Chapter 14: Feast

Chapter 14: Feast

~o~

A dinner feast hosted by Highgarden had far less people than I expected, even though the dining hall itself was a good deal bigger than even the Lannister's. The thing was, in a room of this size, if you put a single incredibly long table in the center of it, it just made the whole place feel a lot larger and a lot emptier than it should have been. Not to mention that it was far quieter than I was expecting it to be, with only loud chatter instead of rambunctious merrymaking. The fact that I was using the term "rambunctious merrymaking" in lieu of some other more dignified terminology was mainly because there really was no other way to describe it. Maybe I was too influenced by the many, many dinner parties that I had to sit through in the minor houses before we had reached Highgarden. In any case, with the hall being so large while the occupants being so small, it felt less like a cozy event and more something like the main attraction of a show. In fact, it felt like more people were paying attention to me. Not only the nobles, but the servants as well.

There were plenty of maids and butlers waiting at the walls, at such a distance that you actually had to raise your voice to call them, though there were a couple closer on each side that attended to everyone's needs. There was also music being played by a band of bards, a soft melody that gave the atmosphere a more peaceful feeling.

The parties of Lannister guests and Tyrell hosts were mixed together, seated in an arrangement that seemed chaotic at first, but it wasn't hard to notice why it was arranged this way. Most of the eligible young females were practically gathered around me. If anything, I found it hard to look around without getting noticed, considering that I was getting gazes from my left, right, and across from me. It wasn't like I was much to look at; I wasn't handsome like Jaime with his shapely face and muscled physique. I was just me, plain as ever with eyes filled with omega-3 vitamins. Granted, that would make me look smart—haha—but looking smart wasn't really an attractive feature. Otherwise, I would imagine the maesters would be swarmed by fangirls.

I felt a hand slip under the table and settle on my left thigh. As if competing, I felt another hand from the other side drop down to give my right thigh a squeeze. Would a third hand reach across the table and give the part in between a touch up? No, of course not, this wasn't a harem anime; this was reality, and it was getting a bit ridiculous. I should, by all right, move their hands aside, but that meant actually touching their hands. It was a trap where they would wrap their fingers around my hand and bring it into a handhold. If I made a move to extract myself, it would cause enough noise to attract attention. Well, more attention than I was already attracting, given the smiles on the nearby faces.

They were being unnaturally bold about it. Well, it wasn't hard to gather that information about me; I had been to plenty of feasts and parties as my ship traveled down from the Westerland to the Reach. If anything, I would be surprised if they didn't find out about my tendencies. They couldn't make noises themselves because it would be bad for them, but if I did it, it would instead show my interest in them. A moan or groan maybe. Unless I badmouthed them, of course, but their information network wasn't so shoddy that they probably knew that I wouldn't. If one put aside my status as heir and my face, then I would have pretty high specs in this day and age, wouldn't I?

"Hachi is such a unique name, my lord." Janna Tyrell, the girl on my left, had her hand travel towards my inner thigh. She was twenty years old—older than me by seven years—and was first daughter of the main house.

"But still a beautiful name, my lord." Mina Tyrell, the girl on my right, squeezed my thigh a little harder. She was five years older than me at eighteen years old, an age where it was the right time to be married. Not to mention she was the second daughter of the main house.

"It is…" Victaria Tyrell, the girl sitting across the table from me, was shyly nodding her head. When the sixteen year old girl—three years older than me—saw my gaze, she looked down with a blush. Apart from being the youngest of the three, she was also a distant cousin to the other two. That was probably one of the reasons why she was acting more shyly in my presence, not to mention also being seated the furthest from me.

What struck me as oddest was the way they were supporting each other rather than trying to one-up each other. So instead of feeling like they were competing for me, it felt more like they were teaming up with each other against me. Was this what a harem protagonist would feel like?

No, rather than that, it was probably more like how it would feel to be a nightclub in Kabukicho. I played enough Yakuza games to know that one should have a hostess hanging off each arm, pouring endless glasses of alcohol from a bottomless bottle. Not that I would know what those clubs were like in actuality, but it seemed like a simple enough concept. Insert seduction and out comes yen. Equivalent exchange, almost enough to be an alchemist formula.

Though, their goal here was vastly different. As I took a glance at the further end of the table where Tywin was in an animated discussion with our host, Luthor Tyrell. Well, far more animated on Luthor's side than from Tywin. In all likelihood, I would become engaged to one of these three girls no matter what. Did I want to? Not really. Did I have to? Probably.

