The Bounty Hunter

Chapter 66: 4 is My Favorite Number

April 30th, 2089

It has been three weeks since Hikari has joined my harem.  The first harem meeting apparently was to determine the seniority and expansion policy.  They ended up agreeing that Hikari would be the first wife since our families had arranged a marriage between us.  Veronica was the second wife since she became my lover first and Kira was the third wife since she was the youngest by age.  The expansion policy was to decide whether or not they would allow me to add additional girls to the harem.  

Surprisingly, I was given approval to expand the harem if I so wished.  The approval doesnt matter to me since I have absolutely no intention of expanding.  I would have been satisfied with one loving partner, but circumstance has made it so I have three lovers.  There is no need to go further than that.  It is just a coincidence that the only 3 women that I ever really interacted with all fell in love with me.  Although when I brought this up with Kira, Veronica and Hikari they all laughed at me.  They seemed convinced that there is more to come.

Apparently the consensus among them was We all know firsthand how strongly women fall in love with you after they get to know you.  It would be cruel to deny them their feelings by trying to monopolize you.  We know that you dont play around with women and that youll never neglect us, so we will trust you.  Needless to say I was shocked at this, particularly with Hikari.  I thought she would have been against it for sure.  When I asked her she told me If Kira and Veronica hadnt been so accepting and supportive of me I would have never managed to be with you.  So I too will be supportive and open to additional girls who love you as much as I do.

It is true that the three of them have been getting along wonderfully together, which is great news.  Having a girl of this world to show Kira and Veronica stuff that I am not familiar with has also been a big help.  They have gone out together often for harem bonding as Hikari puts it.  They have gone to salons, spas, and karaoke amongst other activities.  Hikaris energy never fades no matter the situation, huh.  Since I have been financing these harem bonding sessions, I have been burning through my savings at a faster rate than expected.  The Blood Dragon money will definitely not last for as long as I had hoped.

I wont complain though since their outings have given me much more spare time recently, which I have spent tinkering with the automata.  I have just managed to get the most basic frame together.  Its been a very slow process since I have mostly been studying from Artificer Steales journal.  I have always been very interested in golemancy, but never had a chance to really learn it. 

The two gargoyles I had created were the most basic of golems and would probably be more accurately described as possessed statues instead of golems.  I did make those centipede golems, but it took a lot of trial and error to get those to work.  Its been very fun actually learning golemancy properly.  I look forward to the day I create an automata maid...  Did I just say that? Damn it, this is definitely a result of Reijis influence. 

I have also taken advantage of this extra alone time to do rigorous training.  My body adapts and grows much more quickly since the augmentation so training is especially effective.  The showdown with Jupon is coming up in May and I will not lose.  I do the hellish training regime with Rin and it is already paying dividends.  Rin has just recently grown her 2nd tail, giving her a boost in power, making her more intelligent and inching her closer to being able to communicate directly through human speech. 

Right now though I am in school, where things have also been peaceful.  Shirou has long since given up his pursuit of Hikari now that shes officially engaged to me.  I am still on his blacklist though, but hes an annoying punk at best so hes easy to ignore.  We are currently discussing what we want to do for our schools cultural festival in May.  Reiji had been strongly pushing a cosplay or maid caf, but when he realized we would make him cross-dress he quickly backed off.  The class was waffling on what to do until Hikari threw out a suggestion How about a magic show? she then gave me a meaningful look.  Oi, what do you think youre doing? 

To my surprise the class seemed amenable to it, but then one classmate asked That sounds like fun, but does anyone here do magic?  Hikari had a grin as she said Minato is actually pretty good at magic.  Everyone turned to look at me as I gave a bit of a glare at Hikari, who pretended not to see it.  I sighed as I was forced to show them a pencil disappear and then pull it out from behind a classmates ear.  It was simple to do by putting and removing the pencil from dimensional storage, but I was on edge.  I have always hidden my magic in both worlds since I first started doing it.  And now Hikari so casually forced me out into the open where exposure could easily occur. 

Much to my dismay, my simple demonstrations fired the class up and it was decided that we were doing a magic show with me as the lead.  Damnit Hikari.  As if she knew the scolding I was going to give her, she ran off from school as I had to stay behind with the festival planning committee and tell them our classs plan. 

Later that evening I received an email from her to come over to the apartment which I did so while in a grumpy mood.  I was currently quite upset at Hikari.  I opened the door to the apartment and was greeted by something beyond my expectations.  Welcome home Minato, would like dinner, a drink, or us?  Kira, Veronica and Hikari all stood in front of me while wearing the legendary naked apron.  The destructive power of this scene was unimaginable.  This must have been Hikaris doing.  All my anger at Hikari vanished as I had some extremely enjoyable naughty time with the three. 

I still made sure to impress upon Hikari that I wanted to keep my magic under wraps.  I guess she was treating it too lightly because she didnt have the experiences that I have had.  After she fully realized the implications of what would happen should my magic be exposed, she became quite apologetic for her reckless behavior.  Naturally, I forgave her. 

Tonight also became the first night I spent with all three girls at once.  Up until now, I had been alternating between spending the night with Hikari, Kira and Veronica.  It was wild.  But I did have to take into consideration that Hikari couldnt keep up with Kira and Veronica.  She doesnt have their superior physique after all.

I woke up in the morning with Hikari sleeping on top of me, and Kira and Veronica hugging me tightly on either side.  It was pure unadulterated bliss.  If I can just overcome Jupon, Ill be able to spend every day like this.  The peaceful times I have been dreaming about for years are coming closer, I just have to be strong enough to take it.

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