Right now, the problem in front of Broly was how to obtain Happiness Points.
"There are two ways to obtain Happiness Points:
First, when a wife unit is successfully captured and agrees to become a formal member of the Crystal Palace, her current Happiness Value will be converted to Happiness Points at a rate of 1 to 100.
Second, after a wife becomes a Crystal Palace member, continued interactions can still generate Happiness Value, but it will only be converted to Happiness Points at a 1 to 1 rate.
Note: Happiness as an emotion has freshness. It will grow bland with the passage of time, but warmth will always remain. As long as there is still love, Happiness Points will continue to be produced."
Broly only half understood, but he did grasp one thing: he had to make his wives happy in order to get Happiness Points he could trade for food.
"But… how do you make a wife happy?"
He looked at Sakura, who had been crying but had stopped for now because of his words, watching him with confused eyes.
"Based on analysis of general emotional data collected from World D95, actions that satisfy the target's needs will provide the motivation needed for Happiness Value to rise in an individual designated as 'wife.'"
"Satisfy?"
Broly froze for a moment, then the Crystal Palace gave a smarter, more understandable explanation for him.
"That is, when the host is hungry and a wife gives the host food to eat, the feeling of satisfaction the host experiences is happiness produced by a need being fulfilled."
Broly understood. He turned to the tearful girl and asked directly, "Do you want something to eat?"
"Eh?!"
Sakura was stunned. Why was he suddenly asking if she wanted food?
"No, I'm not hungry."
Still, she answered honestly.
"Eh?!"
Broly stared blankly, then asked the Crystal Palace why his method was not working.
The Crystal Palace itself seemed to freeze for a moment.
After a while, it gave an answer.
"Having your hunger satisfied by being given food and experiencing happiness as a result is a condition for the host personally to feel happiness. It does not necessarily apply as a condition for others to feel happiness as well.
"In different circumstances, different individuals will have different personal conditions for needs being fulfilled and for feeling happiness. Please analyze the target's needs yourself, then fulfill them to raise her Happiness Value."
"What should I do?"
Broly pressed.
"Reminder: This Crystal Palace only provides the basic conditions for capturing wives. It has no obligation to capture wives in place of the host.
"According to Article 38 of the original System regulations, we must function as an auxiliary System, not replace the host and become an advanced substitute player."
The Crystal Palace paused, then continued.
"In other words, please rely on yourself. Work hard to satisfy your wives on your own in order to obtain Happiness Points."
Broly: "…"
"How should I satisfy you?"
He turned to Sakura and just threw the straight ball at her.
"Eh?!"
Sakura was completely confused. What exactly did this tailed big brother want to satisfy for her—her stomach?
But she had eaten her fill tonight. She really was not hungry.
"How do I make you feel happy?"
Broly pressed on. This time, he leaned in close, his questioning eyes fixed on Sakura at near point-blank range.
"I…"
Under his gaze, Sakura did not know what to do or what to say.
"Right, you said you wanted to go home."
Just then, Broly remembered what she had said earlier.
"Tomorrow, I'll take you home, okay?"
He asked.
"Eh?!"
Sakura made a small shocked sound, then hesitantly said, "But my mom and dad don't want me anymore."
"What does going home have to do with your mom and dad?"
Broly did not quite get it.
"But it's their home…"
Sakura said weakly.
"It's your home too."
Broly lay back down, raised his small fist, and showed it to her.
"You don't have to worry. If your mom and dad try to take your house away from you, I'll take it back by force and kick them out."
His words were very Saiyan-like. This was part of the education Paragus had drummed into him—if you want something, you can take it by force.
"Ah…"
Taking back her home and then kicking her parents out… was that even a thing you could do?
No, the real question was: if you kicked your parents out of that house, could it still be called a home?
Sakura's thoughts were a bit of a mess, but she could feel the sincerity in Broly's determination.
"Thank you, but if possible, please don't kick my mom and dad out."
