Switching to a Reverse Harem, But the Male Lead Changed the Genre
The mood was so cheerful that no one would ever have guessed the expedition had barely survived a goblin ambush at midday, and before long a soft humming had settled onto the lips of every member around the fire.
Natalie was humming along to the unfamiliar tune, picking at a piece of venison, when the village chief came waddling over with an enormous bottle of liquor in hand.
"Come now, our great mage spent all day working wonders for the likes of us humble folk. You must have a drink as well, my lady."
"I'm afraid I don't hold my liquor very well…."
"Oh ho, but this isn't liquor, my lady, this is medicine! We caught a white snake thick as a strongman's thigh, hiding deep in a valley of the Keus Forest, and aged it for ten years to brew this rare elixir! One cup and by morning your vigor comes roaring back! Two cups and your skin turns fair as white jade! Three cups and your mana capacity grows so wide that even an ordinary person could awaken as a mage — the legendary panacea itself!"
The white-haired chief rattled off his patter in a husky voice, for all the world like a medicine peddler hawking wares in the market square.
"It expands your mana capacity?"
"That's what I'm telling you! Ten years in the cask — it'll likely grow tenfold."
"Th-then perhaps just one cup…."
"Goodness, one cup? A great mage like you needs all three. Here you are, let's start with your first…."
Natalie reluctantly accepted the cup the chief thrust out at her — not so much a cup as a small bowl of liquor.
Even after falling into a strange world, she had never quite managed to shake off that distinctly Korean trait: the inability to flatly refuse a drink offered by one's elders.
Gulp, gulp. The fiery liquor raked savagely down her throat and poured into her stomach.
As the burn swept down her gullet, a sound that was half moan, half gasp pushed its way out of her all on its own.
"Khh—."
"My, my, you drink beautifully. Here, have a piece of venison with it — and now, just two more cups to go."
"I think perhaps I should stop…."
"What's this talk of stopping? I've only just opened the treasure I meant to pass down through my family, and for your sake, great mage. Two more cups, if you please. Down it goes, down, dowwwn! Ah, beautifully done."
Before the last of her "khh" had even faded, she saw the chief — who had clearly been waiting for exactly that moment — pour more snake wine into her cup with a cheerful splash.
Hard liquor, cup after cup. Her face was already flushing hot and her vision swaying with the onset of drunkenness.
Even with the tolerance forged by nine years and eleven months of endless company dinners, three cups of this wretched snake wine looked like a losing battle.
She was waving her hands in refusal, thinking that if she kept accepting whatever he poured, she'd depart this world before her mana capacity ever got the chance to grow —
— when she noticed the strange sight from earlier that day filling her vision once more, and her eyes flew wide open.
"Hnn?"
Call it confirmation bias if she liked, but the words that appeared this time seemed to carry a far clearer meaning than before.
Mana-something is increasing. No way — is it because I drank this snake wine?
She was just beginning to wonder if the chief's claim about three cups expanding one's mana capacity might actually have been true when a cup brimming to the very lip was thrust under her nose again.
"Oh my, look at that expression — the medicine must be taking hold about now. Here we go, the last cup, down it goes, down, dowwwn!"
The chief's cajoling voice buzzed woozily at her ear.
She was raising the cup, thinking that once she finished this final drink she'd be able to read every last one of those stubborn, crooked little characters —
— when someone plucked it clean from her unsteady hand, and a familiar man's voice cracked against her ear.
"Our great mage should be more than satisfied with two cups. I shall drink the last one myself."
"Ah, Captain! I was just about to come pay my respects to you next, after our great mage here. And you've come all this way yourself."
The chief's delighted voice drifted away and drew near, away and near again.
Natalie strained to pin down her swaying vision and looked up at McLane.
Gulp, gulp. Watching the last cup — her tenfold mana-expansion elixir, her status-window-decoding potion — vanish helplessly down the man's throat, she scrunched her brows into a deep scowl.
My ten-year aged white snake wine. That's what I need to read my status window in full.
Glaring at the man's face as it split into two, merged into three, and collapsed back into one, Natalie stretched out a hand to snatch the cup he held.
"My wine. I still have to finish it…."
