Konrad didn't reach the Heavens alone.
He made it there with a friend, albeit rather confused. With an ally who had passed out a while back. And with the memories of a tortured soul who decided to live on only in his mind.
Oh. And it might be worth mentioning the enormous concrete Sarcophagus they carried along.
One housing Earth's worst nuclear disaster—
About to go off and explode for the third time.
And yet, when he finally got to see his first wife again, none of that seemed to matter.
"Welcome back, Konny Boy," Lily chirped.
A freckled ginger torpedo, launching herself into his arms and neck.
To say he had missed her would have been an understatement.
So Konrad decided not to say anything, either, and embrace her instead.
Still, as much as he hoped this moment would last, the next thing he knew was—
They were no longer in that half-frozen control room, in fact, not even in Heaven.
"M-Master," Eyna yelled, rushing in for a surprise hug of her own.
And she did that before Konrad even realised that she was there at all.
Or where they were in the first place?
Like, it definitely wasn't the CNPP's control room or the fluffy clouds of Heaven, and—
As much as the architecture and those faces around seemed familiar, the place wasn't.
It had to be somewhere in Halaima, sure, but it wasn't his old, temporary office. Nor his humble home. Or anything he remembered he owned in that city, but—
"W-welcome back, Lord Halstadt," Stella greeted him next, a lot more subdued, yet—blushing?
And despite the lavish suite these women had waited for him in, they all seemed rather tired.
But still, nothing said home better than meeting all his haremettes at once, although—
Now that he thought about it, one of them was still missing.
"You did WHAT?!"
Ah. And there she was, the archangel Gabrielle, in her usual frilly dress and pretty face.
Except, she had entered like a tornado, even with her wings hidden, and her frame looking fragile. But her eyes—those steel-grey eyes carried enough strength to force him back a step.
And everyone fell silent, except—
"Hey, Gabby, get this," Lily chirped, standing between her and Konrad. "He brought that guy."
And she went ahead and pointed at the confused Dmitry.
"Wait. W-where are we, mate?" the Captain of the Ukrainian Military stuttered, looking around.
Which must have made his first wife realise her mistake, because—
"Sorry, I meant that guy."
She nodded at the Stalker next, still passed out on an expensive-looking carpet.
What the hell was this place?
No. Better yet. How much did it cost?!
"I'm not talking about that," Gabrielle shouted, her voice rattling the entire room. "That was his mission from the start. But what did you do to the Heavens, you absolute—"
Konrad missed the last words, and that might have been for the better.
Lily placed her soft, warm hands over his ears, pressing herself against him from behind.
Oh, wow. How much did he miss this?
Well, not the yelling, but that was also part of the course.
And if they weren't in the middle of a shouting match, he'd definitely grab her, and—
'Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, Macho Man,' a sudden voice made him shudder. 'I'm still here, you know. And I don't know how to feel about thoughts like that flying around.'
Konrad blinked.
Paula? He almost forgot about her, but now that she mentioned—
"First off, these are my thoughts, and you're the one intruding on my mind," he grumbled, pointing out. "And where's your original, by the way? We brought her, too, so go home, and—"
"Who the hell are you talking to, Konrad?!" Gabrielle demanded, still seething with rage.
Lily had removed her hands, and his second wife was staring him down with a murderous gaze.
Crap. He said those out loud, didn't he?
'You did, you lazy ass,' Paula confirmed. 'But to answer your question, she told you she'd leave her memories and power with you, remember? Well, voila. Here I am now in all my glory.'
What? Wait.
Hold on.
Konrad did recall something like that in the middle of drawing that magic circle, but—
He never agreed to it once.
"Right, right," Lily chirped as he was still a bit lost in thought. "He brought home another woman, I'm afraid. But at least they left the vessel behind, so I'm fine with it for now."
"Screw him and his women," Gabrielle seethed, still looking murderous. "The Heavens—"
"Oh, so did that thing finally explode?"
Ah. Shit.
Why didn't he think of this before?
Right. When he opened a portal out of Earth, they brought the entire CNPP Block 4 along.
He did that so it wouldn't explode and irradiate half of Europe, and the demoness told him it was possible. But that was as far as he thought about it, and seeing her smug face now—
"So it was your idea?!" the archangel screamed, taking a menacing step towards Lily.
"What? No, no, no, no," she protested, flashing a shit-eater grin. "It was all Konrad. I have only encouraged him to do it. To save all those human lives. Why? What happened to your crib?"
Oh, fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
So that's why Lily transferred the three of them out the moment they arrived.
That thing actually went off, straight up in the Heaven?!
Did the others manage to get out? No, he had to say something, and do it fast, but—
"I didn't—I had no idea," Konrad muttered, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.
"Do you have any clue how big of a mess you've made?!" Gabrielle scolded, her pretty face distorted in anger. "It'll take thousands—no, tens of thousands of years—until it's livable again."
Ugh. Thank the spirits it didn't actually go off on Earth, then.
"You're in a hurry or something?" the demoness asked with a shrug, and—
That's why she encouraged that plan.
He was only away for a few weeks, but he already forgot.
The constant rivalry and infighting between them, even if they had more or less the same goals.
No wonder the other two haremettes looked so tired, but—
No. Even if these two kept going at each other, they shouldn't have been this exhausted.
"Gabby," Konrad muttered, trying to ease the tension. "It's my fault. I didn't think it through, and I'll take full responsibility. Here, these are Artifacts from the Exclusion Zone. With these—"
"You'll clean things up in the next hundred years?" the archangel scoffed.
Um. Not what he had in mind, but—
"You can do that yourself, Heavenspawn," the demoness said with a smirk. "I plan on spending the next hundred years with Konrad, and in a shared bed."
And with that, their argument shifted.
"We have no time for that," Gabrielle huffed. "Besides, aren't you forgetting something important? I'm his wife, too, you know. You can't monopolise him like that."
Phew. Okay. Embarrassing as this was, at least they weren't trying to kill each other now.
But realising they still had an audience—
And not only that, Dmitry was staring, wide-eyed, with Strelok twitching on the ground, and—
Yeah. He was back.
And it would have taken a while to pick up their pace again.