Kafka let out a groan as he rolled across the bed, burying his face in the pillow like a child dreading school on a Monday.
His limbs flopped, tangled in sheets, and he muttered incoherently about cosmic punishment and divine absurdity, while Evangeline simply sat by the window, sipping her tea like none of it was strange. Her calm presence only made him feel more cursed.
Then, without looking at him, she casually said.
"Well...if it makes you feel any better, I should tell you, even if your mother hadn't interrupted, your trial was going to change anyway."
Kafka froze mid-roll.
"...What?" He muttered, lifting his head slowly.
Evangeline sipped again.
"I mean it. It was bound to change sooner or later because of what you were doing."
Kafka sat up in a flash, crawling over to the edge of the bed where she sat. "What do you mean what I was doing? What exactly did I do? I didn't break any rules, did I? I don't remember doing anything like that!"
Evangeline shook her head gently. "No, not exactly. You didn't break the rules. The problem is...you played them too well."
He blinked. "I—what?"
"You were too good at the trial..." She said plainly. "...and you were finishing it too quickly. Much, much quicker than anticipated."
Kafka tilted his head like a confused puppy. "Wait...that's a bad thing now?"
Evangeline chuckled faintly as she said, "You see...your ascension trial, Kafka, was originally meant to take around 30 to 40 years in your world."
Kafka's eyes bulged. "Thirty to forty YEARS?!"
"That's standard." She said. "Most demigod trials span an entire human lifetime. Only after decades of moral testing, personal growth, and completing a set of increasingly difficult emotional and spiritual challenges does one earn the right to ascend."
He sat there stunned. "I thought this was supposed to be like...a short quest. A couple years tops."
She shook her head again. "No. For a mortal, it's a life's journey. And for you, it was supposed to be a lifelong path. Only at the end of your life were you supposed to receive divine status."
"...Or atleast that's how it was supposed to go until you started speedrunning your trial." Evangeline said with a deep sigh.
"Speedrunning...?"
She nodded. "Abigaille, for instance. You were meant to take months to win her over, slowly build trust, affection, navigate her motherly affection. But you did it in a single day. You were in her bed before sunset."
Kafka opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again.
"Camilla too." Evangeline went on. "Two hours. She was dreaming of you in two hours...And the rest? The same. Mere hours, not even full days, Kafka."
"You were charming, seducing, and emotionally conquering these women with the speed and efficiency of a divine Casanova. It was never meant to be this easy."
"So I'm in trouble for being too good at flirting." Kafka groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
"Yes...And we, the moderators of the trial, were forced to stagger the pace." Evangeline admitted. "That's why you weren't receiving requests every day. We held them back. We had to give you time to breathe between tasks, because you were completing them faster than we could assign them."
"No wonder I didn't get request after another and and had quite a lot of breaks in between." Kafka nodded his head in realisation.
"And yet..." Evangeline continued with a soft sigh. "...we still thought it would be fine."
"You see, this town, your trial setting, was designed with many candidates in mind. Women scattered across it, over thirty of them in total and more in the future, each one representing a future request tied to your ascension."
"It was meant to unfold slowly, over years. You'd meet them, bond, grow, develop. One by one, you'd build your harem, as the divine text prophesied. And only after all were brought into your orbit would your trial end."
"Okay...still sounds like a lot, but manageable." Kafka nodded slowly, trying to digest this. "So what happened?"
"What happened? Well, you..." Evangeline said. "...went on a rampage."
"What?! I didn't—!"
"You started seducing women outside of the divine request schedule." She interrupted. "You took initiative and began pulling them in on your own, unprompted. Stealing hearts like candy from a divine candy shop."
"I did not! That's false!" Kafka threw up his hands. "I've been a family man! I've been sticking to my home, my mother, my women, I haven't been out there seducing people."
Evangeline just gave him a deadpan look. "Really?"
"...Yes?"
"Then explain Fiona."
Kafka blinked. "The florist?"
Evangeline nodded. "You don't think she's in love with you?"
"She's...She's just a really close friend. She brings me flowers."
"And Tanya, the mechanic?"
"She fixed my mother's car! We like talking about engines!"
Evangeline raised a brow. "And Emily, from the bakery?"
Kafka winced. "We both like cakes. I mean, she brings me pastries sometimes. But that's just friendliness! We're both culinary enthusiasts!"
Evangeline sighed, placing her cup down with a soft clink.
"Kafka...that's what you think. But because of your natural charisma, your personality, and, let's be honest, your divine aura, these women are falling for you left and right. You're not trying to seduce them...but it's happening all the same."
Kafka paused. His shoulders stiffened.
"Think about it." She said gently, leaning forward. "The way they look at you. The way they talk to you. The way they linger when you're around. You must have noticed it. You're not that dense."
Kafka opened his mouth...and stopped.
Silence.
He lowered his head, eyes narrowed in thought, replaying scenes, Fiona's flushed smiles when handing him flowers, Tanya's laugh that always went too long, Emily's shy hands brushing his whenever she passed him a box of pastries.
The long gazes. The sudden silence when he walked into rooms.
He sighed deeply. "...Okay. Maybe I did notice."
Evangeline nodded.
"Maybe I did think they were acting a little...differently."
"Exactly."
"I didn't mean to lead them on."
"I know."
