Chapter 6 — Switching to a Reverse Harem, But the Male Lead Changed the Genre
The problem was traits like the chivalric spirit and self-sacrifice that clung to the Hero class like a curse. These forced players into all sorts of pointless side quests, and ignoring them to press on often triggered penalties. Wasn't this a design flaw, people had howled — should everyone who's already advanced to Hero just delete their accounts? Unable to endure the complaints any longer, the developer had ultimately tried clearing the final quest as a Hero himself — and that was how he'd ended up possessed by this cursed game in the first place.
Which meant he had no time whatsoever to play along with that woman's transparent schemes. He needed to level up fast, clear the final quest, return to reality, and deal with the company that was presumably in a full-blown panic over his disappearance.
Just then, the sweet voice of his adjutant — the first time he'd heard it since the possession — wormed into his ears and shattered his thoughts.
"My lady, what an honor it is for me to be the one to walk you through the schedule…"
"Oh my, the honor is all mine, to have Adjutant Orlando himself guide me…"
Watching Orlando and Natalie pile compliment upon compliment without so much as starting the schedule briefing they were supposed to deliver, McLane's brow furrowed. He forcibly swallowed the sigh rising in his throat and spoke in a glacial voice.
"That's enough, Orlando. I'll share the full itinerary with everyone myself — consider it a confirmation as well."
"But we already know the schedule inside and out—"
Brushing off Orlando's protest without a trace of ceremony, McLane began his explanation in a clipped, hard tone.
"As you all know, the Erosion Zone is spreading fast, so we must move to the northern territory of Matella as swiftly as possible. We'll camp one night, then stay at a nearby estate the next to restock supplies. Moving without rest and sleeping rough every other day — any objections?"
"No, sir!"
McLane's gaze swept over the crew's perfunctory answers and came to a stop on Natalie. The truth was, the others were seasoned enough to sleep outdoors for days on end. She was, realistically, the only person who might actually have a problem with it.
"Not a problem at all."
The woman answered with plenty of bravado, but McLane gave a hollow laugh to himself. A mage, supposedly — but with that soft body that had never seen a day of hardship in its life? As if there'd be no problem.
And just as he'd feared, the trouble arrived less than half a day after they set out.
"Hoo…, huuugh…."
Natalie fought desperately to keep the churning nausea at bay. She'd known this body wasn't exactly built for stamina, but how long had she even been in this carriage before ending up like this?
The rattle and jolt of the wagon felt like it was shattering her tailbone. She'd recalled the suspension systems of cars from her old life and tried combining a light vibration-dampening spell with a cushion, but it fell woefully short of settling her motion sickness.
And it wasn't as though she could just announce she'd fly ahead on magic to the nightly campsite. With no telling when danger might strike, she couldn't burn through her mana just for travel — and besides, it would amount to advertising, 'Actually, I'm so fragile I can't even ride in a carriage for long.'
"Uuurgh!"
The culprit was the hearty breakfast she'd eaten, all in the name of physical fitness. The half-digested food was churning and roiling in her stomach, biding its moment to erupt out of her mouth at any second.
She briefly considered throwing up a small barrier and vomiting right there in the carriage, but that didn't seem like it would solve anything. Worse still, McLane kept drifting over to her carriage window at every opportunity — as if keeping surveillance on how well she was adapting — to ask after the woman who was barely containing her surging nausea.
Like right now.
"Are you truly all right?"
If you'd just stop asking, it WOULD be all right, you bastard.
Gritting her teeth and swallowing the bile creeping up her throat, Natalie managed a stiff nod.
"You're… really sure you're okay?"
"I'm… fine… really, so… please, go on ahead."
Go. Please, just go away.
Terrified that she might fail to contain the urge to erupt and spray something profoundly humiliating all over his face, she waved him off frantically with her hand. At that, McLane clicked his tongue as if deeply displeased, then spurred his horse forward to the head of the column.
Natalie let out a breath of relief — and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth as the nausea surged again. Her ears felt muffled; even her mind was starting to swim.
