Chapter 182

The moment my official permission was handed down, the four of them—Shia included—each scooped up one of my boy avatars and spent a good long while rolling around with them.

Well, rolling around was more of a figurative expression… in reality, they were feeding them delicious treats, changing them into garments brought along by the maid squad (honestly, why they were carrying around children’s clothes in the first place remains a mystery), seating them on their laps, and engaging in various conversations.

“Good grief. Are they really that happy…?”

By the way, what on earth is that girl Hest doing right now? Is she seriously teaching him knife fighting at this exact moment? That’s my literal avatar, you know?

Even if he’s a moderately constructed child version, he’s fully capable of completely overwhelming all four of them in a one-versus-four brawl right now, you know?

Goodness. I fully understand that she holds confidence in her knife fighting, and I understand that she wants to boast about it to the little boy… but does she really have to do it explicitly right in front of my avatar?

Look at that. Even he looks embarrassed, not knowing how to react properly.

Spectating their doll-playing (?) frenzy, I simply couldn’t endure it any longer and pressed.

“Hey. I don’t care what you do as long as it doesn’t reach the level where handcuffs are involved… but you guys explicitly understand that that is my avatar while doing this, right?”

At my words, Kelly nodded her head continuous times.

“O-Of course we know. If it weren’t, how could we possibly play around like this? If one grabbed just anyone and acted like this, they’d be called a total pervert, you know?”

So they do know. They know they’re acting completely like perverts.

Shortly after, Chel also nodded her head.

“Of course, of course. In the first place, if he didn’t share a precise likeness with Orabeoni, we wouldn’t have completely lost our minds and clung to him like this. Because he resembles Orabeoni, these kids who are already cute look multiple times cuter.”

Hest also sided with their opinion for once.

“That is correct. He is a perfect match with Master, which makes him flawless. He is the literal avatar of the very concept of ‘cuteness’…!”

“A precise likeness? A perfect match? Ah…”

It was only at this exact moment that I realized what kind of misunderstanding they were harboring.

They were interpreting my avatar as some sort of completely independent clone that merely shared my likeness.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t explicitly explained the concrete concept of an avatar to these guys yet, had I?

“Uh… I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to experience an inkling of an iron-kick later on… an avatar isn’t just a simple clone.”

Elizabeth, who was literally rolling around on the sofa while tightly cradling the avatar—not metaphorically—turned her head and asked.

“Then what is it?”

“That’s me. Literally me.”

“…We already know that?”

“No, I bet you don’t. If you did, there’s absolutely no way you could act like this.”

“Mmm…?”

“Those guys don’t just ‘resemble’ me; they are a literal part of me in the most exact sense. Once they are retrieved later on, everything they experienced transforms seamlessly into experiences that I went through myself.”

“Eh…?”

“Meaning… that exact experience of you stuffing snacks into his mouth, changing his clothes, and going ‘coo-coo’ while doting on him will completely become my own raw experience.”

Yes. While I couldn’t grant them a true physical body or split my soul to deposit into them like the high gods could… even so, that was the precise reason why those entities could be called my avatars.

Once they are retrieved, I can completely synchronize their experiences, memories, and emotions.

“……!”

“……!!”

“……!!!”

“Yeah. Judging by your expressions, it looks like you’ve finally understood. In other words, you are currently acting like that directly toward me.”

I let out a smirk as I watched their completely paralyzed expressions.

“So moderately tone it down before you experience an iron-kick later while going, ‘I have lived a shameful life’ or whatever.”

However… for some odd reason, their condition became rather strange.

I figured they would drop the avatars and back away by this point… but far from it, the grip of their hands holding onto the boys actually tightened with significant force.

A bizarre heat flickered within the eyes of the womenfolk. Along with raw desire.

“Uh… mmm?”

Hest muttered with eyes that were slightly out of it.

“Oh…”

“Oh?”

“This is actually better!!”

“…What?”

“M-M-M-Meaning, if I do A and B to him, and then C, Master will experience that exact execution later on as well, right?”

Following her lead, the remaining three also muttered with dangerous glints in their eyes that I had never witnessed until now.

“What about D, E, and F?”

“G, H, and I too…!”

“If we’re doing it, it has to be X, Y, and Z…!”

“…I would explicitly appreciate it if you revealed the actual words replaced by that ABCDEFGHIXYZ first.”

Is this that legendary ‘women’s language’ I’ve only heard rumors about? The exact type that a literal solo-since-birth like me will never comprehend or have the capacity to understand…?

However, they didn’t answer my question. Instead, they exchanged deeply tragic glances, nodded their heads as if they had reached a firm understanding, and then—

“Bolt!”