Back in Japan, if this happened, I would probably be more okay with it since I really did not have much other options. I wasn't attractive enough, despite every one of my stats being above average with the exception of my sociability. However, now that the power of gold had made me attractive enough that I had a choice, I was a little reluctant. It was probably more than a bit hypocritical. Before, I would have been satisfied if I was thrown a dreg, but now that I had a choice, it didn't feel good to settle.

If my only choice was to watch the news on television, then of course, I would simply watch the news. However, if I was also given the choice to watch anime, read manga, or read light novels, would I simply choose to watch the news? Of course not. That was the empowerment that choice brought.

Still, seeing as how I recognized my own issue, I could find a way to live with it. It wasn't like I was going to run away or get kidnapped by a giant fire-breathing, turtle-shelled lizard. Plumbers weren't exactly a popular profession for females. Besides, I had a larger, more important goal than all of this. This was merely one step in my plan for world domination—

Okay, that was actually "saving the world," though it didn't sound any less chuuni. Considering that I could now summon fire into my hands—and on top my whole body at this point—I could easily do a reenactment of my younger, hallucination-filled days. In fact, this whole life seemed to like the kind of shitty story that Zaimokuza would come up with. Was this world actually a fictional story brought to life just so that I could star in it as the main protagonist? If it was, that crappy author chose the wrong setting.

Even with all the work I was putting into Lannisport which was firmly under control of the Red Faith, creating new products and improving the quality of life there, not to mention training my own specialized group of soldiers, it was still going far too slow. There wasn't magic where I could just hand-wave the specifics and bring about an industrial revolution. Well, there was magic, but on a very minor scale, the kind where you may have a party trick or two if you join an after-school occult club. Quite frankly, you weren't going to be doing anything like sacrificing the entire school with a giant ritual circle in exchange for power.

Zaimokuza did say that magic used to be a lot stronger in the past, when dragons were still around, but that was like saying that in the past, King Arthur could shoot laser beams out of his sword. I was entirely skeptical about his nostalgia and with good reason. If I couldn't filter out his exaggeration-filled memory, then I would have been in far more trouble these past few years than I had been.

It was unfortunate that Melisandre did not possess that ability. Her corruption was almost at an unredeemable level. If it weren't for the fact that she couldn't directly speak to Zaimokuza, she would have already become a lost cause. It would have made me reaffirm my dedication to a Zaimokuza-free world, if it weren't for the fact that I was already working towards a Zaimokuza-filled world. As it was, from the all the images Zaimokuza ended up showing her, she had taken up painting. Not that she was any good at it, being on the level of Doraemon, but she was slowly getting there—

"Are we boring you, my lord?" Janna—the one on my left—asked as her hand rubbed back and forth on my thigh. It was actually kind of starting to hurt now. Just how long had she been doing that?

Mina—the girl on my right—had already taken her hand back at some point and was now shyly looking at me with upturned eyes. The effect was a bit negated considering that her head wasn't tilted forward enough, and it was obvious she had about five minutes worth of practice.

Victaria—their cousin who was sitting across from us—was not even looking in my direction. Actually, that was wrong; her face was turned to the side, but she was peeking at me out of the corner of her eyes.

I had to admit, their methods of seduction were woefully inadequate. It was cute in that kind of naive, innocent way, but at the same time, it wasn't…? They didn't have the right attitude, clothes, or appearance to pull it off correctly. As it was, it was more like awkwardly watching a comedy show without the comedy. They could stand to learn a lot from Iroha, but really, how many more gods were bringing my friends over? Should I be checking the Drowned God? There goes Iroha, juggling axes from having become a burly, balding man.

…thinking of that image was a bad idea. It was going to haunt me, for sure.

Still, I wasn't really even sure why these girls were trying in the first place; it wasn't like it was my choice to choose. Which probably was the reason why they weren't given a lesson on seduction.

"That's…" I paused. While a part of me thought that their performance was lackluster, they were still girls who were interested in me. I was still a man, perish the thought if you thought otherwise. It wasn't like I could ignore their advances. Even with how much I criticized them in my mind, it wasn't like I was any better. I didn't really know how to respond, and even if I did pull out some line from an anime, could I perform them to satisfaction? Probably not. It was more likely that I would stutter or falter mid-sentence in my recital and embarrass myself. I would probably be better off with more confidence, but who should I believe in to believe in me?

