Haru was sitting on the railing while Kuroneko was sitting on the chair since Haru told her to sit there. He was thinking of how to move forward with his harem. He did have a dream of having a harem, but that didn't mean he had the right to make any girl he liked to be his. He was also a little scared of becoming like those MCs who just kept collecting girls and not caring about them after marking them. He knew that if he were to remove the suppression from his charm, he could get any girl in this world. His charm had already increased to U rank, and now it was getting hard for him to keep it suppressed. He sighed thinking if thinking about the future….
"It is not laudable for men to sigh, you know?" He turned towards Saeko who was now standing beside him. "I know." He said but sighed again.
"What's bothering you?" she asked after a while. In response, he looked at her for a while, then looked up in the sky and replied.
"Nothing is really bothering me; I am just a little scared that I might start neglecting you all in the future." He said while still looking up in the sky when he felt Saeko hugging his waist from behind him and resting her head on his back.
"I don't think you will fail to care for us, neither do I think you are going to leave us." She said with a chuckle which caused Haru to chuckle as well since he really would not leave them once they became his. "At least not the Haru that said, 'I don't want you as a fighter, I want you as my woman'." She continued while mimicking Haru's words in his tone. They both laughed at her not-so-good mimicry.
Haru got down from the railing and gave her a tight hug, "Thank you." He understood that he was just thinking too much, or maybe the author started doubting his resolve to make a harem and was testing him. Whatever the case might be, he knew that he would not become what he was fearing, not until he was still the same Haru.
"I love you, Haru," Saeko said after a while, which caused him to smile and reply.
"I love you more, Saeko." She just chuckled at his reply and kissed him. They kissed for a while and then parted their lips but kept hugging each other. Haru suddenly thought of something and separated from Saeko.
"I have something to show you." As he said that, he removed the suppression on his charm which Caused Saeko's confusion to become dazed. She was stunned by his looks, if before his looks were comparable to idols, then now even idols would look like Begger in front of him. No, even that would be an understatement, he right now didn't look like someone who should be allowed to be in this world. After some time Saeko came out of the daze and directly jumped on him, started kissing him wildly. She had her legs around his waist and her hands were behind his neck, she just kept kissing him till she ran out of breath. Her face was blushing just by looking at him, and she knew if he went out like this then every woman in this world would be ready to jump at him any time.
"How?" this is what she could ask since it would take her a while to even get used to his full charm.
"I had been suppressing my charm for a while now. When my powers grew, it increased my charm along with it. Now it was getting very hard to suppress it, so I wanted you to be the first one to see the real me after the apocalypse." He said with a gentle smile that looked so dazzling that she became stunned again. Though this time she somehow managed to reel in her feelings and stopped herself from kissing him again.
"I see, so are you going to go move around like this?" She asked, and he nodded his head since he really was having some trouble suppressing his charm. "Then it is a serious problem," Saeko said and got down from him. She held her chin in deep thought, then suddenly got an idea and suggested.
"How about you wear a mask whenever you can? Of course, except when you are inside a house, or you are with your 'harem'." She said while putting some weight on the word harem. Even though she didn't have a problem with him having a harem, she didn't want him to be surrounded by girls whenever he goes.
"Yes, I will try." He said and sat on the floor with a wall supporting his back, "Come here." He said while patting his lap and Saeko smiled and sat on his lap and put her head on his chest listening to the calm rhythm of his heart. Haru also hugged her and moved her close to himself, and then looked at Kuroneko who had been looking at him when he sat on the floor. He gestured for her to sit beside him to which she happily obliged and got patted in return.
(Haru POV)
I kept sitting there keeping the lookout while resting my head on Saeko's head that was resting on my chest. My hand also kept patting the soft fur of Kuroneko and then I looked at her status.
[ Name: Kuroneko.
Age: 4.
Race: Shadow Cat. (Affinity of Shadow)
Strength: D-; Agility: D+; Stamina: D+; Wisdom: D-; Essence/Mana: D; Luck: C+; Charm: A-.
Potential: S.
Skills:
Shadow claw: Attacks that move towards the target in the shape of a claw and are made of shadow.
Shadow bind: Binds the target in veins made of shadow.
Shadow dive: You can hide inside your own shadow or the shadow of any stationary object.
(More abilities will be unlocked as the rank increases.)
Power sense: Able to get a rough estimate of opponent's power by sensing their mana.]
She was strong, undoubtedly so, as other than me and Saeko no one else would be able to defeat her in a one-on-one fight. As for her abilities, they were powerful along with versatility. Since she can do ranged attacks, stop the movement of her enemy and even hide for surprise attacks. Beasts don't have a ranking system in their power, they get new abilities every time their rank increases. Now you must be thinking about the criteria for Rank-up. It's simple, you just need at least two of your stats to be of the next rank excluding luck and charm, and then you meet the criteria for rank-up. For example: if you have strength and wisdom of S-rank and all other stats are of lower ranks (Luck and Charm are not counted), then you can be called S ranked, it is the same for beasts and humans. However, if you have the stats from the example then you are at the lowest of the S rank.
The main reason why I let Kuroneko live was because of her race, as it is very rare to have a race change and she also looked cute. So, I made her Saya's tamed partner, though she looks like my tamed pet instead.
I kept hugging Saeko, and she also snuggled up closer to me, and we enjoyed our soothing silence, not realizing how much time had passed. Saeko was already sleeping in my embrace, and I let her sleep and started browsing the shop again and passing the time.
