Chapter 183

Shia saying that my romantic affection or sexual desire was quite faint was actually half right and half wrong.

To be precise, when it came to sexual desire, I was as completely bursting with it as anyone my age typically would be.

If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have strained so hard to make the inner-Bel passively wear a swimsuit within my Imagery, nor would I have stored Yuribel’s negligee inside my head to pull out and look at whenever I was bored.

Furthermore, what was the exact relaxation method that I preferred above all else in the first place?

Was it not precisely lying down on a beach chair, enjoying the sight of the womenfolk—the maids included—romping around in explicit swimsuits by the lake-cum-outdoor pool?

The sheer pleasure of watching their attire grow increasingly radical lately as if they were in a fierce competition…

“Ahem.”

Well, at any rate, the point was that my desire for the opposite sex functioned perfectly normally.

However… when it came to the aspect of romantic affection, Shia’s words were correct.

Even though it had improved a decent amount since I came to this world… it still wasn’t easy for me to view the people living here as independent objects equivalent to myself.
Of course, I didn’t mean that I looked at them as if they were monkeys or primates like I did back during my days on Earth.

In the first place, the beauty of the women dubbed as beauties in this neighborhood was on an entirely different level compared to Earth… so it would be difficult to view them that way even if I explicitly forced myself to.

So… if I had to break it down, it felt more like looking at a drawing or an animation, so to speak.

And… while it was fully possible to experience sexual desire from looking at a drawing that depicted a beautiful woman, developing romantic affection toward that drawing was practically impossible. Because it wasn’t a ‘human being.’

Therefore, when I failed to notice their feelings, I didn’t go out of my way to approach them first, and even after noticing them, I merely responded in a lukewarm fashion.

Ah, of course, it seemed certain individuals with highly refined tastes achieved their love by making those two-dimensional entities possess a three-dimensional sacrifice (it seemed a body pillow was typically selected for this), but… well, I wasn’t exactly that type.

So… stamping out avatars and throwing them to the surrounding women one by one was also done purely in the spirit of giving in to the nagging of Shia and the others around me, rather than because I held some sort of expectation…

But this ended up triggering quite a crowd of incidents, both in a good way and a bad way.

The total number of avatars I stamped out and distributed to the surrounding women came to exactly fourteen: Shia, Disis, the Western Continent members Chel, Kelly, Elizabeth, and Ailet, the mansion members Sodin, Hest, Illeia Bijou, Scala Evitz, Selan Cotin, Veloa, and the ladies of the maid squad who tirelessly labored for myself and Shia.

Everyone displayed their own entertaining reactions… but to talk about the situation back then, it felt roughly like this.

First, Shia.

“Is it not explicitly natural for me to take your avatar as number one?”

“You’re already with me, the main body, all the time anyway. Do you really need an avatar?”

Shia must have taken quite a liking to my words, because she let out a ‘heh-heh~’ laugh, casting a sweeping look down at the rest of the harem members (?) as if to say, ‘This is the explicit difference between myself and you all!’

“That is that, and this is this. Is there truly any need to enjoy a steak in only one solitary flavor? One can enjoy it well-done, and one can enjoy it medium as well, after all.”

So, she received an avatar from me that was actually multiple times younger than before—closer to a toddler than a preteen boy.

Lately, she had been clinging to me while cradling the avatar, going on about how ‘this is the exact way to enjoy your favorite character twice over’…

It wasn’t even a literal Matryoshka doll, but watching it left me feeling a bit bizarre.

Next, in the case of Disis…

“You want one too? Why? Do you perhaps like me too?”

“Have you lost your mind? Why would I? Who was the one who literally took my neck? O-Of course, if you explicitly begged me to become your lover no matter what, it’s n-not like I absolutely couldn’t do it for you, but… even so, I don’t have the slightest intention of being hung up on you like those girls, not even a single speck, okay?”

“Mmm. I suppose that would be the case. Then why?”

“While you are away, I will have to manage Bordeaux Island… so the more hands we have, the better, right? If it’s your avatar, he should be more than sufficient to act as your substitute.”

“Everything is already wrapped up, so what is there left to manage? I feel like things would run perfectly fine with just those three pattern-baldness dragons around.”

“Like hell they would! We have to deploy monsters all over the place right away…”

“Monsters? You mean the invasions? Can’t we just stop doing that now?”

“Good grief, do you explicitly not know how massive the monster defense industry and its related sectors are on the Western Continent? If monsters completely vanish, that entire ecosystem flies away as a whole. The economy will be absolutely shattered.”

“…Why is a Demon King harboring that exact kind of worry?”

