Harem Training System: Every Girl I Train Makes Me Stronger!

Catherine didn’t respond immediately. She stood frozen at the treeline, sword still raised though the threat had clearly ended, staring at William with an expression he couldn’t entirely read, though the flush spreading steadily across her cheeks gave him at least a partial clue.

"Huh?" William noticed she froze. "Catherine?"

"That was," Catherine started, then stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "That was genuinely one of the most impressive displays of combat I have ever witnessed in my entire career at this academy."

William wiped a hand across his face, only succeeding in smearing the blood further, and he grinned. "Yeah, well, I did tell you I’ve had practice."

Catherine’s eyes tracked the movement of blood across his face and jaw, and she seemed to catch herself somewhere in the middle of staring, blinking rapidly, and looking away with the kind of forced composure. William was beginning to recognize it as her default response whenever something threw her too far off balance.

"We should," she said, her voice slightly higher than usual, "report this..."

"A summoning of that scale, that close to the city, is a serious security concern!"

"Someone deliberately pulled a tier five creature into a tier one dungeon specifically while we were here."

"Yeah," William agreed, sheathing Aetherion and finally letting the adrenaline of the fight settle back down into something manageable. "Someone from the academy, probably."

"Same people who were talking in that storage room."

"You don’t seem particularly concerned about that," Catherine observed.

"I’m concerned," William said. "I’m also aware that scaring me isn’t working, so if anything, this just means I need to actually make their job harder."

"Force them to escalate more and take more risks. Sooner or later somebody that reckless makes a mistake we can actually catch."

Catherine studied him for a long moment, something in her expression shifting from professional concern to something warmer and harder to categorize. "You really aren’t afraid of any of this, are you?"

"I died once in my dream already," William said simply without trying to say he was reincarnated. "Kind of takes the edge off being afraid of dying again."

"That doesn’t make any sense..."

"It does when you think of a dream as a life from a different universe," William chuckled.

...

They walked back toward the city in relative silence after that, William still catching his breath from the fight, Catherine walking a half step closer than she had on the way out, though William couldn’t tell if she’d noticed the change in distance herself.

"I... urm... I want to thank you properly," Catherine said eventually, breaking the quiet as the city walls came back into view. "For everything."

"The training sessions, especially today, well... I mean... uh... all of it..." Catherine’s finger twitched non-stop. "You’ve done more for this academy in a matter of days than most instructors manage in years."

"You don’t need to thank me," William said. "It’s kind of the job for me if I want a raise fast."

"I’d still like to," Catherine said, and there was something careful in the way she said it, like she’d been building up to this specific sentence for several minutes already. "Would you like to come to my house for dinner tonight?"

’Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! She’s already inviting me this fast?!’

William blinked, genuinely caught off guard. "Your house...? I didn’t realize you had one separate from the instructor housing."

"I do," Catherine said. "It’s not far from here, actually."

’Since I’m not a dense virgin or anything... might as well go with it.’

"Yeah, sure, I’d like that," William said, and then, watching Catherine’s expression shift into something like alarm, added, "Wait, why do you look panicked all of a sudden?"

"I’m not! I’m not panicked or anything," Catherine said, in the tone of someone very much panicking. "I only meant... I don’t want you to feel obligated; this isn’t me insisting, and I would understand entirely if you’d rather return to the academy and rest after everything that happened at the dungeon."

"I wasn’t trying to pressure you into anything; I just thought given everything you’ve done—"

"Catherine," William said, cutting through the increasingly tangled explanation with open amusement, "I want to come. Genuinely."

"I haven’t had a real meal since... I don’t know... years probably!" William chuckled. "It’s been bread and academy rations for days."

"If you’re offering actual home-cooked food, well... I would honestly fight that reaver again just for the chance."

Catherine’s shoulders sagged with visible relief, though a faint flush remained across her cheeks. "Right. Yes. Of course..."

"This way, then."

...

Catherine’s home turned out to be a modest but clearly well-appointed cottage on a quiet street near the edge of the academic district, stone walls covered in climbing ivy, and warm light already glowing behind curtained windows despite the early evening hour.

William took in the sight of it with open curiosity as Catherine unlocked the front door.

"This is a lot nicer than I expected," he admitted, following her inside to find a space that managed to feel both elegant and genuinely lived in, shelves lined with books and small personal trinkets, a fireplace already laid and waiting, and furniture that looked comfortable rather than merely decorative.

