There was a moment of stunned silence after his words were heard and digested before an uproar occurred.

“What?!” Venezuela, Emilia, and Ondine exclaimed in shock.

“What are you talking about, Lucky?!” Sumara, Tetra, and Silvera asked incredulously.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing you ask such a question!” Cantia and Sonia stated with shocked looks on their faces.

“Lucky,” began Erza, looking as utterly shocked and mind blown like the others, “are you doubting my love for you? Have I done something suspicious to incur you doubting me?”

“No, I mean—,” began Lakshman, but he could not get another word in as Erza began rattling away with her speech.

“Actually, I think it’s true. I did do suspicious things, like hiding much of my past, not telling you beforehand what happens, and even letting you get summoned to my world knowing full well what would happen and the kind of danger you might come to face over there. You never bothered about my past other than times when it really bothered you and were very understanding and easy going, which I took advantage of. I’m a conniving, deceiving, ungrateful wife!”

She looked at him fiercely as tears began to flow down her face before she bowed her head down and said, “Please, Lucky! I’m really, really sorry about all that I’ve done! Please, forgive me! Please forgive this ungrateful wife that hid so many things from her husband!”

At her apparent heartfelt apology, the others took one glance at her before shifting their gaze towards their husband. For his part, Lakshman was bewildered by the sudden escalation that had occurred when all he wanted to know was something very simple.

“Erza,” he began tentatively, “I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but it’s not what you’re thinking. Alright?”

“But you’ve clearly started doubting me, and I—!” Erza said as she began speaking away without pause.

Realising that she would enter into a loop of hurting herself, her husband snapped at her with, “Erza!”

That instantly made her jump with fright and looked at him with a bewildered look on her face.

“Listen to me carefully, okay?” He asked carefully, and she nodded meekly in agreement. Then he sighed and said, “First things first, I do not, and I repeat, I do not feel even in the slightest that you were tricking me or hiding things from me. Rather, it falls down on my own lack of interest in figuring out about the history of my wives. So much being a husband.”

“Ah! Lucky—!” She began with concern but was stopped when he raised a hand.

“Let me finish and then you can speak, okay?” He asked and smiled a little at her.

Erza hesitated for a moment before she nodded in agreement. Then he smiled appreciatively and continued speaking from where he left off as if there had be no interruption.

“Whatever happened in the past is the past, but there are questions that I want answers, starting with how you were able to still be here. After meeting with you and asking you if you’d come to my world, I tried meeting you several times during that week to properly confess my feelings. However, the guards had barred all entry to me and anyone else other than your brothers and even the maids claimed that you were feeling depressed. So, I was sure you’ve never had any interest in me and left without saying goodbye.”

Everyone listened intently in complete silence to what he said before continuing to remain silent well after he finished. There was a moment of pause before the one to react first turned out to be Erza, whose reaction was that of surprise.

“Oh. Oh my,” she said, raising a hand and placing it over her mouth while blinking in surprise. “I-It seems there’s a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding?”

Erza nodded and replied solemnly, “Yes. The truth is, on the night after your suggestion, my mother… she… she passed on.”

“Oh,” said Lakshman, widening his eyes and looking amazed.

The others reacted with sympathy with words like, “I’m sorry to hear that,” or “I’m sorry for you,” and “It must’ve been difficult.” This, however caused Lakshman to glance around at his wives sympathising with a bemused look on his face.

“What’s with that expression, Lucky?” Sumara asked, noticing his facial expression first and becoming puzzled by it.

“I’m just amazed at the misunderstanding that’s running among us right now,” he commented with a chuckle.”

As they looked at him in confusion, Erza explained with, “Everyone, mother died when I was just a kid.”

“Oh.”

“Huh?”

“Wait, what?”

“When you were… just a kid?”

“Does this mean that… Lucky met your… child version?”

Being further confused, the rest of the women did not know what to think.

“No. He met me when I was sixteen, and he rightfully told me he was eighteen at that time… although, he was actually twenty at that time,” said Erza and glanced sideways at her husband with a wry smile.

“Well, my appearance kind of aged down, and I do remember you telling me I met you when I was eighteen, so I guessed I should just go with that story,” reasoned Lakshman while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

“I don’t blame you since I didn’t fully explain anything to you,” said Erza soothingly.

Lakshman nodded when he suddenly frowned as a doubt crept into his mind, and he asked her, “But how come she passed on? She’s an astral energy, and I was still supplying energy to her till I left that world. Admittedly, I did feel as if my energy chain had disconnected with her, but I didn’t take much notice at that time as I believed the others or she found another source to feed off the energy to keep her astral form physically visible for all to see. That is unless… she passed on after her regrets were… cleared?”

