My Taboo Harem System

Chapter 140: Who Are You

Denzel, upon arrival, exhaled once.

Then pushed the gate open and walked in like he’d done it before.

He made it four steps up the stone path before one of them clocked him.

"Hey." The guard stepped into his line, one hand moving to his side on instinct. Young. Broad through the shoulders. Trying to look like he’d done this a hundred times.

"You. What are you doing here? Do you have an appointment with the village chief?"

Denzel stopped.

Turned slowly, the way a man turns when he’s been interrupted mid-thought and is deciding how charitable to be about it.

"Me?" He blinked, the picture of mild confusion. "No, not with the chief." He paused, just long enough. "I’m here to see his wife."

A beat.

The guard’s expression didn’t move, but something behind his eyes did. "We weren’t informed about that."

"I know," Denzel said. He kept his voice even, unbothered, the tone of someone explaining something unfortunate rather than defending himself. "It was arranged privately. You can go and confirm with her directly—I’d actually prefer it. Last thing I want is a misunderstanding on your end."

He left the implication sitting there. Because if you turn me away and it turns out I was expected, that becomes your problem.

The two guards exchanged a look.

One of them—the one who hadn’t spoken yet—gave a small nod and broke off, heading toward the house at a measured pace.

Denzel clasped his hands behind his back and waited.

He turned to the remaining guard with an easy expression. Docile. Settled. The expression of a man who had absolutely nothing to prove and nowhere else to be.

"Don’t worry," he said. "He’ll be back."

The guard said nothing. Just watched him, expression flat, eyes doing the actual talking.

Denzel turned away, gaze drifting back toward the torchlit path.

"—You’re the one who stepped up to Patrick."

He stilled.

’Hmm...is he talking to me?’

Not a question. A statement, delivered low and even, like the guard was testing the weight of it before committing to anything.

Denzel turned back slowly. Looked at him—young face, unreadable expression, impossible to tell yet whether this was hostility or something else.

"Stepped up to." He tilted his head slightly. "That’s one way to put it."

The guard held his gaze for a moment. Then looked away.

"I was the one he was going to kill."

The words landed quietly. No heat in them. The guard’s jaw shifted once, and he resettled against his post, eyes moving back toward the perimeter like the conversation was already behind him.

"I don’t know exactly what happened out there. But—" A short pause. "I wanted to say thanks. For getting involved."

Denzel said nothing.

"Just—" The guard exhaled through his nose. "I hope you weren’t stupid enough to actually kill him."

He said it without looking back. Voice still level. Matter-of-fact in the way of someone delivering news rather than a warning.

"Because if you did, there is a lot that will find its way to your door. And none of it will be small."

He drifted back toward his post. Not far—close enough that the conversation wasn’t entirely over, just paused—and stood with his back mostly turned, torch casting a long shadow across the stone.

Denzel remained still a moment longer than he needed to.

Just a breath. Ten seconds at most, facing away from the guard’s post, eyes on nothing in particular.

It sat strangely, was the thing.

He couldn’t name it immediately—this odd, lightweight pressure behind his sternum—and that itself was unusual enough to make him pause. He had spent his time in this world running one scheme or another. Maria. Sophia. Aisha. One situation bleeding into the next, each one demanding something from him before he’d even had time to settle. Nobody had handed him anything freely. Nobody had looked at him and simply said—

Thanks.

Not for what he’d done.

He didn’t know what to do with that. It was small. Probably meant nothing in the larger shape of things. But it was the first genuinely clean thing that had happened to him since he’d arrived in this world, and he was surprised to find that it registered.

He was still turning that over when the voice cut through it.

"You can come in."

His eyes snapped up.

The guard who’d gone ahead was standing near the entrance, arm extended, gesturing him forward with the practiced patience of someone who’d been waiting a beat too long.

Denzel exhaled quietly through his nose.

He took one last glance at the other guard—still at his post, back mostly turned, torch shadow long across the stone—and then stepped forward.

"Told you," he said, as he passed the first guard. "She was expecting me."

The guard said nothing. Just turned and moved ahead.

"Follow me."

Denzel had been about to say he didn’t need the escort. The words were already forming. He let them dissolve. Getting particular about it would only raise questions, and right now questions were the last thing he needed. He fell into step and kept his expression easy.

They moved through the interior—stone corridors, low light, the kind of quiet that came from thick walls and few people—before the guard turned a corner and slowed. A door. Solid. The guard reached it first, pushed it open, and stepped aside, gesturing for Denzel to enter.

Denzel paused in the doorway.

One breath.

Then he walked in.

The room was somewhere between a private sitting space and a working office—a table, chairs, shelves against one wall holding ledgers and folded documents. Personal but functional. The kind of room a man used when he wanted to think without being interrupted.

His eyes moved to the figure seated away from the desk.

Not on it. Away from it. Settled in a chair near the far wall, hands resting on his knees, watching the door with an expression that gave nothing away except that it had been giving nothing away for a very long time.

The village chief.

Denzel’s mind went flat and white for exactly one second.

’What.’

He didn’t say it. His face didn’t move. But internally—

’What the fuck?!’

From everything he’d seen, everything Aisha had told him, the shape of the man matched. The authority in the posture. The weight behind the eyes. This was Patrick’s father. The man whose house he had just walked into on the pretense of visiting his wife, having spent the better part of the last few weeks railing his wife.

His gaze moved—just briefly, just once—to the other side of the room.

Aisha.

She was leaning against the table with her hands clasped together, eyes cast down at the floor. She didn’t look up when he entered. Couldn’t seem to, by the look of it.

Denzel turned back to the chief.

The chief’s eyes hadn’t left him.

"Leave us."

The guard behind Denzel bowed once, stepped back, and pulled the door shut with a quiet, final sound.

The room settled into silence.

The village chief studied him for a long moment. Not hostile. Not warm. The gaze of a man who was accustomed to measuring people and had learned not to rush the process.

Then, evenly—

"So." He leaned back slightly in his chair. "You wanted to see my wife."

A pause.

"Then answer me this." His eyes didn’t move. "Who exactly are you?"