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

My mother turned toward the stoves. She began to prepare something with the expertise of someone who has cooked for a hundred people for over twenty years.

"Your father is with the king," she said, using her Empero to compress onions, carrots, and celery, so she could slice them into perfect little squares in a matter of seconds. "Zaleador sent for him early. Something about the wedding."

"The wedding?" I said, feigning ignorance.

"You don't know? Your protégée's, Princess Lianza D'Tariel's, with the crown prince of Jahke." She paused to toss everything she had sliced into a larger pot. "Berta, the pot!" she added, looking backward, then turned her gaze back to me. "Did you know she's getting married?"

Berta came over. Though she had some white streaks coming out of her hair, she was burly enough to carry the pot full of sliced vegetables and seasonings on her own; she carried it to the huge cauldron where the stew was cooking and poured all its contents into it.

"I heard rumors."

"And you have nothing to say about it?"

"What do you want me to think about it?"

My mother reverted the effect of her Empero on what she had sliced, making them return to normal. The pot ended up overflowing with vegetables and seasonings sliced into perfect squares.

"The truth, Dariel. That's what I want you to think."

After saying that, she took enormous pieces of meat and compressed them with her Empero into cube shapes.

"The truth is I haven't slept very well these last few days," I said after sighing, watching how she diced those cubes. "Things in Mayorka have gotten more complicated since the engagement and the student's murder."

My mother stopped slicing abruptly.

"A student's murder? Three gods!"

The other cooks, who were in the distance, turned around. Including my mother and Berta, there were five in total.

"Yes, a member of House Ascalar," I replied. "Didn't they send owls with information about it?"

"If they had spread that kind of information, I would surely have noticed. How could something like that have happened?"

That was strange. Why hadn't any information arrived? It made no sense, as messenger owls were so effective they could deliver a message from the far north to the south of Earolden in less than a week... and Mayorka is located halfway along the border between the Jahke and D'Tariel domains. The information should have taken a day to arrive; two at most.

"Even the Empero Council's corps of investigators has already set to work."

"I see... And how are you?" my mother said, looking at my bandaged hand. "Berta!"

"As I told you, Mother, I'm fine. The princess is too; I made sure of it."

"How can you say that while being here?" Berta said after approaching. She had the voice of a grumpy old woman... but she was right. "Astara, isn't your boy supposed to be the princess's personal bodyguard?"

It was true. Although I had one weekend a month free, considering Mayorka's current situation, I should be close to her...

"The princess is in the castle, Berta," my mother said. "Didn't you see the carriage at dawn?"

A slight flinch escaped me, eyes widening. Lianza was here? Why hadn't she told me she was coming to Castle D'Tariel? I suppose she's still upset with me.

Berta responded with a snort and walked away with the pot full of diced meat.

Astara Elcronne had noticed my reaction.

"You like that girl."

It wasn't a question.

"Asta..." I corrected myself immediately. "Mom..."

"I'm not blind, Dariel. And I'm not an idiot either. The way you talk about her. The way you get when someone mentions her. Your father says it's a professional-level obsession. But men don't notice those things."

"She is my lady."

"She's the daughter of the man your father swore loyalty to. There's a difference."

"Not to me. My duty and only intention is to protect her."

My mother stopped stirring. She turned. Her black eyes pierced through me.

"Dariel, you are an Elcronne," my mother explained with her characteristic composure. "We have served the D'Tariel for over three generations. Your grandfather was Zaleador's guard before your father. Your great-grandfather, guard to Zaleador's father. It's not our place..."

"To look at her like that?"

"To love her."

Silence. We both fell quiet. Garchi purred happily, devouring the piece of meat Berta had thrown him. The cooks were about their business, at the back of the kitchen, several meters away from us.

"Mom," I said finally, "I know my place."

Thinking about all the times I've been humiliated for being lowborn, the looks from the nobles, my place as her bodyguard.

"I know it better than anyone..." I added through gritted teeth.

"I don't doubt it. That's why I worry so much." She sat across from me. Her hands on the table. "In Earolden, things work a certain way. Kings marry kings. Nobles marry nobles... And servants... servants marry servants."

"I understand that."

"It doesn't seem like it. Your father and I sent you to Mayorka not so you could marry a princess, but so you could protect her. So you could learn. So that one day, when you inherited your father's post, you would be better than we were. If you fulfill your duty, House Elcronne could stop being considered lowborn, Dariel."

"And I am doing it, Mother. I fulfill my duty every day I'm at Mayorka."

"Does that look like it to you?" She observed my dark circles, Garchi, my bandaged hand...

"I know my place." Placing my bandaged hand on my chest, I then clenched it into a fist. "But I also know where my heart lies."

My mother closed her eyes. Her Empero compacted all the dust and flour motes around her: they joined to become solid little cubes like stones.

"Your father wanted you to be a scholar," she said. "To enter the Capitol of Galia. To be a Bookforger. But there was no money. And House Elcronne lacks the prestige required for the Council of Earolden to send us to study with the masters."

"I don't regret going to Mayorka."

"I'm not asking you to regret it, son. It's a great opportunity. It's just..." Her eyes moistened. "I just ask you to be careful. Please, Dariel..."

Every man, no matter how chivalrous, no matter how brave and powerful, yielded to his mother's tears. It was inevitable.

And of course, in this life or the previous one, I was no exception to that rule.

"I will, Mom," I whispered into her hair after approaching her and hugging her. "Trust me. I will protect Lianza D'Tariel even if it costs my life and the one that comes after this."

She clung to my uniform. She didn't believe me. A mother always knows when her son is about to do something stupid. But she nodded anyway.

Pulling away, Garchi meowed at my feet, oblivious to what was happening.

My parents knew nothing of the Harem System. Nor Theren. Nor Layda. Nor my Writer's Empero ability... Nor that the wedding would not only destroy the Elcronne, but would also end up condemning Lianza to be sent to the guillotine or the stake.

The only thing they knew was that their son was wounded, in love with a princess, and about to do something that would change the fate of this world and his house forever.