Stealing the Protagonist's Harem!

I awake to the sound of the academy morning bells ringing out with such intensity I fall from the top bunk. 

Nyx, who is bundled up in covers on the bed right below mine, immediately shoots up in terror at the sound. Through the walls, I could hear the familiar sounds of annoyed groaning as people begin to get out of bed. 

Today is the official start of our classes. 

Since the tournament three days ago, the program decided to give us students a short break to rest, recuperate, and for the losers to recover mentally. 

I spent the last few days hanging out with the others from Knightford. 

During the time off, we did a lot of stupid things like small races, messing with students from other kingdoms, and graffitiing parts of the campus with magic, much to the dismay of the faculty and Jeanne. 

We all fooled around in celebration of all of us making it into class-A. 

A good bit of time was spent cleaning up after Tessa, who somehow managed to break almost everything she came into contact of. 

My mood has brightened a lot since I've come to this academy. 

Me aside, Aaron spent a lot of time with Nerah, causing Nathan's vigilance on him to increase tenfold. Nyx and Sylvia stuck around me for most of our excursion, however, and I don't know why, but I could subtly sense Lyra trying to keep her distance from me. This depressed me a little.

While he was with us, Reginald spent as much time as he could trying to get better acquainted with Analisse. It's fun seeing them interact with each other up close. 

I must say, it's nice to see side character romance every once in a while. 

Normally, in a novel like this, every single girl would just immediately fall in love with the main character, but it seems now, given the change of plot, there are less girls interested in Aaron. I wonder if I should feel bad…

Now, that isn't to say no girls have taken interest in him, as I have noticed a few keen eyes locking onto my dear protagonist.

Anyways, I'm proud of the others for making it to the top. They must have worked unimaginably hard to get where they are today and each deserves a spot at the top. 

I was honestly a bit worried that Lyra wouldn't make it to class-A due to her quick victory using her geas, but it seemed that the academy recognized that she had enough strength to be placed at the top.

I rise and brush the dust from my clothes. I let out a long yawn as I stretch my arms and body, as I do so, the intense ringing slowly begins to die down. 

Nyx wipes her eyes and begins untangling herself from her sheets while hopping out of bed. 

As she unwraps herself from her blankets, more of her sleepwear is revealed. I use the term sleepwear loosely, because it's really just a white short-sleeved shirt and a pair of short blue shorts. Her shirt is quite a bit over-sized, so the collar stretches over her shoulder and reveals a bit of skin.

Wait a minute, is that my shirt?

She turns to me and gives me a quizzical look as I'm staring at her. She flashes a warm smile and I quickly forget what I was thinking about.

I quickly turn away in embarrassment as she begins stretching her arms and yawning. I walk over to my wardrobe on the other side of the dorm room, open it, and take out a folded uniform each student was provided. 

The uniform consists of a pair of long black pants and a white shirt with a black and gold blazer that had a single pocket on the left breast. That was the uniform that the academy had provided for the male students that were attending.

I hear the sound of steps beside me and turn to see Nyx at her wardrobe doing the exact same thing. 

Unfortunately, this academy added a dress code over our long weekend in order to strengthen our uniformity. The uniforms consisted of blazers with pants for males and skirts for the girls, each class's uniforms being divided into different colors. Class-D's uniforms were white while class-C's uniforms were gray. Class-B's uniform was a dark blue and class-A's uniform was a cool black.

Nyx holds her outfit in her arms as she runs to the bathroom to change, leaving me alone in the room to change. With a snap of my fingers, I swap out the clothes I was wearing with my uniform. Magic is very convenient for everyday tasks like this, I don't know how I could have ever lived without it.

I proceed to use a mixture of water and wind magic to quickly refresh my body, acting as a sort of instant shower. I then use earth magic to create a hairbrush in my hand and begin running it through my hair as I walk around the room. As I move, I gather necessities such as my coat, a pair of shoes, and my bag. I also grab Nyx's bag that's on her desk while I'm at it.

After getting everything I need, I take a seat on the edge of my bed and slip my shoes on. 

But a moment later, Nyx exits the bathroom wearing the male uniform provided by the program. The uniform seems to perfectly fit her body and the clothes highlight her slender physique perfectly. 

She's stunning. 

After walking out of the bathroom, she twirls around and strikes a pose with a peace sign and asks, "H-how do I look, Raine?"

"You look great," I stand and hand her bag to her, "the uniform looks really good on you."

"Wha-?" Nyx's eyes widen.

Her face flares up and she quickly turns away in embarrassment. She quickly lifts her right hand to cover her face. This reaction is really cute, it kinda makes me want to tease her a bit more.

Considering how sheltered her life must have been in her forest, and even more so when she came to the kingdom, she must be incredibly timid by nature. It was like this in the novel, however, it hadn't been a fleshed out story behind her timidness, it was just played off for cheesy cliché novel moments.

"But it's true, Nyx." I kneel in front of her and clasp my other hand over hers, causing her to flash me a surprised expression, "You look really cute."

"S-stop. I don't like getting teased like that" She turns away once more and quickly pulls her hand from my grasp.

"S-sorry, I took it a bit too far," I quickly apologize to Nyx.