To that, he looked at her with a puzzled look on his face, to which she showed him a sweet smile.

“It’s as you’ve guessed; her regrets have been cleared and she… moved on,” she stated in a quiet voice.

There was a moment of pause before Lakshman asked slowly, “What happened?”

She took a deep breath and sighed before looking at him and saying, “It was in the evening after you ran away after making such a bold suggestion, where she gathered Bolten, Santa, and me together to talk to us about her regrets. It was there that we learned that apart from regretting that she parted from us early, she said she regretted that I was being discriminated and that her two sons might fight over the throne.

Bolten and Santa dismissed such a notion, as Santa stated clearly that he’d rather be out exploring the world and enjoying the comforts than sitting behind a desk and get stuck in a mountain of paper.”

“Pft!” Lakshman snorted, almost struggling to control his sudden laughter that almost exploded from his mouth.

“I guess your brother is right on that,” agreed Venezuela wryly, remembering the amount of workload she and Erza had to get through during their husband’s absence was very tiring.

“Yeah. That’s the reason why,” said Erza in agreement, “so that part of her worry was cleared. She even made them promise that, no matter what, they will never point their weapons at one another, to which they agreed.”

“That will stay true until the father shows up to cause turmoil again,” her husband commented dully.

“Yes, but I have faith in my brothers!” Erza said confidently with a bright smile. “You know? Santa even apologised for mistreating me and viewing me as a criminal than a real sibling! He apologised!”

She emphasised that fact twice to let them all know of how much it meant for her, especially with the happiness that she carried in her face. Lakshman thought back to the rude, cold demeanour in which Santa treated his sister in public and felt a slight lift in impression of the second prince.

“He’s probably not bad,” he thought to himself, to which Asura snorted in his mind.

“The guy’s probably just doing it to save face and please his mother more than anything else,” stated Asura coldly.

As Lakshman smiled wryly at his past-self’s words and asked his wife, “So, the further regret that had your mother worried about you was…?”

“It was about my future,” said Erza before adding, “more likely the future partner that I’d be living together with. For you see, political marriage was what would’ve happened to me if my life had remained like that.”

“Yeah. I feel for you Erza ’cause that almost happened to me,” confessed Venezuela dully. “Floria Kingdom was facing some turmoil with the Mardana Kingdom at that time, and my father believed that the best thing to do was marrying me off to the prince of the Mardana Kingdom to soothe our strained relationships.” Then she smiled widely as she stated, “But that didn’t happen thanks to me finding out Lucky was the Phoenix Titan and immediately confessed my love for him, although my love for him was on first sight, mind you.”

“What?!” Cantia exclaimed, looking shocked.

“I didn’t know,” said Ondine, blinking in surprise.

“You sure hid that well, Vena,” remarked Tetra.

“That’s so wonderful,” said Emilia happily.

Lakshman was surprised, both from her sudden confession and the fact that his Elemental Sense detected that she was indeed telling the truth.

“You never told me it was love at first sight,” he said, blinking in surprise. “I was just under the impression you were using me as a wedge to break up your engagement to that arrogant man.”

Venezuela chuckled and smiled shyly as she said, “It was embarrassing to say that at that time and besides, I’ve loved you from the moment you saved me on our first meeting. You know? During that arena monster-demon invasion incident?”

“Oh!” Lakshman said, looking mightily amazed while smiling a little wider.

“Of course, I didn’t know your name or any background information on you, but I swore that whoever you might be, I will love you from the depth of my heart. And as fate would have it, we meet again at the Astral Academy years later.”

Lakshman smiled at her just as everyone else did at the joy when Sonia coughed and said, “That’s a roundabout way of doing things. At least, I was upfront about my feelings from day one.”

“Hey, I was feeling shy at that time and was facing an imminent problem,” said Venezuela incredulously.

“I too was facing a problem as well, but you didn’t see me beat around the bushes,” replied Sonia smoothly.

“Beat around the bushes? What are you talking about?”

“It’s basically what you did.”

“That makes no sense!”

“It will if you try to understand it.”

Venezuela and Sonia were staring at one another with fiery eyes as an air of rivalry sprung from both ends. Lakshman and his other wives looked on in amazement at this unexpected turn of events. Before it could get any further, however, Erza clapped her hands together loudly to snap them out of their glaring contest and turn to look at her in surprise.

“How did me retelling my past get the two of you into such a strange contest?” She asked them with a bemused smile.

“Uh…” began Sonia weakly.

“Well…” stated Venezuela awkwardly.

When the two fell silent and looked troubled, Emilia took this opportunity to say with a serene smile on her face.