"But..." He rubbed the back of his neck, flustered. "I...might have suspected something. I just didn't want to think about it."
Kafka was quiet for a long time after his last words. His shoulders had slumped, and his fingers fiddled at the edge of his blanket, twisting it as if trying to tie his guilt into knots.
Evangeline observed him a moment longer, then finally asked, voice even but piercing:
"...Then why didn't you act?"
Kafka looked up, startled.
Evangeline's tone didn't carry judgment, only curiosity as she said, "You knew they were falling for you. You noticed the way they looked at you, didn't you? So why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you respond to their feelings?"
He opened his mouth but couldn't find the words. Evangeline continued.
"And it's not just Fiona, or Tanya, or Emily. Even June who you met today—I saw the way she looked at you. You must've seen it too. Her feelings were clear as day, Kafka...Deep. Heavy. Stirring because of what you've done for her."
"And still...you acted like she was just a friend. Why?"
Kafka closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly inhaled.
"...Because I didn't want to betray them."
Evangeline blinked. "Them?"
"My family." He said, lifting his gaze to her. His eyes were heavy with a truth long held inside.
"I know that probably sounds stupid here. In this world. But where I come from...polygamy isn't exactly a thing. It's not legal. It's not accepted. I grew up being told that love meant one man and one woman...Forever. Till death do us part." He smiled sadly. "I believed that. I lived by it."
He looked over at her.
"To me, true love was sacred. It was supposed to be the most beautiful, unbreakable thing in the world. One partner. One soul. One heart. That's what I believed in when I came here."
He took a deep breath.
"But then...this trial started. I had to seduce women, had to. It wasn't optional. I was told it was the only way to ascend. To protect my family. And I did it. I played along. And, yeah...having more women in my life brought more love. More warmth. More...happiness."
He smiled faintly.
"But every time I looked into the eyes of someone new, every time I brought another woman into my family, there was this small part of me inside that felt like I was betraying them...All of them. The ones who gave me their hearts first."
"Even if they were okay with it, even if they welcomed the others, I couldn't stop feeling like I was doing something wrong."
Evangeline's eyes softened.
"That's why." He said quietly. "That's why I kept pushing the others away. Even when I knew. Even when I could tell they had feelings. If they were official trial candidates, then at least I had an excuse. I had to bring them into the family. It was a divine mandate, not a personal choice. But the ones who weren't..."
He clenched his hands.
"If I accepted their feelings, it wouldn't be for the trial. It'd be because I wanted to. Because I was just adding more women to my life for my own pleasure. And then I'd just be some...some sleazy harem-building playboy collecting lovers like trophies. And I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to become that kind of cruel man."
He turned to her, eyes heavy.
"So...was I wrong, Evangeline? For pushing them away? For ignoring their hearts? Just so I wouldn't feel guilty about my own? Does that make me a horrible person?"
There was a long pause.
Evangeline looked at him.
"...Honestly?" She said softly. "That's one of the most noble things I've ever heard."
Kafka's eyes widened slightly.
She went on. "Most men in your position, with your charm, your bloodline, your divinity, they wouldn't even hesitate. They'd use this trial as an excuse to build an empire of women around them. One after the other, pulling them in for fun, for power, for comfort."
She tilted her head and smiled faintly.
"But you...even with your title as the Incarnation of Lust, even with all that power humming in your veins...you still held yourself back. You chose restraint over indulgence. You chose your family over desire. That's incredibly rare, Kafka. And it's something I respect."
Kafka blinked, a small, touched smile tugging at his lips.
But then Evangeline's expression shifted. She frowned.
"...However."
His smile froze.
"That doesn't erase the consequence of your inaction." She said quietly. "Even now, there are women, dozens of them, thinking about you. Longing for you. Hoping that one day, you'll return their feelings...But all they've known is being ignored. Being gently pushed aside."
Kafka looked away, guilt tightening in his chest again.
"And many of them don't even understand why. To them, you're kind. Gentle. Caring. You laugh with them. Listen to them. Help them...So why wouldn't you return their love?" She asked softly. "They don't know about your guilt. Your internal code. They're just...waiting."
She let that linger for a moment, before sighing and softening her tone.
"That's your burden now...That's your choice to make. I won't tell you what to do, and neither will the gods. If you want to ignore them and move on, you can...That's your right. There's no divine obligation anymore."
She stood slowly, walked to the window, then glanced back at him.
"But I will say this: I've seen the emotions of those women, Kafka. I've watched their hearts. They're not just infatuated. They truly love you. I don't know what you did, or how you did it, but for better or worse...there are many women in this town waiting for you."
Kafka sat there in silence.
His thoughts were racing. His heart was heavy.
A whole town of women...waiting quietly. While he already had seven, eight, lives intertwined with his own.
He really hated the fact that he was such a social butterfly and always went out everyday to explore the town, as that's where all the problems began with.
If he had just sat in house and kept to himself without meeting new women everyday, none of this would've occured.
"...What the hell am I going to do?" He muttered, half to himself, as he buried his face in his hands.
And Evangeline, watching him with quiet sympathy, whispered back:
"That...is entirely up to you."
"Be a noble person who upholds his own dignity and principles, not letting guilt or doubt twist what you are...Or throw those principles away, and bring happiness to all those women who are waiting for you."
"That decision is yours and yours alone, Kafka."