Harem Online: My Party Is Full of Beautiful Celebrities

Martin waited until Mireva finally looked at him.

The meeting had already gone in circles twice. Staying meant defending an upper district whose protections they no longer trusted, while leaving meant exposing the Belfry to people who already knew more about its forgotten roads than the Sairren themselves seemed comfortable admitting.

Rias could describe the risks, and Cassandra could explain why every option came with a cost. Neither of them could create another place out of nothing.

Mireva rested both hands against the edge of the table. "You have been staring out that window for several minutes."

Martin turned back toward her. "I was thinking."

"That has also happened before."

Alexandra snorted from the wall, but Martin ignored her and looked around the table instead. "I know somewhere you could look at."

The elderly Sairren woman immediately narrowed her eyes. "Look at?"

"Not move to. Not agree to anything. Look at."

Mireva studied him more carefully. "Where?"

"Forest Hidden."

The room went quiet. The younger Sairren with the bandaged wing leaned toward the route-keeper beside him.

"Is that the academy?"

"The Monster Hunter Academy," Mireva answered.

Martin winced. "Technically."

"Technically?"

"It has Monster Hunter Academy in the name."

"That does not improve your suggestion."

Katherine covered her mouth while Elisebeth gave Martin a sympathetic look that did absolutely nothing to help him. Martin continued before the academy’s name killed the idea on its own.

"Forest Hidden is different from the other academies. You already know that from what happened before. They have the Light Tree, and they make a distinction between intelligent beings and ordinary monsters."

The elderly woman’s expression remained skeptical. "Yet hunters train there."

"Yes."

"To kill monsters."

"Yes."

"And you want Sairren families to sleep there."

"I want you to inspect it before deciding whether that would be insane."

The younger Sairren almost smiled. Mireva did not.

"You once offered us the surface," she said. "I told you seeing it was not the same as leaving the Belfry."

"I remember."

"You said you understood."

"I still do."

Martin stepped closer to the table, though he stopped before his posture could look like he was trying to take control of the discussion.

"That’s why I’m not asking you to move because I say Forest Hidden is safe. I can’t promise that. I don’t control the academy, and even if I did, you shouldn’t trust one player to decide where your entire community belongs."

Cassandra looked toward him. Martin caught the small shift in her expression but continued.

"What I can do is take some of you there. You inspect it, talk to the people who actually have authority, and decide for yourselves. If you hate it, we come back."

The elderly woman folded her arms. "And if some of us do not hate it?"

"That becomes your problem."

Mireva’s ears shifted.

Martin realized how that sounded. "In a good way."

"That did not help either," Katherine murmured.

Martin sighed. "I mean it becomes your decision."

The younger Sairren looked toward Martin. "Would some of us be allowed to go while others remain?"

Martin deliberately kept his mouth shut. The young man noticed, and so did Mireva. His question had initially been aimed at Martin, but after a moment, he turned fully toward Mireva instead.

"If Forest Hidden is acceptable, could some families take temporary shelter there?"

Mireva took her time answering. Her gaze moved toward the dark window, where the upper Belfry remained packed with people who should have been sleeping in their own homes.

"Yes."

The elderly woman looked at her sharply, but Mireva did not retreat from it.

"I will not force anyone away from the Belfry. I will also not force someone to remain here because I am angry that our home was attacked."

The route-keeper lowered his hands from his face. "And wardens?"

"Some remain."

"How many?"

"That depends on how many people choose to leave temporarily."

The elderly woman leaned forward. "Splitting us makes both groups weaker."

Rias answered this time. "Keeping everyone in one compromised location makes one successful assault much worse."

"I know."

"Then neither option is clean."

"I know that too."

Rias nodded once. At least nobody at the table was pretending otherwise.

Mireva looked back toward Martin. "Who speaks for Forest Hidden?"

"Not me."

"I understood that part already."

"There’s Rangar. I know him, but he can’t decide something this large by himself. He can introduce us to the people who can actually consider it."

"You will contact him?"

Martin almost answered automatically before remembering that Rangar was not another player sitting somewhere with a message interface open.

"I’ll go there."

Mireva raised an eyebrow.

"Personally," Martin added. "I need to speak to him face-to-face."

The elderly woman looked toward Cassandra next. "And her?"

Every eye followed the direction of her gaze. Cassandra stood beneath the same marker she had carried throughout the fighting.

[Condemned.]

Martin knew exactly what the woman was asking, but Cassandra answered before he could.

"I cannot enter Forest Hidden."

The younger Sairren frowned. "Because of that?"

"Yes."

"The academy put it there?"

"The sanction is tied to Forest Hidden."

Mireva studied Cassandra. "You helped bring my people back here, and the place Martin is proposing as shelter will not allow you through its boundary."

"That is correct."

"Do you think we should trust it?"

Cassandra considered the question instead of reaching for an easy answer. "I think you should inspect it."

"That was not what I asked."

"I know."

Cassandra shifted Nightglass Longbow against her side. "If I tell you not to trust Forest Hidden because it condemned me, I turn your decision into an argument about my punishment. If I tell you to trust it because I want to prove I respect that punishment, I do the same thing from the opposite direction."

The elderly Sairren watched her closely.

"So inspect it," Cassandra continued. "Ask why it condemned me. Ask what it thinks intelligent beasts are. Ask what protections it would give you and what it expects in return. Then decide whether those answers are good enough."

Mireva’s gaze remained on her. "And you?"

"I stop at the boundary."

Martin did not like that part, and Cassandra apparently read the objection on his face before he could voice it.

"No."

He frowned. "I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was thinking."

"That has become dangerous tonight."

Alexandra laughed from the wall, and even Mireva’s expression softened for a moment. Martin abandoned the argument he had not technically started.

The larger problem remained exactly where it had been before he spoke. The lower district was still unsafe, the bells were still silent, and families were still sleeping in workshops while wardens guarded roads that had once led home.

Forest Hidden did not fix any of that. For the first time since the central junction broke, however, the Sairren had an option that was not simply another version of fighting where they stood.

Mireva looked toward the representatives around the table. "We inspect Forest Hidden."

Nobody celebrated. The elderly woman merely nodded.

That was enough.