Fly me to the moooon .... Let me play among the stars ...

I sing in my best voice as I finish off a can of beer and toss it into the sea. I belch before continuing the song.

In other words please be truuuuue ... In other words I love yoooou ....

"You were off tune and got most of the lyrics wrong. Three out of ten." The Voice rasps.

I give the cab parked by the side of the road the finger as I reach into the convenience store bag placed on the passenger seat and grab another beer.

Cracking the beer open, I take a swig before replying to The Voice, "Cut me some slack here. You had me working in the hub several days straight loading drones onto the monorail. I am more than entitled to break."

After we had reactivated the hub, I began unpacking the drones, small spider-like things, from the boxes and loading them onto the monorail as instructed by The Voice. That was not the difficult part.

The difficult part was The Voice kept spawning additional boxes in the cab. Whenever I finished unloading one set of drones, The Voice would tell me to return to the cab and I would find it packed to the brim with boxes once more. This kept going on for hours and hours until The Voice told me where the bathroom in the hub was and that it had spawned a sleeping bag and the usual unappetizing dinner for me in the cab's boot.

Hours turned to days as I labored under the depths of The City and The Voice spread the drones throughout the sarcophagus. We finally stopped when The Voice decided that it had enough drones to thoroughly sweep the sarcophagus from top to bottom. By the time we emerged from the inclinator top side, it was already night.

As a concession, The Voice allowed me to use the cab as I wished for the night. The first thing I did was to stop by a convenience store to buy beer. The second thing was to take the cab back to the side road where The Voice had rescued me from drowning. There I could drink, enjoy the night breeze and admire the full moon in peace.

It also gave me a private moment to speak to The Voice that was not in the apartment. I didn't want to go back being cooped indoors so soon and I needed to clear up some questions that had been gnawing at me ever since I finished reading the profiles of the Hero and the Heroines The Voice had prepared for me.

The conundrum I was facing was this, nowhere does it state in those profiles an actual threat for the Hero and Heroines to fight. True, the information kept going on and on about the succession war that would wrack the Hero's family, but that did not answer the fundamental question, how was the Hero meant to save the world? Which Heroine's route was he supposed to follow? What was the Hero's actual destiny? I kept turning these questions over in my head during my time in the hub, but came to no conclusions. It was time to get some answers from the source.

"So, I have questions about the Hero." I begin. The Voice grunts in acknowledgement.

"Which Heroine is the Hero supposed to get together with? I am assuming that there is one true path that will save the world here, right?" I ask. Please don't say the Idol. Please don't say the Idol.

The Voice rumbles, "All of them. I need the Hero to achieve the harem end."

What? Didn't you get the memo Voice? The memo that said that one of the Heroines wants to murder the Hero?

"Uh, the last I checked, one of the Heroines wanted to kill our man of the hour." I reply.

The Voice chuckles, "Indeed. So how is that inconsistent with the harem end?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The Voice is getting all mysterious again, teasing at something. I take another swig of beer and think things over once more. But nothing comes to mind. I'm hitting a dead end here.

"How is the Hero supposed to defeat the big bad if he's dead?" I retort, "Your question makes no sense at all."

The Voice rumbles patiently, "Did the files ever mention any world ending menace the Hero needed to defeat?"

No. There was no such threat mentioned. The entire affair revolves around the succession of the von Amsterg family. There is literally no demon lord on this world for the Hero to whack.

What is The Voice's agenda here? I am missing something, something obvious. But what is it?

The world will end because of nuclear war, not because of a demon king. So the Hero needs to stop the cause of this nuclear war? But how is getting killed by one of the Heroines fulfilling his destiny?

The Voice noticing I am having trouble begins to explain, "Tell me Transmigrator, which would be more interesting to you, a million dollars or half a million dollars?"

Well, the cool million obviously.

The Voice continues, "Now which would be more interesting, half a million dollars or that half a million split three ways?"

The half a million, duh. What are you getting at Voice?

The Voice rasps, "What do harems produce?"

Drama. And children. I think I know what you are hinting at. You cannot be serious.

The Voice concludes triumphantly, "Can a deceased master of the harem sort out the succession of his estate?"

No way. Was this your plan all along Voice? To set the Hero and his descendants up for failure?

The Voice elaborates, "The von Amsterg territory is a prime piece in the European theater. Gustav von Amsterg may rule in the name of the Legion, but the reality is that his realm is largely self-governing. Nor does it provide much in the way of troops and money to the Legion as a whole. That is the reason why the P5 and the Host have allowed him to govern unmolested."

The Voice takes a breath before continuing, "All that will change if von Amsterg territory is absorbed into any of the three factions' holdings. Such an act will fundamentally change the entire global balance of power. Which is the reason why everyone is paying so much attention to who Gustav's heir will be. There are no good solutions to this succession dispute. As things stand, it is impossible to achieve a resolution that satisfies everyone."

"The P5 have the most to lose in this matter. If the dispute is resolved in favor of either the Host or the Legion, the P5 will lose their role as spoiler in international relations. They will simply become too insignificant to be worth dealing with. Under these circumstances, the P5 will be forced to rely even more heavily on their nuclear arsenal to maintain their place in the world."

"Under pressure from both the Legion and the Host, the P5 will conclude that they will have to use their nuclear weapons to restore parity before they degenerate into vassal states. It will be a war of annihilation."

"If the P5 wins in the succession dispute, the result will be no different. Neither the Legion or Host will acknowledge such a loss and conflict will flare up, eventually culminating in the exact same outcome."

"The only way to prevent Armageddon is to break apart the von Amsterg territory into small, manageable pieces where all three factions can reasonably make gains and exercise influence. As long as everyone stands to profit together, the war of annihilation will not take place and all attention will be on jockeying for position in the rivaling courts that spring up in von Amsterg territory."

"This is where the Hero and the Heroines come into play. Each of the Heroines represent one of the factions, giving them a ready means of influencing the von Amsterg territory. The Hero already has a legitimate claim as the von Amsterg heir. Once the Hero has impregnated all three Heroines, the Idol will terminate him in secret, throwing the succession into disarray. The three factions will move in, backing their respective contenders as the true successor of the territory."

Devious. I'm grateful that The Voice does not see me as its enemy.

"I get the rough idea so far," I say, "but wouldn't your plan be a spur for even more conflict? With no true heir, the Heroines and their children would be at each other's throats."

"Yes. However, neither the P5, the Legion nor the Host will see this as a conflict that impacts their core interests. The Heroines may be individually powerful, but they do not have the means of destroying the world. The troika will pump weapons and money into the von Amsterg territory and the Heroines will fight in a grinding proxy war that will never end. The bloodletting will erode the base of Fate's power and then, I will make my move." The Voice rumbles.

I see. It all makes sense now. I was just looking at things from the wrong perspective.

"Pretty dick move to refer to Tensei as the "Hero" though." I reply.

The Voice laughs, "Oh, but he is a Hero. Only an unsung one. After all, by his sacrifice, he will save the world."