Inside the Valkyrie dormitory.
The adorable Miss Pink Elf was rolling back and forth across the floor with tears in her eyes, wearing an expression of utter despair.
"Waaah, I don't want to live anymore! Eli's affection toward me dropped by 1%! The world has rejected me! Miss Pink Elf is about to turn evil~~"
"..." xN
No one paid the slightest attention to Elysia, who was acting as though the world had ended merely because she had lost 1% affection.
After all, when it came to this overwhelmingly powerful official-wife elf, the only blessing the women could offer was the hope that she would be banished to the cold palace as soon as possible. Only then would they have a chance to seize the position of the number-one heroine.
On the other side, although Elias wanted to comfort Elysia, he was currently surrounded by the women and could barely protect himself.
"Ahem, there's really no need for everyone to act like this. It's only an affection level, so why do you need to know the exact details? The bond between us can't be represented by cold numbers. Take a step back, and the world opens wide. Also, Rita... Hungry, food~"
Elias grabbed the hand of the maid closest to him, his magnificent heterochromatic eyes blinking at her with open longing. Rita instantly felt as though Cupid's arrow had pierced her heart.
Her master was simply far too lovable.
She wanted nothing more than to immediately lay him across her stocking-clad lap and feed him by hand, spoiling him until he became utterly incapable of caring for himself, a useless man who could not survive without her.
But!
Still!
"Lord Elias, would you please tell Rita my affection data? Once you do, we can begin eating. For today's lunch, I prepared M9 ribeye steak with pasta and salad. Miss Eden also sent over a bottle of Margarita red wine from the Previous Era, and dessert is the molten chocolate cake you said you wanted last time."
Slurp!!
Elias' eyes widened at once. He raised a hand to wipe away the glistening droplet that had nearly escaped the corner of his mouth, feeling as though the succubus maid before him was tempting him with food.
However, although Elias considered himself rather poor at resisting temptation, revealing the women's affection values would almost certainly lead to a shuraba.
Compared to that, he decided he would rather go eat noodles today.
After all, delicious food could not be betrayed, but a shuraba absolutely could not be allowed to happen! He was not some food-over-life idiot tuna!
"I-I suddenly remembered that Kevin and the others said they needed me for something today. I'll be heading out now."
"There's no need. Even if you truly had an appointment, Kevin and the others are in no condition to keep it today, because they have already..."
MEI smiled with terrifying kindness, a spatula in her hand.
"What? Kevin and the others are dead?!"
The moment Elias saw MEI holding a spatula, it was as though he were staring at a supernova about to explode. His face instantly turned pale, and he instinctively clutched his abdomen as phantom pain surged through it.
"Not yet. I simply decided to practice my cooking again after so long and asked them to taste it. As a result..."
"Ahem! Mr. Kevin, Mr. Kalpas, and Mr. Kosma have already been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. I heard that Mr. Su, the sole survivor, is currently helping pump their stomachs."
Rita's expression was equally complicated. Recalling the indescribable black slime-like dish in the kitchen trash bin, which had consecutively defeated three renowned Flame-Chasers, cold sweat broke out across her forehead.
"How tragic! After eating MEI's god-slaying cuisine, death might actually be the more merciful option~"
Elias offered his sympathy to his three good brothers.
Although he very much wanted to stand up and visit them immediately, Elias himself was in no position to escape. The beautiful girls had surrounded him completely, their smiles gentle enough to be terrifying!
"Elias, you don't need to go anywhere right now. Hurry up and honestly tell us the affection data."
"B-But..."
"Elias, please stop struggling. Some things simply cannot be escaped. It is like students checking their exam scores. Even when they do not want to know, they must still face the result."
Looking at the determined gazes of the women, who resembled students preparing to check their scores after the college entrance examination, Elias understood that telling them was apparently his only choice.
For a moment, he regretted becoming the Herrscher of Good and Evil. Although it had granted him an epic enhancement, giving him not only immortal power but also multiplying every one of his abilities by an unknown amount...
Faced with the crisis before him, Elias still felt as though the trade had not been worth it. Even without the authority of Good and Evil, he had already been powerful enough, hadn't he...?
"Sigh~ Fine, I'll tell you. But first, everyone has to promise me one thing. After learning the affection values, you're not allowed to fight. Promise me that, and I'll tell you."
Elias decided to secure some insurance first.
"No problem! We won't fight!" xN
The women nodded without the slightest hesitation.
They were all rational adults. How could they possibly come to blows over something so minor? More importantly, none of them wanted their affection to drop like a certain pink elf's had.
Seeing that every woman had agreed, Elias released a sigh of relief before announcing their affection values one by one.
"Mei is at 690%, Bronya is at 660%, Kiana is at 680%, Rita is at 670%, Aponia is at 650%, Theresa is at 100%, Kira is at 80%, Hua is at 710%, Ji Xuanyuan is at 450%, Sirin and Bella are both at 660%, Ana is at 550%, Cecilia is..."
