Chapter 654: Types of Harems

On the Blue Sky Continent, harems could essentially be divided into 3 broad categories.

The first type was where all those involved shared a mutual love and respect for each other.

The second was where one individual dominated over the others, using their strength, influence, or some other form of ’power’ to silence most, if not all complaints.

The third was where marriage between multiple partners had been decided solely on the basis of political or financial benefits.

Needless to say, the first category was much more harmonious than the other two, but it was also significantly rarer to find.

Harems where one man or woman ruled over all the others were often the result of that particular individual being extremely domineering from the start and ’acquiring’ partners by force.

Surprisingly, such harems also weren’t all that common for a very simple reason; nobody liked tyrants.

Unless the head of such a harem possessed enough power to defeat all their external enemies and to keep their internal ones from rebelling against them, they tended not to have very long lives. Even the members of a tyrant’s own harem tended to want them dead, especially if they were particularly cruel.

As a result, by far the most common type of harem was the third kind, the political ones.

Now, such harems tended to have aspects of the first and second categories embedded within them, but ’benefits’ were really what kept them together, rather than love or force.

All this was to say that the Rockwell Kingdom’s Eighth King, Nathanial, had gotten extremely lucky.

Aside from being generally friendly individuals to begin with, Marianne Campbell, Natasha Summers, and Cynthia Morgan each had their own unique and non-overlapping interests. This diversity of talents and areas of focus played a big role in the queens getting along as it meant they were far less likely they would find themselves at odds over specific issues, at least when it came to professional matters.

This kind of easy, relaxed atmosphere in the palace also meant that there was no need to set strict schedules or form competing factions. Most things, when it came to the current royal family, were simply worked out between the king and his queens without much fuss, other than the normal squabbling which came as a natural part of being married.

That said, there was definitely some tension building up right now. Tension which would require Marianne, Natasha, and Cynthia to fight it out and decide who the ’winner’ would be tonight; besides their husband, that is.

Ever since Cynthia, Natasha, and Marianne had stepped out of their latter’s room at the beginning of the evening, Nathanial had been unable to keep his eyes off of them, and for good reason.

It was only a couple days ago, just in time for the New Years celebrations, that Lucas completed the rather large order Christina’s mothers had put in with [Vision].

The Queens had quietly been complaining a bit over the past few months, wondering if the boy had somehow forgotten about them with all the work he had to do.

However, when a couple dozen large crates arrived at the palace from Misty City, and Marianne, Cynthia, and Natasha opened them up to see what was inside, all the dissatisfaction they had felt up to that point evaporated.

That day, none of them had gotten any work done as they, along with a small army of maids, gathered together in Marianne’s room and tried on one outfit after another.

Naturally, Nathanial had wanted to take a peek, but faced with the united objections of his wives who wanted their new looks to be a surprise on the day of the biggest celebration of the year, he had no choice but to back down and return to mediating a rather troublesome dispute between several powerful noble houses.

Needless to say, at the time, the King wasn’t too happy about all of this. His own new outfits had been quite pleasing to the eye, so he had been very eager to see what his wives looked like, but he now felt it was totally worth the wait.

His wives had always been great beauties, but tonight, they were even more stunning than before, so much so that Nathanial simply couldn’t wait for the banquet to be over so he could get an ’up-close and personal’ look at them.

Maybe even perform some ’special examinations’ on them in their new dresses, something he never would have contemplated if they were wearing old-style formalwear.

Nathanial’s only regret was that he would only get to have a more in-depth conversation about the meaning of life tonight with one of his wives, while the other two would not be participating in that particular forum.

Now, had the man ever taken more than one of them at once?

Yes.

Yes, he had.

Over the decades, Nathanial had slept together with two of his lovely wives at the same time on several occasions, and he remembered each of those times vividly; but those were rare exceptions, not the norm.

As for the ultimate indulgence a man with 3 wives could have, without those 3 wives promptly killing him for cheating on them, that is, Nathanial, the Eighth King of the Rockwell Kingdom, had only ever experienced that once.

7 years ago, on his 150th birthday, Marianne, Natasha, and Cynthia had decided to go all-out in order to celebrate, giving their husband something he had dreamed of experiencing countless nights before but had always been denied.

The night was so amazing that Nathanial pushed himself to his limits just to make it last a little bit longer for her he knew that once morning came, he would wake from that glorious fantasy and return to reality.

Now, it wasn’t that the Queens themselves were completely against the idea of all having fun together at once.

In fact, though they would deny it vehemently if asked, that night 7 years ago had been quite enjoyable for all of them as well. However, while they did like to spoil Nathanial occasionally, they weren’t going to let themselves be treated like cheap women either.

If he wanted the gift only they could give him once more, he would need to do something to earn it.

In that regard, tonight, despite their bold new dresses, the Queens all agreed to treat it as an ordinary New Years banquet, hardly an occasion worth ’celebrating’ in any kind of extraordinary way.

And so, King Nathanial Rockwell would only be getting one midnight snack, instead of 2 or 3.

As for who he would be eating... Nathanial knew better than to get involved in that heated debate.