Limitless The Strongest Revenant-Chapter 968: We fought for it [1/2]

A frigid atmosphere fell over the room. The reason was clear to everyone present. According to Zanele, I would end up falling out of love with my harem. Considering the high hurdles I had to go through, it was something I could not accept.

As someone who came from a broken home, I often saw the Simmons family as my ideal. A man and woman would come together and raise children. But due to watching anime and manga, a part of me always felt drawn to harem media.

Little did I know that after I died, I would end up having one. Most of what I know about harems is actually from the media I consumed as a teenager. I often wondered why I suddenly met seven wonderful women for no particular reason. And now I know why.

"Hero Syndrome's lesson is to learn when to recognize that you are dancing to someone else's play."

Those were the ominous words left behind by the Astrologer. A European Specter who could see the future. As a student of IRIS, it never occurred to me that even the brain-dead harem media people loved hating on had a purpose. That was until now.

Harems were common in ancient times. As civilization developed, they became outdated and were banned in many places. Harems contained an inherent flaw. And that was it encouraged a battle of superiority.

With a hundred men and a hundred women, the best scenario would be for each pair to procreate. This would lead to the most stable outcome. Although whether it was the best for humanity was debatable.

You need not look further for the best evidence. Harems were the norm in the animal kingdom. With survival at stake, letting the inferior bloodlines breed was a waste of resources. For humans, each conceived child posed a big but necessary risk to the mother.

A woman would take nine months to give birth. Regardless of whether she carried the son of a hero or a loser. Her genes would affect the outcome. But the benefits of natural selection were a fact. No one, not even the noblest, could deny it.

Each child not only endangered the woman but also hurt her ability to help her group. Thus, the animals, as well as the ancient humans, gave the best females to the strongest men. The intent was to increase the likelihood of survival.

But such practices had their own problems. Going back to the hundred pair example. If you gave the top fifty males with a second wife. You would have fifty men who would end up without a partner. In a perfect world, it would be fine. But reality was never so simple.

These fifty males would be devoid of love and support a woman could provide. This leads them to express their desires in negative ways, often to the detriment of the entire group. If the top fifty Alpha males ended up just killing them, then the population would hardly grow.

And that did not include the usual issues of large families. For every king, there could only be one successor. Fathers were at the top of the family, but as you came down the line, it began to spread.

Which son would succeed him? Should the mother's abilities come into play? What if the best heir came from the weakest of the mothers? Will the mothers respect the decision of the father? Power corrupts. You let people have a taste of it, and most will never let go.

The more families contended for the throne, the bloodier the battle would be. That was the exact thing happening in Africa right now. The same tactic that united them now threatened to split the continent.

'A bloodbath was all that awaited a harem that had power and authority.'

And the king didn't even have to die. How many sons rebelled against their father out of greed? Even monogamous monarchies tore themselves apart when different sons vied for supremacy. Civil wars and rebellion were ever present so long as there was a king.

It was just simply impossible to have a solution that would please everyone. People were different. Some would lead and others had to follow. Even if you fixed the succession problem by making a happy family, harems still had a most basic issue. A biological one.

The next problem was, of course, the genetic defects from incest. If the strongest males monopolized the women, they would have to resort to incest at some point. The children's shared blood would reduce the pool of unrelated partners.

Anyone who googled the implications of incest on children would end up traumatized. In short, if you inbred the families. You'd get kids with severe physical deformities and mental issues. It did not even matter who the fathers were, and the risk increases the more it repeats.

Incest became frowned upon for no other reason than the scores of broken humans it produced. Thankfully, with the advent of Christianity, monogamy became a thing. So, most civilized people avoided inbreeding for humanity's sake.

That was the world I grew up in. Noelle, who was a devout believer, always told me that it was wrong to have more than one woman. She was the end product of decades of social engineering. My ma showcased how the West succeeded in its crusade against incest.

But then, for some reason, Eastern countries suddenly created media that promoted the opposite ideology. Japan, Korea, and China began to promote harems again. This reintroduced what the West tried so hard to abolish. Why?

'It was for the Sins.'

According to Zanele, she met five Successors over the course of 300 years. Most Africans still believed in polygamy, so there was no issue there. But building on what I learned. What if there were Successors from the other continents?

If the Successor came from Europe, North America, or South America, they would likely not be open to harems. For me personally, if I didn't get exposed to harem anime and manga, I would be the same.

I mean, how was it fair for a woman if she devoted her everything to her partner only to be cast aside? Just invert the genders and see how many men would still agree to sharing partners. It seemed incredibly far-fetched, but somehow, I grew accepting of my harem because of IRIS.

'But that doesn't even fucking matter if they all end up dead, now does it?'

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I let my thoughts stew. If IRIS went to all that trouble, there had to be something else. They had to have a reason for wanting Successors to accept harems. Something that would show the way to eventually prevent the Sins from dying, but what?

As I mused, I noticed the silence.

Even after a few minutes, hardly anyone spoke. It was scary to think about. If I put together all I knew, it meant my relationship with the Sirens would change the moment I used the door room. Our love, which burned like a fire, would turn cold and bereft of passion.

As we didn't know any other successors, Zanele's information was all we had. And with a perfect 100% rate of death, anyone would find themselves intimidated. All seven links of my girls were silent. There was no trace of fear, sadness, or anything.

'They are probably suppressing themselves so as not to influence me.'

I turned to see my Kindred. Their faces were like beautiful sculptures. Emotionless, cold but exuding impressive composure and strength. To anyone else, my harem's act of indifference might have worked. But not to me.