She did not, for a moment, doubt that Broly could actually throw her parents out of the house, and she asked this earnestly.
"If that would make you happy, I won't kick them out."
Broly promised with all seriousness.
"Thank you."
Sakura whispered her thanks again, then gradually nodded off against the pillow.
Broly yawned as well. The warmth of the futon was a new experience for him, and he too drifted into sleep.
Nothing else happened that night, except that at some point the girl's brow furrowed in her dreams. Only when she rolled over against the boy and hugged Broly like a warm pillow did she settle down again.
In the morning, Taiga came to check on them. She knocked lightly, pushed the door open, and saw the two little ones sleeping in each other's arms, with another futon still rolled up unused to the side.
So small, and hugging each other like that—so cute!
That was Taiga's first and strongest reaction to the sight in front of her. She did not wake them, just squatted beside the futon, gazing at their sleeping faces as a vague future fantasy formed in her mind.
Simply put, she began to imagine marrying some future prince on a white horse and having two children with him.
One boy and one girl—whether big sister and little brother or big brother and little sister, it did not matter. Just watching them sleep like this every day would be its own kind of happiness.
Yes, and in the present, this would make a perfect "con" photo for "tricking innocent girls into having children."
"Taiga Fujimura's Happiness Value is steadily rising."
Broly was woken by the Crystal Palace's prompt. Opening his eyes, he saw a smiling teenage girl squatting beside him.
Then he felt something lying across him. Looking down, he saw a small head nestled on his chest.
Sakura had turned him into a body pillow; more than half her body lay draped over him. Luckily, Broly slept quietly. Otherwise, there definitely would have been a major incident last night.
"Holding a little sister in your arms as you sleep—truly, my best murders are done in dreams…"
A strange line popped into his mind. He gently pushed at the girl sleeping on top of him.
"Ng~"
Sakura woke blearily. Seeing a boy's face in front of her—
"Ah!"
She yelped. Only when she scrambled up and spotted Taiga at the side did she remember she was not in the Matou house anymore.
Just then, she felt something fluffy brushing against her calf. Looking down, she saw Broly's tail.
Broly had been startled by Sakura's reaction as well. His face did not show much, but the twitching tail betrayed his emotions. He was not as calm as he looked—he was a bit uneasy.
"Sorry, I was lying on top of you."
Sakura apologized at once.
"It's fine. You're not heavy, and you're soft and warm, like Baaya's tail, just without the fur."
"Baaya is…?"
"Baaya is my friend. I like lying on top of it to sleep. Sometimes it covers me with its body."
Broly explained. Sakura half-understood, while Taiga could only admit she had no idea what kind of cryptic kid-speak they were using.
"What are you doing here?"
Broly turned to Taiga and asked.
"I came to get you up for breakfast, but you were sleeping so soundly I didn't have the heart to wake you."
Broly was usually a light sleeper, but the ordinary people in this world were too weak. If you used a scouter, their power levels probably did not even reach 5.
For a Saiyan, whose baseline power levels were in the triple digits, normal humans here were about as threatening as ants on the roadside.
"Breakfast?!"
Broly was shocked.
"But we just ate yesterday. We get to eat again today?"
He asked.
"Uh, if you don't eat, what do you do when you get hungry?"
Taiga was a bit taken aback.
"If I'm not training, I won't feel hungry for two or three days."
Broly answered truthfully. His life so far had not followed a three-meals-a-day routine.
For him, eating was irregular. When he got hungry, he went hunting.
If he was not hungry, he either trained with Paragus or played with Baaya.
Taiga was at a loss. In her mind, that answer translated into: a wandering life of never knowing where your next meal was coming from.
"No wonder you ate so much last night. But it's okay. From now on, you'll have food every day."
She felt a pang for the boy and gave this solemn assurance.
"?!"
Hearing that, Broly's favorability toward Taiga shot up. Unfortunately, he knew he would be returning home in five days.
