Chapter 148: What is a harem (1)
“Blanc, I… I got a confession.”
“You’re bragging about it when I’m busy… I can’t believe you.”
She was the head of the southern branch of the Black Hand, the best information guild on the continent, and she had a position where she couldn’t be ignored, and yet she was listening to the love woes of a girl younger than her.
It was a strange thing, but she didn’t hate it.
For Blanc, who had seen all manner of humanity, Aizel was such a mystery, so unpredictable even to her own powers of observation.
A kind of entertainment.
So even though she was busy, she made time to visit her whenever she called.
As a bonus, she would get the inside scoop on the closed Innocence Academy.
Aizel shook her head vigorously at Blanc’s stunned response.
“That’s not it…!”
“What, no way…”
“I, I’m telling Zetto……confession…I got a confession.”
With those words, Aizel buried her burning face into the cold desk but it didn’t cool the heat in her face.
“What did he say? Or rather, how?”
Blanc, who’d heard enough, grabbed Aizel by the shoulders and shook her.
“Well, it just so happens…I heard you like it.”
Aizel poked her head out from between her outstretched arms and recalled the events of the day.
We’re not done talking yet.
She wasn’t going to let it slip away.
She grabbed hold of Zetto.
The Zetto she’d caught in the middle of the road was no illusion.
So even though the words he spoke were not fantasy, but reality. Still, Aizel couldn’t quite believe it.
‘I like you.’
The sound of Zetto’s voice echoed in her ears as vividly as if she had just heard it.
Aizel was so happy that she wondered if she was having a sweet dream.
She had already tugged at her cheeks so many times that they were red and tingling.
Blanc took over, trying to sort out the situation.
“Well… I mean, you’re dating, so I guess it’s not that weird, but… Is that why you started a relationship?”
“A relationship…?”
Aizel frowns and at this, Blanc repeats in disbelief.
“You said something.”
“I didn’t say anything… I didn’t…”
“Aizel, then what did you do?”
“I… I ran away…”
Aizel was so embarrassed that she couldn’t even look at Zetto’s face, her whole body tingling with embarrassment.
“……”
“Why…? Is something terribly wrong…?”
Blanc’s meaningful silence made Aizel cry, albeit slightly.
Was it a shame to run away after all?
Will Zetto be disappointed?
Aizel’s current state was like a turbulent sea with violent waves, and she couldn’t control her emotions.
“Hah… Aizel, what do you want?”
“…”
Aizel bowed her head deeply.
For a regressor, love was too difficult.
It was full of emotions she’d never experienced before, and she didn’t even have a basic idea of what to do in a situation like this.
Blanc scratched her cheek wondering if it was because she was so uncomfortable with her feelings, or because she had never been in love before.
“What if that crush means something else…”
Before Blanc could continue, Aizel shook her head.
“He said it didn’t.”
Aizel worried about that, too.
The Zetto she knew, though kind and gentle, didn’t seem like the kind of person you’d think would be interested in the opposite sex, which was why she was worried.
If by nice, she meant good as a friend, then she was out of luck but she had already gotten Zetto’s assurance that this was not the case.
That’s what prompted Aizel to run away.
“…That’s good news. With this, I can break the curse myself.”
Blanc strokes Aizel’s back and comforts her.
Aizel already told her about Zetto’s curse.
The way to cure the curse supposedly lurking in Zetto’s chest was quite unique: a kiss from a loved one… but Blanc had researched it and found it to be real.
What’s more, the saint herself had put the nail in the coffin, so the question of whether or not it was a curse had long since passed but she had to be careful with the word ‘beloved’.
“But there’s a difference between liking and loving.”
“It is.”
“What exactly is different?”
“Uhm, people usually categorize it into before and after, but that’s really just a change of words… It’s the difference between a crush and love…”
Even for Blanc, this was a difficult question.
“In this case, I’d say the curse is the dividing line… then of course a relationship can’t be based on words alone… At the very least, it has to be heartfelt…..”
A distressed Blanc muttered.
It was good to have clear criteria to gauge when it was time to make an attempt at reconciliation, so as to avoid any unfortunate ‘misunderstandings’ but love, such a complicated emotion, could not have such clear criteria.
“Hmmm…”
She mutters to herself, then Aizel asks Blanc a question.
“Like… would you die for that person…?”
Death it’s an inappropriate word, too far gone to be a standard.
“…Well, yes, I suppose that would be love…”
Blanc, who had been stammering, nodded.
Normally, one would not choose to die for someone they merely had a crush on.
“…But it wouldn’t be a criterion. There’s no way to tell if I’d die for you… and even if there were, I wouldn’t do it.”
“…”
That was Blanc’s judgment, but Aizel disagreed.
…Zetto had died for her.
Perhaps not to Aizel, a regressor who could not die, but to others, death was not something to be taken lightly.
Suddenly, Aizel’s question was answered.
Why had Zetto died in her place?
‘That Zetto… He was in love with me…’
That was all she could think.
