The Gamer Chapter 1050 – Making Time and Flying Time (Patreon)

“John… J-john… hey… could you… uhm…”

The Gamer groaned and did his best to keep his eyes closed. “Wake up?” he asked in a protesting, groggy voice. His body was doing just that, but his mind wanted to indulge a bit longer in the fulfilment of holding onto Nia’s slender body. The pariah was not the one shaking him, though. John was tired, but he knew his girls by their voices.

“Yes, that… if you would be so nice?” the cuddle rock presented the genuine question and softly shook him some more.

With a resigned inhale, John rolled on his back and opened his eyes. As he blinked the sleep away, it slowly dawned on him why Gnome was there. “How late is it?” he asked.

“4 in the afternoon,” she told him.

John had scheduled himself to return to work by noon. The office workers would have expected him to be there. Likely, they had all sorts of things lined up for him that were now left untended to. “Oh,” he just said and sat up. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?” he was careful to make it sound only curious, not like any sort of attack.

“You don’t get to sleep that often,” Gnome told him. “You’re doing your best not to overwork yourself and you’re generally successful with that, but you’re always considering something. I thought it’d be good for your mind to be calm some time.”

“Hmm.” The Gamer had a hard time disagreeing with that. After the prolonged nap, he felt quite zen. “Do they need me badly at the administration?” As much work as John did, he did do his best so the Fusion administration got continuously more self-sufficient. Eventually, when things truly stabilized, he wanted to have the luxury of choosing his work hours.

“Badly? No… I wouldn’t say so…” Gnome sounded a bit off. While John could have just pried what she was not talking about from her mind, he preferred not to do so. As great as mental communications were when it came to quickly exchanging intel or the truth of emotions, there was something about the human experience that made talking face to face fundamentally more satisfying. Probably the desire of the brain to put a face and expressions to a voice.

“Well, then I have time for a snack before I go.” The Gamer turned to the pariah who had been rustling in the sheets next to him. “You want anything, Nia?” he asked her, as she grabbed his arm lovingly. Her blue eyes looked at him, then ponderingly wandered towards the ceiling.

“Cheese,” she answered.

John laughed, “Let’s see what Aclysia has left in the refrigerator.”

The answer to that was a lot. The fridge that contained food for a harem worth of people was consequently large. As a matter of fact, Aclysia had recently upgraded to a double-doored model, custom made by one of her sponsored companies that produced household appliances. Even that massive silver thing was unable to hold more than one or two days’ worth of meals at any given time. It was helpful that elementals didn’t tend to eat much, even though Eliza usually made up for that.

“I hope Eliza comes back before Christmas,” Nia suddenly said, likely having similar thoughts.

“It would be sad if she missed her birthday,” Gnome supported.

“Every day without her is sad,” John sighed and grabbed a couple slices of cheese from the corner of the fridge dedicated to toppings. Taking them off him, Nia placed them on the slices of homemade bread Aclysia had baked yesterday. It had been the first time in over a week she had gotten to make a loaf herself. It was dark bread, which the maid insisted was much better for health reasons. Whether that was true or not, John appreciated the heartier taste of dark bread and the extra tastiness of food that his first maid had prepared with love.

He topped his own bread with some pepperoni slices and then sat down next to Nia. Not wanting to be left out, Gnome took the chair to John’s right.

“So,” the Gamer said, while chewing on his first bite, “what’s happening?”

“One of the ambassadors already arrived and insists they want to be greeted by you personally,” Gnome told him. “Beatrice tried to keep them off but…”

“Let me guess, she only made them angrier?” John theorised.

“Yeeaaaah,” the season elemental let out a chuckle that sounded hollow, “and then Aclysia got involved…”

“Oh no.” The Gamer knew where this was going.

“…and she kinda lost her patience and maybe threw them across the room.”

John groaned and gently nudged the maids’ consciousnesses with his own. What he found there was smug satisfaction on one side and a complicated web of anger, regret about having caused more work for her Master, and immense glee that someone that was interrupting John’s nap was in pain. Which clued him in that the situation was still ongoing.

“Where are they from?” John asked.

“The Deathworm Cult,” Gnome informed him.

“Huh, a Mongol then. Not the person I expected to show up ahead of time,” John laughed to himself. “Which was a pretty big reason that they won so many battles in their prime, I suppose.” ‘Undine? Are you aware what’s going on?’ he reached out to the abysstide elemental.

‘Already moving there,’ she told him.

‘Great,’ John said and accelerated his eating, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

He was on point with that estimation and dealt quickly with the ambassador. They were surprisingly reasonable, once healed and the maids were out of the room. Demanding a celebratory arm wrestle was about as odd as it got, and they took their loss with proper sportsmanship. The entire situation had been born solely from their insistence of talking to John. After making sure where the ambassador would stay and sending them there, John looked at the story through Aclysia’s eyes. Then he told Nia, who had stuck around, about it.

“You were in the wrong, Aclysia,” the pariah came to the same conclusion as John did.

“Master’s nap time is precious!” the maid defended herself.

“He didn’t even ask to meet me right now, just to meet me,” the Gamer pointed out. “You could have just told them that you will contact them at their earliest convenience.”

“Statement: I tried that,” Beatrice chimed in.

“You said, and I quote: ‘We will mail you at our earliest convenience. The letter may be lost in the trash can.’ How, exactly, did you think he would react?”

“Explanation: he started with a joke, I assumed he could take one,” the passive maid said.

