“Mu-Muffin… don’t you think you should heal that?” Honey asked, pointing at the wound on my shoulder left from Claire biting me as hard as she possibly could.

What a foolish thought. “What kind of husband would I be if I removed a mark of love from one of my wives? If anything, it should stay there forever alongside every other wound given to me by my wives.”

“I—I’m afraid you’re going to be covered from head to toe in injuries within a week if you do that.”

She had a point. Between Clawdia’s comedic and consensual abuse, Claire’s biting, Delphi always jumping onto me and knocking me over, Vala accidentally hitting me with her horns, and general wear-and-tear that occurs when having so many wives—I was probably going to fall apart if I actually left every wound on me.

But what was I supposed to do? I wanted to proudly wear any and every wound they might give me!

Then I realized what needed done.

As tragic as it might have been, I snapped my fingers to remove the wound from my shoulder. “Alright. If I want my body to be a canvass for any and all marks of love my wives may give me, I need to make sure that there’s space for them. I also need to make sure that I stay put together.”

“Weak, nya,” Clawdia said, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s still there.”

Clawdia looked at my shoulder and blinked a few times.

“You see, I’ve simply phased it out of this reality. The wound is still there and forever will be as an eternal show of Claire’s love, but it exists on a different plane of existence that won’t interfere with my health nor the canvass for love that my body must become!”

Clawdia’s eyes went wide as everybody else just sort of stared at me like they had no idea what was going on. “That—that’s brilliant, nya! If I could learn that technique… I could forever feel pain from every injury I get!”

I placed my hand on Clawdia’s shoulder and looked her in her eyes. “That’s right, you masochistic puppy.”

Clawdia’s eyes almost instantly turned into hearts as soon as she heard that, her cheeks turning bright red as her thighs rubbed against each other.

I told her that I would treat her like trash in order to encourage her to fight, and what better way to insult a cat girl than by referring to her as a puppy?

“But you haven’t earned the right to learn that power,” I said, stepping away from her.

Clawdia looked both betrayed and incredibly aroused at the same time. She desperately wanted that power, but she also loved being denied from having something that she wanted.

I might have enjoyed some pain from my wives as it was a show of their love and passion for me, but I didn’t like it because it was pain. I liked it because of what it represented.

I could never compare to Clawdia’s level of masochism.

If somebody tried flaunting something that I wanted in front of my face and then told me no, I’d want to punch them in the face, my wives excluded.

That aside, Mariet’s head was still inside her mansion without her body, so it was time to go and check up on her.

Mariet, her head at least, was exactly where I left it. It was atop a pillow on her bed… though, with a few layers of towels underneath it that looked like they were pretty drenched. Probably from drool. Her eyes looked like they couldn’t even focus on anything.

“She has been like this ever since you left with her body,” Claire explained, standing by my side after recovering from the petting of her head. “I must wonder just what has been happening to her body to leave her in a near-constant state of twitching and drooling. I do not believe a single proper word has escaped her lips since the kidnapping of her body. Though, it does appear that whatever has been happening to her has ended. She is not twitching nearly as much as before.”

“They must have run out of peanut butter,” I said.

“Peanut butter?”

“You’ll understand later.” I walked up to the bed and crouched down next to it, nearest to Mariet’s head. “Oi, zombie wife. Can you hear me?”

Mariet blinked a few times before slowly turning her head toward me. “Ah…”

“That’s not a yes or no.”

“Ma…ster…”

“Alright, that’s a yes. Anyways, I beat your final level, so you’re officially my wife now and have to come back with us.”

“It… is about… time…”

“I know, I’ve been slow about progressing through these battles, but the wait will have been worth it. Just ask your butler over there.”

Claire held a hand up in front of her mouth and cleared her throat. “Yes. I can confirm that he has grown… incredibly proficient with his hands.”

“Right. I still need to get my revenge on you, too,” I said to Mariet.

“Please… do,” Mariet replied.

“You know, revenge doesn’t feel as satisfying when you’re politely asking for it.”

“Oh… no… please don’t… get… revenge… on me.”

“Now I feel like it won’t be consensual if I do it, and this is something that should be consensual.”

“My lord,” Claire spoke up, “you cannot have it both ways. For my queen’s sake, please choose whether you would prefer this to be consensual or consensual while pretending that it is not.”

“What about consensual with less enthusiasm?”

“You should know well enough by now that it is impossible to be anything but entirely enthusiastic around you. Only two extremes are possible: enthusiastic excitement or poorly acted lack of such.”

“You aren’t enthusiastically excited.”

“I am enthusiastically excited in this very moment, my lord.”

“You and Cami are going to be best friends if that’s the case.”

“It is gladdening to hear that. It is my duty as a butler and fellow wife to not only serve you, but to serve all of my wives as their servant, friend, and lover.”

I returned my attention to Mariet who was making various grumbling sounds at me and asked, “Are you ready for my revenge?”

“Oh… no. Yes, please,” Mariet answered. “Was that… an acceptable… middle ground?”

“You tried your best. That’s all that matters.”

“Yaa…y.”

“I’m going to manhandle your head now.”

Mariet nodded as best as she could with only her head.

So, I reached forward and slipped my hands through her hair, being careful not to touch her actual skin yet. I was instantly reminded that while she might have been going for the whole zombie thing, she was basically just a living girl who looked like a zombie and had the bodily features of a zombie. Her hair was still clean and smooth, and her skin was still soft and warm as soon as I touched it.

