In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 1

Chapter 1: The Gray World and “Secrets”

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Did God roll a dice and make someone female if ‘1’ came up? In this world, only one out of six people was a woman. That distorted probability warped everything about our world. Women were rare. Women, as the “sex that gives birth,” stood in an absolute position in society.

And men… No. We were the “sex that gets chosen.” A man’s value lay entirely in whether he could be selected by an exceptional woman and become her “possession.” That was all there was to it. If you became the “legitimate husband” of a ducal house, your family would be secure for a hundred years.

If you could even worm your way into being a countess’ “secondary husband,” it was cause for celebration. Men polished their swords, studied magic, and groomed their faces, all for the sake of being chosen by a woman.

My name was Alto von Kirschwasser. I was seventeen years old, the only son of a fallen noble house barely scraping by and I was a man who simply couldn’t get used to this world’s so-called “common sense.”

…Because I had memories of a previous life. Memories of a country called Japan, where the gender ratio had been nearly one-to-one. That was why the way this world functioned struck me as deeply strange. My family had been thoroughly ravaged by that so-called “common sense.”

When I was ten years old, my mother abandoned my father. She had been drawn to another man. The man in question was the handsome heir of a famous marquis family, well-known even in the royal capital. Despite his youth, he was apparently a “premium catch,” highly sought after by powerful noblewomen.

For reasons unknown, that man visited our territory and noticed my mother. My mother, herself a rare woman, fell in love at first sight with that “premium man.” And she chose to abandon our family and become his concubine. That man’s household—in other words, his legal wife—was also a rare “woman,” and she was apparently delighted to accept my mother for free. My father resisted desperately.

“She’s my wife!” 

He shouted. But my mother quietly shook her head.

“Yes, but he’s a ‘better catch.’ Unlike you, he’s beautiful and has a future.”

In the end, my father was branded as a “useless husband incapable of satisfying a rare woman,” and he lost everything. There was no room to talk about love or romance. The balance of power in this world was far too skewed.

I thought this kind of reality was utterly unreasonable. From that day on, my father began repeating the same words to me over and over, like a broken doll.

“Alto. Just make sure you study.”

My father had lost his wife to a man superior in both looks and lineage. The one thing he believed he could surpass those “upper-class” men in was “knowledge.”

“Listen, Alto. Faces and bloodlines are decided at birth. But what’s inside your head is different. Study. Knowledge is the one weapon that can never be taken from you.”

And I followed that teaching faithfully. Because it was the only thing my crushed, abandoned father ever asked of me. I took my studies seriously. This world’s history, politics, and magical theory, I mobilized my knowledge from my past life and devoured every field of learning I could.

But there was something I hid from my father, something even greater than my studies. My “weapon” wasn’t knowledge alone. I had a secret I couldn’t tell anyone in this world. In this world, “magic power” was a privilege for females. Women with immense magical power ruled as royalty and high nobility. A man’s magic power was practically nonexistent. But I was the sole exception.

My magic power was infinite. Literally bottomless. Even the Queen’s magic power, someone that stood at the pinnacle of womankind, was insignificant compared to mine. I hid this power completely. If it were discovered, what would happen!? Would I be “chosen” by women?

It wouldn’t be that simple. I would go from being a “rare man” to a “dangerous existence.” Someone like me, who could overturn female supremacy at its root, would probably be turned into a convenient research subject. I would be experimented on.

…At the very least, I would no longer be able to live quietly with my father. This power of mine could never be known. I would hide both my knowledge and my magic power, and simply live quietly with my father in this fallen estate, without getting involved with anyone. That was my one and only wish.

Even so, there was one faded memory I kept tucked away deep in my heart. No. Rather than a memory, it was a great “secret.” It happened more than ten years ago, when I was six years old. I found a girl crying alone in the forest of our territory. Her clothes were caked with mud, and the fine fabric had been torn to shreds. It seemed she had been caught in a rockfall from above a cliff. Her arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and her leg was covered in blood. She was gravely injured. An ordinary child would not have survived.

Faced with death right before my eyes, my memories from my past life sounded an alarm. After confirming that no one was around, I held my hand over her wounds.

“(Heal).”

Holy magic, something men weren’t supposed to be able to use. My infinite magic power became a faint light that enveloped her. Bones reconnected, bleeding stopped, and the wounds vanished without a trace. She stared at me through sobs, unable to understand what had happened. I placed my index finger to my lips and spoke quietly.

“Listen. What just happened is a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not even your parents.”

Even at six years old, I was desperate.

“This is a secret just between you and me…Okay?”

She nodded frantically, and then said this to me.

“…Thank you. I want to be your bride someday!”

She was a strange girl. Was that really something to say right after being forced to keep a “secret” by your lifesaver? Even to an untrained eye, the “scraps” of clothing she wore were made of extremely high-quality fabric, so she was probably from a very distinguished family.

I only replied.

“You don’t need to say things like that.”

In the end, the adults who came looking for her found her quickly and took her away. I never even learned her name. That girl would be sixteen by now. She was probably living proudly somewhere as a noble lady. She had surely forgotten that promise by now, and must have already found a fine fiancé worthy of her. After all, that was how women lived in this world.

I sat up from the bed I had been lying on.

Come to think of it, it had been three years since that incident.  Out of nowhere, an official notice arrived from the royal family, stating that “the Kirschwasser family is hereby granted new frontier territory.” For our fallen household, it was an absurdly disproportionate offer. That was the one time my father seemed to regain some life, rejoicing as if he were no longer a broken doll.

“Did you see that, Alto!? Just as I thought, knowledge! The papers I’ve been writing for years have finally been recognized!”

…Well, I didn’t think my father’s papers had really been acknowledged, but I nodded silently. And then, yesterday…. As if it were a continuation of that territory matter, a single parchment arrived. I held it in my hands. It was a recommendation for admission, from the “Royal Academy.”

I glared at the letter. For some reason, when I saw that recommendation, I remembered the girl from the forest that day. The words she had said—“I want to be your bride”—felt strangely nostalgic.

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