A Male Harem

"Now, follow me!" Lisandra says cheerfully.

This, you will come to learn, is Lisandra's way of saying she has absolutely no practical experience but tremendous confidence. She isn't wrong about the location, at least. The Adventurers Guild is a broad, weathered building wedged between a blacksmith and a loud, busy tavern. Inside, it smells like leather, old wood, and good old-fashioned sweat. Adventurers of all kinds walk about and chatter with each other.

You hadn't thought about it before, but you realize you can understand everything everyone around you is saying. Lisandra catches your slack-jawed expression before you can close it. "I know what they're saying, but they can't be speaking English. How—"

"You were reincarnated, remember?" She whispers. "This you was born and raised in this land, so of course he— you, in other words—speaks the language here."

Simple enough, you say to yourself.

You both approach what looks like a reception desk.

"Joining? I don't think I've seen you around this branch before. Do you have a transfer token?" she asks. You pat yourself down and shake your head. That answers that, then. Before you can open your mouth, Lisandra smugly steps forward.

"Well met, my friend!" she announces, planting both hands on the desk. "He's new, so please proceed with enrollment. And, to be fully transparent with you, he's quite weak." She pauses, as if genuinely reflecting on the full scope of it. "Like, really, truly weak. I would save everyone the trouble and simply assign them the lowest rank available. You could skip any assessment entirely, if you ask me," she giggles. The receptionist stares. You stare. Lisandra glances between you both, and somewhere behind those wide blue eyes, the gears begin their slow and grinding turn.

"OH — I mean —," she pivots as if she just knocked over a priceless vase, "he'll probably be very strong in the future! Tremendously strong. Just... in the faaarr future. From now. Which is today. Where he is, currently, really, really—"

"Assessments are mandatory," the receptionist says, cutting her off. "Guild policy. We determine quest eligibility by rank, and rank is determined by assessment. No exceptions." She slides two forms across the counter with the practiced efficiency of someone who has also heard every variation of this argument. "Both of you."

Lisandra blinks. "I beg your pardon—both? No, no," she says with a chuckle. "I assure you, I will need no sort of assessment."

"Both," she confirms, without looking up.

The assessment itself is mercifully brief. You are not surprised by your results. You are, however, surprised by Lisandra's—or rather, by the look on Lisandra's face when she receives them. She stares at her rank card with an expression that moves through several distinct stages: confusion, denial, and indignation. She's one rank above you. One. You say nothing. You don't particularly need to. The small, quiet warmth spreading through your chest says it well enough on its own.

"There has clearly been an error," Lisandra announces. The receptionist does not respond.

"I would like to be retested."

"You're welcome to retest in thirty days," the receptionist says pleasantly.

Lisandra turns to you with the expression of a woman searching for an ally and finding none. In a motion that manages to be both dignified and ****, she reaches into your pockets and takes the stat card she gave you before, and inspects it with narrowed eyes as it glows in her hands—and then places it back in your pocket without a word. Whatever she saw must not have helped her case.

"Gathering quests," the receptionist says, sliding your enrollment papers across the counter. "For both of you."

In spite of Lisandra's "help," you adapt slowly but surely. You live by a simple philosophy: survive, eat, and avoid anything that looks likely to kill you. It works, more or less. You take gathering quests, minor bounty hunts, and delivery quests that more seasoned adventurers won't touch on principle. At first, you're alone with your divine companion, armed with patched leather armor, a rusty short sword, and a beat-up wooden shield you carry everywhere like a safety blanket. The coins stack up, though. And through it all, Lisandra keeps her word and remains stubbornly, relentlessly by your side.

And through the Guild—through the late nights, the bad jobs, and the grueling misery of being under leveled and underpaid—you find something you didn't expect.

People. Your people. Kind of.

The first to join you is Eli Moonwell, a sleepy half-elf healer with pale green eyes and light green hair that never quite decides what it's doing. His soft, round face is framed by strands that perpetually escape whatever he's done to contain them, and his pastel-colored robes are, without exception, smudged with either dirt or something he ate recently. Rough brown elbow-length gloves and calf-high boots give him the look of someone who knows what he's doing, which is deeply misleading. He wanders into the Guild one afternoon looking for minor work, trips over a stack of parchment, and spills a healing potion across the floor. You help him clean it up, then watch in amused horror as he attempts to cast a minor healing spell on the broken bottle. He joins your party shortly after, having proved himself in actual combat through a combination of sheer luck and a few genuinely handy healing spells.

Soren Nocturne comes next, though he doesn't exactly have a choice.

To say he's had trouble getting along with other parties would be a vast understatement. Brilliant, precise, and equipped with a sharp tongue, Soren has a complicated relationship with concepts like "politeness," "affection," and "joy"—a fact the Guild receptionist relays to you in a low voice right before a group quest, as though Soren isn't standing two feet away and hearing every syllable. He stands there anyway, arms folded, expression caught somewhere between bored and quietly contemptuous. He swats long jet-black hair away from his face and stares at you with piercing purple eyes that catalogue your every flaw with efficient, unsentimental thoroughness. He wears a long black long-sleeved coat over fitted dark trousers and ornate shoes. He joins your party permanently soon after—not because he asks, and not because you do either. He simply appears outside the Guild doors as you leave one day, falls into step beside you and your companions, and dares you with a single sideways glance to say anything about it. You don't, of course. Over time, you come to understand that this is, for Soren, the closest thing to warmth he knows how to offer.

Ciel Grandoria makes a considerably grander entrance.

Prince of the illustrious Kingdom of Grandoria, or so he tells you immediately and unprompted, he arrives in armor polished to blinding perfection, shoulder length blonde hair, and bright emerald eyes radiating a naivety that somehow coexists with unearned confidence. His thigh-high white-and-gold boots and his wrist-length gloves bear delicate filigree that leave no doubt whatsoever about his noble pedigree. He carries a jeweled rapier he barely knows how to wield, and declares that his royal blood compels him to protect the weak and uplift the less fortunate, and therefore he has **** but to take command of your pitiable little party. He is, infuriatingly, quite good. His raw combat instincts and sheer pig-headed determination make him indispensable almost immediately—a fact he is completely aware of and will never, under any circumstances, let you forget. It takes you a little longer to notice that his intense fixation on you has less to do with royal duty and everything to do with the fact that you are the first person in his life to treat him with complete, genuine indifference. He finds it unacceptable. He finds it maddening. He has decides that the only solution is to marry you.

Gareth is a little different. You and your party practically fall over themselves to ask him to join you. You meet him on a quest gone sideway—specifically, the part where a goblin has you pinned against a cliff face and your options have narrowed considerably. Gareth steps in from somewhere to your left, taps the troll on the shoulder, and puts it down with a single, unhurried swing of a war hammer roughly the size of a small door. Then he looks at you with calm grey eyes set in a broad, square face framed by messy chestnut hair, and asks in a low, unhurried rumble if you're alright. He's enormous. Broad-shouldered. He wears simple, heavy armor and doesn't think much about it. He doesn't talk much, doesn't posture, and doesn't seem to want anything in particular—which, in your experience, makes him the most unusual person you've met in this world by a considerable margin. He joins because you all because you asked, no other reason. That straightforwardness is exactly what makes him so great.