"You're drunk, Miss Pereira. You should go in and sleep."
When she swiped at the cup as it performed its repeated fusion and cloning jutsu, the man caught her wrist and warned her coldly.
I can't stop. My status window has to be made whole, and this man keeps getting in the way.
Nothing — not one single thing — goes right because of him. He won't even play the male lead the way the original novel did. I scraped and begged my way onto this expedition thinking I might somehow win him over, and all he does is radiate cold air. And now, on top of everything, he's stolen the cure-all — the one that grants morning vigor and jade skin and a bigger mana capacity.
"You're a bad man…."
"What was that?"
Hearing her mumble, the man narrowed his eyes slightly and asked her to repeat it.
Natalie gathered up the slivers of reason still remaining to her and crushed down the surge of resentment welling in her chest, shaking her head side to side. She shook it too hard — the whole world tipped and creaked like a badly hung door.
"Come on now, pull yourself together and let's get you inside. I'll walk you back."
The moment the man hurriedly steadied her shoulders, the reeling world stopped its rocking. But as he moved to help her to her feet, the chief launched into his sales pitch all over again.
"Ah, Captain, Savior of our village — you'd truly leave after only one cup? Come now, a man of your strength, exactly five cups is what you need. In my heart I'd say drain the whole bottle, but those knights over there must have their share too…."
"One cup is quite enough for me."
"Oh, we can't have that! This here, humble as it looks — one cup and your vigor comes roaring back! Two cups and your skin turns fair as jade, three cups and you awaken as a mage, four cups and your sword aura pierces the heavens, five cups and you become a Sword Master — the legendary panacea itself!"
By the time it had grown to five cups, the whole spiel rhymed clean as a folk song — clearly a performance he'd rehearsed more than once or twice.
Three cups to awaken your mana and five to become a Sword Master. Drink the whole bottle and you'd probably shed your human husk and ascend to heaven as an immortal.
The man — who, status window or no status window — accepted and drained every cup of snake wine the chief poured him without end.
One cup, two cups, three-three, raccoon, squid, yukgaejang stew… Unbelievable. Did this man work on the sales team of some major corporation? He's drinking like it's water and his complexion hasn't changed one shade.
In the end, Natalie's hand, which had been groping at empty air, admitted defeat and meekly returned to her lap.
By then the man had apparently downed all five cups; the chief stopped his hawking and withdrew, announcing that he'd go pour a round for the knights over there, and the words floated into the blur of Natalie's fading vision.
You insufferable brat. All the good things, and you keep every one for yourself. You've gone and made me a nobody with no male lead and no ending in sight, while you get to become a mage and a Sword Master both.
She was grumbling inwardly, annoyed for no particular reason, when she felt the man's shoulder give a jolt against her temple.
She hardly had the presence of mind to question why his shoulder was pressed against her head in the first place. Her muddled, tangled thoughts were already crammed to bursting — if I'd had just one more cup, the status window would have appeared… what's going to happen to my status window… and thoughts of that sort.
Though she'd only been thinking it, the man — who had treated her like so much scenery for the entire expedition — kept answering her anyway.
"Status window? That's not how status windows come about. If one appeared just from drinking a few cups, I'd have gotten mine ages ago."
That cold voice, without a single soft corner to it, even now.
Bad man. Then why did you steal and drink my precious snake wine if you don't even believe in its effects?
"Listen, Natalie Pereira. You're drunk, so let's get you inside. Come on, hear me out."
The man took hold of her and tried to pull her up, but she was not a docile woman.
Least of all now — when every plan she'd been working toward had just been wrecked by the man in front of her.
It's unbearable, you know. Is it really so hard to sprinkle in just a little romance?
Who asked anyone to actually fall in love? We just have to act like we can't live without each other until the ending rolls around, that's all. And you cut it down with a single stroke of the blade.
You're planning to eat well and live well all by yourself and then escape this place, aren't you? You selfish, selfish man. I have to get back to the company too, before they auto-fire me.
Unable to bear the resentment a moment longer, her fingers seemed to have pinched both of his cheeks. The man, it seemed, had looked down at her with an expression of uncharacteristic bewilderment.
And with that, Natalie's memory of that night came to an end.