I walked to the table and plopped down next to the short man, he watched me with a sly look and nodded in greeting. I immediately activated my ability.
'Character Info'.
[Name: Belora Lockwood
Age: 41
Strength: Purity level 8
Titles: The greedy man.
Bloodline: None
Love: 0% Strangers]
"What's your name?" Belora asked, his black eyes scanning my face through his dark glasses.
"Adam" I responded instantly.
"Are you new around here?" He probed, wanting to know how much personal information I was willing to reveal.
"You could say that." I said evasively, and he nodded, but he didn't shift his gaze; he continued to stare me down.
This was a simple psychological trick to get someone to talk while leaving them in an uncomfortable silence. I was surprised that someone of this age would voluntarily do that, as it is usually learned through study or by chance while surfing the internet. Should I fall for it or ignore it now? Both options had advantages and disadvantages, but I finally pretended to be uncomfortable and said something to break the silence.
"I'm a merchant, it's my first time at Luria."
"Ho~? You've never visited here before?" He questioned, sounding interested, but I grimaced at the system notification.
[Belora Lockwood
Love 0% >>> -1% (Slight distrust)]
'So it also shows that kind of affection' I mentally nodded as I discovered the new feature.
"Something like that, I just sold a lot last season and wanted to try my luck here." I said it disinterestedly, as if it were no big deal.
The man just nodded "I see" and called the croupier.
The sexy woman who was handing out rectangles with lion symbols and other symbols extended her hand to me. I had an idea for a game to play because I wouldn't go to a casino without doing some research, the games was a variation on one of the most popular games; it was similar to Majong, and whoever finished first won, so it was simple. The older man, who was surrounded by his friends, looked at his hand and then smiled, slid a pile of gold coins as he looked at me, challenging me.
I shrugged and only bet a couple of coins, which caused the man to frown. We kept playing, and my losses totaled more than 70 gold coins, causing the man to laugh. My neutral expression remained, as if I didn't care about the small sum of money. Belora noticed this and looked at me with a sly smile on his face. They were also buying me drinks, but thanks to my dimensional ring, the liquid vanished quickly without their notice, though I had to drink a little to keep up appearances. I scanned the crowd of tables and noticed my sister staring at me. Novem looked worried as she looked for me.
'Well, I'm almost out of time.' I stated.
Dragging my small mountain of gold coins to the table's center."I'm betting it all." I stated emphatically.
The older, pompously dressed man's face lit up as he stacked a small pile of coins. The game ended, and I was defeated once more. I sighed sadly, my face a little hurt, as I looked at the coins that were handed to the man.
"I don't think my wife will mind." I snorted, a hurt expression on my face but an open tone.
"Oh?" The man said but didn't ask, leaning in close, interested in the continuation but not intruding too much. Perhaps he was just trying to learn more about me.
"I discovered the bitch was cheating on me." After an awkward silence, I clicked my tongue and sighed.
While this may seem like superfluous information to Belora, I am should quite drunk in this point If I had been drinking and not storing the beer in my dimensional ring, so it is natural for me to be more talkative.
"Oh, she's a bitch; you should get rid of her." He nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face.
As if the beer wasn't enough, I rolled the last of my drink. "It's yours for ten gold coins." I joked about getting up from my seat, but Belora grabbed my arm.
"Isn't it too early for you to leave? Let's continue talking." With a smile, Belora said.
"I wish I could, but I'm out of cash. I'll be here tomorrow."
The man nodded with compression, then stood up and patted my back in a friendly manner after releasing my arm. "I'll be waiting for you."
[Name: Belora Lockwood.
Love: -1 >>> 0% Neutral]
I turned and walked to the restroom. "(Novem and you go out first, I'll catch up with you)" I said, amused by Novem's appearance as a meerkat looking for me.
"(Understood, big brother)" After that, they both got up from their seats, Novem discreetly looked in my direction and nodded, probably understanding that it was suspicious to leave together now that Belora had focused attention on me.
"(Did you discover anything from our conversation?)" I inquired as I stay in the restroom, doing nothing.
"(Nothing really, but had some suspicious thoughts)."
"(Okay, we'll be back here tomorrow.)" I nodded.
