Agung took another deep, long swig of the Nescafé, the caffeine doing absolutely nothing to settle the sudden, cold dread pooling in his stomach.
"That brat operator..." he growled under his breath, crushing the aluminum can slightly in his grip. "Making me a 'deadbeat' for three generations of idols. Tossing me thirteen years into the future of a completely broken story..."
He leaned his head back against the headrest, staring up at the sterile ceiling of the Shinkansen. It all made sense now. The fragmented memories, the sudden gaps in time, the overwhelming hostility that didn't match the timeline he remembered leaving behind. He hadn't just walked away; he had been ripped out of his own life by some cosmic bureaucratic joke, only to be dropped back into the wreckage over a decade later to face the music.
And the orchestra waiting for him was terrifying.
"Even the infinite stamina from his supervisor can't guarantee I'll survive this," Agung muttered, his eyes wide as he actually did the math in his head.
Fourteen.
Fourteen women whose lives, hearts, and futures he had completely entangled before the timeline fractured.
"Umi, Maki, Kotori, Nico, Eli, Nozomi..." he whispered, counting the \mu's faction. "Kanata and Lanzhu from Nijigasaki... and now I'm heading straight into the lion's den in Numazu. Dia, Mari, Ruby, Kanan, Riko, Yoshiko..."
Fourteen wives. Fourteen fiercely independent, incredibly powerful women who had been completely neglected, left to raise his children and harbor a burning, agonizing betrayal for three long years in this timeline.
He shuddered involuntarily, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead despite the air-conditioned cabin. He had just bragged about his infinite stamina on the rooftop, acting like a stoic, untouchable god. But infinite stamina didn't mean he was immune to the sheer, unbridled wrath—and worse, the overwhelming, suffocating *demand*—of fourteen women who had finally caught up to the man who owed them everything.
"I can't even imagine how thirsty they are for answers... and for me," Agung groaned, covering his face with his hands as the train let out a sharp whistle, signaling its rapid approach to Shizuoka. "I just hope my body actually holds up. Because if they all converge in one place..."
He swallowed hard, looking out the window as the landscape blurred past. He had thought he was the one holding all the cards with his creation magic and quadrillion dollars.
But as the Shinkansen rumbled closer and closer to Numazu, the terrifying reality was setting in: the "Deadbeat" wasn't running the show anymore. He was running straight into a beautifully coordinated, highly organized trap set by the very women he had left behind.