"Headmaster Albert arranged for it," Catherine explained, moving toward the kitchen with the easy familiarity of someone in her own space. "Part of the compensation for accepting the vice headmaster position."

"He felt it appropriate that someone in my role have a residence befitting the responsibility, separate from standard instructor housing."

"That’s surprisingly generous of him."

"He can be, when it matters to him," Catherine said, already gathering ingredients from a well-stocked pantry. "Please, sit. This won’t take long."

William settled at the small dining table, watching with quiet appreciation as Catherine moved through her kitchen with the same efficient confidence she brought to academy administration, though there was something softer about her here, some of the careful professional armor she wore at the academy visibly loosening with every passing minute in her own home.

They talked as she cooked, casual conversation drifting between academy matters and smaller, more personal things, and William found himself genuinely relaxing for what felt like the first time since arriving in this world.

Catherine asked about his life before, and William gave her the careful, edited version he’d been refining since his first conversation with Headmaster Albert, and if she suspected there was more beneath the surface, she didn’t press.

Dinner, when it finally arrived, was simple but genuinely excellent, some kind of herb-roasted meat alongside vegetables William didn’t recognize but enjoyed regardless, and he found himself eating with an enthusiasm that clearly delighted Catherine more than she was willing to openly admit.

"This is incredible," William said around a mouthful. "I take back everything I said about academy food being tolerable."

"This is a war crime by comparison."

Catherine laughed, an actual, unguarded sound that William hadn’t heard from her before, warm and genuine in a way that made something in his chest tighten pleasantly. "I’ll take that as high praise."

"It’s the highest praise I have to give."

As the evening wore on, Catherine produced a bottle of something dark and richly scented, pouring two generous glasses without asking whether William wanted any, an assumption that turned out to be entirely correct.

Conversation flowed easier with each passing exchange, Catherine’s usual careful reserve unwinding gradually with the warmth of delicious food, good company, and, increasingly, the alcohol steadily disappearing from her glass.

"You know," Catherine said, some considerable time later, her words carrying the faint, unmistakable looseness of someone who had drunk rather more than she’d intended, "when I first met you, I thought you were the single most infuriating instructor this academy had ever employed."

"High praise," William said, grinning.

"I’m not finished," Catherine said, waving a hand that nearly knocked over her glass. "I thought you were infuriating, and reckless, and entirely too confident for someone with your reputation..."

"And then you kept... kept proving me wrong... over and over, until I stopped being able to remember why I’d thought any of that in the first place."

William watched her carefully, noting the flush across her cheeks, the slight unsteadiness in her posture, the way her usual precise diction had softened at the edges. "I think that might be the wine talking."

"Maybe," Catherine agreed, entirely unbothered by the observation. "Doesn’t make it less true, though... hic..."

They talked a while longer, though Catherine’s words grew progressively less measured, her laughter more frequent and less restrained, until William finally glanced at the darkened window and realized how late the evening had gotten.

"I should probably head back," he said, starting to rise from his chair. "It’s getting late, and you’ve got an early day tomorr—"

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. Catherine moved with a speed that genuinely surprised him, closing the distance between them and pushing him back down, not onto his chair but directly onto the nearby sofa, close enough that he could smell the wine on her breath and see the way her white hair had come loose from whatever style she’d arranged it in that morning, falling in soft waves around her flushed face.

For a long moment neither of them moved, Catherine’s hands still resting against his chest where she’d pushed him down, both of them simply looking at each other in the low, warm light of the fire.

"Stay..." Catherine said finally, voice barely above a whisper, the single word carrying weight that made William’s pulse pick up despite himself. "Stay with me... tonight..."

’This situation... deja vu...’

William looked up at her, at the flush across her cheeks and the unmistakable haze of alcohol still evident in her gaze, and felt a strange, familiar sensation settle over him, something he recognized instantly from a life he’d lived once already, in another body, in another world entirely.

He had been in this exact position before. More times than he cared to count, actually, in the reckless years of his youth, before decades of discipline had reshaped him into someone more careful.

’I really am that irresistible for women who are drunk, huh...?’

A woman, warm with drink, asking him to stay in a voice that wouldn’t sound the same once morning burned away the wine.

"Catherine..." he said carefully, "how much have you had to drink tonight...!?"