(Chastity Reversed) The Legitimate Wife War: How I, a Harem-Hater, Ended Up Creating an Ultra-Eccentric Harem with a Villainess, a Sadistic Beauty Teacher, a Scheming Classmate... etc.

“Impudent child. As expected of someone trying to do something as foolish as making a harem and polygamy. Perhaps your heart is made differently from normal people… at least different from Hirotaka-san and me.”

“…”

She said something that hit a nerve.

“Mother, how can you say such things! After all his thoughts…”

“Tachibana-san, it’s fine, thank you… I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand the kind of thinking that would make you hit a child you should be protecting.”

“Who said… who said Hirotaka-san did it because he wanted to? Me too!! …If only that thing hadn’t happened, none of this would have happened.”

“Oh, that thing… you say? I’d love to hear about it. Well, whatever it is, I don’t think it’s a reason that justifies DV.”

“I won’t tell you—”

Midway through the conversation, a smartphone rang, and Karen-san deftly opened it with one hand and checked the contents with a sidelong glance.

At a time like this?

“—I’ve changed my mind. Yes, I’ll tell you… why I started disciplining, why I came to call pain love. So let go of this hand.”

Did something in the email’s contents make her change her mind?

But I wanted to hear the story. I thought it would be better for Tachibana-san’s feelings too if she knew the truth.

When I glanced behind me, Aoyama-san was standing next to Tachibana-san protectively, and I was between them as well.

This should be safe enough to listen.

We had to hear it anyway, and I could buy time until Shiraishi-san arrived.

While staying cautious, I released Karen-san’s hand.

“…Why things became like this… When Mizuri was still small… our family lived happily. Hirotaka-san always laughed cheerfully, I supported that, and our daughters… no, our daughter played rambunctiously. The so-called average household, you know. Well, being able to marry in a world with few men could be called fortunate.”

Certainly, even in Karen-san’s era, men had already become scarce.

It’s worse now though.

“Yes, we were truly happy… truly.”

Karen-san looked gentle-eyed, nostalgic for the past. It was the first time I’d seen such an expression.

This might be the kind mother Mizuri-san was talking about.

“But… that didn’t last long. When this child was still young, our family was betrayed by someone we thought was a close friend.”

“Close friend…”

A close friend again, huh.

“The close friend was a childhood friend of both of us. That person disappeared, and we were left with the debt. And it was borrowed from bad places too. An astronomical amount. Everything went crazy because we became co-signers for our childhood friend. There was no way we self-employed people doing small-scale work could have the means to pay back such enormous money. That childhood friend wasn’t the type to suddenly run away… no, I just had poor judgment.”

“…”

“Hirotaka-san was reluctant to become a co-signer too. Because he had a family… but I persuaded him, saying we should believe in our friend, in our friend’s dream. If we didn’t help, the dream would have to be given up. In the end, Hirotaka-san nodded… if only I hadn’t said that, I was the one who said it.”

She had an expression mixed with regret and anger.

Anger at the friend who betrayed them, anger at herself for believing. All of it.

“After that it was terrible. We asked around everywhere to borrow money but it still wasn’t enough… juggling various jobs wasn’t enough, and doing that made our own work go poorly too.”

I understood the suffering of not having money.

The powerlessness of being unable to do anything when my sister was suffering.

I understood that much. But from the story so far, they should have been experiencing the hardship together. It’s not a reason for DV.

“Bad things pile up at times like that. I collapsed too… so Hirotaka-san made a decision, he made it, for my sake.”

“What decision did Father make for Mother’s sake?”

Mizuri-san’s words were quite harsh too.

“Sperm donation service.”

“Sperm donation?”

“Yes. Since men were becoming scarce, you could earn quite a lot of money by providing that. The so-called predecessor to the fiancée system, you could say. At that time, it wasn’t just providing sperm, sometimes it involved actually performing the act. Socially, there was talk that performing the act increased the chances of having a boy… Father agreed to that for the money.”

The so-called extraction service.

I’m doing that too. Certainly you get money, and as Karen-san said, a good amount.

I have Kazari-san as my handler, and the provision was voluntary though.

“In Hirotaka-san’s time, the person in charge was different every time apparently, and even though he originally didn’t have much sexual desire, he forced himself to do his best because it was work.”

At that time, legal frameworks weren’t well-developed, and there were various problems like responsibility for children born, the decrease in male sexual desire in the first place, and the male birth rate from masturbation-produced sperm.

That’s why I also send mine as a result of making love. Things that aren’t that, like from masturbation, have lower chances of producing boys.

I could understand Hirotaka-san’s mental burden back then.

Honestly, even if it’s for work, doing it with multiple people you don’t even like is quite harsh.

“Society’s view was harsh too… Nowadays even with the fiancée system, the government approves it, and though there’s still some criticism, understanding has progressed. But back then, about 10 years ago, understanding was still thin, and there was controversy about whether it was right to receive money for providing sperm. In the monogamy system, performing acts with others to make children. He himself suffered from that gap. At that time, the ‘zettai-umareru’ enzyme had just been discovered. Well, it was recently understood that for a boy to be born, the man and woman apparently need to love each other.”

In terms of producing boys, Hirotaka-san’s efforts were meaningless for the country. Well, money was probably the first priority anyway.

Karen-san spoke with self-mockery.

“We were almost able to pay it back… Hirotaka-san was using drugs and such to forcibly stimulate himself to perform the acts… his cheeks became hollow, honestly I couldn’t bear to watch Hirotaka-san back then.”

“…”

Everyone fell silent.

“It was a problem that started because of me, yet I couldn’t do anything for him… I could only watch his heart wear down day by day.”

Was that the DV… sharing Hirotaka-san’s suffering?

“Even so, we were almost able to pay it back… if only he hadn’t gotten injured.”

Injured?

“He hurt his back, there was no way he could perform acts for a month.”

It must be from pushing himself too hard for the money.

One more step.

“So in the end… our daughter… daughter?…”

Karen-san, who had been talking, suddenly clutched her head and crouched down.

Her breathing was rough and shallow. Her complexion was bad, and she was breaking out in cold sweat.

“Karen-san?!”

“Mother?!”

“Our daughter somehow managed… but… this is strange, there should only be one daughter. Mizuri is here… but Hirotaka-san was injured and couldn’t work? …Eh, then how, how did, wait our daughter… my head… it’s splitting… it hurts…”

She collapsed on the spot while crouched.

“M-Mother, your usual symptoms… y-your medicine, where’s your medicine?”

“I-I’m forgetting something… something important… I’m forgetting?”

Karen-san seemed unable to hear Mizuri-san’s voice, clawing at her head.

Forgetting something?

What did that mean?

“I had… a daughter? …Ah…”

The moment she muttered that, as if intense pain shot through her, she collapsed completely.

“Mother!!”

Tachibana-san shook her, but there was no response.

When I put my hand to her mouth, she was breathing.

“She just lost consciousness, it seems.”