“Aha. The Demon King is you.”

“Can you stop dumping it on me at your own whim?”

Come to think of it… people like Chel and Kelly were guild hunters by profession.
If monsters didn’t drop, it meant their guild would go completely bankrupt that exact day.

“At any rate, you do have a point.”

“Exactly. Concurrently, I also have to control the doppelgängers, and that is by no means an easy task either, you know? Anyway, apart from that, the work is overflowing. Unlike the past, it is far too overwhelming for me as I am right now.”

“Fine. I get it. I’ll give you one.”

“Ah, make his hair long blond, please. And while it’s fine right now, I feel like it would be a bit better if he were slightly slimmer… Oh, a monocle! Add a monocle! Base his attire on a formal suit… and as for his personality, make him the type who grumbles while granting every single request of mine…”

“…Are you explicitly sure you need him strictly for work?”

And in the case of the three Western Continent members…

“Chel, you wanted a slender build rather than a muscular one. Kelly, you wanted him exactly like the main body, and Elizabeth, you asked for his age bracket to match yours, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Yep! But if that’s the case, what should I use as a title? Calling someone of the same age bracket ‘Orabeoni’ is a bit… no, only his outward appearance is like that, but the original is an old man, so should I stick with old man after all?”

“…In the first place, you shouldn’t be calling me old man either. How much of an age gap could there possibly be between us? Call me Oppa. Call me Oppa.”

“Ah, I hate that. Oppa is far too cliché. A title needs to have a unique flavor to it. Old man, do you explicitly not know how desperately old man, Sparks, Timid, and Hest unnie—these three—fought over the title of ‘Master’?”

Unnie? Ah, she meant Hest? It seems they’ve grown a decent amount closer while bickering over the past few days.

“…No, more importantly, a battle like that actually occurred?”

“That’s why an old man is an old man. I should definitely go with old man for the avatar’s side as well.”

“…Do whatever you want.”

And in the case of Ailet…

“Please grant me one as well.”

“…Do you need one?”

“I hold a decent amount of raw desire myself, after all.”

“Uh… I didn’t know you viewed me as a member of the opposite sex.”

“In the first place, if one does not view someone of your caliber as a member of the opposite sex, who else could they possibly look at that way?”

“Y-Yeah… I guess. So is there a specific style you desire? Like age, or outward appearance… I can customize it slightly.”

“Ah, I do not mind the outward appearance. Instead, please degrade his physical abilities to the absolute maximum. If you can drop them down to the level of an ordinary citizen, that would be even better.”

“…That weak? Is it because you want to firmly grasp the dominant position strictly when it comes to romance, or something?”

“Rather than that, if he is too strong, even if I feed him medicine, it won’t work… gasp!”

“…….”

“…….”

“…What did you just say?”

“Nothing. It is nothing. I did not utter a single word.”

“…You, you’re planning to put my avatar to sleep and use him as a test subject, aren’t you?”

“I am not.”

“…….”

“…I am sorry.”

“Conclude your experiments strictly through interview studies.”

“…Can’t I just slice a tiny, tiny piece off?”

“Go away, you mad scientist.”

Hest? Ah, that pervert?

“M-Master. As for me…”

“Ah, so you want me to customize him into a young, cute preteen version?”

“Yes. Yes… I suppose I have a bit of a soft spot for cute things…”

“We’ve decided to call that a shotacon.”

“N-No, I’m not! I don’t hold such suspicious tastes…”

“A present for someone like you. There, take this middle-aged, dandy, flower-boy avatar.”

“……!!!”

“I truly hope you neutralize your tastes through this opportunity, returning to normal preferences instead of being a pervert.”

“Kyaaaaah…”

And I presented two avatars to the members of the maid squad who usually take care of me, in the spirit of letting them play along as well.

I could see as clear as day that they held a decent amount of interest in me normally, but simply couldn’t bring themselves to approach due to the circumstances, you see.

Sure enough, they liked it tremendously.

In Sodin’s case… she was a bit hesitant at first.

“Even if it is an avatar, with your actual main body right here, acting like this feels a bit inappropriate…”

And Shia completely settled that hesitation with a single sentence.

“Tsk, tsk. Do you feel guilty because it feels like an affair? You haven’t even managed to date him yet… good grief, you’re so innocent despite your age.”

“N-No… it’s not exactly like that…”

“An avatar is a part of the main body. Meaning, it is equivalent to his hands, feet, or his fingers and toes. Are you going to worry that holding Sword God’s hand or locking arms with him constitutes cheating?”

“…Indeed.”

