Surviving marriage in yandere world

The day began as all good disasters do: with a cup of tea, a moment of calm, and absolutely no idea that the universe was two seconds from firebombing your peace.

Rei exhaled, sitting at the breakfast table inside the Academy's Grand Dining Hall. For once, his eggs weren't cursed, his bacon wasn't shaped like a voodoo doll, and no one had slipped dragon pheromones into his toast, yet.

"Maybe," Rei murmured hopefully, "this will be a normal da—"

DING!

[System Notification: New Achievement Unlocked!]

[Title: Most Love Potions Consumed in a Single Semester (14/99)]

[Reward: Mild Resistance to Aphrodisiacs (Level 1) – You are now 2% less likely to make out with furniture under chemical influence.]

[Side Effect: Increased Paranoia. (Oh wait, that's just you.)]

Rei choked on his tea.

"Fourteen?!" he hissed, slamming the cup down. "I don't even remember drinking that many!"

"You didn't," said Rosette matter-of-factly, sitting beside him with her usual tranquil, terrifying smile. "Some were inhaled. Some were injected. One was infused into a cupcake. You liked the cupcake."

"...It had lemon glaze!" Rei cried.

"Yes," she said sweetly. "The perfect vessel."

Across the table, Drakana pouted. "Tch. You should've passed out during my love potion trial. I even included powdered dragon tongue. That stuff's expensive!"

"You added powdered WHAT?!"

Before Rei could leap across the table and demand an antidote (preferably retroactive and divine), the towering cafeteria doors slammed open with a bang loud enough to make his last remaining sanity cell scream.

Seraphina stormed in with holy flames licking her heels, wearing what could only be described as "battle-priestess chic." Her halo was glowing, her robes sparkled with embroidered death threats, and her expression carried the heat of ten collapsing suns.

"Rei!" she shouted across the hall.

He stood slowly, like a man on trial.

"I sense you gained an aphrodisiac resistance."

"That's… that's what the system said."

She clutched her chest like he'd confessed to cheating on a wedding vow that hadn't happened yet. "How dare you evolve past my spiritual attacks. I tailor those to your soul signature!"

Rei made the sign of peace. "Maybe we can—"

A beam of pure holy fire crashed through the ceiling and incinerated the table behind him.

[System Warning: Divine Smite Incoming]

[Activating Passive Skill: "Survivor's Luck"]

[Rei successfully dodges by tripping over a spoon. Elegance: 0/100.]

"THIS IS WHY I HAVE TRUST ISSUES," Rei screamed as he hit the floor.

Emilia, ever the oasis of baffling normality, poked her head in through the side door, holding a thermos.

"Um… I made you some tea, Rei," she said. "It's chamomile!"

Everyone froze.

Rosette tilted her head. "That's not poisoned."

Drakana blinked. "It's not even laced with pheromones."

Seraphina narrowed her eyes. "No holy water?"

Rei peeked from behind a scorched table leg. "...Wait. So you're saying I'm safe?"

Emilia smiled. "Of course, Why wouldn't you be?"

The five yanderes spontaneously began vibrating in rage. Even Rosette, usually as serene as a snow-covered murder scene, narrowed her eyes.

"Rei," Lilia appeared beside him, suddenly wearing a ceremonial robe and holding a marriage license, "let us purify your tea through a Husbandology ritual."

"No," Rei said immediately.

"You don't even know what it is!"

"You're holding a branding iron."

"It's symbolic."

"I'm not drinking anything that ends with a branding."

The system chimed again, far too cheerily.

[New Side Quest: Drink Emilia's Tea Without Being Interrupted (0/1)]

[Warning: Wife Factions at 87% Jealousy Saturation. Explosion Probability: 92%]

Rei blinked. "Wait, that's… that's a real quest?"

A mysterious whistle echoed from above as a chandelier fell and barely missed him by inches.

Rosette calmly finished her tea. "Seems like the jealousy level hit critical mass again."

"I just want hydration," Rei croaked.

Potion Class – Again

As if divine comedy required act two, Rei was forced to attend Potion Class later that day — a place where hope went to die and came back wearing lingerie.

The instructor, Professor Mandragoro, greeted the class with his usual twitching eye and resigned sigh.

"Welcome, students, to your mid-semester Practical Mixing Exam. You will each be assigned a random potion to brew. You may not poison, seduce, or immolate your teammates. Yes, that includes you, Duchess Seraphina."

Seraphina smiled like a devout zealot watching a pyre light.

Rei glanced at the slip in front of him.