I finally left the bar, stretching and yawning. It was most likely early in the morning. I should get some rest. I waved to Novem when I arrived after a few minutes of walking; her thin black brows furrowed slightly and her full red lips pouted slightly as she watched me. A Novem's take on a pout? Shouldn't the system give me an achievement for a Novem poutine? that is an achievement.
[Negative host 1]
"Let's go" I said as I waved my hand. Ignoring the system
"Young master, what took you so long?" Novem asked worriedly.
"We talked for a while." I responded, and she gave me a reproachful look, which I simply ignored.
As the moon shone over the now-silent city, we left behind the establishment. The stars were like grains of salt in the darkened sky, and I could see entire constellations without straining my eyes. This was the marvel of zero pollution. The only thing keeping me from seeing more was my vision, which was slightly distorted by the tavern's lights, but it was still a dreamscape. Charlotte smiled as she looked up, clearly having a good time. The moon was slightly larger than the one we were used to, which added to the enchantment of the starry night.
I'd gotten a key suspect, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up if we kept talking. What would be my next course of action? I wasn't sure I could infiltrate and save the heroine on my own, but maybe I could? I had a fairly powerful ability that I had only used once, because the last time I used it, the sudden burst of magic caused panic in the mantion for possible intruders. It was the ability [Overload], which increased my magical power by up to three times for five minutes, but increasing only three times would be the equivalent of me being slightly stronger than a purity level 7, and it would also be difficult with Novem present. Should I seek assistance from our mother? I was more inclined to that, but I also wanted to gain favor with the heroine by personally saving her... What should I do?
"(Are you planning without me again?)" Telepathy allowed me to hear a somewhat grumpy voice.
"(Just thinking)" I said, but Charlotte wasn't convinced.
"(Remember I won the bet, you must let me help you)"
"(I know, I know. I was just going over possible plans, then I was going to ask you for your opinion)" I said, mentally shrugging my shoulders.
Charlotte shifted her gaze away from me and toward the nighttime scenery. "(Big brother. Why are you acting this way?)" She inquired, her face hidden beneath her black hair.
"(Act?)"
"(You seem to want to leave me out on purpose, as if you have to do it all by yourself)"
"(You're imagining it)" I said, uncomfortably scratching my hair.
"(I understand you better than anyone else)" She said this as she turned to face me. "(Are you trying to keep something from me?)" She inquired, but instead of anger or suspicion, she expressed sadness, as if she was afraid of alienating herself from me.
I sighed and shook my head, looking up at the stars. "(Remember the last birthday we celebrated as a family?)"
"(Yes, when you turned 13, why do you inquire?)" Charlotte gave me a puzzled expression.
I shook my head. "(What about my 14th birthday? You remember we transmigrated when I was 20 and you were 18 right?)" I said, and she nodded.
"(Hmm, I don't remember, it was a long time ago...)" Charlotte was deep in thought, but after a few seconds, she pouted. "(However, what does that have to do with you keeping your plans a secret from me?)" She said this with a sulky expression, as if she thought I had changed the subject on purpose.
"(Don't mind me, I was just confirming some things)" I laughed telepathically as I walked over to her and ruffled her hair. "(Let us now devise some strategies)" When I proposed, she gave me a puzzled look but nodded.
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Like Votes: 181 57.6%
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Meh Votes: 107 34.1%
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Bad Votes: 26 8.3%
The reverse world I assume is the reversed gender morals, if so, I really like the idea but there almost are no good ones.
the protagonist is either a moron, spineless, or an asshole. The good ones always get axed, get behind a paywall, or turn into the ones I don't like.
@TPKjccj Yes, reversed gender morals. Usually protagonists are made that way to make the plot easier to do, for example, Japanese harem novels, we all know they would end in chapter 2 if the protagonist had his pants on. Now with the inverted morals, they are usually protagonists so horny that a dog in heat would be overwhelmed, as most people are looking for PLOT instead of actual plot, or at least that's how I see it.
@Harvier exactly, but I'm not saying that I want a perfect plot, but I don't want something where the story is forced either.
Like really, A would read a classic slice of life of some dude that gets into the swapped world and finds out that some girls had a crush on him, but didn't act on it because they didn't have the initiative until the moral swap.
Naturally, I would also like a good plot, but that would require other stuff in the setting (this is not bad but is beside the point of a moral swapped world).
