Harem was a fellow dungeon diver. I had only met her twice. Once, I had encountered her in the Mirror Labyrinth on the border of the Ost Republic and Aberis. The other place I had encountered her was in Alerith, during the gladiator event. She seemed to be a free spirit and went wherever something interesting was happening. Of course, she always brought a group of men. It seemed to have grown since I had last seen it. There were eight guys around her now.
“Harem!” I called again as I approached her.
Otto and the others stayed back but waited for me. I wasn’t feeling particularly rushed. I remembered that Harem had asked me to come to this event, but I hadn’t been that interested. I was planning on skipping it until Prince Aberis asked me to attend it as well. After defeating the demon lord though, I was treating this as my vacation. General Tibult was there for honor and setting up negotiations. I was there to relax.
The men all moved to block me from getting close to Harem, but at this point, I stood a head taller than most of them, and they couldn’t block me at all. Harem looked up at me, and her expression was blank for a while. This was the third time we met, but she was no better at recognizing me. A few of the men whom I had seen before finally realized who I was, and whispered in her ear. Only then did she respond.
“N-newbie! Is that you?”
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt“Well, you’re the only one who calls me that.” I coughed awkwardly.
I was pretty sure it was because she didn’t know my name.
“Right… I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry!”
“Ah, yeah. Things happened.”
I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. I didn’t blame her too much for not recognizing me. We had only met about a month ago, but I had changed a lot since then.
“I’ll say. You’ve changed a lot. It’s a new haircut, right?”
I raised an eyebrow and even one of the men slapped his face. She wasn’t good with faces. Maybe that was the reason men were so interchangeable with her. Ah… I probably shouldn’t think such thoughts, I wasn’t much better. Faeyna and Eliana had stepped forward, grabbing one of my arms each as if to mark their territory from the other woman.
“Yeah… it’s a haircut…” I responded dryly.
“Oh! Nevermind, that!” She slapped her head as she had just remembered something. “How long have you been in town? Have you talked to her yet?”
“Huh? Who?”
“Alyssa!”
“Hmm? The bride?” Eliana cocked her head in surprise.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm“Wait.” I frowned. “Alyssa is the one getting married?”
“You’ve come this far and you didn’t know?”
“I just came because a princess was getting married.”
“Alyssa is the princess! Oof… this is why you were supposed to come two weeks ago. Now, it’s too late to do anything!”
I blinked. “Was I supposed to do something?”
“Ah… but… I thought, you and Alyssa…” She blushed slightly.
The former me might not have understood what she meant, but ever since my resurrection, I had felt more observant when it came to these kinds of things. She thought I had some kind of deep connection to Alyssa. Well, I had said a few embarrassing things in the past, but it wasn’t like she took them seriously. She didn’t take them seriously, or she wouldn’t be getting married.
“Deek, the wedding will be starting in a few minutes.” Otto broke in. “We need to get into the church now or we’re going to be stuck out here like them just watching as the bride and groom depart.”