Transmigrated As The Villainess' Boyfriend With A... SSS Harem System?

The House D’Tariel carriage dropped me at the main entrance of the castle. It was Saturday. No classes. And for the first time in a week, the Harem System had fallen silent.

I didn’t complain at all.

Garchi meowed inside the wooden box I carried under my arm. I had wrapped him in a blanket, and whenever he woke up, he protested with meows. He poked his head out one end, his green eyes blinking at the sun.

"Easy, champ. We’re almost there."

The road from Mayorka to Castle D’Tariel wound between hills of silver grass and birch forests whose trunks were as white and smooth as polished bone. The sky had remained gray after yesterday’s rain, but it wasn’t raining.

The humidity in the air evoked a scent that wavered between wet and decomposing leaves. A smell that reminded me of the parks in my other life, those I used to go to in my free hours to read on stone benches while the world passed by.

My mother called me daily. At seven in the evening.

However, in this life, Astara Elcronne didn’t. She couldn’t. House D’Tariel’s messengers took two days to reach the estate from Mayorka, and trained owls were a luxury they couldn’t afford. So, one weekend a month, I took the time to visit my parents.

The carriage had stopped at a black gate. Beyond it lay the property: a meadow that vanished into the horizon, stables, a windmill that never stopped turning, and at the far end, a coliseum where the house held its celebrations.

The castle consisted of gabled roofs and ogival windows that reflected the sun like the water of a lake at noon.

However, it wasn’t luxurious. Not like the Jahke palace in the south, which they said had marble floors and gold chandeliers, filled with paintings by the finest artists in all of Earolden. Castle D’Tariel was practical. Built to withstand the north, where cold was a permanent tenant.

Heading toward the entrance, Garchi meowed again. Taking him out of the box, I held him against my chest. He was trembling with nerves. It was his first time leaving Mayorka since I decided to adopt him.

"You’ll love them," I told him. "My mother makes the best stew in all of Earolden. And my father... well, my father is my father."

Walking toward the service entrance. The main one, never. The Elcronne didn’t use the D’Tariel mansion’s front door. We never had and never would. My father was the sworn guard of Zaleador D’Tariel, king of the north of Earolden. My mother, the head chef. Both lived in the service wing, a stone annex attached to the main mansion that was always imbued with the nostalgic scent of freshly baked bread and woodsmoke.

The kitchen door was open. Steam rose in curls that dissolved in the cold air. Inside, the sound of wooden spoons scraping iron pots. The sizzling of something frying in butter. And a voice giving orders with the same firmness a king commands with.

"More flour. That dough is so soft it could be gelatin."

Warm laughter filled the room. My mother’s voice.

Astara Elcronne was standing at the central kitchen table. Slender. Shorter than me. Black hair pulled back in a tight braid that fell to her waist. Small but quick hands, stained with flour and oil. Eyes the same black as mine. Deep, but with that gleam of resolution that young dreamers tend to have.

The kind of eyes only someone who, despite having seen too much, is happy with the life they have, possesses.

"Dariel?" she said upon noticing me, compressing and decompressing the dough with her Empero. "Has my little piece of coal come to visit his mother?"

Her hands stopped over the dough. Her eyes went from my face to my bandages. From my bandages to Garchi. From Garchi to my dark circles.

She didn’t ask. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked toward me.

"Are you eating well? You look thinner."

"Hi, Mom."

"You haven’t slept."

"I slept fine."

"You lie just as badly as your father." She took my face in her hands. Her fingers had that comforting warmth every son feels in their heart. "Come in. I’ll make you something."

"Mom, you don’t have to..."

"No, no, no, young master," she said, shaking her head and wagging a finger. "If you decided to come to my domain, then you’ll have to let me spoil you."

Sighing, I sat down, freeing Garchi from his box.

What could be done. Astara Elcronne didn’t accept the word ’no’ as an answer to her orders.

In that regard, she had the same regal bearing as any queen.

Garchi explored the kitchen with the curiosity of a child in a new park. He sniffed the pots. Left paw prints in the flour scattered across the floor. Received a swat from one of the cooks.

"What is that?" my mother asked, pointing at Garchi with a wooden spoon.

"My new friend. His name is Garchi."

"You don’t have a cat."

Shrugging.

"I guess I do now."

"Since when?"

"Three days ago."

My mother raised an eyebrow.

"And who feeds him when you’re in class or fulfilling your duty as a bodyguard?"

"... Me."

"So nobody feeds that poor little creature."

Garchi meowed, as if confirming my mother’s words. She turned and looked at him. She picked him up with one hand. She examined him as if he were a piece of meat she was checking for doneness.

"He’s skinny."

"He’s a cat. Cats are thin."

My mother pointed her wooden spoon at me and, using her Empero, extended it until the tip touched my forehead.

"Well, this one is thinner than he should be, young master." She set him on the table; Garchi curled up. "I’ll give him something to eat."

She turned back to me.

"And you too. No excuses. Your father will come soon for lunch, and may the three gods spare me from letting him see you with that sleepy face, empty stomach, and a scrawny pet, because he’ll reprimand you, little boy."

If my mother’s character was strong, my father’s was... was... Better not to think about it.

"Yes, ma’am," I nodded energetically, bringing the extended fingers of my bandaged hand to my temple.

It was the military salute of a knight, directed at the indisputable queen of this place.

My mother tapped my hand, scolding me for the formal gesture, and returned to her dough. Garchi jumped from the table to the floor, chasing an imaginary crumb. The kitchen filled again with the sound of spoons and the crackling of fire.

For a moment, closing my eyes, I let the aroma of bread and stew envelop me. Peace. A peace that felt borrowed.

Three weeks away from the most important wedding in all of Earolden, with a killer loose in Mayorka and a second System hidden among the students, my family and this corner of the world were the safest and, at the same time, the most fragile things I had.

If I failed, if I gave up, places like this would cease to exist. That was why I had to enjoy every damn bite of her stew. Because when I returned to Mayorka, the war would barely be beginning.