"How many times do I have to tell you," Claire shouted in anger, "I didn't sleep with another man!"
"You're raising your voice now." Ryutaro said in disbelief, "I thought you were the most mature."
"Oh, so that means I should always cull my emotions, huh?" Claire felt irritated now, "It's fine if you're an immature brat, right?"
"What…the fuck? Immature? Me?" Ryutaro glared in anger, "You're calling me immature?"
"I've been taking care of you all along!"
"Taking care of me? Seriously?" Claire was unable to endure his bullshit any longer, "Other than healing me the first time, what have you done for me specifically? I was the one that always treated your insecurities with care. Moreover,"
She teared up, "For a moment, let's consider that I slept with a man. So what? Is that important?"
She clenched Ryutaro's shirt, "Look at the mirror, fucktard! You have a fucking harem! You want me to be mature when it's convenient for you, huh? How self-serving."
"You're not the Claire I fell in love with." Shaking his head, Ryutaro walked away in disappointment.
"It's not love if you feel the same emotion towards a dozen women!" Claire shouted as she saw him leave, collapsing to the floor weakly in the end.
With that, Claire was out of his harem. Ryutaro was sad as he approached the rest of his women, sighing as he said, "Claire has left our party."
…
Two days later, one of the women entered a bathhouse, changing into her bathrobe when suddenly, a voice whispered into her ears, "My lady, Claire has vanished."
"Vanished?" She frowned, "Did she run away in embarrassment?"
"No, she met Ryutaro yesterday night alone. She wasn't seen after that. We haven't observed anyone leaving this city." Saying so, the messenger disappeared.
The woman was a small country's princess, one of the first to fall in love with Ryutaro. Even after leaving her country to roam the continent with Ryutaro, she still maintained her influence. A group of messengers always accompanied her from the shadows.
What she wasn't aware of was the fact that the messenger this time wasn't one of her own, but it was Grace pretending to be one.
Eugene kidnapped Claire, threw her in his Darble Dungeon, and made her puppets kill her. This way, the System within Ryutaro wasn't able to gather the details through Mental Energy like usual.
One by one, the harem women had friction with Ryutaro and either left or were killed in secret by Eugene, with the blame pinned on the naïve System Host.
Three months passed in such a fashion as Ryutaro only had one girl accompanying him now. It was then she announced in joy, "Ryutaro, I'm pregnant."
Ten months later, the woman delivered a baby. The wetnurse picked up the baby with care, displaying her expert prowess. She had a reputation for being the best in the city. In truth, she was Grace.
"Your son is as pretty as you." She spoke, acting like she was cleaning the blood on the baby when she swapped it with the baby in her Darble dungeon. Her actions were so swift that the baby's mother didn't even notice anything.
Bang!
Ryutaro entered the room in joy as he stared at the baby, "I'm a…father!"
He approached the baby, praising his woman, "You've done gre…"
His words came to a halt upon staring at the baby that had zero resemblance to him. Heck, it was a demi-human, sharing traits of a goblin.
It felt like his entire world had crashed as Ryutaro collapsed to the floor dispiritedly, "Even you cucked me…"
"Sir, before you do something stupid, please hear me," The wetnurse, Grace said in a hurry, "I feel this is your child."
"That's half a goblin there!" Ryutaro bellowed in rage.
"T-This is a lie, Ryutaro…" The baby's mother said in disbelief. But by now, he had been cheated so many times that Ryutaro had zero patience. With a slash of his sword, he severed his wife in two. Half of his harem died by his hand, so his slash had no hesitation. All he felt was unbridled disgust.
"You idiot! She's your wife. And this is your child!" The wetnurse shouted in a hurry, screaming in horror when Ryutaro was about to kill her too, "You're the reason!"
"You've been afflicted with the Goblin Disease!"
"Goblin…Disease?" He stopped his blade moments before cleaving the wetnurse's body, pausing as he asked, looking like he just wished to slaughter everyone to vent in rage, "You have a minute to talk."
"Y-Yes," The wetnurse trembled in fear, her hands clutching the baby tightly as she said, "I've seen this disease once in the past. The victim suddenly sees a mysterious screen that makes them do stuff and rewards them. But, it slowly curses the victim in return and causes them to hallucinate stuff."
"Moreover, the victim's children are born to partially resemble Goblins, which is why this is called the Goblin Disease."
"Hallucination…? What the heck is…" Ryutaro felt a searing headache as he stared at his System with suspicion, "This thing is a…curse?"
"Then…" He stared at his wife's corpse, distraught, "I…killed my wife."
Wah! Wah!
The baby began to wail right at this moment, distracting Ryutaro from his wife's corpse.
"Sir, please hold your baby. That would calm him down." The wetnurse said as she extended the baby to him, "Please trust my experience and reputation when I say he's truly your son."
"My son…" Ryutaro's face convulsed in pain, and by this point throttled completely in his coping mechanism. Staring at his son's monster-like form, his heart ached as he asked the wetnurse, "Do you know how the Goblin Disease is cured?"
[Host, there's no such thing as a Goblin Disease. Please be cautious against this woman.]
Since Arnark was dead, the Main Character System was no more. This meant there weren't any System Slayers around for the Systems to be afraid of. Hence, the System's response was merely curt, sticking to its template.
It was confident in dealing with the situation like usual, for during the past few months, the chaos only resulted in a spike in the Mental Energy it received, unaware that it was thanks to the Secret Society fanning attention to Ryutaro.
"I'm not sure, but from what I was told by the survivor, he called out the creature's true name, forcing it out of his body. They had a bloody battle next. And the moment he killed that creature, his children, a pair of twins magically became normal humans." The wetnurse said, "But that entity will refuse as long as you don't call out its true name. Moreover, it will prevent you from stating it."
"And whenever someone close to you realises its existence, it'll eradicate them, either through you or by itself." The wetnurse stared at him in concern and asked, "I'm sure you experienced something like that before, right? Did anyone close to you disappear mysteriously?"
"Why don't you trust me?"
"I took care of your insecurities…"
"I was just happy to be with you."
"I see…" Ryutaro smiled wryly as he recalled the statements of his harem members when they left him, vanishing mysteriously after that. "I'm one stupid bastard."
He then stared at the warning notifications from the screen hovering before his face, recalling the messages he saw until now as he inhaled a deep breath before roaring in anger, "Show yourself, you bastard!"
"God! Sword! System!"
The moment he uttered the word System, a reaction erupted from the world as for a moment, the Astral Network manifested itself, carrying out System Punishment on Ryutaro.