“Fair enough,” John sighed and rolled his neck. “Still, you two need some serious de-escalation training.” Beatrice seemed unfazed. In her capacity as treasurer, de-escalation wasn’t actually that important. All she did was make sure the funds were properly allocated, revenue streams tended to and files kept orderly. It was rare for her to get into any sort of fights, and even when she did, they stayed verbal. Because of her particular demeanour, remaining cool as a cucumber, any discussions she got into ended with the other party relenting or walking away frustrated.

As for Aclysia, she let her head hang in shame and said nothing.

Without any warning, Nia grabbed the older maid by the wrist and pulled her out of the administration office that the whole affair had gone down in. With nothing else to do, John followed them, as did Gnome and Undine. Nia took the weaponized maid, stunned by suddenness and sadness, all the way to John’s office. Once there, she asked a single question, “Do you hate your job, Aclysia?”

“…Yes…” the maid admitted quietly.

John let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t surprising to him. Troubles between what she wanted to do in her position and what the position actually demanded were numerous. Between her job and her household chores, any less devoted (and sleep needing) person would have broken down already. The reason that he hadn’t stepped in any sooner was that, although she loathed her obligations, Aclysia so clearly enjoyed being useful. Whenever he had broached the topic before, she had insisted that she stay in her position. It appeared that what she disliked about being chancellor had devoured that resolve whole.

“There is value in chasing cats,” Nia said next.

Aclysia suddenly laughed at the apparent absurdity of those almost emotionless, concerned words. “What do you mean by that?”

“You shouldn’t walk paths you don’t like,” John stepped in, interpreting the pariah’s words to be more easily understood.

“There’s many places to be, at many times,” Nia said, taking Aclysia’s hands and intertwining their fingers, as if they were in joined prayer. The image got exchanged for that of a dance, when the pariah took the maid along for circling steps in the middle of the office room. “You can’t be at all places at all times. You shouldn’t be in places you hate when there is no need for you to be.”

“My John requires capable assistance in his work,” Aclysia pushed back.

“Aclysia, I can get another chancellor,” the Gamer told her. “You shouldn’t force yourself to be useful in a way you loathe, even if you are perfectly capable of dealing with the majority of demands of the job.” Only when he got no immediate answer, he added, “What do you want to do the most with your day?”

“I want to keep our house in order…” Aclysia told him, “…and Fusion is part of our house.”

“Fusion will be fine without you,” John assured her. “I won’t be fine if you’re miserable. It’s okay if you only want to do the chores, Aclysia. I’m more than happy if you dedicate all you have to taking care of our home.”

“Our home is our part of the world,” Nia added. “Keeping it in order sets our universe in order. Isn’t that more important than Fusion?”

Aclysia was quiet. “Momo… if she returns, she will make a better chancellor, correct?”

“Yes,” John told her directly. “There is no shame in being worse at things than others, Aclysia.”

“There is shame in not carrying one’s burden,” came the swift rebuttal.

“This isn’t your burden,” the Gamer denied. “This is an additional responsibility you chose to carry. That’s a good thing to do, as long as it doesn’t destroy you.” He ended the little dance Nia and Aclysia were having by putting a hand on the side of his beautiful maid’s face. “There’s other ways you can help me govern, if you insist on that. You could be right here with me. I could use two secretaries at this point, especially with how busy Beatrice is otherwise. You two could share that work and you could concentrate on the things that make you happy.”

Aclysia had a downtrodden expression. When she finally said, “Then… I step down as chancellor,” she let out a long, relieved breath. “I’ll clear out the office.”

“You do that,” he told her and gave her a quick goodbye kiss. Truthfully speaking, she could have kept the office. If she still worked in the administration, albeit in a much less diplomatic and autonomous position, she would need some kind of office space. However, cleaning the place would help her order her thoughts. That aside, it was most likely that John would just put a third table next to the glass one Beatrice was using when she was with John in his office.

Having both maids around him most of the time would be pretty good for all of them. Doubtlessly, Aclysia would be happier with most of her day focused around chores and being around her partners. Her desires were simple and traditional in that way. Beatrice was better at independent movement, a stark change from her original inability to decide on doing anything on her own. To be exact, Beatrice still had issues finding things to do on her own, but she was more than capable of thinking outside the box by now. As for John’s part, it would certainly be nice to always have someone in the room responsible for organizing files.

“Good job on broaching the topic, Nia,” John told the pariah.

“I love her, she shouldn’t suffer,” she gave a simple and swift reasoning.

“Yeah, this was bound to happen… good it happened earlier.” John sighed and looked at his desk. With the situation resolved, the day to day called him again. There was a stack of deals on his tables and he had to make a number of calls to make sure every ambassador had a worthwhile stay. They couldn’t and shouldn’t all stay in the Embassy Building. There was too little room in that and the proximity would mean he signalled who his favourites were. A diplomatic tool like that was best used sparingly and with clear purpose.

John sat down, the Mandala Sphere warped its shape into Jack, and the work began. The other girls cleared the room quietly, leaving him to it. None of them stayed and no new ones arrived to go after the usual job. The Gamer had to concentrate solely on his work.

To have three vacation days, he would need to get through a week’s worth of paperwork in a couple of days. The only alternative was to delegate the work to people less able and consequently weaken Fusion’s efficiency. It was the steady, humane and swift approach that allowed the young power to quickly incorporate new territories and erect new towns. Even if they only lost 1% of their speed because John was no longer doing all of the work himself, the knock-on effects this early in their development could mean the difference between excellence and mere survival.

Still, he wanted to have Christmas off.