Chapter 24: Now That’s What I Call a Harem

Chapter 24:
Now That’s What I Call a Harem

 

THE HAREM PRIDE EVENT. The very name summons images of popular men strutting about, showing off their dazzling girlfriends, and inviting the jealousy of the crowd. You’d be right about the jealousy part, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that this might not be…fun.

“Now, the first team will take the stage!”

The nobleman running the event, Mr. Peppero, acted as judge and master of ceremonies. It was a weekly event, so he was clearly in his element.

“Take a good look at the women I love!” a man declared.

A man and three women confidently took the stage. They were all pretty young. In terms of visuals…I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Honestly, I didn’t find any of the women to be precisely my type, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Deafening silence fell over the crowd.

“Please have each member of your harem step forward one at a time and give us a little twirl,” Mr. Peppero called.

A black-haired woman was first. She sashayed from one end of the stage to the other and smiled for the audience. The proud look on the face of her romantic partner really left an impression.

“My name is Mira, and I work as a waitress.”

That’s when it all turned sour. The audience went berserk, almost like a dam had burst. The silence earlier had been the calm before the storm.

“Look at that ugly cow! She’s so ugly I think I’m gonna puke! Someone help!”

“That nose, ha! Do something about that pig nose of yours!”

“Her hair’s nice, but everything else is filthy. Hilarious! I bet she makes the food taste disgusting too!”

A torrent of insults rushed at her from all sides. Indecent laughter and rotten bread flew through the air.

“Ngh…” Mira looked like she was about to cry. She probably didn’t expect it to be this bad.

Honestly, she wasn’t remotely ugly. I dunno if I’d call her stunning, but her presence wasn’t about to ruin anyone’s meal. The remaining members of the harem were on about the same level. As you might expect, they were met with much the same horrific reaction. Naturally, their man couldn’t remain silent in the face of such abuse.

“Shut the hell up, all of you! You ever think this is why you can’t get girlfriends?”

“Who needs women! I’d rather trot some literal dogs up on stage than those sorry excuses.”

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Once the crowd started chanting for them to leave, Mr. Peppero raised his hand for silence.

“I haven’t cast my judgement yet. From right to left: 30 points, 26 points, 20 points, for a total of 76!”

Surely that was a little too low. The first team left the stage nearly in tears. Emma and I caught each other’s eye. We were thinking the same thing: it might be time to give up.

“This place is crueler than the wild,” I said.

“Ugh,” said Emma. “I wanna go home…”

“Fine by me,” said Lola. “Go home. Mr. Noir still has me to rely on.”

“Wha—I’m not going home! A few insults aren’t going to rattle me!”

Emma’s fighting spirit flared thanks to Lola’s expert provocation. But in my book, it’d still be best to make a quick exit, if this got any worse. No one needed to be permanently traumatized by this awful treatment.

To my dismay, the abuse continued as the second and third groups took the stage. And, just as with the first, their combined score didn’t even make it to three digits.

“Oho, look at that beauty.”

One of the members of the fourth group was knock-out gorgeous. Would the audience still be able to shower her with insults?

“I work at the secondhand shop. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She had a dignified air about her and, as far as I could tell, she wasn’t trying to curry favor. The audience, as always, were silent for a time until one person opened his mouth.

“She’s kinda flat-chested, isn’t she?”

“I thought so too. Flat as a board.”

“Flat as a board! Flat as a board! Flat as a board!”

“Shut your damn mouths!” she snapped at them.

For a moment, they stopped their rude chant. Despite all that, she got the highest score so far: 760 points! The remaining members of her team got 100 points each, so the disparity was pretty extreme. To Mr. Peppero’s credit, he may have been stingy with the points so far, but he seemed to recognize exceptional contestants. If he didn’t, I guess there’d be nothing to this event but bullying.

The ninth team was the harem of a famous adventurer from Odin’s rival guild, Lahmu. All four of the women he brought with him were a cut above the rest and scored over 800 each, putting his total score close to 3,300.

My stomach sank. “There’s no way we’re gonna win, is there? I mean, just mathematically.”

“Don’t worry, we just have to score in the top three in the first round. Currently, second place has 960 points and third has 800, so we just have to score 801.”

“Oof. Got it. I guess we’re up.”

We braced ourselves for the worst and ascended to the stage. I had the least to do, but I was so nervous I couldn’t stand it. I was sweating bullets, wishing I could do something to spare the girls the brutality of the crowd.

Emma was up first. She must’ve been at least as anxious as I was—she was shaking.

“Just be yourself, Emma,” I told her, trying to be supportive, if I could do nothing else. “Don’t worry, I’m here for you.”

She gave me a tight little smile. “Thanks, Noir. That makes me feel a lot better.”

I gave her a gentle push and Emma raised her head. Before I knew it, she was sweeping across the stage, full of confidence. Her chest bounced with every step.

“I’m Emma, and I’m currently attending the Hero Academy.”

The audience fell silent. Everyone seemed more focused on gazing at Emma than opening their mouths.

“Damn…that face, and her chest…just, damn…”

“If she’s in the Hero Academy, she must be a member of the elite.”

