My Taboo Harem System

Chapter 139: Verdict

He let the silence stretch.

Then, finally—

"I choose...Aisha."

The name landed like a verdict. He didn’t rush it. Didn’t need to. It was the reasonable choice to make, seeing that she had chosen him over her own flesh and blood, Patrick.

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Low, genuine, the kind that surprised even him.

"You chose your master over your own son." He shook his head slowly, the smile still playing at his mouth.

"Aisha. Aisha, Aisha."

He stretched—arms above his head, spine cracking, the easy gesture of a man who had already made his decision and was simply letting his body catch up to it.

"It seems," he said, "that it is finally time I truly reward you."

He left it at that.

***

Evening had settled over the village by the time he moved. The kind of quiet that came after a long day—cook fires dimming, children called inside, the dirt roads emptying out one figure at a time.

Denzel walked unhurried, hands loose at his sides, passing doorways and low fences and the occasional dog that didn’t bother to bark.

However, as he proceeded, bored by the moment, he muttered softly, almost to himself.

"Oh yeah, system, I forgot to ask." He said. "Why didn’t I get a reward for defeating Patrick? Are you solely based on improving only my Taboo relationships?"

The system didn’t waste time to respond.

[INFO: No reward issued for resolution of the Patrick conflict.]

Denzel slowed.

’...Are you serious.’

[The system does not issue rewards for the resolution of interpersonal disputes, or physical altercations.]

Denzel exhaled through his nose. He had knocked Patrick down, a man far superior to him, and his reward for that was nothing. Literally nothing.

’So what exactly do you reward?’ he asked. ’Because if it’s only Harem stuff, I’m going to need you to say that out loud.’

[The system rewards the following: Harem Conquest. Level Growth. And—]

A brief pause, like even it was deciding how to phrase this.

[Acknowledged Defeat.]

Denzel’s steps slowed again.

’What does that mean? Acknowledged Defeat.’

[For an opponent to be counted as defeated and yield experience, one of two conditions must be met- The opponent’s life must end or their will must be broken.]

He stopped walking entirely.

Stood there in the middle of the road, the evening breeze moving past him, turning that over.

Kill them. Or break them.

He waited for the revulsion. The instinctive pushback. The part of him that was supposed to say that’s too far.

It didn’t come.

’...That’s actually not a bad deal.’

[The system appreciates your flexibility.]

’Don’t flatter yourself.’ He started walking again. ’I didn’t break Patrick’s will. So I got nothing for that.’

[Correct.]

’So if I had—’ He turned the corner, the village chief’s home coming into view at the far end of the road, lit warmly from within. ’—what would I have gotten?’

The system didn’t answer immediately. Then—

[Rewards scale with the nature of the opponent and the method of resolution. A will-break of a qualifying opponent yields the following: ×1 Golden Wheel Spin.]

Denzel frowned. ’Golden Wheel. What’s—’

The notification materialized before he finished asking.

Not text. Not a simple readout. An actual wheel—rendered in deep amber and black, segments rotating slowly, each one holding a different prize. Resources. Skills. Titles. Things he didn’t recognize yet.

His eyes swept the wheel once.

Then stopped.

One segment, catching the light differently than the rest. Gleaming.

×1 S-Rank Skill.

Denzel stared at it.

The wheel kept spinning, lazy and unhurried, like it had all the time in the world.

’...Hm...Breaking someone’s will,’ he said slowly. ’Is that really so bad?’

The system said nothing.

He stared at the wheel.

S-Rank.

His mind snagged on it the way a nail catches cloth. He turned it over once, twice, trying to make it make sense—and it didn’t. Not even a little. Every skill he currently owned sat somewhere below C-rank.

The best of them wouldn’t even merit a footnote in a serious mage’s profile, and here was the system casually dangling an S-rank reward like it was nothing. Like it was just one slot on a wheel among many.

The highest rank. On a spin.

’This is a joke,’ he muttered.

But his eyes were already moving, sweeping the other segments with the focused attention of a man pricing a menu he hadn’t known existed. The options weren’t all S-rank—most weren’t—but they weren’t bad either. Skills. Stat boosts. Something labeled Rare Title that he didn’t recognize but felt instinctively that he wanted. Taken individually, any one of them would have improved his situation meaningfully.

Taken together, as a picture of what breaking an opponent’s will could yield—

’I wasted that fight.’

Patrick had been right there. On the ground. Beaten. And Denzel had walked away with nothing because he hadn’t known to push it further—hadn’t known there was a further to push. The system had simply watched, said nothing, and let the reward window close.

He considered asking why.

Then didn’t bother. He already knew the answer would be something like: you didn’t inquire or the system does not volunteer unsolicited guidance or some other phrasing that amounted to the same thing. It wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t asked.

He filed it away instead.

’Fine,’ he said, under his breath. ’Now I know.’

The wheel faded as he let the thought settle into something quieter—something that felt less like frustration and more like orientation. He was going to train. He was going to enter the academy. He was going to walk into rooms full of people who had been doing this longer than him, who had better skills, better stats, better everything—

And now he knew that every time someone stood across from him and lost, there was a wheel waiting on the other side of it.

His journey was just getting started.

The thought didn’t feel small when he held it. It felt like the first line of something much longer.

He looked up.

The village chief’s house sat at the end of the road, warm light pressing through the gaps in the shutters.

Denzel stopped in front of it.

Rolled his shoulder once.

Then he moved forward.