And my revenge was acquired as soon as I touched her skin.

I might not have been able to watch Mariet’s entire body convulse or anything like most of my wives would upon me touching them with my hands, but her head trembled atop her pillow as much as it could on its own. Not to mention that she bit down on her lower lip and her eyes rolled backward a bit.

Was it really revenge if all I was doing was making her feel utterly overwhelming pleasure that could temporarily and consensually break the mind of whoever experienced it? I was treated like a piece of meat—a royal, exquisite piece of meat, only good for my body… well, and my company, for an entire week underneath Claire and Mariet, yet I got my revenge by making them feel incredible?

…

Really, revenge was never needed in the first place. I was just being dramatic.

So, while the revenge might have been a bit on the pointless side, at least I got to feel like a good husband capable of making any and all of my wives experience the highest peaks of pleasure.

Actually… no.

I was weak still.

I could be an even better husband.

Once upon a time, I shied away from Clawdia’s masochism. I even went so far as to feel insecure and worried that I would not be able to satisfy her because of just how intense her fantasies and requests could get, but why not embrace them? Who am I to not feel confident in my ability to satisfy her? Sure, I might not be into the same exact kinks as her, but my kink is making sure all of my wives are thoroughly taken care of. Watching them tremble and moan from my actions is almost as satisfying as seeing a seedling sprout up from the dirt.

I lacked confidence. But now? It became impossible for me to feel anything but confident. If Clawdia wanted me to act like some savage brute defiling her, then she would become witness to the most savage barbarian to ever exist throughout the entire universe.

Then there was Delphi. Delphi loved soup. Not only did she love soup, but I remembered that she was absolutely obsessed with me when I wore a sweater. She couldn’t get over how handsome I was in it. If I knew that one of my wives loved to see me wearing a sweater, why wasn’t I wearing a sweater far more often? Why wasn’t I wearing a sweater while serving her fresh soup?

Cami wanted her chest to grow larger. Why wasn’t I groping and massaging it every single moment that my hands were free while feeding her dog-safe chocolate?

Lavi loved edginess and darkness. Why wasn’t I cosplaying as some evil knight to seduce her while talking about how cool and badass she is?

Valkyria—it took me too long to remember that she liked being stepped on. Even though she had been acting innocent ever since she acquired her human body, I remembered that she accidentally admitted to enjoying being stepped on whenever I asked her about it before. Though, knowing how innocent she was at the time, she probably only liked it in the sense of it feeling like a massage. She wasn’t enough of a pervert to enjoy being stepped on in a masochistic way, but maybe she enjoyed it in the same way that an adult enjoyed having their back walked on when it felt stiff. Therefore, why wasn’t I walking on her back more?

Window loved gacha game idols. Why wasn’t I surprising her by having our wives dress up as idols for her?

Honey loved men loving each other. Why wasn’t I asking Vala to turn into a man so that Honey could watch us together? I wasn’t into men, but I was into my wives regardless of how they looked, and I would be more than willing to put on a show for Honey’s sake.

Chloe wanted to be a childhood friend trope. I wasn’t really sure what all that entailed, so why wasn’t I researching the trope more to learn how I could best satisfy her desires?

Mariet, Claire, and Eliza—I still needed to learn more about them and what they specifically liked. I needed to learn about their specific desires and fantasies so that I could be the best possible husband for them.

Then there was Postia, Clawdia’s mecha, Mariet’s body, that girl whose face I saw buried underground but then covered back up because it was apparently too soon for her to make her appearance, the inevitable women that would come from the slime, cow, and bee towers, the ram tower and its future wife that I still never actually used in battle because I kept on forgetting about it, whichever new women would be introduced with the next zone…

And then there was Vala.

Thinking about it, I had almost no idea what Vala’s specific interests were. I knew she loved video games and being lazy, and I never failed to satisfy her whenever we enjoyed one another’s bodies, but I had no idea what specific interests she craved. She never talked about them if she had any.

I still had a lot to learn.

I needed to become an even better husband for every single one of my wives, and that wasn’t all. I also needed to become a better father to Luca. Sure, I was probably already a good dad, but why not strive to constantly improve and become better with every single new day? Even with immortality, it was only right for me to constantly seek self-improvement to strive and become the best possible husband and father for everybody I cared about. No matter how perfect any of them might have thought I already was, I wanted to become even better for them.

But before I could go on a training arc to become the ultimate husband and father, there was something that I needed to do still.

I held Mariet’s head underneath my left arm, looped my right arm around Claire’s left arm, and then teleported us outside and brought everybody else with us. I made sure to teleport us a decent distance away from the haunted mansion castle, too.

“Alright, Window,” I said. “I’m ready.”

“Of course you would be,” Window said and sighed. “You really have become a villain.”

“You’re the one who set this up anyways.”

“That’s because everybody likes fireworks to celebrate finishing a hard level.”

Both Mariet and Claire looked confused, and that was when Clawdia said, “I have a weird feeling of déjà—”

The haunted mansion castle blew up.

A fiery mushroom cloud was all that was left where the haunted mansion castle once stood, everybody who once called it home having been teleported to a safe viewing distance.

Whoever said that cool guys don’t look at explosions was full of it.

Explosions are badass.

Now, with that out of the way with, it was time to transcend my limits to become the best husband and father that had ever existed and that ever would exist.

…

After spending some time gardening.

I still had my own needs, after all.