"'Potion of Temporary Calm and Rationality'…?"

"Oh no," Rosette whispered from the next bench. "That's a banned substance."

Rei paled. "Why?"

"Because if one of us drinks it, we might stop loving you."

Rei immediately tried to swap assignments with Emilia.

Unfortunately, this led to a magical pairing crystal lighting up in the shape of a broken heart, which—according to Professor Mandragoro—meant they were now assigned to brew the potion together.

Across the room, five spiritual pressure spikes manifested at once.

The temperature dropped. The walls groaned. Mandragoro took a long, slow sip of regret from his flask and muttered, "Not again."

Emilia leaned in with a smile. "I've never brewed a rationality potion before. Want to do it together?"

"I—" Rei paused. "Wait, are you sure you're not… you know… secretly a yandere in disguise?"

She tilted her head innocently. "What's a yandere?"

Rei nearly wept.

The brewing began. Rei crushed lavender petals with mortified precision, while Emilia poured soothing waters into a glass vial shaped like a chubby frog.

"Why is your potion bottle shaped like a frog?" he asked.

"Oh, it's a gift from my dad. He said it's hard to be mad when looking at a frog."

"That man is either a genius or insane."

Unbeknownst to them, five suspicious shadows watched from various air vents, false floorboards, and cursed mirrors.

"I see it," muttered Rosette, scribbling in a leather notebook labeled "Operation Emilia – Plan 12b: Friendly Fire."

"She must be silenced," Drakana hissed from inside a ceiling tile. "She almost made him smile normally."

Lilia, now broadcasting from the radio tower with a megaphone she shouldn't have access to, screamed:

"HUSBAND IS UNDER ENCHANTMENT. INITIATE CODE 'SWEET GIRL SEDUCTION.'"

Rei added two drops of honesty serum into the brew. Emilia added a final sprig of truth mint.

Then a black smoke bomb exploded inside the lab.

Professor Mandragoro didn't even flinch. "Ten points from whoever just tried to summon a tarantula swarm, again."

When the smoke cleared, their potion remained unshaken — a perfect, glittering pale blue liquid.

"Done!" Emilia said brightly.

Rei blinked at her. "Wait… you didn't mess up. You didn't explode anything. And this actually looks…"

He picked up the potion.

The system immediately screamed:

[System Alert: Stable Rationality Detected! Alerting Wife Factions!]

A moment later, five simultaneous alarms rang across the academy.

Rosette's trapdoor exploded open. Drakana fell through the ceiling. Lilia repelled in from a rope made of love letters. Seraphina descended on a ray of divine judgment. And Raeliana burst through the wall with an alchemy cannon strapped to her shoulder.

"DROP THE POTION!" all five shouted at once.

Rei looked at Emilia and Emilia looked at Rei.

He carefully placed the potion on the table.

Emilia sighed. "Do all group projects end with attempted kidnappings?"

Rei said nothing. He just gently slid the rationality potion toward her.

"Keep it. You'll need it more than me."

Five pairs of eyes tracked the potion like wolves scenting prey. One soft "plop" of the vial tipping too far could have started a war.

"Step away from the glassware, Husband," Lilia warned, her ceremonial staff glowing with purifying runes.

"You don't understand," Rei said, holding his hands up. "This is a potion for calm and rationality—things this academy has never experienced—"

"EXACTLY," Drakana snarled. "You think I want to be calm? I thrive on chaos!" Her wings snapped open, scattering embers onto three unfortunate classmates.

Rosette moved first. A blur of lace and steel, she darted toward the table. "Don't worry, I'll just dispose of it." Her hand was inches away from the vial—

—when Emilia casually plucked it up and tucked it behind her back.

The room went dead silent. Even the enchanted beakers stopped bubbling.

"…Why would you protect that?" Seraphina's voice was soft, almost gentle, but her halo was flaring like a sunrise about to vaporize the planet.

Emilia blinked at them. "Because Rei helped me make it and if you're all this tense around him… maybe you need it more than anyone."

A few nearby students gasped and someone whispered, "She's too pure for this world," before getting yanked under a desk.

Rei's jaw dropped. She just challenged the entire Wife Council without realizing it.

The system chimed again.

[New Achievement Unlocked: Accidental Declaration of War]

[Effect: All jealousy-based attacks have doubled in intensity for the next 24 hours.]

Every wife faction member took a step closer. The air crackled, somewhere outside, a weather mage screamed as the sky over the academy turned blood-red.

Rei didn't even try to run this time. He just sighed and muttered. "Alright, who's going to set me on fire first?"

To be continued…