3. Switching to a Reverse Harem, but the Male Lead Changed the Genre

"Taking her along would only be a problem. If we run into demons out there, how on earth are we supposed to fight? You all saw how she trembled at the mere mention of them earlier."

"That may be so, but still..."

Listening to McLane's stubborn voice, Natalie carefully opened the door and stepped into the room.

Startled by the sight of a woman walking in, the tall blond man inside asked in bewilderment.

"Er—how did you get in here?"

"Oh, come on. Natalie, seriously."

The instant McLane spotted Natalie, his sculpted features seemed to crumple all at once, and he sprang to his feet. Natalie feigned blindness to the look in his eyes—the one he reserved for a hopelessly disobedient headache—and opened her mouth in a voice pitched to sound as capable and intelligent as possible.

"Hello. I'm Natalie Pereira; I heard you were looking for a combat mage. I stand on the threshold of the Seventh Circle, and as my magic is bound to no element, I can wield everything from a broad arsenal of offensive spells to healing and purification magic. I am currently serving at the Magic Tower, but having already arranged my replacement, I can join your party in two days' time."

At her staggering self-introduction, the two men flanking McLane let out gasps of admiration.

Natalie deepened the faint smile resting on her lips and went on.

"Surely no one here would claim that, even with credentials like these, I'm barred from so much as applying to the combat unit on the grounds that I'm a woman... right?"

At her words, McLane's face twisted darkly.

"If I recall correctly, I already told you that was out of the question. Did you fail to hear me properly?"

"I heard you. I did—but I can't agree with you."

"Ha—and I don't believe this is a matter that requires your consent?"

"Come now, Sir Lindhardt. This is hardly a post for recruiting your future spouse, is it? If a perfect match for your conditions is that difficult to find, then for your other party members' sake if nothing else, you ought to consider a second-best option."

At Natalie's words, the two men turned to look at McLane. Their faces said their opinions ran along much the same lines.

Under those gazes, McLane's expression turned one shade grimmer.

"Do you take demon purging for a children's game? Does it strike you as sensible for a count's daughter—raised in comfort, never once on a hunt—to march all the way to the distant Northern Erosion Zone, jostled in among a pack of rough men?"

At that, Natalie's eyes flew wide in well-timed astonishment. Then she let her expression melt into one of being moved—purely for show—and asked in a bashful voice.

"Oh my, McLane. Were you objecting because you were worried about me? And here I was, never even noticing that heart of yours."

Give anyone close to a decade of office life and they grow expert at wearing masks—whether the kind so thick it makes you click your tongue, or the flimsy scrap of mesh through which everything beneath shows plain. Either way, the naïveté that once bared your whole, unguarded heart fades with the years.

And Natalie, carrying within her the soul of a salaried worker on the brink of her tenth year of service, had grown more than adept at producing the mask that suited the moment and putting it on.

Under that performance, the gazes of the other men swung from Natalie back to McLane in unison—this time laced with a fresh thread of suspicion: what on earth was the relationship between their captain and this remarkable young lady?

Whereupon McLane, fury climbing up his throat, ground his teeth and glared at Natalie.

"No—look here. Miss Pereira."

A voice like a low growl. But if a threat of this caliber could have stopped her, she would never have started in the first place.

Natalie gentled the corners of her eyes all the further and cut him off before his words could turn vicious.

"Hmm—it's quite all right, McLane. It isn't that I can't hunt; it's that I could and chose not to. And I'm hardly as delicately raised as you seem to think. As you well know, I'm acting head of a house that's going under these days."

At Natalie's words, which came out sounding all but tragic, the two men—who until then had betrayed nothing but a roll of their eyes as they warily tracked the murderous standoff—sucked in a breath.

They seemed startled that Natalie herself had laid bare, so nakedly, something that was common knowledge yet politely hushed up.

Watching them, Natalie shrugged and put on a self-deprecating smile. To them it must have read as ruefulness over a ruined house; in truth, it was closer to shame—shame at having to cling so servilely to this arrogant, antiquated, prejudice-caked McLane.

"Besides, traveling in the company of men hardly bothers me. Most of my colleagues at my current workplace are men, too. I'm perfectly comfortable with it, but if anyone else would feel ill at ease, I'd appreciate it if you arranged a separate barracks. And if that, too, proves beyond you—well, I can find my own solutions, whether that means barrier magic, illusion magic, or something of the sort."

At her words, which managed to advertise her fluency in every branch of magic even as she merely listed options, the men beside McLane cautiously chimed in.

"Captain, with a candidate of that caliber, it couldn't hurt to at least consider—"

"And rather than a company of nothing but dour men, a beautiful lady in our midst would put fresh life into the unit as well—"

"Enough. Today's interview is over, so get out there and finish your expedition preparations. Bertel, you double-check the supply counts."

"Yes, Captain."

"Orlando, you take the throwing weapons. Without a mage we may find ourselves short on ranged arms, so stock roughly double what we planned."

"Yes? Ah—yes, understood. Though, Captain—"

"What is it? And you haven't left?"

When McLane frowned his displeasure and raised his voice, the men at last shuffled to their feet.

"Ah—then we'll head out first. My lady, should the chance arise, next time—"

Orders or no, the blond man called Orlando could not quite surrender his lingering interest, and he made a sly attempt to strike up a word with Natalie. But before he could round the sentence off, McLane's voice—sharpened by a further degree—sheared it cleanly away.

"I could have sworn I told you to leave this instant."

"Yes, yes. Going right now, sir."

Clunk. Perhaps tinged with timid defiance, the door swung shut with a faintly grating rattle—and even then, McLane's sharp gaze did not leave Natalie.

Frowning at the notification messages cluttering the air before his eyes, McLane glared at the woman in front of him.

It was the quest window that had sprung up the moment Natalie appeared at the interview—or, to be precise, the moment the woman had approached him, declaring that she, too, was a transmigrator.

When he had first laid eyes on the quest rewards, he had, truth be told, wavered for a moment—a 30 percent cut to the expedition's duration and a 10 percent boost to his leveling speed were simply too enticing to turn down at a stroke.

By the main scenario's script, once House Pereira's business collapsed and rumor spread of suitors swarming to buy the seat at her husband's side, he was supposed to have proposed a contract marriage to Natalie.

But he hadn't. That had held true when he played the game back in reality, and it held true now that he'd been dragged inside it.

He had reasoned that it was far more efficient to reclaim his 100,000-gold investment, use the money to pick up one more fine artifact, and pour himself into leveling up than to fritter away time building up the heroine and her favorability rating.

All the same, out of a lingering what-if, he had left the quest neither accepted nor rejected. Naturally, the moment he could be certain there would be no penalty for turning down the main quest, he fully intended to turn it down on the spot.

Unable to stomach the prickly, uncomfortable silence a second longer, Natalie asked as though she genuinely could not comprehend it.

"What on earth is your reason for hating women this much?"

In gaming circles there was a term for it: kill the heroine before she can become one. Do in the female character before her romance arc formally begins, and you cut down on the cancer-inducing aggravation she would cause. The phrase seemed to have been coined because so many storylines had the heroine shackling the protagonist by the ankles.

For a man largely indifferent to entanglements with the opposite sex—in reality or in games—he found the saying rather relatable. And so he had always insisted on soloing when he played, or, when he did put a party together, kept female members out of it wherever possible. Because the moment a woman joined the party, men who had been perfectly sensible in one another's company started acting like half-wits and staging one idiotic spectacle after another.