But that was only at first… the exact moment Shia provided a plausible reasoning, she understood immediately like the mage she was, even taking one along after heavily customizing it in detail.

And lastly… the core members of the Geom-shin Party who belonged to the youngest line: Sensible, Timid, and Sparks. Along with the recently added gloomy character, Veloa.

Having been reduced to wallflowers on one side because the previous members’ temperaments were far too strong, the girls stepped forward joyfully when their turn came.

“Mmm… do you guys need one too?”

“Is that even a question?”

“Boo! D-Discrimination! Discrimination!”

“We want one. We fiercely want one.”

“……M-Me too.”

“But, something I realized while forging the avatars… once the number exceeds ten, the avatars’ condition starts getting gradually worse.”

“Worse? In what way?”

“Mmm… it’s probably better to just show you directly.”

And I forged four more avatars—from the eleventh to the fourteenth—and showed them to the four girls.

Looking at the forms of the avatars that manifested, the four of them let out gasps of sheer shock.

“The… the positions of the nose and mouth are swapped…!”

“Uh, um… why are there th-three eyes?”

“This one is just a egg-ghost.¹ M-Master, of course your nobility overflows even without a face… but if possible, I harbor a small wish that you would at least fashion a mouth to praise us with…”

“…Ugh. Th-This isn’t a person, it’s a slime, isn’t it? It’s completely mushy…”

Yes. That was the case.

No matter how much I degraded their specs down to the Master grade, the exact moment the number crossed ten, voice cracks kept happening.

The root of the problem, in the end, was a lack of pure spiritual power.

The physical shells of the avatars I forged weren’t true flesh and blood, but fakes woven together from pure spiritual power.

Because of that, they gradually evaporated over time… and to maintain them, I had to steadily invest pure spiritual power through the lines connected to the avatars.

‘But once it crosses ten… maintaining the status quo becomes impossible.’

If it were a flawlessly forged avatar, it would hold up well for a certain period even without receiving pure spiritual power…

But since these guys had their quality heavily degraded for the sake of quantity, even a slight lack of investment made it show immediately, just like what we saw.

The solution? Well, the tenants living inside my imagery… no, the laborers just have to exert themselves a bit more.

…I should make Sis and Bel increase their quota just a tiny bit. I heard a person doesn’t die even if they sleep only two hours a day, after all.

“So, for now, the four of you take just one together.”

Placing a mask over the mouth of the avatar whose nose and mouth positions were swapped, a tearful Sensible shot back a question.

“…One for the four of us?”

“Yeah. I think expanding it by just one more should be fine. In exchange, I promise to supply (?) one per person within a month without fail. Promise.”

“Mmm…”

“Umm…”

“Better than an egg-monster…”
“Ugh… a s-slime is a bit much for me too…”

The four exchanged glances and soon nodded their heads.

“Fine. A month isn’t that long, I suppose.”

In the spirit of thanking them for their compromise, I forged an avatar that was one grade higher than the other ten and presented it to them.

Matching their request, I set his age to around his late teens.

Flash!

“There. Here.”

Staring curiously at my avatar, who looked about five years younger than me, Sensible asked again.

“Um… then can we take Avatar Oppa into the labyrinth with us?”

“The labyrinth?”

“Yes. While you’re away, we figured that if we hang around the labyrinth with a proper front-liner, we could descend to a much deeper floor.”

“Mmm… it should be fine. Believe it or not, this avatar contains the pure spiritual power of two normal avatars. He’ll be able to operate independently for about a week even without my pure spiritual power supply.”

“We usually move on a timeline of three to five days… so that will be more than enough.”

Watching them smile—not out of joy from receiving my avatar, but rather out of the reassurance of gaining a dependable front-liner—I felt that they were multiple times more like proper adventurers than a counterfeit like me.
Mmm. They grew up well. Splendid.

“Sure. Since I’ve entrusted him to you, order him around as you please.”

“Yes!”

And as time flowed like that…

Entering the labyrinth with the avatar under the pretext of testing things out right away… they didn’t return even after a full ten days had passed.

With a Master grade avatar accompanying them, I didn’t think much of it at first, but by this point, I realized it was no ordinary matter. I went to visit the guild…
And Kate spoke with a heavy voice.

“I was actually just about to look for you.”

“…Meaning?”

“Since they are a party that has been drawing a lot of attention lately, if there were any eyewitnesses, it explicitly would have reached my ears, but…”

“Don’t beat around the bush. Keep it short. Just the facts.”

“…There haven’t been any eyewitnesses for four days. It’s an LL—Labyrinth Lost.”