CHAPTER 60
I made a bold, ambitious declaration in front of the people, but the price was miserable.

"Are you on drugs?"
"Ceres, you must be very sick..."

Emperor Viol and Duke Alios immediately approached my side and grabbed both of my arms.

"Let go of me!"

I resisted, but there was no way I could overcome the strength of these two. I was dragged away helplessly.

"Uhm..."

Niobe, who would normally help me, just watched. She had been dissatisfied with my actions from the start, so it seemed she intended to leave me be.

"Hahaha!"

Red just laughed, seemingly finding this all highly entertaining.
With no one to help me, I panicked as I was about to be dragged back to the Imperial Palace.

Uh, this isn't right? The original plan was for me to go around resurrecting people, so the public would see it, be amazed that I was truly a god, and naturally treat me as an extra-legal being.
If I became a being above the law, it wouldn't matter if I built a harem, right?
But getting dragged away in the middle of it meant I couldn't even start properly, which was a baffling situation.

"Y-You're Valencia, aren't you? You died a month ago!"
"I was dead?"
"Oh my god, Lord Ceres really resurrected the dead!"
"It's the power of a god itself!"

Even as I was being dragged away ungracefully, people looking at me with awe and wonder entered my vision.
Seeing the results I had managed to achieve, I was dragged away.
And then...

"Check and see if he's gone mad."

As soon as we returned to the Imperial Palace, Viol, who forcibly laid me on a bed, called Sibylius and ordered her to conduct a precise examination.

"Let's take a look."

Sibylius floated countless magic circles above my head and examined my brain in detail.

"...I'm not entirely sure. It's my first time examining the inside of an angel's head as well. Judging by his explanations, it's certain that he's gone weird, but I don't know the specific cause."
"You are useless when it matters most," Hames scoffed at the perplexed Sibylius.

"I'm not crazy!"

I yelled at the women who were treating me like a complete lunatic.

"I haven't lost my mind, I'm completely normal. I did that in my right mind!"
"You resurrected the dead in front of everyone and babbled about being a divine entity, all in your right mind?"

Viol gave me a look that asked why I would do such a thing.
The others had similar faces. I shouted at the women who looked like they couldn't understand why I did what I did.

"I had to, so I could marry all of you!"

I honestly confessed my true intentions. I had no intention of hiding it, and I'd have to tell them eventually anyway.
And the expected reaction returned. Everyone was staring at me with completely dumbfounded faces, as if they couldn't comprehend what I had just said.

"What?"
"Do what with all of us?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Hmm, it seems something really is wrong with his head..."

Alios, Hames, Viol, and Sibylius spoke in turn.

"I wondered why you were suddenly acting weird... You sure dream big. Or are you just completely in heat?"

Red treated me like an idiot.

"Hey, you idiots! Do you think I'm doing this because I want to?!"

Feeling unfairly treated, I yelled.

"This is all because of you guys. Be honest. Even if I picked one of you, you wouldn't accept it anyway, right?"
"If you don't pick me, I'll kill the other person."
"See!"

I pointed to Alios, who immediately answered that she would kill the rival, as proof.

"The rest of you would be exactly the same! So it's better if I just marry all of you! And if I make it known that I've become a god, I'll become an extra-legal being, so the law won't matter anyway!"

When I countered Sibylius, who had brought up the law earlier, she shook her head as if troubled.

"...It's true that a god might be allowed to do so, but this method is impossible for you."
"Why?"
"Even if you want to marry all of us, do you think we would accept that?"

Sibylius pointed at the other women, saying there wasn't a single woman here who would quietly tolerate that.

"I will absolutely never accept it. I would rather kill everyone than watch these things defile Ceres."
"What do you mean defile?! You guys are the ones who get pregnant!"
"Have you truly lost your mind?!"

As I argued with Sibylius, the others stepped in.

"I will not share you with anyone."
"It's a filthy idea to begin with."
"Why don't you just go to the red-light district and join that industry instead?"

Viol, Hames, and Red spoke with clear displeasure. They shuddered, showing just how much they hated the idea.
The women, who usually couldn't wait to kill each other, rarely took Sibylius's side like this.

"In noble society, keeping paramours aside from a spouse is a fairly common occurrence, but..."

I thought Alios might be taking my side for a second, but looking at her eyes, I realized that wasn't the case. The lack of light in her eyes showed she was ready to murder the other four on the spot.
Well, I didn't expect them to agree right away. It was an unconventional method, after all.
So I tried to persuade them properly, but...

"Ceres has gone mad...."

At that moment, I heard Ares muttering in despair.

