Chapter 376: You Need Stamina To Maintain A Harem!
The crisis averted and her Queen confirmed safe, Sigrid finally allowed herself to relax—or at least, as much as her exhausted body would permit.
She made her way toward Luca slowly, each step a battle against muscles that screamed for rest.
Her legs shook beneath her. Her arms hung heavy at her sides. But she forced herself forward until she stood before him, meeting his eyes despite the fatigue that threatened to pull her under.
"How?" She asked, her voice hoarse and barely audible. "How were you able to endure for so long? Where does all that stamina come from?"
Her brow furrowed with genuine concern—and genuine curiosity.
"Are all humans like this? I was always taught that centaurs possessed far greater endurance than ordinary humans But if every human is like you..."
She shook her head grimly. "Then humans are far more terrifying than we ever imagined."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the exhausted centaurs.
They had always believed in their natural superiority over humans.
It wasn’t arrogance—it was simply biological fact.
Their lower bodies gave them speed and power that no two-legged creature could match.
Their stamina, honed by generations of evolution and relentless training, should have far exceeded anything a human could bring to bear.
And yet, here they were. Forty centaurs, completely defeated. And here he was—one human, stripped of his divine powers, still standing.
It was enough to make them genuinely frightened of what other humans might be capable of.
To their surprise, Luca simply shook his head.
"It’s not as simple as that." He said before he tried to clasp his hands behind his back in a thoughtful pose, but the motion made one of his blade-arms scrape against his own shoulder.
"Ouch—! Right. Still have swords for hands."
He settled the blades at his sides and continued.
"There are several reasons I was able to last this long. The first one—" He raised one blade-hand, gesturing vaguely. "—is that I didn’t actually use much energy during the fight."
Confusion rippled through the centaurs. What did he mean, he didn’t use much energy?
They had been attacking him for hours. The sheer volume of strikes, the endless parries, the constant movement—how could that not require enormous amounts of energy?
Luca saw their expressions and elaborated.
"The entire time we fought, I remained in exactly the same spot without moving. The only parts of my body that moved were my arms. And even then, I wasn’t using my own strength or force to strike at you."
He demonstrated, moving his blade-arms in a small, controlled arc.
"I was parrying—redirecting your momentum, using the force of your own attacks against you. Most of the time, our swords only made contact for a split second before your blade slid away."
"So, I wasn’t really holding against your strikes. I was simply...guiding them elsewhere."
Understanding dawned on their faces.
It was true. Every single time they had struck at Luca, they had felt the contact for only the briefest instant before their blades simply...slid away.
He never held the clash. Never contested their strength. He simply redirected their force, letting physics do what his muscles did not need to.
"Because of that." Luca continued. "I was operating in what you might call an energy-saving mode. You were doing most of the work yourselves."
He tried to raise two fingers to illustrate his next point, then remembered his hands were still swords.
"Second—there’s the armor you’re wearing."
Every centaur looked down at their own chest plates.
"Your armor is robust. Thick. I’m fairly certain that if an enemy were to strike you, a sword or arrow wouldn’t penetrate."
He pointed his blade toward Sigrid’s chest piece.
"But that same armor is heavy. Bulky. I’m certain every single one of you can feel its weight pressing down on you right now."
Nods of acknowledgment rippled through the gathering.
Their armor was their life—they would never dream of going without it in a real battle.
But it was undeniably heavy. It had taken years of intense conditioning before they could wear it comfortably, and even now, it exacted a toll during extended combat.
"You should have removed it from the beginning." Luca said with a slight shrug. "After all, I never had any intention of actually harming you."
Several centaurs groaned, pressing their palms against their foreheads.
"He’s completely right. I can’t believe we overlooked something so obvious."
"It makes so much sense. Why didn’t we think of that earlier!?"
Even Sigrid felt a flush of embarrassment. She was the commander. She was supposed to think of things like this. And yet the simple, obvious solution had never even crossed her mind.
Luca chuckled at their reactions, finding their collective chagrin rather endearing.
"The third reason is simply that you are centaurs."
That drew confused looks. What did being centaurs have to do with anything?
"Is that supposed to be a insult, Hero?" Sigrid doubtfully asked.
"No. I’m just saying that your bodies are large." He explained. "Much larger than a human’s."
"Because of this, you require significantly more energy to sustain yourselves over extended periods."
"Of course—" Luca quickly added. "I’m certain that when it comes to running or galloping across open fields, you can maintain your pace for impressive distances.
"After all, a horse’s body is built for exactly that. Long-distance travel and sudden bursts of speed are your natural strengths."
Proud expressions appeared on several faces.
Galloping across the plains was what centaurs were made for. They could travel for hours without tiring, covering distances that would leave humans collapsed in exhaustion.
This was why they served as the queen’s primary escort whenever she ventured beyond the village—they could move from place to place with unmatched efficiency.
"But." Luca continued. "I suspect it doesn’t work the same way when it comes to sword fighting."
The pride dimmed slightly.
"When you run, your body knows exactly how to move in the most coordinated, energy-efficient manner possible. Your muscles work in perfect harmony. Nothing is wasted."
He gestured toward their swords.
"But swinging heavy blades around? Making erratic, explosive movements in every direction?"
