---o---
"Tsk—, Bronya hits way too hard."
The man, having just been thoroughly pummeled by Project Bunny, clutched his bruised chest and complained.
Although Bronya hadn't been angry enough to ORA ORA her lover for three pages with Project Bunny and send him flying into space to hang out with Kars, she clearly wasn't generous enough to let him off scot-free either.
So, Li Zihan still got a face full of Project Bunny.
If not for his Noble Phantasm providing defense, bolstered by the powers of a God-Slayer, a Herrscher, and his own divinity, he probably would have been bedridden for days.
Then again, it was precisely because Li Zihan had activated his Noble Phantasm that Bronya had hit him so hard in the first place.
After all, this guy's defense was ridiculously high, his health bar was thick, and he even had multiple phases. If he appeared as a boss in a game, he'd be the type to make players curse the developers into oblivion.
"That's what you get for asking for it."
Likely because she had accepted his gems, the very enthusiastic goddess approached the sun god, who had just been a victim of domestic violence, with some medicine for bruises.
"Suddenly confessing to another girl right in front of your lover... no woman would be able to stand that."
"But sneaking around behind my lover's back to pursue another girl, trying to two-time them, is obviously even less reliable."
The young man, who knew that trying to manage multiple relationships in secret instead of being upfront about his harem-building would lead to catastrophic failure, pouted.
Whether Herrschers are cultured or not is one thing, but they all possess high levels of intelligence.
That was written into their very design.
They might not be book-smart, but they aren't stupid.
The majority of the girls connected to Li Zihan were Herrschers, and the rest were also exceptionally bright.
Under these circumstances, trying to juggle multiple relationships in secret was a surefire way to die.
"Besides, if a relationship is filled with too many lies, it will spoil."
The young man, who was fundamentally honest when it came to his relationships, shrugged.
"Tohsaka, don't tell me you don't understand that."
"Tohsaka?"
The goddess, suddenly addressed with such a name, looked stunned.
"Isn't that your name?" the young man asked, looking at the face that was identical to a certain poor young lady's.
The current Ishtar wasn't exactly the genuine article.
She was a Pseudo-Servant who had possessed a human with a compatible wavelength—the poor young lady, Rin Tohsaka.
She was different from Li Zihan's type, who had crushed the Servant's consciousness beforehand and integrated the Saint Graph into himself, maintaining his own identity throughout. She was also different from Waver's type, where the Servant's personality was dormant and the host's personality had to work overtime.
In Ishtar's case, the personality of the host had long since fused with the goddess Ishtar, and the one in control of the body was actually a new, combined personality.
—A special personality that still thought and acted as a goddess, but whose character was much closer to that of a human.
"Hey, hey, hey, I'm not some 'Tohsaka'! I am the Mistress of Heaven, Ishtar!"
The goddess, who clearly disliked the name "Tohsaka," knitted her delicate brows and glared at the foreign sun god.
"I am me. No matter who the original owner of this body was, the one standing here now is the goddess Ishtar herself."
"I still think calling you Tohsaka or Rin is cuter."
The young man muttered, thinking that if he had met the real Ishtar, he would have probably already used his 'Fire-Thief' Authority to steal her powers before erasing her from existence.
"Casually calling a woman cute."
Sensing that something was off with his choice of words, the Mistress of Heaven narrowed her ruby-red eyes, scrutinizing the man who looked dishonest no matter how you looked at him.
Her tone became a little dangerous.
"Hey, you... you aren't getting ideas about me, are you?"
Hearing this, Li Zihan's expression was one of pure shock.
"How desperate would I have to be to have ideas about you?"
It was the truth.
Although Li Zihan was a lecher, he was a lecher who only pursued cute girls.
The real Ishtar was a female version of the tyrant Gilgamesh—specifically, the mud-corrupted, gender-bent version from the Fifth Grail War.
Ishtar-Rin wasn't a scumbag like the real Ishtar, who you could kill without a second thought.
But—
She was a dork, a master of comedic expressions, and a useless goddess.
Her attributes heavily overlapped with Aqua's.
In the Absolute Demonic Front, if you wanted to pursue a goddess, you would definitely go for Ereshkigal! And if not Ereshkigal, you should go for Medusa Lily!
The young man, who had also once been known as Guda, grumbled internally.
A man has to draw the line somewhere. At the very least, you don't get involved with an Aqua-tier goddess...
"Hah?"
The goddess, feeling as if her charms had just been scorned, let out a very displeased sound.
"Alright, alright, let's drop it."
The young man, who felt that while Ishtar-Rin was certainly cute, he just wasn't feeling it, spoke dismissively.
"I'm going back to find Bronya."
"Hey, hey, haven't you been beaten enough?"
Ishtar recalled the sight of him being chased around and beaten by a short girl because he refused to fight back, and she couldn't help but feel a little schadenfreude.
Although the man was her temporary sugar daddy, that didn't stop her from enjoying his misfortune.
"A supreme god being chased and beaten by an ordinary human girl... if word of this got back to the Reverse Side of the World where the gods live in seclusion, it would probably be the joke of the century."
"Let them talk."
The young man, who had never considered "face" to be a valuable commodity, shrugged.
"Going easy on your lover is nothing to be ashamed of."
"If losing a bit of face will make Bronya drop the issue of me chasing other girls, I don't mind losing all of it."
What a strange guy, Ishtar thought.
It was the first time she had ever met a god who cared so little about his own dignity.
"But even if you've already lost face, that little girl has probably only forgiven you temporarily. I doubt she'll let it go so easily in the future."
"I never expected Bronya to support me in having multiple partners in the first place," Li Zihan said with a shrug.
Bronya did support Li Zihan's harem.
But the list of approved members was strictly limited to herself, Seele, Raiden Mei, and a few others.
At most, she might include a few of her other old sisters.
"To get Bronya to let me continue, I have to use a special method."
The confidence in his voice deeply impressed Ishtar, prompting her to ask.
"This method you speak of... would you mind revealing it?"
In response to Ishtar's question, a Nike-swoosh-shaped smile spread across Li Zihan's lips.
"Do you even need to ask?"
"I'll persuade her in bed."
---o---
Author's Note:
ps: The plot development of this book is no longer decided by my brain, but by Gilgamesh's d#ck.