Then again, it wasn't like it was that hard to be romantic in a medieval era. There wasn't widespread media, portraying romantic television drama that causes teenage girls and lonely housewives to flock to their TV sets. What all these girls had were, at most, romance stories from the mouth of bards and the occasional novel written on relatively expensive parchment.

I opened my mouth to say something, but instead of speaking, I simply closed it. What was I doing? This was marriage, not a date or anything like that. If I used these lines now, would I be using them thirty years down the line as well? The thing about romance dramas was that all they depicted was the conflict, the start of the romance. The happily ever after? If I wasn't compatible, it was likely we would become a bickering old couple when the lie would eventually be exposed. Did I want to spend my later years getting annoyed and yelling at my significant other about random things? To hear her go on and on about how I wasn't the man she married?

Just imagining that was like a slow grind torture that would slowly wear you down until all you would say is "Yes, dear" without even bothering to ever argue because it was easier than listening to her bicker endlessly and relentlessly about it. How could I imagine it so vividly? I had a creative imagination. Well no, actually, I just had to look down the table to see an example of that. At the end of the table, even though Luthor Tyrell and Tywin were in a discussion, Luthor's wife, Olenna, kept intervening into the conversation, usually to save her husband from saying something stupid. Luthor, for his part, relinquished the conversation to her easily enough. While Tywin was showing a stoic attitude towards it, I could tell that he was getting annoyed; it was probably far easier to deal with Luthor than Olenna. Still, for the Lord of the Reach to be so meek in the discussion—or rather, the negotiation—showed that they had a lot of practice. Well, I would probably be the same way with Yukinoshita, but this was a step beyond that. There wasn't even a wrinkle on Luthor's face, as if he had given in and simply stopped thinking about it.

"So we do bore you, my lord," Janna said as her hand stopped moving, settling on top of my thigh.

"Ah no, I just had too much on my mind."

"I can always lend an ear to your troubles, my lord," she said. "Now and in the future."

It could have been an innocent statement, but in the context of everything, it was pretty much a proposal. Still, I was curious as to why they were all trying so hard, even though the fact that I would have to marry one of them was almost set in stone at this point. Since they were all cooperating with each other rather than competing, then what was the point of all this?

"Won't you be sad to be away from Highgarden?" I asked.

"What's there to be sad about?" She smiled. "It's only a week's ride by ship, if there are no delays."

"Casterly Rock isn't as nice to look at as Highgarden."

"I'd have to leave Highgarden eventually. That is the fate of high-born girls." She removed her hand from my thigh. "If not here, then to one of the houses that have pledged loyalty to my father. Eventually, all of us would have to leave."

"Yes, but…" I knew that I am trying a little too hard, but I wasn't going to give up just yet. "Wouldn't someone like Rhaegar be a better partner?"

"Partner? Do you mean match?" With a smile, she covered her mouth with a dainty hand. "Of course, his majesty, the prince, is someone that any young girl desires, but he isn't that far above you, my lord."

"How so?" I asked with more than a little bitterness. It didn't really occur to me until now that the incident with Elia and Rhaegar really did become a bit of a trauma, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself.

"You'll be just as handsome when you get older, if not more so. You are generous; the maesters seem to relish spreading the tale of your charity to the far reaches of the realm," Janna said. "And you're kind. Otherwise, you wouldn't have ask me so many questions, my lord."

"I see…"

"I can think of no better than my own brother, but he's hardly an option. We're not Targaryens after all." She placed a finger coyly on her bottom lip. "I'll just have to settle for the second best."

"Janna!" Mina called out from my right. She seemed to be pouting. "You said you were going to be fair."

"I am being fair," Janna said. "If you'd stop being so shy…"

"Being shy? Have you seen what I was doing?"

"Copying me, right?"

"No! I have been…"

Was this a historical romance drama? Was I the protagonist in the three-way fight for the throne—or rather, the seat next to the throne? While I had to admit that I was a bit happy to be fought over, all of this—their interest and argument—was still just an attraction that was based on admiration. Could this even be called an attraction? It was more like hearing or reading a story about a heroic knight and then falling in love with that person simply based on that story. It was on the level of someone becoming a celebrity stalker after watching a movie with a certain star in it. Of course, when that balloon bursts, the aftermath wouldn't be pretty. In fact, it could even be worse than a loveless marriage. When the delusion is overturned by reality, that love would flip into hate. The only conclusion would be the end result of having a wife that hated you for not being the "ideal man" who she married. In modern society, there was the option of divorce, but here?