He shook his head. "That consumes your already limited fuel supply far more rapidly than sustained running ever would. Your bodies simply aren’t optimized for prolonged stationary combat."
Once again, they had no choice but to acknowledge his perfect observation.
Their primary duty was to protect the queen. And if danger ever arose, their main objective was to escort her to safety as quickly as possible—not to engage in hours-long battles of attrition.
Their training, their conditioning, their entire approach to combat was built around that fundamental mission.
Luca had identified the weakness in their design with precision.
The centaurs deflated.
"He’s right again..."
"I hate how right he keeps being."
---
"And finally..."
Luca pointed the sword at himself, a smug grin spreading across his face.
"...I’m just built different."
A collective groan rippled through the centaurs.
"Even as a mortal, my vitality was far beyond normal humans."
A momentary shadow passing over his eyes as he looked into the distance and said,
"I had to survive things that would have broken anyone else."
Sigrid caught that fleeting sadness in his gaze, wondering what past he was remembering.
But before she could ask, Luca’s expression flipped into a wicked, teasing grin.
"Plus, I have dozens of wives back home!" Luca added shamelessly. "If I didn’t have this kind of stamina, I’d be the laughingstock of the entire realm."
"A man’s gotta satisfy his household, you know?"
Confusion rippled through the centaurs. What was he talking about?
What did his wives have to do with—
Then understanding hit like a thunderbolt.
Every face in the gathering flushed crimson simultaneously.
"That’s...That’s what he meant?"
"By stamina?"
"Oh my god!"
"He’s talking about—"
"Stop. Just stop!"
Even Sigrid felt heat creeping up her cheeks. But she couldn’t deny the logic. With stamina like this, it was no wonder his wives were so happy when she saw them last time.
Some of the bolder centaurs even found their thoughts wandering to dangerous territory.
If he was this full of vitality even as a mere mortal, what must he be like when he regained his full powers?
The image that formed in their minds—of Luca going on and on with all his wives, every single night, without pause, without rest, without limit—made their blushes deepen to shades they hadn’t known were possible.
Poppy, perched on Thea’s back, tilted her head with genuine innocence.
"Thea? What exactly is he talking about? Satisfying his wives? I don’t understand at all."
Thea’s face, already pink, darkened further. "I...I have no idea, my lady. None whatsoever."
She was lying, of course. She understood perfectly well.
And her mind had also wandered to thoughts of the Hero’s wives back at the elf village and then, for some reason, to thoughts of the male centaurs she knew, and the stories about their vitality, and—
She let out a deep sigh of utter disappointment.
—
But just as the atmosphere threatened to become irreversibly awkward, one of the younger centaurs suddenly popped her head up from where she had been sprawled on the ground.
"Hold on." She said, her voice cutting through the embarrassed silence.
"Does this mean...we’ve lost?"
The question jolted everyone back to reality.
She continued, her voice rising with dawning horror.
"We literally have forty centaurs here. Forty! And every single one of us who fought the Hero lost. And he’s still standing. Can we even continue at this point?"
The centaurs looked at one another. They looked at their trembling hands, their shaking legs, their comrades collapsed across the field.
They knew that their bodies had nothing left to give.
"We can’t." Someone admitted quietly. "We’re completely spent."
"Even if someone tried to fight, they’d collapse before reaching him."
"There has to be someone...anyone..."
Eyes turned toward Thea.
"Thea, you have to fight him! You’re the only one who hasn’t exhausted herself. Please—just try. Even if you can’t win, just try to land a single scratch!"
But Thea only gave them a helpless smile.
"First of all, protecting Lady Poppy is my primary duty. That hasn’t changed."
She paused, then shook her head with quiet resignation.
"And secondly...even if I stepped forward, I don’t think I could last long enough to make a difference. The Hero might be sweating. He might be breathing heavily. But I can see it in his eyes—"
She glanced toward Luca.
"He still has enough fuel in his tank to handle me. And probably several more after me."
The words fell like a death sentence.
The centaurs realized, with sinking hearts, that it was truly over.
They had thrown everything they had at Luca and it still hadn’t been enough.
Their commander was going to be humiliated. Mounted. Ridden like a common steed. And there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.
"Are we really about to lose?" One knight whispered, her voice cracking.
"Is Commander Sigrid really going to be disgraced because we weren’t strong enough?"
"If we had known it would come to this...we never would have accepted the bet. We never would have risked so much!"
Sigrid stood in silence, her heart sinking lower with every word. This was it. Everything was about to go down the drain.
She was about to be humiliated in the worst possible way—in front of her entire brigade, in front of her Queen, in front of the Hero who had systematically dismantled everything she thought she knew about combat.
For one weak moment, she considered trying to argue her way out of the bet.
Maybe she could claim the terms weren’t clear.
Maybe she could find some loophole, some technicality—
No!
She was a centaur. She had made a promise. And no matter how much it destroyed her, she would follow through. That was what honor demanded.
She opened her mouth to concede defeat—
"Hold on now!"
Every head turned toward the voice.
It came from the edge of the gathering.
A figure who had watched every exchange, studied every movement, and waited for precisely the right moment to speak.
"How can you all give up when the the main character hasn’t stepped into the arena yet?"