The Gamer Chapter 1066 – Christmas Family 1 – The Front (Patreon)

John Newman was inside a nice little house in the suburbs of New York City. Of course, ‘nice’, ‘little’, and ‘house’ truly stood for ‘sizable mansion that was almost as much glass as it was concrete’. The only reason why John, who valued having a safe retreat from the public eye immensely, was fine with such a construction being his place of habitation was because it would be short lived. Even though the suburbs took the shape of a gated community of rich people’s summer homes, the merest potential that someone could climb over the community gate, then over the wall of the estate, and finally hide themselves among the meticulously kept garden to look over the pool and through the oversized windows, separated only by the white walls of the mostly angular, three-floor building, was enough for John to hate the idea of sleeping in there.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to.

“Honestly, there were probably better houses to buy,” the Gamer pointed out, as he walked about the place, making sure their preparations were in order. Since the sole reason they had acquired the estate was to back the lie he told his mundane parents, it looking entirely brand new would have been an issue. Beatrice had gotten a conceptual heart attack when John went about deliberately adding imperfections around the house. The only way the passive maid had survived had been by aggressively decorating the environment with photos of the harem or other keepsakes, fake, replicas or real. “This just doesn’t feel like a place I would live in.”

“Believe it or not, ya nagging fuck, there’s not that many houses for billionaires on the market at any given time.” Scarlett’s response was sharp, partly because this wasn’t the first time John had raised the complaint. As the one who had bought the house for them, the technomancer was the one who had to defend that decision. “There’s not that many and the upkeep on these things if no one buys them is insane. You have to hire a gardener just to keep the damn lawn presentable, not to mention the cleaners. There’s more than one building firm that went bankrupt because they decided they would cater to this niche market.”

“Right, right,” John conceded with a sigh. “Sorry to bring it up.”

“It’s an awful fucking house,” she agreed with him, while pouring herself a glass of wine. The matching bottle had actually come with the house and cost about as much as regular people’s monthly rent. “The entire place reeks of pretentious blandness and it somehow STILL has too few power sockets!”

“Ya can just will electricity into existence anyway, Red,” Rave pointed out, calling Scarlett one of her seldom used nicknames.

“I’m a technomancer, my trait is willing signals and frequencies into existence.”

“You’re the best around, though, nothing is gonna keep ya down.” Rave’s half hummed counter caused half of the gathered room to groan. “Ya just hate me cause ya ain’t me!” Rave declared.

“Shut it before I burn your motherfucking pants off!” Salamander shouted across the room. The elemental was, like the rest of the supernatural entities around, in her human disguise. Which made it difficult not to bend her over the boorishly white leather chair she was sitting in. The same was true for Siena.

A human disguise for Gnome meant just a change of clothing. For Sylph and Undine, they only had to have the colour of their eyes muted to a level of amber that was rare but not impossible. Technically speaking, the slime girl overhauled her entire appearance, but she did this on an almost daily basis, so that wasn’t a big event. Also, Sylph’s hair was a bit shorter, so that she could conceivably walk with it, but the difference was barely noticeable compared to the absence of the invisible breeze that seemed to accompany it. Siena and Salamander disguising themselves always gave them a different kind of flair entirely.

The midnight elemental had brown skin of the milk-chocolate variety, while her hair remained the usual silky black. Her eyes turned from their black sclera, to regular white, the silver of her irises went to a brilliant blue. For whatever reason, whenever Siena was ‘forced’ to use her disguise, she put on the sexy teacher look, lacking only the glasses and, because they were in ‘their home’, the high heels. The rest of the harem wore casual clothes in the same vein as yesterday.

Next to her, Salamander sat as a woman of a tanned, Mediterranean skin colour, almost matching Nathalia’s. Her buzz cut was muted from bright, flaming orange to a reasonable level of dark red. Her different coloured eyes were both replaced, one with a simple brown, the other with a mild green. Both of them were missing their tails.

Fundamentally, the elementals’ appearance changes were available to them because of their Tier. What once had been entirely reliant on outside items had been something that became unlocked as a natural ability at Tier 5. For that same reason, Copernicus and Stirwin were present, each as a non-glowing variant of the animal they represented. In Stirwin’s case, this also meant his body was less long-limbed, so he could pass as a species that actually existed.

While they could pass without any further help from items, they still opted to use some. Salamander wore a choker, covering up her Lorylim scars. The network of jagged lines was an imprint on her magical body and thus visible through her inbuilt disguise. While they could pass as tattoos, their scope made Salamander appear a lot more delinquent than she meant to. Undine’s shapeshifting abilities were more advanced, so she could overcome that hurdle. The items they needed for Copernicus and Stirwin were non-magical in nature, just a collar and a lockable, metal cage in the garden.

