Building a Safe Zone with My Harem In The Post-Apocalyptic World

"You can only have a boyfriend when you are under eighteen."

"Women need to be pure for their husbands, so no sex before marriage."

"Impure women will go to hell and burn forever."

Those were the words Elaine’s mother and the priest kept repeating, over and over, until it became something normal to hear.

It wasn’t until she turned eighteen that she realized something was wrong with all of it. That was when she understood they were in a cult, and she chose to leave, taking a college far away in another country.

Even after knowing all of that, her body never really followed her thoughts.

She still couldn’t stand being touched. Even something simple like a kiss on the cheek from her own mother felt wrong.

But Gideon was different. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

She felt excited when she kissed him. Her heart was beating so loud that she couldn’t focus on anything else, and instead of disgust, there was warmth spreading through her chest when their lips touched.

It was weird and she liked it, especially since it was her first kiss.

Still, she couldn’t move past that kiss. Even when part of her was curious, even when she thought about finally going further, her body just refused to cooperate.

Elaine sighed and played with her braid again.

"Gideon is right... Weirdly, I keep fantasizing about it like it’s good, but I can’t even handle a kiss," she muttered.

Maybe that was why she enjoyed drawing romance mixed with a lot of explicit scenes.

She craved it. She wanted to understand how it felt. That was why she thought it would finally come true with Gideon. And because she was filled with joy, she just asked him out of nowhere.

But at the same time, she was scared to actually experience it herself, because that old conditioning was still there, buried deep.

’If I married him... would that feeling go away?’ she wondered.

But she already knew it wasn’t that simple.

So instead, she just watched him from afar.

Gideon was in the middle of helping the captives move crates and bodies, working as if it were just another task. There was no hesitation in him, no wasted movement, just steady and efficient.

And annoyingly...

He was exactly her type. Hell, he was almost every woman’s type.

Broad shoulders, muscular build, sharp jaw, focused eyes, tall enough to stand out anywhere. Even his arms, tense and veiny from lifting, were something she couldn’t help but notice.

He really looked like a male lead straight out of one of her stories. Now she understood why Summer wanted him to be her baby daddy.

"Yeah... I get it now," she muttered.

When her gaze drifted lower, she could see the bulge clearly through his pants as he took off his blood-stained robe.

Elaine gulped. ’It must be big... how does that even get in?’

She knew anatomy well. She had seen far too many penises from her patients, more than any average woman ever would. She had even drawn them accurately in her hentai manga, paying attention to every detail.

But still, knowing and experiencing were two completely different things.

She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the pain first. The stretch. The pressure. How it would feel before anything even reached that sensitive spot.

And yet, she also knew Gideon was good at sex. Summer wouldn’t stop talking about it when Elaine checked on her fetus two days ago. That girl was too innocent to lie about something like that.

"Shit, I can’t do this anymore," she muttered under her breath.

Before her thoughts could spiral any further, she forced herself to move, stepping in to help the others carry the crates to the trucks and jeeps, working until only a few goods were left behind since they couldn’t possibly take everything.

Gideon let out a tired sigh as they finally finished moving everything. He wiped the sweat from his face and glanced down.

Piggy was already loaded onto one of the trucks along with the goods, his hands and feet tightly bound. The captives no longer seemed afraid of him, but they still kept their distance from Elaine. That suited her just fine. She had no intention of speaking to them. She was exhausted.

When they reached the top of the sinkhole, something unexpected happened, flames suddenly formed in Gideon’s hand.

The sight shocked everyone, including her.

Without hesitation, he threw the fire toward one of the buildings. The flames caught instantly, spreading fast as they consumed the structure, then continued to crawl across the base until, not long after, the entire place was swallowed by a growing sea of fire.

Gideon simply turned around, relaxed as if he had done nothing unusual.

"Alright, let’s go. We should find a safer place," he said with a grin. "Don’t worry. Piggy already told me their usual resting spot. It’s not far from here."

People instinctively stepped aside as he walked toward one of the jeeps and got in, gesturing for the others to follow.

