The Gamer Chapter 1665 – Best Man Finale – The Best Man’s Speech (Patreon)

At the end of an eventful ten hours, about half of which John spent in various private retreats not to exhaust his social batteries, the event reached the final official gathering of the first day. Catering would continue without pause, but the various musicians and game hosts would take a deserved rest before the second day of festivities.

The crowd had diminished when John took to that same elevated position that Irielz and Maximillian had occupied earlier in the day. People had drank themselves into a stupor, gotten tired, or were simply not that interested in what John had to say.

There were still around 250 people in the hall. The number of invited guests was somewhat inflated by their elementals and a few Artificial Spirits. Human Abyssals were the vast majority, with various fantasy races mingled in.

John spent one last moment sorting the words in his head, then began to speak.

“Dear friends, allies, and loved ones of the friends and allies of the man of the weekend. I’ve spent the day mingling with you, enjoying the food and drink provided by our royal host. It’s been my honour and my privilege.”

John let the words settle in the room while the remaining buzz died down and attention shifted fully to him.

“Equally, no, much superior to that, it is my honour and my privilege to deliver this speech as the ‘best man’ of the night, as that title goes. I don’t quite know if it is common to hold this speech the night before the big event, but I suppose that was up to the groom to decide.” His jovial tone coaxed a few weak chuckles from the crowd.

“I spent many hours considering what I would say today. There is much to say about Maximillian. I have not known him for all that long, all things considered, and yet we have seen quite a lot of each other. There’s much I could tell – embarrassing stories, awkward stories, funny stories, glimpses into the man behind the crown.”

John looked at his hands and smiled solemnly, to himself most of all. “But what kind of friend would I be if I spent this opportunity to make fun of him? No, these days belong a third to Irielz, a third to Maximillian, and a third to their shared future. This a time of celebration, not humiliation. So, instead, let me tell you about Maximillian, the best male friend I could have ever asked for.”

The Gamer could not help but feel a little bashful about saying that out loud, while catching the eyes of Maximillian himself. For better and for worse, absolute sincerity towards men wasn’t something he was used to. He pushed through that awkward feeling, though, and forged right ahead.

“Our meeting was, as you all should be well aware of, as adversaries. It wasn’t until the interruption of the tournament, however, that I truly met Maximillian. On the back of betrayal, burdened by the war that had begun, he pulled himself together and stepped straight back onto the fields of battle. Maximillian called himself broken by the experience this morning. On this, I disagree. A man that is damaged and yet still leads his people into war is not broken. You have been and will be a great king, my friend.”

Now it was on Maximillian to blush a bit and avert his gaze. Irielz whispered something in his ear and he poked her in the ribs with his elbow in return. They both chuckled.

“We would become true friends after his self-exile, when we set over to the USA together. Maximillian would spend much time with frivolities while over there, yes, but he would spend more time in the arts. Actor, writer, connection maker, the man of the weekend built himself a kingdom of another name. His charm and wit, we all must acknowledge.

“It is that man that helped me without helping me. He was there to find himself, to recover what he could and remake himself. Unbroken, but bent out of shape and in need of exploration that he valiantly engaged in. A journey on which he may have fallen off the narrow path once or twice. A path that he still stepped back onto, after falling into the thorns of doubt.

“Maximillian… he knows how to look out for people. He reached out to me, even when I did not always answer with the same courtesy. All his bravado takes a backseat when he needs to ask something directly. He’s an honest man, dependable, hard-working, responsible, cautious where he needs to be and assertive when the time calls for it.

“What better friend could I ask for than someone that knows when to test me and knows when to support me? One who followed me into the jaws of another Kingdom, for no outright benefit to himself? That is Maximillian, my friend, and to him I assure that he can call on me if ever he needs it. He has my friendship because he has earned it. It is my absolute privilege to stand here, today, and say that I wish you everything you deserve, best buddy.”

The Gamer stopped there, not knowing what else he could add that would have been as heartfelt. Before anyone could break the sacred silence, Maximillian hurried up the steps. The enthusiasm of the embrace had nothing fake to it, compromising even the elegance of a man raised from the first thought for royal displays.

John answered in kind. The two men embraced each other deeply, chest to chest, ear to ear. “Thank you, brother,” the king mumbled quietly. Both of them swallowed further emotions. The hug broke a moment later. The hall was applauding the scene more than the speech itself, as the two of them descended from the steps, arms around the other’s shoulder.

“Enjoy your last night as a free man,” John joked.

“He will,” Irielz purred and took her groom from John. The two parted with one smile.

John watched his best friend retreat, much of the remaining room following. The only ones that would stay through the night were those confident in their ability to shrug off hangovers or those not invited to the limited space of the main ceremony. He was technically in the former category, but he still did not care to stay.

He rejoined with his haremettes, who waited for him by the table closest to the corridor that would take him home. “That was adorable,” his first fiancée greeted him.

The Gamer waited for a few seconds for her to continue. “No ‘ya forgot to say “no homo” during the speech’ or anything?”

Rave gave him a crooked smile. “Ya can trust me a lil’ more, tiger.” She pointed with her chin at the platform. “That’s the most appropriate time to be heartfelt probably ever.”