................
It's been more than an hour if I had to guess, as I could hear someone moving towards our location. If my guess is right then it should be Kazuki, since it is time for her and Saeko's shift. My guess was right, it was Kazuki and now she is standing on the gate of the balcony looking at Saeko on my lap with jealousy.
"Hey," I said in a low voice with a smile, but she was stunned at the place when her gaze finally landed on me, as it was the first time, she looked at me whose charm was fully active. "...Hey." She still replied absentmindedly. I didn't want to wake Saeko up but looks like my attempt was a failure since she woke up the next second. Still, she didn't get up from my lap, just sat up straight and looked at Kazuki who was still rooted in her spot looking at me with blush. Then she looked at me with an expression saying, 'Do something', so I coughed, which broke Kazuki out of her daze.
"Is it time for your shift?" I asked Kazuki, changing the topic, as I could see she was really embarrassed at the thought that she had been staring at me and I caught her red-handed. As if understanding that I changed the subject, she looked at me gratefully and answered.
"Yes, you can rest now." She said and Saeko also got up from my lap, as if agreeing with Kazuki's words. I got up, did some stretching, and then said. "I am not really tired so I will keep you both company." Before Saeko or Kazuki said something, I said again, "I am really fine, and if I did feel tired, then I would get some sleep after your shift. I just want to spend my time with two beautiful girls alone, can I?" I said and looked at them with expecting eyes. I know there is no way for them to say no to me right now, one of the perks of charm I must say.
"Fine, but you will get a good sleep after our shift, right?" Saeko sighed and asked, while Kazuki also sighed but she was also smiling at my indirect compliment to her. "Yes, yes." I gave a perfunctory answer as I knew that everyone would wake up soon since Alice's plot would happen in some time.
Looking at my response Saeko and Kazuki were about to say something again, but I cut their words before they could say something. "Wait here, I will bring two more chairs," I said and moved without waiting for their reply, and I could hear them sigh.
When I bought the chairs we sat on them, while looking outside for any movements. After a while, I could see some movements at the corner of the end of the street, so I stood up and focused on the direction of the disturbance, this led both Saeko and Kazuki to also stand up. Saeko also took the binoculars, focused on the disturbance and saw what I was seeing. There was a man white shirt red tie and dark brown pants along with dark brown suspenders was stretching his hand for 4m and using it to get onto a tree, then he pulled a girl up the tree. She was wearing a white jacket with a pink dress top and a light blue skirt along with black socks and shoes. They are Alice and Mr Maresato (As his first name is not mentioned even in the series) and they were trying to be as secretive as possible, but a branch of the tree broke and fell on a zombie and they got discovered and now they were surrounded by zombies. Seeing this Mr. Maresato started shouting for help in hopes of getting help from someone, only to attract more zombies.
I looked at Saeko and Kazuki and they both turned towards me, "Ready for some power up?" I asked with a smile, which resulted in them blushing. but Saeko calmed down after a while and said, "Yes" and Kazuki also nodded after recovering.
"Can you go and inform Saya about this?" I turned towards Kuroneko and said while patting her head and she nodded in response. "I will be going ahead, try to keep up," I said while picking up my Katana that I kept beside me and jumped down directly from the first floor, though it was nothing special since even an F+ rank would not get injured from this height. Saeko and Kazuki went inside to get their weapons along with Kuroneko who moved towards the girl's room to inform Saya.
I didn't start by killing the zombies since they were not going anywhere, instead, I jumped over boundaries and moved towards Alice and her father. As I moved close to them, I could clearly see their faces and the hope building up in their eyes. Mr Maresato had Black blond hair and black eyes, a lean body build with a height of 174cm. He was neither handsome nor ugly, he was average-looking. Then there was Alice with shoulder-length dark pink hair with bangs reaching down from the sides of her temples stretching outwards, a mole under her purple eyes.
I looked back and I could see Saeko was coming out with her katana along with Kazuki who held Kahr CM9 that was used by Saeko till now. I could also see Kazuki looking at Saeko's Dagmor, which had the same design as my Gurthang with jealousy and I could only shake my head at it. However, I did make a note in the back of my head to get Kazuki something similar. As they came out of the boundary by opening the gate, some zombies started moving towards them only to be cut down by Saeko or shot down by Kazuki's water arrow.
Ignoring the activities in front of Shizuka's house I focused on Alice and her father since I knew that Saeko and Kazuki alone could take care of things there, not to mention everyone else in the group who would have woken up by now. As I jumped on the tree Alice and her father were standing, I could see both of them being stunned after getting a clear view of me, especially Alice was blushing so hard that even her neck turned red. I could only helplessly sigh. Hearing my sigh Mr. Maresato came back to his senses and was about to say something, probably thank you or something along that line. But I cut him before he could speak since I knew they would not get a bad impression of me for such small things, even more so because my charm makes people initially have a good impression of me.
"We will have all the time in the world to talk after I save you guys, so please bear with me for now," I said, and Mr. Maresato nodded his head while Alice was still in a daze. "Get on," I said to Mr. Maresato while showing my back, he hesitated for a while but looked at the unfavourable situation he got on my back. Then I turned toward Alice who was now out of her daze but still looking at me with a blush.
"I am going to carry you. Alright?" I said gently and she nodded absentmindedly, and I quickly carried her in a princess carry and ran towards my group ignoring Alice who was now a blushing mess.