It was more likely that I would be the victim of NTR or assassinated in a murder plot constructed by my venomous wife so that she could marry my much more handsome younger brother.

Would it then be time for me to travel back in time to get a second chance to right all my wrongs and pay back all my debts of revenge from the previous timeline?

Well, life wasn't a television drama, thankfully. Even if we eventually come to hate each other, the most that would come out of it would probably be just sporadic arguing and living in separate rooms. A cold relationship where, if we saw each other in the hallway, we would ignore each other's existence as we walk past each other. Where I would play with my child while ignoring the grumpy woman staring daggers into the back of my head. Yeah, that wasn't my kind of ideal life.

As I sat in silence, listening to the two playfully bicker over me, I picked up my cup and took a drink, all the while ignoring the many glances that the third candidate was sending me from across the table. There was only one real way to settle this, to find out who could truly be a girl that I can live the rest of my life with.

I had to marry all three at the same time!

Haha, no. I wasn't looking to create a harem situation after all that would probably devolve into a yandere situation. Even if I was somehow inclined to that, Westeros was a continent that was practically the territory of the Faith of the Seven. Not even the king could get away with a harem. The most that royalty could get away with were hush hush mistresses who would forever slink in the shadows and under the blanket.

It was possible to date them each individually, but my experience with dating was limited to visual novels, and I was pretty sure none of them dealt with this kind of archaic era. It would probably be a boring visual novel too if it did exist, selling less than a hundred copies. A complete flop. Any historical romance I knew of or was forced to read in class was from the feudal era of Japan, so there was certainly nothing from the medieval period of Europe. Not that I thought any of that would help me even if I got Zaimokuza to bring me some.

How would I know if the girl was right for me? Would it be after the first date? The fifth? The hundredth? If love was so easy, there wouldn't be that many divorces and remarriages. If it was so simple to determine if someone was right for you, then in middle school, I wouldn't have chosen so incorrectly and suffered endlessly. Was love on first sight real? Of course not. It was just infatuation made by something something chemical processes in the brain and such. It was a biological response designed to trick you in thinking that you were in love. It was that same biological response that almost made me transcend the barriers of gender and become Totsuka-oriented for my sexual preference back in high school.

In fact, if I thought for a second that Totsuka would say yes to my marriage proposal, I would have sailed back to Oldtown this instant. I didn't mind even an arranged marriage, as long as it was with Totsuka. Unfortunately, I knew his answer, and the Lord of Hightower would not arrange anything without his daughter's approval—a very progressive kind of thinker, that man was in this kind of era. Though, that same problem assured me that Totsuka wouldn't be married off randomly unless she wanted it which was good. With Totsuka's attitude right now, it was doubtful that something like that would happen. It was possible that she could change in the future, but I wasn't in a position to wait, not when Tywin was dead-set on arranging a marriage for me. There was room to argue, room for compromise, but not much; if there was more, then I would probably have been able to get out of that marriage arrangement with that "nice" girl in Dorne all those years ago instead of wasting half my life thinking that I was going to marry the suntanned girl. Well, if anything, Tywin seemed to double-down on getting me married to counteract my reputation as a Red Faith adherent. Any objections that I voiced had been shut down by his long, unyielding glare.

I would like to say that I kept my dignity at those moments, but that was far from the truth. If anything, I would say that I was a poor choice for a dimensional traveler, one that only Zaimokuza could have chosen. He could have chosen an old genius engineer, a top-rated assassin, or a world-class politician. Instead, he chose me. Was I better than any of them? The answer, of course, is a resounding no.

Then again, it was unlikely any of them would want to turn this world into an otaku paradise like what Zaimokuza wanted. Not that I really wanted to do that, but I had to use what I know, and what I know wasn't very much. It didn't help that the books that Zaimokuza occasionally brought back were more oriented towards his own goal.

Was he trying to create a world where there would be an endless production of light novels for him to read or a world where he would have a huge audience to read his shitty light novels?

I felt fingers pinching my left thigh. Blinking out of my thoughts, I glanced to the left to find Janna's smiling face. She was certainly smiling, though it seemed a little odd now, a little out of place like that sense of wrongness I would get when I see a doll that was just a bit too shy of realistic. That space of uncanny valley that would make you think for a moment that what you were looking at wasn't human. In other words, it was the face of a girl hiding her anger behind a smile.