They were lucky that some of the captives knew how to drive. The rest of the vehicles started up one by one and followed behind Gideon in a neat line.

Elaine sat beside him, still watching him, her thoughts lingering on what she had just seen.

She could not ignore it.

"That power... You really are one of the Children of Eden?"

"Yes? I thought we already agreed on that," he replied lightly.

"You know the Children of Eden can only have one ability, right? Creating fire out of nothing doesn’t match your ability to create objects."

Gideon glanced at her, clearly intrigued. "Why would you think that? I can create anything. The crane, building materials, food, drinks, even seeds."

"I don’t know... it just feels like a completely different kind of power."

Elaine frowned slightly, struggling to explain. Summoning fire, something that felt like a force of nature, was not the same as creating objects like a crane. The difference was obvious in her mind, but she could not put it into proper words.

"I think that’s just your feeling. It’s still part of my ability."

She studied him quietly, but could not tell whether he was being honest or not.

That unsettled her.

As a doctor, she had always been able to tell when her patients were lying about their symptoms. Yet with Gideon, that certainty was gone, he felt like a blank space, it’s scary.

In the end, she let it go. It was not worth pressing further.

But she made a mental note. She would never make Gideon her enemy.

They finally arrived at their destination, a skyscraper that had partially sunk into the sand, with only about eighty percent of it still visible above the surface.

The jeeps and trucks were driven inside through a large opening, where Piggy explained that the place had a rail system capable of deploying black veils to seal the entrance.

She showed Gideon the control button, and when he pressed it, the so-called veil, which was actually made of metal, slowly descended until it covered almost the entire opening.

"Wow, there aren’t any members left here, right?" he asked.

Piggy shook her head. "No. It’s time for our big shipment, so I brought all of my men to the base."

Gideon nodded, but his expression shifted slightly as he continued, "Don’t you feel sorry for them? Or hate us for what happened?"

She widened her eyes for a brief moment, but Elaine already knew what her answer would be.

"No. They’re just my subordinates. It’s common for them to die. As for hatred..." she paused briefly before continuing in the same steady tone, "I do feel some toward you, but I know it’s pointless. In this kind of world, things like this happen all the time."

Her answer was cold, almost disturbingly logical.

But Elaine knew her better than that. Piggy was not heartless, she was simply burying everything, reducing her subordinates to nothing more than expendable pieces, convincing herself that death was easier than living just to preserve her own sanity.

She had always been like this, detached to the point it almost felt unnatural.

Even so, the sadness was still there, faint but visible on her face.

’What a fool,’ Elaine thought. ’You haven’t changed at all.’

They moved further inside after that. According to Piggy, their usual resting area was located on the upper levels, which meant they had to take the stairs behind the trucks.

When they reached it, Elaine found the place surprisingly decent. There was a generator near the entrance, easy enough to start, and once the lights came on, the space revealed itself as a wide lounge filled with sofas and tables arranged in the center. At the back, there was even a bar stocked with bottles of strange, aberrant alcohol.

They had clearly prepared supplies as well, with food and water stored nearby. Several rooms were still usable, each containing either a single bed or a twin bed, simple but more than sufficient. Judging from the layout, the building had likely been a hotel before everything collapsed.

The problem was that only a limited number of rooms were actually usable. Many of the beds had rotted beyond repair, some completely broken.

In the end, they had no choice but to share.

Gideon and Elaine.

’Fuck...’

Elaine lay on the bed beside him, turning her back as she shut her eyes tightly, yet her mind refused to quiet down.

The memory of what she had said earlier, not once, but twice, kept replaying in her head like a broken cassette.

’Why the hell did I say that...’

Her confidence back then felt almost unreal now, like it belonged to a different version of herself, one that had no sense of consequence.

Still, she couldn’t just leave it hanging like this.

She cleared her throat, forcing herself to speak. "Gideon, about what I said earlier—"

"Yes, earlier, you wanted me to have sex with you," Gideon cut in without hesitation. "So why don’t we just do it now?"