooling around with Roxanna, and maybe meet some beautiful woman or freeload off Roxanna. Whatever.
It was a clean ending, with no regrets or lingering attachment.
I sank comfortably into the bed and closed my eyes so I could recover quickly.
“…Sniff sniff.”
Only belatedly did I begin analyzing the bedroom’s scent, which I’d thought was so pleasant.
“…Damn.”
I vaguely realized that the scent came from the sex Acard and the three women had had last night.
…No wonder it was so addictive.
“Excuse me.”
Still lying cozily in bed, I snapped at Acard.
“You’re supposed to air the place out after having sex. Right?”
“…Pfft!!”
Acard, who had been sitting beside the bed with a complicated expression, bit his tongue and let out a harsh cough.