The other girls in the harem that needed item assistance were Eliana, due to her somewhat ghoulish appearance; Rave, who still hadn’t figured out if it was even possible to hide her feline features; Scarlett, due to her red eyes; and Lydia, due to her colour-shifting eyes. There were also John’s own Lorylim scars and blindness. Further compromises that had been made were the three artificial maids shifting their white hair to black for the duration of the visit and the hiding of any and all Lover’s Will marks. John didn’t think his parents would tell him it was improper that they all got matching tattoos, but it would be weird.

It would have been a lot easier to hide several of the girls, and the two animals definitely, from his parents. However, John had decided that he would be as truthful with his parents as he could be. There were some necessary fronts, like the house or his contact lenses, in order to avoid particularly large questions. None of the women in his life needed to be shut out any longer.

Out of John’s harem, his parents had only met Rave, Lydia, Metra, Aclysia, Beatrice and (then) Eliza. The entire rest hadn’t been in contact yet. Of course, John had periodically been in contact with his parents, updating them on his life situation in this way or another. One of the details he could share, and that his parents were always eager to hear about for reasons of, no doubt, grandparenthood, was his harem life and the size thereof. That he was banging an older woman he hadn’t seen in a while was one thing, that she was a ten millennia old dragon goddess that was being abstinent after fucking three times a day for the majority of those ten millennia another.

“Alright, final rehearsal,” John said, looking around the exceedingly spacious, white-walled, white-furnitured, light-wooden-floored living room. It had so much less personality than his actual apartment, but the group picture above the TV was at least reasonably charming. They had taken it just a few days ago.

“Do we have toooooo?” Sylph moaned, in the non-sexy way. “I feel like we have repeated the story so often that my brain is starting to delete memories of fun times to make room for it.”

“Well, as our resident airhead, if you can repeat to me the entirety of our story, I’ll drop the rest of the rehearsal,” John told her, if only because the rest of the harem already looked tuned out. His desire to keep things in perfect order competed against wanting to keep his women content and, in this instance like most others, the latter was dominant.

“Okaaaayyyy, so: you’re really rich because you started a software development company, which Lydia helped get off the ground, called NewWares, which is a so-so name, but it wasn’t licensed, so we went with that. The company is doing pretty well, it’s getting sub-contracted by bigger stuffs like Apple and Microsoft, but the reason why you personally are so rich is actually because you divested your worth and now have your fingers in a lot of pies. As does Scarlett, who you know because of shareholder meeting stuff. Nathalia also comes from the business world. Gnome, Sally, Undine, Siena and I, we aren’t actually called that but we were part of an elemental-themed, kinda witchy sorority and it kinda stuck after we dropped out and-slash-or graduated, so we prefer those names now. You know us from a disco evening Jane dragged you to one time and we really, really, really started to like you – even if Siena wanted to stab you for a bit.”

“I was sceptical,” the midnight elemental put a considerably less worrying wording into the room.

“But then you stabbed her with your dick and it was fine!” the cheery, green-haired woman continued. “Anyway, Metra, you picked up at a bar. Lee here, you met through League of Legends, which you both will insist is the only good thing that ever came out of that game, ever, forever, ever, ever. Aclysia and Beatrice are twins… Jewish, for some reason...”

‘The reason is that we didn’t properly think things through last time,’ the Gamer thought. ‘Could have gone with Japanese or something else that fits their Asian looks, but no, Jewish… just to dodge the question of why they won’t eat with us one time… absolutely genius.’

“…and Momo is a Korean girl that moved over after an exchange semester. Oh, also Nia is the house ghost.”

There were some chuckles in response to that, while the pariah blankly stared as she was prone to do. John noticed that she wasn’t focused on anybody in the process, only drilled a hole into the air with her gaze. That part was actually unusual. “Everything alright, Nia?” he asked, a tad worried.

Her blue eyes wandered over to him. After about thirty seconds, she answered, “Generally speaking, yes.”

That had John furrow his eyebrows. Usually, when Nia’s answers were confusing, it was because they came incredibly delayed or jumped between topics. That the formulation was vague, that barely happened, especially in recent times. “And specifically speaking?” he went a little bit deeper. Nia tensed up where she stood and went back to staring into the air.

“…Nia?” Rave echoed her boyfriend’s worry. “Are ya not feeling well?”

“I am fine,” the pariah responded.

Momo stood up and walked over to where they had left their phones. The habit of putting all their handheld devices into one place for when they were called was maintained even if they wore clothes.

“You don’t sound fine,” Sylph was the third to voice worry, “is this about the ghost joke? Was that insensitive? It was, wasn’t it? Sorry, I just like to babble, you can scold me during the next harem gathering if you want…”

“It’s not the joke that’s the problem,” Nia responded.