“May martial fortune be with you!”

“You have to tell me later what what you played!”

“Leo! Sprint!!”

—Each clutching an avatar securely under their arm, they bolted like a herd of deer startled by a sudden gunshot.

Since every single one of them was a fully mature Master grade practitioner, that breakout alone generated a massive storm.

Craaaaaaaaash!!

“…What?”

While I stared at them scattering and fleeing in four separate directions with an utterly dumbfounded expression, Shia, who was perched on the shoulder of my child avatar rather than mine, poked my cheek.

By the way, is climbing onto someone her personal expression of affection? She said she was dying from how cute he was, yet she climbed onto him again?

“My dear. Is it truly alright for you to stay like this? How can you possibly know what kind of things your little avatars will undergo and where?”

“…Is it dangerous?”

“Extremely dangerous. Incredibly so.”

“Exactly how dangerous is it?”

“To the extent that a slight doubt surfaces as to whether you, upon synchronizing with the avatars, can still maintain your current form as you are right now?”

“No, that’s why I’m asking what that ABCDEFGHIXYZ stands for.”

“Heh. I shall opt for a ‘no comment.’”

Letting out a long sigh, I quietly sent my mental intent directly to the avatars.

“Beat them down.”

Once my avatars explicitly vanished from right before their eyes, only then did they regain their reasoning, kneeling side by side while raising their hands high above their heads.

“…Orabeoni. I’m sorry. I think I temporarily lost my mind.”

“I am sorry, Orabeoni…”

“Master. This insolence shall be paid with my life…”

“I-I didn’t do it. It was entirely our house lion who…”

Experiencing the spine-chilling horror that the kidnapped (?) avatars had felt as if it were my own, I gifted each of their foreheads with a sharp finger flick.

Thwack!

“Urgh!”

“Ack!”

“Yikes!”

“Aaaah!”

Clutching their heads while rolling around, I watched them with a deeply pathetic look before finally pressing about the matter I was curious about.

“Hey.”

“…Yes.”

“I am asking out of genuine curiosity, but what exactly is that ABCDEFGHIXYZ you guys spoke of? Chel, you answer as the representative.”

At that, Chel panicked, completely losing her wits.

“Uh, that… yes. Combat training. It’s the traditional combat training course of the Merina Elves. It meant let’s train together, or something along those lines.”

“Hoh… is that so? Then what does A stand for?”

“Aim.”

“What about B?”

“Bless.”

“C.”

“Chant.”

“D.”

“Deflect.”

“E.”

“Enchant.”

I remained silent for a brief moment before launching a surprise query.

“Z!”

“Z-Zap!!”

“…….”

“…….”

“…You brat, you’re pretty good at dodging.”

“He-Heheh.”

Ultimately, I let out a hollow laugh.

“Phew. I’ll let it slide just this once.”

At any rate, with the commotion finally settled, we were all having a late brunch together when Shia, who was sitting across from me, suddenly spoke up.

“By the way, my dear. Do you intend to refrain from bringing out your avatars from now on?”

At her question, the ears of the womenfolk sitting around the dining table instantly perked up.

“Well, it’s a technique I went through the trouble of learning, so I should put it to use. I just intend to restrain myself from using them for that kind of (?) purpose.”

Shia shook her head.

“No. As long as there are no grand battles to fight, your avatars actually prove their ultimate value when used precisely for that kind of purpose.”

“…What?”

“Fundamentally, 90% of the individuals who have joined your ranks are women. And the vast majority of them remain by your side not for material gain like wealth or fame, but because of their romantic goodwill toward you. If there are any exceptions, it would be myself and that wretched bitch, Disis.”

For reference, Disis was currently excavating treasures and artifacts from the old Bordeaux Kingdom alongside the Twin-Horned Dragons who had managed to restore about a third of their hair from their pattern baldness.

And once they excavated them? Of course, they all became mine.

“…Why is that topic even coming up right now?”

“Why act so bashful? It is a fact that everyone already knows and acknowledges. Do you wish for me to put it in cruder terms? To be blunt, they are all acting this way because they want to get close to you and do this and that.”

“…….”

I subtly glanced around the room. Sure enough, just as Shia said, everyone was calmly carrying on with their meal without much of a reaction.

At most, Elizabeth merely blushed slightly, true to her status as someone who had just barely reached adulthood.

Shia pushed a spoonful of pudding into her mouth and continued her speech.

“Of course, since your forces have only recently been established, they are currently content with simply meeting you and sharing conversations… but that will eventually reach its limit before long. In the end, they will crave a much greater amount of affection from you. Is that not so?”