But Hachiman, how could you even tell? Did everyone forget that—in my previous life—I had a nearly absent working mother and a nosy sister? This was the kind of face that would appear on their face when I ate the wrong cup of pudding in the fridge.

"My lord, now that you're with us again, we have an important question for you," Janna began. "Which of us is prettier?"

Was I your arch-nemesis in a previous life?

Of course, I didn't voice that out loud. It wouldn't make sense anyways since my previous life was in Japan, and if I had a previous incarnation before that, it would definitely be on Earth rather than this world. Still, the sentiment still stood, clear as day. I could not answer this question. Well, I could, but it had consequences that reached far beyond just a simple question.

If this was a visual novel, this would be a branching choice. Did I really have to set off flags? I wasn't ready to choose yet!

This was a timed question, and the longer I delayed, the more worse it would be even if they did not voice the consequences out loud or even show any indication. I had to think fast. In my mind, I went through my options.

My choices were:

1) "You're all pretty." A fairly standard choice that the laymen would choose because it would seem like the safest, but it was actually the worst choice. It was the choice that would lead to the "normal" ending in any decent visual novel, the ending where the protagonist would end up with no one at all. Basically, a newbie choosing this choice would be faced with negative relationship points all across the entire board. Of course, I had to cross this one out.

2) "I think that Blank is the prettiest." This would be the choice you would take when you were aiming for a particular girl. The problem was that I haven't chosen any of them yet simply because I didn't really know them. I had known these girls for a couple of hours at most, and I had tuned out half of their discussions. Choosing this would be pretty much choosing a route. There was no saving and loading from here. This choice was obviously out.

3) "My sister looks prettier." Should I go take a rope and hang myself with it? Why was this choice even here? Was my brain working too fast that I had a meltdown? Not only would I look like a sis-con, it would piss off all my marriage candidates. This was even worse than choice #1.

4) "I haven't known any of you long enough." They would then reply with: "We're just talking about our appearance, silly." After that, it would be back to square one. This was just delaying the inevitable.

5) "I'm still trying to decide on who the mother of my children should be." Bold. It would certainly distract them from their question, but there was a steep requirement to use this method. That was having a handsome enough face. Of course, I didn't qualify. Overruled.

6) "I think—

I ran out of time. The three of them were looking at me expectantly, and I could hear the nearby conversations quieting down. If I didn't end this here, not only would it put me in a bad position with the three, but more of the hall would be listening in. So, I did what I did best.

I spoke my mind.

"Don't ask me to answer that," I said. "It's not just about your appearance. There are other factors that come into it. If you ask that question of a man in love with his wife, then even if the most beautiful princess was standing in front of him, he would say his wife is the prettiest. Those feelings would change his perspective. He would look at things differently. Therefore, it's not a question that I can answer."

"Are you…in love with someone, my lord…?" Janna asked in a strained tone.

"Well, no."

"Then answer the question." Her fingernails dug into my thigh, even as her steely tone reached my ears. This was a voice that would broker no argument or negotiation. I supposed that I had no choice then.

"I'm still trying to decide on who the mother of my children should be."

It ended as badly as I thought it would.

As expected—

Huh? Why were they blushing? Why was Janna looking away, as if she was a tsundere trying to hide her dere dere side? Why was Mina looking down at her plate with a shyness more befitting of Victara? In fact, why was Victara staring straight at me and quietly panting with her lips agape? I didn't understand this. I couldn't understand this. Did I invest points in my charisma stat without my notice or was this the power of status and money? If I put that prize at the end of a tightrope, would they walk it like debt-overwhelmed gamblers? Not that I would since I wasn't an evil, unreasonable business magnate.

Still, the point still stood that they were acting as if I met the steep requirements. Either their collective acting was really good or my face was handsome enough that it surpassed the requirements.

…they must have practiced together a lot.

Most people would think it was the latter, but I had too much wisdom and trauma to be tricked easily like that. I had seen my own face in the mirror, and if I were to compare it to Jaime, it was obvious that he would chosen for the role of prince on a white horse. There was no contest at all, even though we were part of the same triplets. It was like I was composed of the leftover scraps after they were done making Jaime and Cersei. There was no way that I would fall into that trap and become a narcissist.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most handsomest of them all?

Rhaegar, of course.

He should go die in a fire.

The evening ended soon after that with an awkward atmosphere.

~o~

A/N: I really am spending a lot of time on this particular year. Well, no worries. Things will pick up.