“Hey, Scarlett, can you come over here really quick?” Momo, with one of the phones in hand, asked for the technomancer. Taking that opportunity to leave the emotional conversation immediately, Scarlett stood up from the couch and walked over. When it came to emotional conversations in the harem, the redhead was always happy to bow out – not because she didn’t care, but because she did care and had no idea how to be of help.

In the meantime, the feline Lightbearer continued on with the blank in the room, “So there is a problem.”

There was prolonged silence, during which Nia opened and then closed her mouth several times. “Yes.” That was all that finally left her, her face a cold mask, still beyond her common expressionlessness.

“Fucking hell, you creepy blonde cunt,” Eliana blurted out, “can you please just take a page out of my book and have a fucking emotional breakdown so we can comfort you?!” It didn’t take a single disapproving gaze, although there were several, for the currently brunette woman to realize that she stepped way out of the acceptable discourse. “Oh fucking shit… I… fuck, sorry, I’m just being a selfish cunt...”

Putting a hand on Eliana’s head, the blonde patted her gently. “I forgive you.”

“…That’s fairly easy…” Scarlett murmured in the background.

“Come on, Nia,” now it was Undine who exerted some, reasonable, pressure, “it’s about John’s parents, isn’t it?”

Nia went rigid again. Without a word or sound, John gestured for her to approach. Once she was close enough, he pulled her into his embrace and kissed the back of her neck. “You can tell us everything.”

“Not what I don’t know how to tell, darling.” It was almost chiding, in a sweet way, as if she was gently telling a kid to back off. A tone she certainly hadn’t meant to use. John had to guess that her appreciation for his love was mixing with her attempt to report the truth as best she could, and that created some issues.

“I’ll take something vague. We can work things out together from there,” John promised, swinging softly left to right with her slender body between his arms. When she wasn’t able to tell him anything even after a full minute passed, he asked, “Are you afraid you’ll be left out today? Because my parents can’t sense you?”

“No… I…” the corners of Nia’s mouth dropped, her eyes were downcast and John’s heart fell upon seeing her miserable. He wished to kiss her better, but that alone wouldn’t do it. Waiting patiently, he heard her explanation. “I want them to know me. I never cared for mundane people. Being unnoticed is normal for me. They’re your parents and I love you. I just wish… it was different this one time.”

The Gamer gently caressed her shoulders and looked over to Momo and Scarlett. Returning to the couch, the two brought the phone back with them. The artificial support presented it to Nia. “Look, it might not be the genuine thing but Scarlett put a voice recording function in the Fusion communication app. If you leave a message, John could play it to them later.”

‘Does that work?’ John asked Momo mentally.

‘Are you asking if I would seriously suggest something that then doesn’t work and break Nia’s heart? What kind of monster do you think I am?’ Momo shot back with a level of genuine offense.

‘No, I’m just wary… you can’t record pariah’s normally. They don’t even appear on cameras to mundanes.’

“Does that work?” Nia echoed the question, several seconds later.

“Technically speaking, no,” Scarlett answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “We still have no idea how it comes about that mundanes can’t perceive anything about pariahs no matter the circumstances, so it’s not like I can just cut that out of the waveform. Research on the matter is…” realizing that she was drifting off, the technomancer swallowed and changed to the emotional topics, “…not important. What I can do for you is take what is recorded and reconstruct it as a deepfake voice. It’ll take a bit to process, especially so early in the program, so don’t expect to hold a conversation, but you can at least send them a message.”

“And then you can listen to their response,” John promised. “It’s not the same, I know…”

“It’s a miracle,” Nia whispered and took the phone. Her smile was as bright as the summer sun and almost as golden as her hair. “I love you. Thank you. You’re the greatest.”

Scarlett scratched her chin in a clearly discomforted fashion. “Just record your damn message,” she bashfully grumbled and went to sit back down.

Without delay, Nia went ahead. The room was silent, more out of respect than practicality. “Hello. My name is Nia Fae. I’m terribly sorry that I… that we can’t meet.” Taking a pause, letting out an audible breath, Nia continued in a terribly weak tone. “Your son always speaks of you in high regards and…” She quivered. Rapidly, she blinked, her smile contested by less jovial emotions. “…and he makes me so happy. I wish I could meet you… I truly do. Instead, all I can do is wish you… a happy Christmas and thank you… thank you for raising the one who allowed me to find love, true love… thank you so much…”

Without hesitation, Nia pressed the end message button. For about a minute, it wasn’t quite clear whether she would start crying or not. In the end, she managed to blink back the tears and continue smiling.

“You are gorgeous,” John whispered into her ear.

Half an hour later, the door rang.