It all made sense to the regressor, who had only recently come to understand the emotion of love.
Aizel herself had also realized that she would die for Zetto.
It was love… even if it didn’t mean much to her, since she was a regressor.
After all, Zetto dying for Aizel was in the last episode and there was no telling what it would be like now but she had a feeling.
Zetto, who has a “history” of loving her, has already confessed to her that he likes her…
…it seemed like the day was coming soon when she would be able to cut the curse from Zetto’s heart.
That fact alone made Aizel smile with satisfaction.
She couldn’t have asked for a happier day.
***
Meanwhile, after whispering his love to Aizel once more, Zetto hurried back to the dormitory to find Geppeti.
He left Sierra in the room for a while and went up to the roof with Geppeti for an intimate talk.
“…So, Lord Zetto, you want to ask me if it’s really normal to like several girls at once, and if you’re not some kind of human trash.”
“Is that…..?”
Geppeti had suddenly acquired a fairly sophisticated human vocabulary.
“I’m also suspecting that the Crown may have played a role in the process.”
“I need your objective judgment.”
Zetto, who had been fiddling with the blindfold over his eye, nodded.
“Then I’d like to ask you the opposite, Lord Zetto, but if you feel that such an idea is wrong, isn’t it just a matter of choosing one girl?”
“I suppose so, but…”
“You wouldn’t be able to give them up, because they would all be precious to you, Lord Zetto.”
“…”
Zetto trailed off.
She was right, they were all equally precious.
“To summarize, it seems that this phenomenon was caused by the Crown. I think you were unaware of it due to Lord Zetto emotions being dulled, but Lady Aizel actions caused you to reflect on it, and you’re only now realizing it. In the process, you were confused by the presence of the others.”
“Because it is strange.”
“Why is it weird?”
“Well… I mean, normal love is just two people…”
“You don’t know about polygamy, but from what I’ve been able to analyze, the women in your life are attracted to you. Are you going to throw them all out?”
“They have a crush on me?”
Zetto repeated in a bewildered voice, as if that suddenly made no sense.
“…”
Geppeti, now somewhat humanized, barely managed to hold back a sigh.
“…It’s a natural thing, an extremely instinctive move on the part of the female to acquire the genes of a superior male. In fact, I’m sure a normal person would have seen through it, even without the need to analyze it closely, but since you’re… blind, so to speak, I suppose it’s a matter of the Crown, but… since you’ve come to realize this as of late, why don’t you take the time to review what happened with the women yourself.”
“Things that happened…”
Zetto followed Geppeti’s lead and recalled the events that had transpired with the women.
At the time, he’d gotten away with it, but in retrospect, there were a lot of things he’d done that he’d thought were flirtatious.
The problem was that there were a lot of them and they were all people he cared about.
“…What should I do?”
Zetto’s confusion grew as he scanned the past while Geppeti, looking impassive, answered briefly.
“It’s simple. You just have to embrace them all.”
“Embrace them all…?”
“You said that Lord Zetto’s purpose is a happy ending for those you care about, but if the person you care about is not chosen by Lord Zetto…will that person be happy?”
“…I don’t think so.”
He had to admit that it would never be a happy ending for a favorite person to end up with someone else.
“Unless your purpose changes, there is no other option for you, Lord Zetto, so you will have to accept it, and I, Geppeti, highly recommend it. After all, for the survival of the human race, Lord Zetto needs to produce more offspring.”
“…From Geppeti’s point of view.”
Zetto, whose thoughts had not yet reached the point of ‘offspring’, responded with a shudder.
Undeterred, Geppeti continues.
“What’s more… a transcendent being called ‘God’ wants you to be a ‘king’, Lord Zetto. That’s a pretty big claim for a king, even if it doesn’t mean anything to you. And it doesn’t seem strange for a king to have multiple women. Maybe you were already on your way to becoming a king, so you subconsciously decided to embrace them all. Embracing them all is a pretty royal idea, isn’t it?”
“Hmm…”
Zetto tilted his head back in confusion and thought that there wasn’t much in Geppeti’s long explanation that he could deny.
How did this happen?
Was it all the fault of the blindfold?
He didn’t know exactly why, but he wanted them to be unhappy.
“…As you say, I guess we don’t have a choice.”
Zetto finally agreed that it was the only way to make them happy.
He declared that he would embrace them all.
“But…Now what?”
Zetto asked, but he couldn’t think of anything that would work.
“It’s good that you’re becoming more aware, but the biggest problem is that you’ll have to make the women understand what you’re sharing with them, because after all, they’ll only want you to look out for them, and that’s a perfectly normal reaction.”
“Sure, but no matter how much I think about it, I don’t think anything good is going to happen… Is this right…?”
He could tell by Sierra’s reaction right away.
Ever since she’d decided to go all in, her head had been spinning.
Geppeti, on the other hand, who seemed to be on track with his plan, opened her mouth with a smirk.
“I have a plan, but do you want to hear it?”