Even if this second wife wanted to feed him, that arrangement would be forcibly cut short when they parted in five days.
Unless he could take her and her food back home with him to Planet Vampa.
"Reminder: The host can only take non-living objects that are in direct contact with his skin. Taking wives along will only be possible after unlocking the Crystal Palace's internal space."
"Internal space?"
"At present, the Crystal Palace is Level 1, with 0/5 formal members. Once you have five formal members, the Crystal Palace will automatically rise to Level 2, unlocking the internal space construction function.
"The host may then spend a corresponding amount of Happiness Points to construct locations and buildings he has previously experienced.
"At this time, the host has 0 Happiness Points.
"Capturable target 1: Sakura Matou, Happiness Value 25.
"Capturable target 2: Taiga Fujimura, Happiness Value 31."
The Crystal Palace dumped a lot of information on him, and Broly's brain felt a bit overloaded.
But he understood one thing clearly: he currently had no way to take much from this world with him.
….
"This food is delicious. Another bowl!"
The morning meal was always the best of the day. Now that Broly knew that for the next five days Taiga would be feeding him, he did not quite stuff himself to bursting, but he still put away five buckets of rice and two woks of side dishes.
Raiga Fujimura's eyelids twitched repeatedly. Someone had reported to him last night that his granddaughter's new stray was a big eater.
He had not expected this. The kid was beyond a rice bucket—he was a walking grain silo. Raiga had no idea what that boy's stomach was made of to hold so much.
One child eating enough for a dozen adults in a single meal, three meals a day… At that rate, raising this child was equivalent to raising more than ten freeloading grown men.
Even as Fuyuki's top underworld boss, he felt a headache coming on. It was not that he could not afford it; it was that the cost-performance ratio seemed low.
In his eyes, Broly was just a kid who could eat. Nothing more.
"Let's hope this child grows up to have skills as impressive as his appetite."
The boy was already in the house; there was no way they were throwing him out. Raiga could only hope.
Given his granddaughter's temper, which took after his own, there was every chance she might never find someone she could get along with.
Eh?
The thought of a son-in-law raised from childhood instantly put him in a much better mood.
….
"Are you going out later?"
Taiga asked.
"Yes. I'm going to take her home."
Broly pointed at Sakura as he described today's plan.
"She still has a home?"
The words slipped out before Taiga realized how they sounded.
"That's not what I meant."
She hurried to explain when Sakura's face fell.
"I know, you didn't mean it like that, Big Sister Fujimura."
Sakura was an understanding child and accepted the explanation.
"I'm going to use force to take her home back."
Broly said, clenching his small fist.
"Take it back from who?"
"From her mom and dad. If her mom and dad don't want her, then I'll beat them until they do."
Taiga: "…"
She'd read about armed tax collection in history books, but she had never seen someone use violence to "go home" before.
In a way, this really was eye-opening—brought to her courtesy of a small child.
"I'll come along."
When Broly and Sakura were about to leave, Taiga came over from the dojo with her tiger-striped bamboo sword, planning to join them.
How could she let a poor child with no father go off alone to… ahem… perform this noble deed of violently—cough, cough—escorting a girl back home?
Taiga did not know exactly what Sakura's situation was, but she did know one thing: the girl had been abandoned by her parents.
And that was a problem. Taiga intended to go knock on the door and give a proper lecture to the parents who would throw away such a well-behaved girl.
….
At the Tohsaka residence, a man in a priest's robe arrived.
"Kirei, you know why I asked you to come, don't you?"
"Yes. When your familiar contacted me, he said it was about your missing younger daughter."
"Even though Sakura has been adopted by the Matou family and is officially cut off from the Tohsaka family, she is, in the end, my daughter. If she's been taken by an unknown Servant, as her father, I can't just stand by."
The man in the red suit spoke calmly.
He was the current head of the Tohsaka family—
The scapegoat king of the Type-Moon world, Sakura Matou's biological father, Tokiomi Tohsaka.