After that, at night, I fell asleep in one bed with the three of them... and was, quite literally, wrung dry.
For real.
As for Hippolyta, after some discussion, she too was finally accepted. When morning came, I left the bedroom and spent the day speaking with my retainers about what should come next.
If I went outside now, I felt like I would be seized by any one of the four, so I deliberately used the meeting to keep my retainers pinned down while I reviewed the backlog of matters that had piled up.
Countless gazes turned toward me, silently begging me to end it already, but...
"If they don't like it, they can become king themselves."
Even under those looks, I forcibly extended the meeting, and it was only four hours after the scheduled end that it finally concluded.
"...Haa."
After the retainers had all left, I let out a long breath.
For now, I had somehow bought myself time.
Just as I was feeling a brief sense of relief,
Creak—
a very familiar sound came from behind me.
I slowly turned my head.
There, the door opened once more, and I saw the women coming this way.
"...I wondered where you'd gone."
"...So you were here."
"Just as the retainers said."
I had thought I had barely escaped, but at the sight before me, I closed my eyes for a moment.
Then time passed, and the night of the full moon came.
Three had clearly come looking for me, but in the end four women fell asleep beside me, and after watching that, I got up and left the room.
In that bewildering situation, I wandered the castle garden for a while, thinking I might at least catch some wind.
But the suffocating feeling did not fade, so I climbed the nearby mountain instead.
Meanwhile, on Olympus,
"They say the others are not only skilled, but also extraordinarily handsome..."
As she idly looked down upon the mortal world as usual, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, happened to spot Astellon alone on the mountain, and her cheeks gradually flushed red.
"...He really is strikingly handsome. A face greater than most gods...!"
As Aphrodite gazed at Astellon's face, she looked at him more and more closely, and soon...
"...One time should be fine. And after that... I'll decide once I've tried it."
She descended to where Astellon stood.
"Haa... this is better than before."
On the mountain under the full moon, I had climbed partway up and was resting while breathing in the night air.
Then, all at once, I felt an ominous presence behind me and jerked upright.
"This presence is... a Divine Spirit...!"
Through my training with Hecate, I could now tell that the being coming here was not an ordinary person, but a god, and I went on guard at the sudden appearance.
Soon the bright light faded, and the one who appeared there was a beautiful woman with red hair and wings.
"You are..."
When I asked, she smiled and spoke to me.
"I am the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite."
Introducing herself as the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, she slowly approached me.
"Indeed... it's different when I look at you from above and when I see you like this up close. You seem even more radiant in person."
Then she stared fixedly at my face.
The irresistible scent of roses that drifted from her filled the night air, and the embodiment of beauty itself, as though it would swallow every color around it simply by existing, came right up to my nose.
She extended her slender fingers and lightly lifted my chin.
"Astellon... your straight, unwavering gaze is truly desirable. No male god on Olympus possesses a spirit as human and yet as noble as yours."
The voice of the goddess Aphrodite was sweet, like tens of thousands of butterflies whispering at my ear.
Then the goddess Aphrodite leaned lightly against my shoulder and looked up at me with a seductive gaze that promised every pleasure in the world.
"The women at your side are beautiful as well, but if you were with me, you could spend every night in eternal beauty and divine blessing. How about it? I shall grant you, and you alone, the love even Zeus covets."
The moment her breath touched the nape of my neck, an instinctive desire tried to empty my mind to white.
But in that instant, the faces of the four women I had left behind in the castle flashed through my mind.
Remembering them, I drew in a trembling breath and firmly removed her gentle hand.
"Goddess, your proposal is an honor a human could never dare to imagine. But I have already made precious promises with those I must protect. More than the eternal love of a god, the sincerity of the women who breathe, suffer, and grow old beside me is worth more to me."
I stepped back and met her gaze with a courteous but unshaken expression.
"Beauty pleases the eye, but love sustains the soul. Your temptation is sweet, but my heart is already full of its rightful owners, and there is no room left for anything else to force its way in. So... please take those words back."
At my answer, the goddess Aphrodite's expression froze in an instant.
It seemed I had been the first to refuse her, shattering the pride of the goddess of beauty, who had never once been rejected before.
"Refusal... you say? Me? Aphrodite?"
As soon as my words ended, the sweet fragrance that had been drifting around us turned into a chilling pressure in an instant.
"How dare you... are you saying you intend to commit an insult?"
"I'm sorry, but I already have wives, so I cannot accept it. So... it seems I must commit that insult."
At my resolute words, the goddess Aphrodite glared at me with blazing eyes and said, "...You will regret this. And in the end... you will come to me."
With those words, the goddess Aphrodite vanished, and I quietly pondered what she had said before leaving.