Viktor was in his civilian clothes, but he’d brought a satchel and a pair of swords. People looked at him and saw an overzealous novice adventurer who thought he could dual-wield his way through most situations. The fact was, however, that that was precisely his style of fighting, and he would have to show it off later in the afternoon.

For now, he was in front of the Vice-Goddess of Reincarnation and her Champion. It was his job to channel the Blessing of the Harem God into the Champion and properly train him up with his strange new powers, but … his Harem Senses had been tingling for a while.

“I just wanna get this out of the way,” he said, looking between the two, “but did you two … are you two in a Harem contract?”

“Is that what it’s called?” Kalender asked. The purple yam ice cream was surprisingly delicious. It wasn’t at all starchy like he was expecting, yet it preserved that smooth, discreet sweetness expected of the tuber. “Well—I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work, but we’ve got a Gratitude stat instead of Affection.”

“Oh? You did?”

“Why? How’s it actually work?”

“You got the Blessing from that guy, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“It works a little differently than the original Blessing, you see.” Viktor frowned. “Affection wasn’t the default. Wait, how much do you understand?”

“Uh… As far as we can tell, whatever’s the strongest emotion between two people would turn into the stat for them. Ah, it can turn out one-sided, apparently? That feature’s a bit weird, to be honest.”

“Good foundation, it pretty much works like that. For the two parties to the contract, their emotions are added together and whichever one hits the threshold first turns into the stat.”

“Huh, that’s pretty simple.”

“Daniel isn’t a complicated guy, really.”

“Daniel?”

“The Harem God.”

“The Harem God’s name is Daniel?”

Viktor snorted. “Man, it’s been a while since I got that reaction out of someone… Well, yeah. He’s a textbook bro-dude sort of guy, surprisingly.”

Kalender looked down at Minimine. She was taking her sweet time nibbling away at the ice cream on her spoon. Are the gods actually really chill around here? He shook his head.

“R-right. Ah, you were saying something earlier?”

“Hm? Ah, crap, what was that…”

“Something about Affection being default, I think.”

“Yes, yes, that. Actually, originally, there isn’t supposed to be a default. That guy inserted that feature in to make the Blessing power up faster. Originally, you’re just supposed to develop your relationship with someone, and once an emotion crosses the threshold, that’s the stat you get—if both parties accept the contract. Y’know, stat screen alerts and stuff. Like, Press Y to accept.”

“Oh, wow, so that’s why you keep saying it’s a contract. And here I thought consent was straight out the window…”

“Daniel ain’t an asshole, a’ight?” Viktor laughed.

“Hey, what’d you mean ‘make the Blessing power up faster’?”

“Affection’s also a stat with the original Blessing, to be clear. It also happens to be the fastest to accumulate, coz, well, sex.”

“Huh…”

“Zero to 100 in 15 minutes or less. Usually less.”

Huh… “How about the other stats? I usually start off with Affection coz of the default thing, like you said, but I usually manage to convert it to something else.”

“Woah, dude, you’re doing stat changes?” Viktor looked at Minimine, then back to Kalender. “Even…?” He nudged towards Minimine.

“Yeah?”

“The effort’s real, dude, wow.”

“W-what, is it actually supposed to be hard?”

“Yeah! Look, when you get a stat, there’s automatically a bit of resistance added in that keeps everyone focused on that emotion. It’s not a lot of resistance, though. Some Companion Skills tend to mess with people, so the resistance needs to be there as extra insurance to anchor them properly.”

At Viktor’s mention of ‘tends to mess with people,’ Kalender thought of a certain girl.

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“So, to do a stat change, I need to overcome that resistance?” Kalender asked.

“On top of people’s natural resistance to change, okay? On top of that, a second emotion needs to have crossed the threshold before the first emotion goes down under, so you’re doing double duty decreasing the current emotion and working up the second one.” Viktor shook his head. Scenes of his youth flashed by. “That was a nightmare…”

“I… don’t get it.” Why was it hard? He did it three times already. “It’s pretty simple for me, though?”

Viktor looked at him with disbelieving eyes. “How many?”

“What—”

“How big’s your harem?” Viktor leaned closer. “Don’t tell me you did stat changes on all of them?”

“There’s—” Calling them a ‘harem’ sounded weird. “—three Companions.”

“You converted all of them?”

“… Yeah?”

A loud rush of air left Viktor’s lungs. “How?”

“I just … talked to them? … Talked about our feelings and what we wanted out of our relationship?”

“Relationship? So they’re all your girlfriends?” Viktor eyed Minimine. She looked back at him with a purple smudge on her cheek. “I’m a Harem Priest and even I have mixed feelings on these things.”

Kalender raised his hands. “Wait, wait, wait—relationships in general, okay? Don’t call the police on me, good lord.”

“… Sure.” I’ll let you go, this time. “You were asking about other stats?”

“Yeah. I don’t really get the differences.”

