At first, women had only just begun to rise. Men still ruled the world.

Baron Grayshawa had three daughters.

Alice, the eldest daughter of Baron Grayshawa, was an accident.

Her mother was merely a low-ranking servant in the household. The Empress had only just taken the throne, and the effects of the female inheritance system had yet to fully take hold.

For nobles who were fanatical about bloodlines, Alice’s future role in a political marriage had been decided from the very beginning.

Even so, her mother’s careful guidance from a young age had shaped her into someone who would never easily submit to her fate.

When her family refused to give her the education she deserved, she picked up a branch and sneaked into the barracks to secretly learn swordsmanship.

When there wasn’t enough food at home, she went to fish in the forest stream and climbed trees to pick wild fruit and stave off hunger.

She had to rely on herself for everything. Only by working hard could she obtain the life she wanted.

With that belief in mind, she decided that once she came of age, she would go to the Imperial Capital and become an official knight of the Empire.

That was how it should have gone…

But things didn’t go as planned. No male heir was ever born into the family, and in the end, they had no choice but to yield and follow the female inheritance system.

By its rules, regardless of birth, the eldest daughter, Alice, should inherit.

However, in an era when bloodline discrimination ran rampant, Alice’s father planned to exploit a loophole. By having the daughter of his legitimate wife inherit, he could secretly maintain his rule over the territory…

That was how it should have gone…

“…So, on the night of the succession, the former lord and his wife suddenly died of illness, and the daughter born to his legitimate wife vanished without a trace. That was how Alice ended up inheriting the title. But the former lord had squandered the territory’s wealth, leaving it in a terrible state… And it’s right on the border between the Beastfolk and the Demon Clan, with a vast, impassable sea behind it… So at first, they got the Earl’s support through a political marriage… Heh. So that’s how the engagement came about. No wonder they acted that way and wanted to use the Empress to break it off.”

Lying on a crooked tree branch and biting into an apple so sour it made his teeth ache, Lin Ge murmured to himself about what he’d learned lately about the territory.

It had been a week since Lin Ge returned from the Empire’s exchange program and received the glorious imperial decree to serve one man and two women. Honestly, this week had been even more boring than usual…

At Alice’s request, although he was technically their husband, in practice, that was about as far as it went.

She’d already been thinking of breaking off the engagement. Now, there was even less chance of that happening.

As long as Lin Ge didn’t do anything out of line or expose their fake marriage, they wouldn’t interfere with whatever he wanted to do. They’d even make sure he enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle no worse than the one he’d had at the Earl’s residence.

Clearly, they’d made a fair amount of preparation beforehand.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made such a demand while risking that he might get angry and report the matter to the Empress.

After all, his position was rather delicate. If he really did report it, he’d be the first one to die.

Put nicely, they were letting him do as he pleased. Put bluntly, they didn’t take him seriously at all.

Still, it couldn’t be helped. The reasons behind it all were plain to see. No normal person would willingly accept this.

With that in mind, Lin Ge had more or less agreed to Alice’s request…

Well, of course, that was just what he told other people.

For Lin Ge, who was determined in this life to cling to a rich woman, live as her kept man, and spend the rest of his days lazing around, her request wasn’t bad at all.

And honestly, in his past lives, because he had no idea how to keep himself in check, he’d been famous far and wide. Beautiful women of all kinds had come one after another, throwing themselves at him with every kind of predictable trick. He’d grown so used to it that it had become boring. It was only because his workload was so intense that he’d never had time to meet them and say yes.

In this life, he’d met women whose affection for him started at a spectacularly negative level. Honestly, that had piqued his interest in a certain way.

It was kind of nice to try something more extreme for a change and win over women who were hostile toward him.

After all, life needs a little ceremony. Honestly, his life right now wasn’t bad, but it was still missing a lot of fun. He wanted to make it more interesting…

“Forget it. There’s no point thinking so much about this now. I should figure out what to do next.”

He tossed away the apple core, swung one leg over, and leaned against the trunk. With a twig in his mouth, Lin Ge propped up his chin and gazed into the distance, bored.

He could roll around and sleep in bed, but the mattress was too hard to be comfortable. Besides, Lin Ge slept until the sun was high every day. He’d had more than enough sleep.

He was tired of fishing for fun, and there wasn’t even a theater in this tiny backwater… As for a brothel, forget it. Brothels these days were basically all male-host clubs… And there weren’t any here anyway.

It was true that he wanted to spend his days lazing around, but he didn’t want to live without any fun, either.

Could there really be nothing interesting to do?

“You bitch! Say that again, I dare you!”

Lin Ge had just closed his eyes, thinking he might take another little nap, when a group of familiar voices rang out.

Lin Ge furrowed his brow and leaned out past the trunk to look.

“I won’t say it twice. Get lost!”

Her face hidden by a hood, with a tuft of blond hair showing, the speaker was Rosetti, Alice’s maid—and, at least in public… Lin Ge’s wife, technically speaking…

That’s right. Only in public…

Man, that hurt for some reason…

“Fuck! I was kindly helping you manage the dowry that little pretty boy brought with him, and this is how you treat us? You bitch! Don’t think I’m actually afraid of you, you half-breed!”