“We’re all his wives, remember? We are his family, and he loves us very dearly,” she said coolly with a soft expression on her face. “Just think of the sadness he must feel when he watches his wives arguing like this.”

Those words churned a cord inside their brains and they turned quickly to look at their husband, who wore a sad smile on his face. He was, in fact, feeling a little sad that they had to argue like this despite hiding his amazement at how coolly Emilia was handling the situation.

“Upon our marriage, we agreed that no matter what, we would allow no argument to get in between us and tear us apart. Don’t you remember?” She asked again in a cool voice.

Both Venezuela and Sonia shifted in their seats and murmured, “Yes,” in dull voices.

Emilia, like everyone else, could see the shame the two women had on their faces, and she decided to end her scolding there by saying, “Then there’s no issue. Erza,” she said while turning to her and smiling smoothly, “please continue.”

Erza was amazed by Emilia’s smoothness before nodding in agreement and saying, “Yes.” Then she cleared her throat and said, “Well, my mother was very worried and regretted not being able to be with me to marry me off to a partner that would cherish me for the rest of our lives. That’s when Bolten and Santa suggested Lucky.”

“They suggested you marry me?” Lakshman asked, looking surprised.

Erza nodded and smiled shyly as she went on saying, “Yes, they did, and I was surprised. I was even more surprised to learn that I could marry you if I wanted to. After all, since childhood, I lived under the notion that I didn’t have the right to refuse or make a choice of my own to live by. It was… very surprising to me that they brought it up on their own.”

“And you… agreed?” He asked slowly in an anxious voice.

There was a moment of pause before Erza smiled shyly at him, with pink colouring her cheeks, as she admitted, “Yes.”

Everyone grinned at her confession and laughed lightly at how shy she looked from admitting it just now.

“So, with this, her regrets were complete, and she left?” He asked her for confirmation.

She nodded in agreement and replied, “She felt confident that we would live a comfortable life if you and I were to marry. After that, she bid us goodbye and simply… faded away.”

Lakshman nodded in agreement and smiled a little.

“Since she disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared, I was at a loss. I knew I should be with you, but… I was greatly saddened by her leaving me once more that I… I didn’t want to show you when I was feeling absolutely down. So, I shut myself away in my room and refused to meet anyone except for my maids and my brothers.”

When she finished speaking, he nodded in understanding and said, “Yes, and those few days turned into a week. By which time, I had simply assumed that you didn’t have any interest in me, and so I left without a word.”

“Yes, you did,” she said and suddenly looked hurt. “Bolten and Santa rushed in that morning and told me that you had already left the castle with the other heroes with the intention of returning to your home world. I was very shocked and was scared because I didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, it seems that Bolten foresaw this and had the maids deliver a luggage containing my clothes and a transport ready to take me to where you guys were at.”

Her husband was surprised upon hearing what the first prince, now a king, had done for them and smile as he muttered, “That man…!”

“You’ve got a lovely brother in him, Erza,” remarked Sumara with a smile.

“Yes, I do,” agreed Erza as she smiled back at them.

“So, after reaching the spot and hurriedly entering the portal, you suddenly got trapped and fell through it to arrive years earlier when we were still sixteen-years-old?” Ondine asked as she wrapped her head around it.

Erza nodded and said, “Yes. I had difficulties, at first, in trying to understand the language, but my ability to quickly adapt helped, and I quickly learnt the basics of the Human Language. From there, I joined the adventurer’s guild to make a living for myself while selling off the valuable items such as gold, silver and other items that my brother had graciously included in my luggage just in case, which I’m thankful for.”

“That thoughtfulness of your brother… it’s amazing,” admitted Sonia enviously. “Wish I had a brother like that.”

At that moment, someone sneezed from outside the house and a moment later, Atem walked in through the entrance while rubbing his nose.

“Sorry for my late appearance and the sudden sneezing,” he apologised and took a double take at Lakshman. “Phoenix Titan! You’re back!”

“Yes, I am,” said Lakshman with a smile.

Atem had a joyful smile on his face as he said, “This is wonderful! I must return immediately to inform the king!”

“Hold your wings!” Sonia demanded as Atem prepared to turn around and leave. “You just got here!”

“Yes, and I’ll be back as soon as I inform the king!” Atem exclaimed energetically, and he left through the house.

“That guy…!” Sonia said slowly and shook her head disapprovingly.

“He could’ve stayed for a glass of water,” said Emilia sadly.

“He’ll come back,” said Lakshman reassuringly, and she nodded in agreement while cheering up. “Anyway, I think we should focus on what to do from here on,” and everyone agreed by nodding their heads and smiles on their faces.