"My son has gone mad!"
"Mother?"
"This is all your fault, you bitches!!!"

Ares, who abruptly screamed that I had gone mad, ignored my call and pointed her finger at the other women.

"You filthy things!"
"...Were you just talking to me?"

Being pointed at and cursed by her subordinate, Emperor Viol was taken aback. Ares usually used honorifics with her, so Viol seemed quite shocked when she dropped them entirely.

"Why is this my fault?"
"Am I wrong? You lock him up in the Imperial Palace at the drop of a hat, so of course the child went weird!!"
"Y-You didn't handle it properly when your nephew came looking for him either!"

Viol yelled back, but her voice trembled, as if her conscience was pricked.

"It's not just the Emperor! You, you, you, and you too~!"

Ares gritted her teeth and interrogated the remaining four.

"Alios, come to think of it, you were the biggest problem. The issues started after you showed up!"
"Pfft! Look who's talking. Ceres losing his memories happened before I even arrived. And it was because of none other than you."
"Then was Ceres healing your subordinates also because of me? It was because of that incident that he revealed his healing abilities in front of others."

Alios, who had been boldly sarcastic, shut her mouth.

"High Priest Hames, you too! You were a problem too. Always pretending to care for Ceres while encouraging him to overexert himself."
"...True. My actions were not without fault either. I won't deny it."

Hames handled it the most maturely.

"Sibylius, what on earth were you thinking? Becoming the Demon King just to have Ceres!"
"I did nothing wrong. In fact, out of everyone here, I was probably the most helpful to Ceres."

Well, she did help fix my body, so that was true. Aside from making bizarre confessions and trying to seduce me, Sibylius hadn't really done anything wrong.

"You demon scum. Why are you pretending to be an ally now? Die right this instant!"
"I don't want to?"

Red, who was probably the most at fault, was completely shameless.
However, at the next words, everyone lost their composure.

"Can you imagine how much stress built up in him because of you all for him to spout such crazy nonsense!"

When Ares pointed at me and argued, everyone shut their mouths and just gauged my reaction.
Wait, do all these women actually think I've gone crazy and are feeling guilty about it?

"...It seems he is acting like this temporarily due to stress."

Sibylius, looking at me with devastated eyes, spoke awkwardly.

"If that's the case, let's leave him alone to rest for a while. If he stays quiet, his stress will be relieved."
"...That's right."
"We have been bothering him quite a bit lately."

Hames, Alios, and Viol amazingly agreed to leave me alone for a while.

"Hmph, weakling."

Red's words were harsh, but her vibe was somehow subtle.

"But Count Ares, what about you? Surely you aren't going to say you'll be the only one staying? You're a source of his stress too."
"...I know that even without you telling me."

Ares sighed and called Niobe.

"We will keep our distance for the time being, so I leave Ceres in your care."
"Understood."

Niobe answered firmly, and thanks to that, a confinement under the guise of rest ensued for the time being.

"My Lord, you are very sick right now. So please rest."

Niobe forcefully laid me on the bed, preventing me from going anywhere.

"I told you I'm in my right mind!"
"No. From what I can see, My Lord, you are currently in an incredibly reckless state. You are not the usual Lord I know. Just as the others said, you have become highly unstable due to stress."

"I'm telling you, no!"

"What do you mean, no?! Even if you really wanted to live with all those women, going about it that way was nothing but reckless. And you still can't even explain yourself properly, you just keep saying no!"

Damn it.
I couldn't get through to her.
But I couldn't do anything if I just lay here in bed like this.
Should I pretend to listen and wait for an opportunity? I had been agonizing over this for days, when—

"My Liege, it's an earthquake!"

Suddenly, the Imperial Palace felt like it was shaking. Niobe hastily grabbed me in her arms and sprinted outside.
If the building collapsed while we were inside, even a Sword Master wouldn't be able to handle it, so it seemed she had brought us outside first.

"Damn it!"
"Unbelievable..."

Once we were out, both of us couldn't help but be shocked. The scale of the earthquake was far greater than expected.
Every building in our line of sight seemed to sway violently, and some were already collapsing straight to the ground.

"It seems this place is actually the safest."

The Imperial Palace grounds were the safest area. While other places were shaking so violently that people couldn't even move, here, it just felt like a perfectly ordinary earthquake.
It was a massive, catastrophic earthquake, yet for some reason, I felt a sense of déjà vu.
I recalled the contents of the original novel, which I hadn't paid much attention to lately.

Could this be...
The earthquake that happened when Ceres died in the final chapter of the original novel?!