@Harvier It doesn't really do much for me as far as suspension of disbelief goes. Unless men in the reverse world were the ones actually risking getting pregnant it is even less realistic than regular harem. Spending 9 months weak and incapacitated is what causes women to be the selectors of our species rather than the pursuers that men are so unless the risks of pregnancy are reversed there is no way a society with reversed morals would exist. Part of the reason why women are more promiscuous in modern days compared to historically is precisely due to advances in birth control mitigating these pressures on women and even then it is still men that do the vast majority of the pursuing.
Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it, but it doesn't make it more believable to me than regular harem Isekai. Both are extremely unlikely to work the way most novels would depict them.
It could be more interesting if the author actually made some biological changes to the genders to make such a difference make sense, but that would likely break the whole MC still being a regular guy thing. Can't really be a male slut if you are the one risking pregnancy for example. Another option would be that the human women in the reverse world don't get pregnant involuntarily and instead either can choose whether to get pregnant or possibly have some way of short term storing sperm from multiple men and their biology allowing them to choose which of the sperm if any will be used to fertilise her egg during ovulation. There are probably other crazy biological quirks you could use to justify women being the pursuers/sexually aggressive.
The only way for men to socially be selectors rather than pursuers though would be for the men to bear a large risk involved with s*x such as pregnancy. So depending on how you want the sexual morals to be in such a society you would have to control which if any gender bears the risks involved with pregnancy to make it believable. If you impose such a risk on the men though then you need to provide a reason why this doesn't affect the MC if you still want him to be able to sleep with whoever whenever so either he would have to be infertile or be able to control his fertility in a way that isn't related to the other men in this reverse world. Such as a system or purely actually being biologically infertile or maybe he actually was transferred to the reverse world, but with his actual regular world body rather than moving into a reverse world body/version of himself.
@prognastat Reading them a novel where the MC will become pregnant, personally, I would feel a bit uncomfortable. Where would the baby come from? Would it be vomited? O... I shuddered at the thought. But yes, I agree that there should be some biological changes, like men being physically weaker or women not being pregnant as long and men being tied to the baby in some way so they can't detach from it. How for example, in a land with magic, that the sperm would have a part of the man's soul and when forming a baby with the egg in the first 9 months of formation the baby's soul would be linked to the man, so they would have to take care of it.
@Harvier Could be a possibility at least for making men be considered the sexual selectors. Maybe make it so humans have mana cores(something common in plenty of novels), however the way they form a natural mana core is that they automatically drain the father's mana and some life force for the duration of pregnancy to form their own core leading to weakness both physically and magically for that period of time significant enough for men to not be reliable to participate in things such as the military or workforce. It still wouldn't make women less sexually selective if they still had to bear actually growing the baby inside their body and dealing with weakness, but would cover the cause for men to not be promiscuous in the society.
And yeah if the reason for the reverse world is the reason that they generally have aka letting MC have lots of crazy s*x then the MC getting pregnant would be counter to what you would want.
Another possibility would be that humans are oviparous(lay eggs) in this reverse world and have women lay the eggs, but have men be the ones that for some biological or magical reason have to be the ones that have to nurture the egg rather than the women. So many crazy biological and magical reasons one can imagine to mess with how the society would be from a sexual standpoint. This would remove the burden of pregnancy from women and enforce one on the men in the society since after s*x the women would just lay an egg shortly after and then have no physical requirement to stay around allowing them to be more sexually promiscuous with underlying biological reasons.
Really the main gist is no matter the reason if you want women to be promiscuous there has to be a reason why women from a natural point of view can effectively cause pregnancy and walk away with no further requirement just like men can effectively in our world. On the reverse the more of a burden placed on men for pregnancy in this world the more selective the men of that world would be. It would have to be something that has been around long enough to where humans society has had a chance to adapt to these changes too. So another option would be a future where foetuses are grown outside of the parents bodies so there is no risk for women in pregnancy.