That's it. I'm just going to throw up right now.
If she kept holding out like this, she'd run out of mana for even a basic barrier. She was raising her trembling hand, fingers just forming the sigil for the barrier spell, when—
A shout came from up front, and the carriage's speed began slowly to ease.
What now? It couldn't possibly be the destination yet. Were they stopping for lunch, maybe?
No, impossible. Since they had to move fast, lunch was to be a quick affair inside the carriage — hadn't they handed out dried bread and jerky for exactly that reason?
Whatever the cause, once the carriage stopped, her whirling vision righted itself and the nausea eased a little. It felt safe now to breathe a little roughly.
She figured some fresh air might settle her roiling stomach further, and she was cautiously poking her head out the carriage window when—
"We eat lunch and rest, then move out! One hour of maintenance time — everyone gets back into top condition before we ride again!"
At McLane's booming command, a sigh of relief escaped Natalie before she knew it. Then she caught his indifferent gaze — laced, more precisely, with a faint thread of irritation — still fixed on the carriage she was riding in, and yanked her head right back inside.
Could the rest stop be because of her? No way. Had he caught her dry-heaving on the sly, or noticed her suffering from motion sickness?
As if. It couldn't be because of her. He couldn't have caught her dry-heaving, couldn't have noticed her looking pale. He was hardly the type to monitor her condition that closely, or extend that kind of consideration in the first place.
A man obsessed with leveling and quests, blind to everything else — he'd never do anything so inefficient.
Someone must have simply needed to relieve themselves.
"Heal."
Giving her head a small shake, Natalie murmured a healing incantation and quickly recovered her condition. The nausea that hadn't subsided no matter how many healing spells she'd chanted just moments ago gradually settled.
Presumably because the stopped carriage had let her spinning vision find its center again.
Steeling her wobbly legs and stepping down with a deliberately unbothered face, she spotted Adjutant Orlando and Bertel tending a small campfire, boiling water.
"Miss Pereira, please join us over here."
Orlando called to her in his easy, cordial voice. Natalie murmured a small "Ah, yes" with a polite smile and went to sit beside the Munash and Mukki brothers, who were picking at jerky around the fire.
For some reason, the Munash brothers — who'd latched onto her without any qualms from day one — felt more comfortable to be around than the other crew members.
As she came over and sat down, Mukki brightened and held up the jerky he'd been eating, offering her some.
"An empty stomach makes everything harder. Eat some jerky, quick — my lady, or, ah, Miss Pereira."
"Here, special sauce from the Eastern Continent. Try it."
Munash handed her a dark, viscous sauce with a strangely sour, sharp-sparking aroma. It was faintly off-putting, with a scent like chemicals — yet something about it resembled the cilantro in the malatang and rice noodles she used to eat before her possession.
Natalie, a lifelong cilantro-picker-outer, waved her hands in vigorous refusal.
"No, thank you, I appreciate the thought, but I'll be fine with just the jerky…"
"It's good with jerky. I don't give this to just anyone — you're getting it special, my lady."
Reluctantly, she took the sauce bottle he held out and drizzled a little onto her jerky. Munash and Mukki gestured that she should use more, but any further and she suspected the nausea she'd barely pinned down would surge right back up.
She was barely hiding her reluctance as she chewed the jerky with laboring jaws when Orlando, who'd been poking at the campfire, came over with a sunny smile.
"Food like this must not sit well with you, coming all of a sudden. Here, have it with this tea — it should help a little."
"What's this?"
"A tea that aids digestion. On expeditions we live on dried rations the whole way, so things don't always settle right."
"Oh — thank you."
One sip of the fragrant tea, and the rising nausea seemed to ease a notch. Watching her sip it with a fond expression, Orlando lowered his voice and nodded toward McLane, who was chewing jerky expressionlessly beside the Munash brothers.
"However he acts, the captain seems quite concerned about you, Miss Pereira."
Natalie's gaze drifted to McLane of its own accord. Their eyes happened to meet, and she whipped her head away in pure reflex.
"As if."