Somehow, Emma got off scot-free. She turned the spotlight over to Luna without getting much if any abuse.

“I’m Luna. I’m a cleric and adventurer. If you tell me someone’s injured, my Healing Shot will extinguish their pain!”

“She’s got a killer bod… How are her limbs so slender…?”

“And she’s a half-elf cleric on top of it all.”

“Isn’t that the great Luna? I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”

It felt like the temperature of the venue was dropping by the minute. Last up was Lola. She started her walk with a friendly smile on her face.

“Hello, everybody! I’m a receptionist for Odin. If any of you here are planning on living the adventuring life, come give us a visit!”

“Even she’s cute! How’d he manage this?”

“And she’s brave to use this as an opportunity to promote her business…”

Not only were all three of the ladies I’d come with beautiful, they had no visible flaws. They had pretty faces, attractive bodies, and nice voices to boot. Not even this antisocial audience could find anything to attack, which was a real relief.

“Hm, this might be a harem for the history books,” Mr. Peppero muttered.

In the end, he gave them all scores over 950, giving us a total of 2,900 and securing us a tidy second place. Emma and the other girls high-fived to celebrate.

“We did it!”

“Ugh, I’m sorry I didn’t do anything!” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. Plus, the real fight is about to start.”

“Yeah, let’s give it our best shot.”

The top three teams took the stage again, and the second round began almost immediately.

“I’ll be giving you questions,” said Mr. Peppero. “The harem members will have to respond. Whichever team makes the audience the most jealous, wins.”

First up was the team with the pretty girl who the audience declared flat-chested.

“Here we go. I have three questions for you: One, show me what you would do if your man was shivering in his bed at night. Two, what if he caught a cold? And three, how would you prove your harem is the best harem?”

Those situations sound a touch specific! I wasn’t sure how best to respond to Mr. Peppero’s questions. I guess, fundamentally, they were all about demonstrating how much the girls loved their man. That would likely be the deciding factor.

“You two, come here.” Lola called Emma and Luna over to strategize. They didn’t want to tell me their plans. I think they wanted to make sure my reactions were genuine.

The girls in the first team went first. They started by demonstrating how they’d ward off the cold with steamy hot kisses, then feeding their guy bread mouth-to-mouth if he were sick. The audience looked devastated. Curiously, none of them left. They might not have wanted to watch, but they couldn’t take their eyes off the stage.

Next up, the Lahmu adventurer’s group received much the same reaction. At the end of their turn, each girl got up and declared their love for their man. This made the audience and Mr. Peppero clutch their chests in pain.

Finally, it was our turn. I still had no idea what the girls were planning but, assuming I was supposed to pretend to be in bed, I took a seat.

“First, why don’t you show us what you would do if your main man was cold?” Mr. Peppero said.

Emma, Lola, and Luna cutely scurried over to me with smiles on their faces.

“Are you cold? Don’t worry, we’ll warm you up.”

“There you go, now you won’t be cold anymore.”

Their voices were gentle, almost like they were speaking to a child, as the three of them embraced me together…and then started moving their bodies up and down to generate friction.

“Ngh, I hate them…why do they get to be so happy…?”

“Damn, if three babes did that to me in bed on a chilly night, I could die happy.”

The audience was suffering and Mr. Peppero’s breathing was getting ragged.

“I-I’ve seen enough! Next! Move onto the next situation! How would you treat him if he caught a cold!”

Mr. Peppero tossed the piece of bread over to us. Lola gently laid me down in her lap and looked down at me with a heavenly smile as Emma began to give me a full-body massage.

“You’re always working so hard, you should take it easy when you’re sick,” she said with an adorable smile.

While I was enjoying the massage, Luna tore off a bite-size piece of bread and blew on it. “Sir Noir, say ‘aah.’”

Though I was a little confused, I happily accepted the bread.

“It’s just bread! It’s not even hot, but she blew on it for him?! Damn them!”

“I wish someone would treat me that nicely when I was sick.”

A miserable aura enveloped the entire crowd.

“Me too…I wish my wife and daughter had treated me like this…ngh, next! Hurry up and get to the last section!” Mr. Peppero shouted.

Lola, Emma, and Luna all helped me up. Emma stood directly across from me with Lola to her right and Luna to her left. I didn’t know what to expect, but then the three of them started all at once.

“One, two, three!”

The three of them all gave me a kiss at the same time, and I froze. The audience reacted before I did.

“I hate it! My heart’s going to tear in two!”

“Mr. Peppero, please! We’re begging you! Put us out of our misery!”

“I…I can see my wife and daughter’s faces…ngh waaaaaah! Stop it already! Don’t make me remember what I’ve lost!” Mr. Peppero seemed the most affected of all.

Though the last few minutes had admittedly been pretty great, I was still eager to leave this place. I slid over to Mr. Peppero while he was still convulsing. “Um, excuse me, but could you tell us the results?”

“Fine, you win, just leave and never come back!”

“Seriously! You’re going to traumatize us!”

And on that note, we took the million rel prize and hurried out of the venue.

 

1,300 LP → 3,700 LP

 

It didn’t get me all the way there in one shot like we’d hoped, but it was a huge leap. And I didn’t even do anything.