Another option would be a human species with 3 genders where there are men that provide sperm, women that provide the egg and a third gender that actually bears the pregnancy. Would take some serious consideration how s*x in such a species worked though
whatever you do don't make him a hypocritical asshole perfect example is "the man of the house" so much potential wasted by a hypocritical guy, the Protagonist can be anything, but not a hypocrite or a hopeless idiot I read to entertain myself not to frustrate myself
@Harvier here is perfect excuse
the war was so violent and bloody that men died, but they died in absurd numbers, so much so that the goddess, seeing the number of men so few, reversed gender capabilities, now the women were as strong as the men and the men were able to avoid being exterminated, with the women in battle and with a number now much greater thanks to the sacrifice of the many men previous times we were able to win the war, over time the proportion of men and women returned to par but the goddess tired of repairing the world did not reverse the miracle, now men give birth in temples and hospitals
@prognastat I think that there are many other possible explanation for gender reversal. The main three points here are to generate a matriarchal society, which existed/exists in some part of the real world, make pregnancy optional, and then make s*x for the men connected to severe consequences, where men would normally try to shy away from it. For all of those steps you can think of multiple explanations.
A matriarchal society might evolve because women are seen as more reliable and cool headed to lead a house, while men might be more hot headed and tend to pick fights to prove themselves. Sometimes you don't need to flip the biological/hormonal differences to come up with different gender roles, where matriarchal societies make sense. You could even come of with scientific mumbo jumbo, like: "The Y chromosome is a crippled X chromosome, therefor women are objectively superior." Men can still be used as brutes in the war, while letting women make the strategical decisions, because they are considered more rational under stress, etc... Just flip the preconceptions while leaving the biological differences in place.
To make women more promiscuous you can simply give them the ability to choose when to get pregnant on the fly, and maybe even make pregnancies less dangerous, less taxing and maybe even shorter through science or magic. Also generally make the world less dangerous for women, not just pregnancy. While men still might be physically stronger, either there might be more women than men, and women are normally in groups, or female magic is stronger etc... Just because someone is physically stronger and dangerous, doesn't mean that they will automatically be the dominant one. Brutish men could just be threaded like domesticated lions or panthers by women. If the structural enforced power balance is in favor of women, they would have no need to be afraid over men that are more physically strong.
The more severe consequences for men, could either be social or physical: Social could be explained, because they might lose their freedom and now belong to a matriarchal lead house, so women would think that s*x would sort of be conquering and capturing males into their house maybe as slaves and them loosing their freedom. Maybe s*x leaves a marker on the men, or changes to the brain to make them submit. However this way it would be a bit more difficult to give MC a harem, since it would be expected of him to join the house after sex. Physical changes could just mean the men are very exhausted and vulnerable after sex, and maybe the MC is an exception to that.
What I want to say is, that you don't need to create a third gender or have male pregnancy to explain this. I think you can explain this with light touches to the social roles and expectations (which are arbitrary), and scientific discoveries and/or smaller changes to the biology. (which actually could even be explained as a result of natural selection by those differing social roles and expectation over a million years)
@Savio Matriarchal and reversed sexual dynamics are not the same and don't even generally go hand in hand. In humans even in Matriarchal societies men are generally still the pursuers in a sexual sense and women the selectors in a sexual sense.
Also the rest of what you say is effectively what I said. The third gender comment was literally one among a huge selection of possibilities I mentioned. It's not like I said this is the single one way this could ever happen. The only definite I laid out was that if you want a world where men are sexually as selective as women are in ours men would need to bear risks and consequences similar to pregnancy that women do in our world if they decide to have s*x and to reverse it for women the risk would have to be similarly as low as the risk is for men in our world.
I disagree this would have any reliability to happen for social reasons as social pressures generally emerge to reinforce biological ones. We generally don't see social pressures that counter biological ones, not saying it is absolutely impossible, just that it would be extremely unlikely just like a guy Isekaiing to a world where the sexual morals are the same as ours yet then building a massive harem.
I also at no point mentioned needing to inverter strength because this is not a necessity to reverse sexual morals for humans. I said that men would need something as inconvenient to them for pregnancy as women so that during pregnancy they can't reliably work/perform in war the way women are in our world as this would effect who needs to take the head of the household role.
@prognastat sense doesn't really mean enjoyable to read for me
@Mynamejeff I don't know some of the options could be interesting as long as MC has some way to avoid them unlike other men in the reverse world. Mostly I was pointing out though that to me reverse world to facilitate harem regular than regular harem is no more realistic to me and doesn't help me with immersion any further and actually presents some additional things that make it harder to maintain suspension of disbelief.