“There’s too many to count, but I can still help you out. What’re the stats for your girls?”

Kalender winced.

“Hm? Did I say something?” Viktor asked.

“They’re my friends,” he said. “It just doesn’t feel nice calling them ‘my girls.’ It feels wrong.”

“You in denial or something? I’ve never met a guy that didn’t catch feelings for a girl, not after spending two weeks and two or so life-or-death situations with them. Man up, dude.”

Sigh. It was unbelievably hard to explain things in summary to third parties—though, Viktor wouldn’t be able to help him if he didn’t understand where he was coming from.

“Just … think of me as someone with very low requirements,” Kalender explained. “I really don’t find myself disappointed or dissatisfied. Believe me, if there’s something I want, there’s nothing stopping me from just putting it on the table and asking for it. Whether or not I actually get it isn’t up to me, though.”

Viktor shrugged. “I don’t get it, but … your loss.” He leaned back. “Well? What’re their stats?”

“Gratitude, Excitement, Respect.”

Viktor’s eyes went wide. “That’s some diversity if I’ve seen it.”

Kalender felt proud for a moment. Hopefully, Viktor finally understood not to treat him the same.

“It’s all over the place, the heck,” Viktor added. “It doesn’t make any sense. Gratitude and Respect are on the same-ish wavelength, but how’d you get Excitement?”

“Ah, she’s a … been a closet adventurer for most of her life, I guess?”

“The heck’s a ‘closet adventurer’…” Viktor shook his head. “Never mind. More importantly, there’s a little bit of an issue here.”

Issue? Kalender unconsciously leaned forward.

"I’ll give you a bit of a rundown for each stat so you get it.

"Gratitude’s the most powerful one. It’s got ridiculous resistance, practically can’t tick down, and charm magic practically can’t get past it. The Companion Skills you get from it usually buff others against mental and soul attacks, to the point that it’s just not fair. Thing is, it takes ages to accumulate, and it’s not like you can one-up the last thing you did to make the girl more thankful for you, y’know? Whatever thing you did to get you the stat is normally a one-time deal, something too big to conveniently happen again, even if it’s not written in stone.

"Respect’s a pretty good all-rounder. Stable accumulation, decent anti-charm, decent resistance, but it can still tick down if you really mess up. The Companion Skills get an emphasis on mutual benefit—if I remember correctly, there’s actually a build that could turn it into a stat accumulation powerhouse. It’s historically pretty popular as a way to get the expensive anti-magic Skills.

“Lastly, Excitement’s a volatile one. It’s one of the few stats that lets the Companion System interact directly with your personal Skills. Assuming you get into life-and-death situations pretty often, it can rack up points fast, then the girl can spend those points for temporary strength. I think there’s one Companion Skill that lets them use Excitement in place of MP. Pretty OP when it landed in the hands of a battle maniac a while back.”

Kalender nodded along. He didn’t see the issue, though.

“So … what’s the problem, exactly?”

“Ah, now, you see, Gratitude and Respect are pretty solid. Some time back, harems were synonymous with demon hunter squads because of them.” Viktor paused. “On the other hand, Excitement’s seen as the ‘weaker’ one.”

“Didn’t you just say it was OP?”

“The problem here isn’t because of the mechanics of it. I mean, they’re just System mechanics, right? The problem here is how these stats are usually associated with a fair lady’s well-being—”

Alright. That makes sense.

"—and since Gratitude and Respect are usually held by Knights and anyone else with a banner waving in the background, anyone with that stat is almost always a good guy. They’re decent to talk to; they have a strong sense of justice, faith, loyalty—you get it.

“Excitement, on the other hand, no one’s ever seen a stat holder that’s ended up …” He hesitated for a moment. “… happy.” Battle and adventure runs out, after all.

Kalender fell into contemplation. She can’t be happy? That’s … not right. Besides, it’s not something etched in stone, right? Page wasn’t a battle maniac, of all things. She just liked hopping around. Even a gimmicky bakery excited her.

How could she ever not be happy?

Wait. Right. That was the right question, wasn’t it? He shouldn’t avoid imagining it, working through the possibilities. How could she eventually become unhappy? What needed to happen? What has already happened—to make her unhappy? Those were the right questions.

Thinking back to the start, she’d taken his hands into hers, and … no, the way they started out didn’t matter. He and Jyn met in much more stressful circumstances, and yet, he was so happy that she’d been opening up to him. Jyn’s little outbursts of unspoken vulnerability was everything he needed to know that things would be alright.

Why, suddenly now, was he dissatisfied with his distance with Page?

Every time they spoke, it was a pleasant time—so why did it feel like her words never sank deeper than skin? Why did it feel like his words weren’t making her come alive more than she already was?

Every time she hugged him, he was happy—but why was there as if a plastic film between them when they touched, some kind of curse of touching someone without really touching them at all?

Did he do something wrong?

What was missing?

There’s nothing left to do. He had to tear through it—this sub-millimeter of separation.