“It was a wonderful speech,” Lydia agreed. “Poignant and true.”

“Well, since that was the best thing I’ll say all night, how about we call it a day?” he suggested and guided them all into the corridor. It had been a long and yet very short day. As he walked, he confessed, “Do you think Max will ever need my help with something?”

“Inevitably,” Lydia assured him. “Our lives are long, my love.”

Bound in that sentence was an inevitability. Maximillian was strong, very strong. Likely, he would live several hundreds, if not a few thousand years. Irielz was less powerful, but as a succubus she had a life expectancy that, fortunately, was likely to match his. Still, neither of them would remain forever. John and his harem would likely never age past their physical prime. Somewhere around the middle twenties for his women and, for him, likely around thirty years old, progression of physical aging would cease like it had for Romulus. The Apex wore his giant, aged form because it suited what he wanted to look like, not because he had aged to that degree on a cellular level. Ten millennia had passed the Godslayer by without anything to show for it.

Only Inkaryl had the power to take that away. Beyond it, they had to be killed to die and that was no easy feat. Romulus could survive with a hole where his heart should be. While most of John’s human partners could not pull off that feat, they were so sturdy that it would take even Romulus a deliberate and several minute long effort to end them.

Their immortality would lead to death at some point or another. Everything ended, that was as certain as the next sunrise. Still, they would live for a long, long time past Maximillian and even if the day he would say his final goodbye to his best friend was further away than he, with his twenty years of life, could properly fathom, the knowledge that it would happen eventually was… complicated.

John embraced the sensation, because he dreaded it. It was uncomfortable and that was good. The last thing he wanted to be at the thought of loss was content.

“Why are you hoping for it?” Lee asked, pulling his thoughts back to the present.

“Because I owe him a thing or three,” John answered. “He literally went into the Iron Domain for me – I can only hope to match that in due time.”

“Reliable,” Nathalia hummed approvingly.

“The fuck he is,” Eliana grumbled. “There’ll be a wedding tomorrow and I am still unbred.”

John could not help but snort in amusement at her righteous indignation.

They stepped through the teleporter and emerged back in the Palace. “It is beginning to dawn on me that I regard this place more as my home than my own property,” Lydia mumbled.

“Great!” Rave exclaimed.

The queen gave a blue-eyed, dispassionate stare in response. While everyone scattered throughout the sizable and yet not so sizable living room, she drily stated, “It was meant as a point of concern.”

“For you, maybe.” The first haremette skilfully wove her way behind Lydia. Arms wrapped around her, Rave tugged at the high collar that kept Lydia’s gorgeous dress tightly seated. The first clasp undone, the fabric loosened. Smooth as a tailor’s scissors, the feline Lightbearer’s hand parted the fabric and all the clasps on the way. She stood on her toes, to whisper in the taller woman’s ear, “I love it when ya stay over.”

The scene made John smirk, most of all because the iron demeanour of the queen softened after a long day in public. Steel posture and rigid facial features melted into a no less disciplined yet more human display of half-lidded relaxation. John took a half step forwards, to join the scene.

An intrusive thought made him halt.

“What is it, my love?” Lydia asked, her voice haughty from the caress she had expected to receive. Her dress fell to the ground, leaving her standing in underwear that was close to the lingerie she usually wore around his place. Only the fact that her bra was an actually covering article rather than a decorative underline of her moderately sized chest separated the display of black garter belt and stockings from that wonderful (lack of) attire.

John stepped close first, to put his hand on the queen’s hips. “Alice said Max is better in bed than me. It’s bothering me,” he confessed.

The words had an immediate response. Two immediate responses, actually, one of which was everyone doing a double take on what he just had said. The second was Lydia’s wanton gaze turning obviously disappointed. “John, why do you care about that?”

“You know why,” the Gamer responded. “It’s fine if you don’t answer. It’s just an annoying subconscious thing. It’ll fade by tomorrow.”

Lydia let out a long sigh. “To appease your ego, my love, I found you the greater lover before your erotic aptitude rose to true absurdity,” she informed him.

The Gamer felt as awkward about that as he did having the intel in the first place. He did not like thinking much about the overlap in lovers he had with his best friend. It was one of those points that even the greatest of relationships had where reconciliation was not completely possible, so the topic was best ignored.

Focusing on Lydia, and the pink-haired woman peeking over her shoulder, John whispered, “None of that matters. Only that I keep you content now does.”

“You do so much more than keep me content, my love,” Lydia purred to him. “You give me an anchor and yet make my heart flutter. You are the ground on which to plant my feet and the clouds in which to keep my head.”

“You should write my speeches,” John whispered to her and leaned in for that kiss.

“Me next, tiger,” Rave whispered and put her chin on Lydia’s shoulder. Bowing down a little further, he caught her glossy pink lips. Dresses all over fell in hushed whispers to the floor, to be picked up by Aclysia. The weaponized maid had Lee and Delicia in tow, all three of them required to give those dresses the dedicated and careful wash they needed in a reasonable timeframe.

John, meanwhile, was nudged towards the Couch.

They had plenty of time before the next morning.