At her query, the womenfolk gave vague, hesitant nods.

“Well… I suppose so.”

“Th-That’s probably how it will turn out… right?”

“I am merely doing my absolute best as a maid… but, well… I do harbor a desire to grow a bit closer to Master.”

“Well, as for me, I have more than enough desire to be in a romantic relationship.”

“See? This is their honest raw desire.”

“…….”

“Those whose feelings go unrequited are bound to leave eventually. In that sense, as the master of this force, you hold an explicit duty to answer the desires of those who belong to you.”

“Mmm… well, that’s…”

She raised her hand, cutting me off mid-sentence.

“Listen further. Even so, choosing only one among them is not a wise move. Of all human emotions, the darkest and most sinister is neither anger nor despair, but jealousy. The exact moment you make a choice, this harem you have built will completely collapse.”

“Hold on, I’ve never built a harem or anything like that.”

“Aha. I told you not to cut me off. Concurrently, dating multiple people in a rotation cannot be the answer either. Romantic affection is an emotion that can only be satisfied by possessing the other person completely, not by sharing them… so how could anyone be satisfied with a fragmented piece of you? That would merely ruin their appetite, so to speak. Furthermore, the jealousy directed toward the person you are sharing with would be no joke either.”

“…….”

“In that sense, your avatars are a literal cheat-like existence. Even though you are technically sharing, you can provide each person with a complete 1, rather than a decimal point. One for each household. What an absolutely perfect and beautiful solution, is it not?”

Scratching my head at Shia’s long-winded lecture, I pressed with a question.

“Before we even get into that, do I even need a force in the first place? I never intended to make a faction or anything from the start.”

“There you go again with that arrogant talk. While your words might be true strictly from a combat perspective… since when are people used only for battle? In the first place, if it weren’t for Manager Kate at the guild, how incredibly troublesome would the labyrinth life have been for you and the three newbies back at the mansion? If it weren’t for the maids and Hest, would your mansion life be as comfortable and cozy as it is now? If it weren’t for Sodin, a 2nd-level mage like you wouldn’t be able to blast 4th-level magic left and right, and if it weren’t for me, you would have withered and died from malnutrition due to a severe lack of cuteness by now.”

“That last part sounds a bit off…”

“At any rate!”

“Fine. Well, you do have a point. It’s true that it would be a bit rough to go back to a life where I have to cook, clean, and do laundry all by myself for every single meal at this point.”

“Exactly. Of course, I know that your emotional capacity for such things is quite faint. Even though it’s been improving little by little ever since you came here… it’s still not to the point where you would explicitly exert effort into something like romance.”

“…Mmm. Well, that’s an accurate assessment.”

“In that sense as well, the avatars can be the ultimate answer. You can just dump all the work onto the avatars and carry on with your life as usual.”

“…Ah.”

“And when you retrieve the avatars later on, you can acquire all that romantic experience without having to lift a single finger yourself. If you can make the emotions exchanged during that process truly your own…”

“It’ll actually help me harbor a bit more affection toward ordinary people?”

Shia pointed her index finger straight at me, as if to say, ‘Exactly!’

“So, what do you think? Of this plan of mine—a harem, yet not a harem, kind of like a harem plan?”

“Uh, mmm…”

I subtly turned my head to gauge the others gathered around the table, and their eyes were all completely sparkling, looking exceptionally expectant.

“Phew. Well… alright. Fair enough. It might not be so bad.”

The exact split second my official permission was handed down, Hest, who had finished her meal early and had been waiting on Shia by her side, jumped straight to her feet and pressed with an excited shout.

“Th-Then! B-By any chance… can we… can we have our personal preferences reflected in Master’s avatars!?”

“Mmm… if the appearance changes too drastically, the synchronization between the thought-form and the physical shell drops significantly, which heavily degrades their performance.”

“No, no, we don’t want anything like that! We like you because it’s you, Master, so why would we ever want to change that? Just, simply… the a-age… or height, hair color, eye color, things like that…”

“Honestly, rather than someone too muscular, I prefer a slightly slender build…”

“I like Orabeoni exactly as he is right now the best.”

“For me, as long as his age matches mine a bit better…”

“Ah, if it’s just that much, it won’t be a problem.”

At my response, not just Hest but the other women as well tightly clenched their fists, expressing pure joy.

Shia flashed a bright smile and lightly tapped the table.

“Splendid. Since the matters around here have been wrapped up more or less… let us head back to the mansion now and discuss this harem, yet not a harem, kind of like a harem plan with the kids back home as well.”

And from that day onward at the mansion, various types of amusement (?) utilizing my avatars began to be attempted.