Across from her, a fat, big-eared man flew into a rage. He angrily raised a hand to slap Rosetti across the face.

But before he could bring it down, Rosetti flicked her staff and blasted him—and the other fat pigs with him—dozens of meters away.

That magic aura was clearly at the peak of the third stage!

Holy crap, my second wife’s magic power is already at the peak of the third stage? Is she really that incredible? Wait, was that pretty boy supposed to be me?

Uh… Leaving everything else aside, it was genuinely surprising that Rosetti was a mage.

In this world, people could cultivate battle aura or magic and become warriors or mages. But mages were rare, even in the Imperial Capital.

Rosetti might not be that high-level, but in other territories she’d still be treated like an honored guest—let alone in a poor backwater like this.

Those fat pigs dared to pick a fight with Rosetti right to her face. They… hadn’t taken leave of their senses, had they?

“You maggots. Die.”

While Lin Ge was still stunned, Rosetti had already finished chanting her spell and aimed it at the fat pigs sprawled on the ground.

Her murderous intent was completely unconcealed. She showed them no mercy at all.

Rosetti really meant to kill them.

In their terror, the fat pigs who’d been so high and mighty just moments ago all started wailing for their mothers and huddling together.

Just as they were about to be roasted like suckling pigs, another fat pig—their leader, Carnegie—came hurrying over. Without saying a word, he dropped to his knees in front of Rosetti.

“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Rosetti. These men don’t know any better. Please be the bigger person and let them off this once.”

“Hey, you lot! Hurry up and apologize to Lady Rosetti!”

“We’re sorry, Lady Rosetti. We were wrong. Please spare us!”

At Carnegie’s command, the fat pigs all pressed their foreheads to the ground and begged Rosetti for mercy.

But Rosetti acted as if she hadn’t heard them. The orb of light on her staff kept growing larger and brighter.

At this critical moment, Carnegie poured every last bit of strength he had into a desperate, tearful shout.

“Lady Rosetti, please think this through! The City Lord needs people working for her right now. If they all die, the territory’s administration will grind to a halt… and that’ll only add to the City Lord’s burden.”

“…”

The spell stopped.

Rosetti’s face was as cold as frost. She glanced at the fat pigs on the ground and said icily:

“This is your only warning. Do this again, and you die.”

“Understood, understood! I understand, ma’am! You lot, hurry up and thank Lady Rosetti for sparing your lives!”

At Carnegie’s urging, the fat pigs banged their foreheads against the ground with a loud clack, over and over.

“Now get lost. And don’t tell Lady Alice about this. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, yes! We’ll go right now, we’ll go!”

Roll, roll, roll away.

Rosetti told them to roll away, so they wouldn’t dare walk away.

They kept rolling until they were out of Rosetti’s sight. Only after waiting a while did they dare sit up.

“Lord Carnegie, just now…”

“You idiot! Do you have any idea how close you came to ruining everything for me?”

Carnegie slapped the man who’d just talked back to Rosetti across the face.

The slap made the already-round man’s face swell up even more.

The man clutched his swollen, reddened face in terror and said timidly:

“I only wanted to help collect more money so our revolution could rise up sooner. How was I supposed to know…”

“That’s because you’re an idiot! Doing something like this right now is practically begging those bitches to get suspicious, you moron!”

As if he couldn’t believe how stupid the man was, Carnegie slapped him across the face again.

Looking at his underlings, who hadn’t picked up a single bit of his cleverness, Carnegie shook his head helplessly and sighed.

“Don’t worry. In half a month at most, we won’t have to put up with those bitches anymore.”

“Is that true, Lord Carnegie?”

“Of course. Why would I lie?”

Carnegie stroked the little patch of mustache above his lip and grinned smugly.

“According to a reliable source, the Beastfolk will attack before long. They’ll have their hands full then. For now, we need to recruit more like-minded comrades who refuse to be oppressed by women.”

“But where else can we find more recruits?” the men asked anxiously. “Everyone in the territory who wanted to join has probably already joined…”

“No. There’s still one more person.” Carnegie shook his head and smiled darkly. “If he joins us, our revolution will be twice as effective.”

“Who?”

Everyone asked in unison, curiosity piqued.

Carnegie gave a cold laugh and gazed toward the City Lord’s residence not far away, his eyes brimming with confidence. Slowly, he spoke the man’s name—

“Lin Ge… If we can bring him over, with the Earl backing him, our chances of success will increase dramatically.”

…

Meanwhile, after Carnegie and the others had left.

Up in the tree, Lin Ge watched the fat pigs roll out of sight and laughed uproariously. He’d never seen anyone this cowardly in his life.

They were all so obedient. They were told to roll, and they really rolled away.

Lin Ge laughed so hard he doubled over. Only when he couldn’t laugh anymore did he get up to leave.

Then he met the cold gaze of Rosetti, who was standing below the tree with her hood on.

After a long, heavy silence, the corner of Lin Ge’s mouth twitched. He forced a smile.

“What a coincidence, wifey. Are you enjoying the sun too?”