At that moment, Elias felt as though he were not reading affection values but reciting a death list. By the time he finished, the atmosphere throughout the Valkyrie dormitory had become unbearably heavy!
To be fair, every single one of their values was already absurdly high. Their feelings toward Elias had long surpassed anything that phrases such as 'until the seas run dry and the stones crumble or for all eternity' could possibly describe.
But!
Still!
The instant they compared themselves with one another, not a single woman felt satisfied with her own affection value.
Especially when they compared themselves to the pink elf responsible for this whole situation, every woman felt that she had lost. Their scores were merely five or six hundred times higher than true love. How utterly disappointing!
Was this really the full extent of their feelings for Elias?
No! Of course not! They absolutely refused to accept that!
They had to love this man even more. They had to love him more than anyone else in the entire world!
At that moment, blazing flames appeared in the women's eyes. They would never accept such a result. They would raise their own affection themselves! They would grind it all the way up into a sideways eight!
Elias: "Uh... Everyone's eyes look really scary."
Mei: "Elias, go on a date with me right now."
Elias: "Huh? Isn't that a little sudden?"
Mei: "Time is precious. Let's begin with a small goal and raise my affection toward you to 1,000%! Don't worry. From this moment onward, I'll devote myself completely to you!"
Kiana: "No! Mei, yours is already high enough, isn't it? I should go first!"
Bronya: "No! Bronya should go first. Bronya absolutely refuses to accept a mere 660%!"
Elias: "No fighting. You promised."
Aponia: "...In that case, there is only one solution left. Everyone should divide Elias equally."
Elias: "???"
And thus, although the shuraba ending was successfully avoided...
Elias was forced to begin a trial known as Super Dating Battle! It was practically a real-life galgame on infernal difficulty!!
...
Three days later...
Inside the Valkyrie dormitory.
Elias lay sprawled across the sofa with a lifeless expression. Although his head currently rested on Aponia's magnificent lap, and the enormous southern hemisphere obstructing his vision left him completely unable to see the ceiling...
He was already far too exhausted to enjoy any of it!
"Ahh... Burned out... Burned white as snow... Everything has burned away... Only pale ashes remain..."
He muttered his own eulogy under his breath.
All color had drained from Elias' body.
Only heaven knew how he had survived the past three days.
Even when he had once run nonstop along the road of time for tens of thousands of years, he had never been this miserable. Although his body still possessed inexhaustible stamina, his mental energy had been completely drained!
That was because every minute and every second of the past three days had been spent on dates. If he only had to date one person each day, that would have been perfectly fine. He would have happily accepted.
The problem was that Elias had to date more than thirty people every single day! Thirty people!!
Even dividing all twenty-four hours of the day among them would not give each person a full hour! Not even the ultimate master of time management could handle a schedule like this!
Elias: "At this rate, I feel like I'm going to explode from having too fulfilling a life. Let me rest for a while..."
Griseo: "Mother Aponia, it's Griseo's turn now, so... Big Brother Elias still can't rest. Come~ Let's begin our date."
Elias: "Can the date activity be sleeping?"
These past three days had been both blissful and exhausting.
His dates with the women had been incredibly joyful, but just as eating too much delicious ice cream would upset one's stomach, even Elias could not endure such an intense dating schedule every single day.
Were someone to ask him at that moment, "Why do birds fly?" Elias would change the answer he had once realized in the past and tell them, "Because they must fly into the sky."
When blazing flames ignite the forest, only birds capable of flight can escape the fate of becoming roasted meat. Elias was in the same position now. Unless he found some way to escape, he would be imprisoned forever within this endless cycle of dates!
Elias: "Can't some enormous crisis happen? Honkai, hurry up and send down the next Herrscher already! Help me interrupt these days of being literally loved to death!"
However, under the women's relentless, completely devoted dates, Elias could clearly sense through the authority of the Herrscher of Good and Evil that their affection toward him was steadily rising.
The evidence was that Elias' own strength had increased tremendously under the enhancements created from those affection values.
But as he had already said, a schedule of more than thirty dates every day was too much even for a dual Pseudo God, Planet-class chimera, Human of Origin, and Herrscher with two authorities!
It was simply too much happiness, far beyond what Elias could endure!
Seeing that the women truly seemed unwilling to stop until every last one of their affection values reached 1,000%, Elias performed a quick calculation and discovered that, at their current pace, it would take at least half a year of maintaining this lifestyle for everyone to reach 1,000%.
Elias: "...Half a year? No, absolutely not! Who could endure that?! I have to escape immediately, right this instant! Everyone's brains are overheating right now, so they need time to cool down. But where can I run without being caught?"
Given the women's abilities, Elias was certain that they would find him within ten minutes no matter where he hid on Earth. Therefore, the primary world was out!
And since the primary world was not an option, only one answer remained.
Elias: "Ai! Start Hyperion immediately! Sea of Quanta, here I freaking come!!"