"I-it's alright," she sighs as she turns back at me, "I didn't exactly hate what you did just now. B-but please don't do that without warning next time."

I acknowledge her words with a single nod, however, for a moment, I wonder about her using the term 'next time'. Could this be the effect of the "Goddess' Charm" ability? If that is the case, I'll have to refrain from making advances like that in the future. I dislike the thought of taking the free will in romance away from someone.

"Hey! You' guys ready yet?" A loud yell followed by a knock is heard on the other side of the door, "You know what, fuck it!"

The door bursts open, revealing the figure of an angry green haired boy next to three other boys. It was Nathan and Aaron standing next to Reginald and Jackson, they came in right after I had spoken to Nyx. 

The wooden door had swung open with such force that when it had hit the wall, it made a loud "bang" sound and knocked itself off the hinges.

"Whoops," Nathan chuckles nervously, "that's my bad."

"It's fine," I sigh defeatedly as I cast reversal magic on the broken door, "we're ready, so let's all go together," the five each simultaneously nodded as we exited the room and made our way to the classroom.

As we walk through the halls of the academy, we notice other groups of boys walking in similar directions, each in different colored uniforms. Mixtures of people with outfits colored white, black, gray, and blue walked throughout the halls. 

Amongst the crowd, I could see Nicholas in a black and gold uniform staring distastefully at a group of non-humans wearing similar colored outfits.

Well, some people take longer to change than others, I have no doubt that the longer he spends here, he'll see that there isn't much differentiating humans from non-humans. 

I don't blame him for having those views. I understand that this racism against non-humans, specifically demons, is much more deep-rooted. Children are taught to hate the demonkind from birth, anti-demon propaganda is in just about every source of media in the kingdom, and their religion specifically dictates that simply the existence of non-humans defies the will of their god.

They worship the one of the strongest gods from this world, the God of Humanity, who has a deep seeded hatred for the God of Demons since their creation. Their grudge is less actual hatred and more of constant sibling arguments, however, the consequences of their fighting is felt most down here. Entire wars are wrought, lives are taken, all for what? To one up each other?

When I get more powerful, I'll have to resolve their insistent bickering one way or another. Thankfully, since they are so powerful, the universe limits their ability to affect this world and its people greatly.

As we get closer to our homeroom, more and more students with different colored uniforms begin splitting apart and going in separate directions. I begin noticing more girls walking past us wearing lighter colored uniforms.

"Finally," Nathan exhales as we finally come across the homeroom for class 1-A 

We all confidently step through the door and immediately notice the girls, who have already arrived and had been waiting for us. 

Aside from the girls from Knightford, Jeanne and Analisse had been standing with them as well. 

Analisse's face brightens as she notices Reginald, and she jogs over to our group to begin chatting. Jeanne, antisocial as she is, gravitates toward Jackson and Nyx and exchange greetings.

Nathan waves at Nerah with a wide grin on his face and she, ignoring his waving gesture, walks right past him and greets Aaron. 

The look on Nathan's face is priceless as he simply stands still in place murmuring to himself and Reginald bursts out into laughter. I almost let out a light chuckle myself, however, I stop as I notice Sylvia, together with Tessa and Lyra, walk over and greet us.

"What the hell took you all so long?" Tessa exclaimed loudly, "We've been waiting here for, like, an hour!"

"That's not true," Sylvia quickly replied, "we just got here."

"Wha- Hey!" Tessa turns to Sylvia, "You didn't have to say that!"

As Tessa begins explaining to Sylvia why her lie was actually very important, Lyra takes the opportunity to approach me while I'm alone. 

Lyra slowly inches closer to me with an expression that held a slight hint of nervousness, clashing with her usually confident appearance. She finally stops in front of me and, while taking a deep breath, stares directly into my eyes with her hands clasped together.

"Um, I'm sorry for distancing myself from you recently," she keeps her eyes firmly locked onto my own, "I wasn't sure about how you would react to my instant win during the tournament."

"Hm?" I pause for a moment, "What do you mean?"

"W-well," she averts her gaze a split second before answering, "since you were the one who recommended me such a powerful geas, I thought you would have presumed I only used the power of the geas instead of my own strength."

"Ah, I see," I feel a sense of what feels like understanding, or perhaps relief, wash over me, "in that case, you have no need to worry about that. I have a good eye, and I understand that it was through your own effort that you reached such skill."

I raise a finger to my cheek in thought as I continue speaking, "You may have used a powerful geas, but you are also powerful by yourself. If this was untrue, the program wouldn't have placed you in class A."

"Heh," Lyra turns back to me with a smile, "do you really believe that?" 

I give a firm nod in response and she turns away, quietly muttering something under her breath, before turning back to me, "Thank you for your understanding."

I don't know if she should be thanking me to be honest. It's my job as a reader to hear out every character impartially. While you can certainly have biases toward certain characters, one cannot call themselves a true reader without looking into the stories of all of the cast. This is how I have always thought, and I'm not planning on switching up anytime soon.

Sylvia and Tessa both finally finish up their discussion and Sylvia turns to the rest of us, "Alright, now that we're all here, I suppose we can enter the classroom now."

"Finally," Nathan lets out an exasperated sigh, "let's just go already."