The Gamer Chapter 1243 – The Question of ‘What’s Next?’ (Patreon)

There were certain character traits that had a tendency to appear alongside others. People that were angry a lot also tended to be stubborn. Intelligent people were often more neurotic. Submissives had a leaning to also be masochists. Competitive people were often more selfish. That wasn’t to say these traits were always or even most likely concurrent, just that an educated guess could be made.

John was starting to think that ‘crazy’ was accompanied by ‘voracious’.

Granted, a sample size of two was not exactly good enough to make educated guesses. Seeing Eliana and Claire sweep the table clean at such speed that Aclysia actually had to go and whip up a second serving of their opulent breakfast, that was just enough to get John thinking. ‘Probably more to do with their years of not getting proper or any food,’ the Gamer pointed out to himself.

Claire was stuffing her face with only a hint of table manners. In her defence, knife and fork had not been a thing in the Iron Domain. Not like there were any solid foods to utilize them on. Consequently, her mastery of cutlery was non-existent.

“Don’t be such a slob,” Momo reprimanded, while cleaning Claire’s face.

“I can do that myself,” the vampire maid responded, her mouth half full with food.

Momo did not stop the wiping motions. “Can you, though?” she asked and clicked her tongue. “Hold still,” she demanded and started cleaning the other cheek. Despite her tone, it was evident that Momo liked doing this kind of thing. She had been doing it for the past twenty minutes after all.

“I mean, maybe not,” Claire surrendered jokingly after gulping down the food. “My dumbass needs experience to learn though.”

“Speaking of learning,” John saw his in to finally address the elephant in the room, “we need to figure out what exactly you’ll do. As said before, I want you to become part of this world and that means you can’t just freeload in here.”

“I get that, I get that’s the case, and I get that’s what must be done.” Claire nodded three times alongside her anaphora. “So… what do you have in store for me Master?”

“To start with, you’ll be under Aclysia’s wing,” the Gamer said and gestured at the weaponized maid. “You’ll accompany and help her with her daily routines. I want you to keep focusing on trying to read things as you do so.” Because of the mental connection, Claire had gotten to keep downloading common bits of knowledge. She had become knowledgeable, be it on second hand, about how this world operated literally overnight.

Having the knowledge and applying it were two different skills though and John did not want to let her loose without some further tests of her mental aptitude – and soundness. Even if he could look into her mind, there was no telling how she might react to a world that was so completely unlike her own in terms of aesthetics, people, and technology.

Claire, as breakfast came to an end, traced a line in the wooden table with her finger. Once she had reached the edge of what she could comfortably reach, she switched lanes and retreated. Then she advanced again. This went back and forth.

When Aclysia stood up, she snapped out of it. Immediately, she got up and helped with loading the dishwasher. Upon their return, John continued laying out his plans for Claire. “Once you’re comfortable enough, you’ll accompany Beatrice and Momo on their jobs for a few days. Then you’ll tag along Jane for a bit. If anything about what they do fits you, we will integrate you there; otherwise, Scarlett will try to find something for you.”

“I find something for anyone,” Scarlett said while stretching. “So we’re back to normal life then?”

“For the most part,” John responded and sipped on the glass of orange juice that was, among a select few other beverages, still on the table. “We still have some clean-up to do and some of the guests will stick around until we make assurances that they’ll be repaid. I’ll have to ask Max whether yesterday was the greatest joke in history.”

“Why would ya even suggest that?” Rave asked, her dry voice betraying that she found that idea actually offensive. “Ya don’t propose and then sike out.”

“It was April first,” John told her.

Rave furrowed her eyebrows, then contemplated, only for her eyes to wander to the digital clock on the flatscreen. It was April second now. “That’s a cruel joke of fate is what that is,” the feline Lightbearer stated and turned back. “He ain’t pulling out though.”

“No, he isn’t,” John said, having never really believed the opposite. “Max is a total drama king, but he’s also serious when he puts on a show like that. Wouldn’t surprise me if they married in the next 14 days, so I might have to prolong this ‘vacation’ even more.”

“If I may,” Lorelei spoke up. “Your realm has been stable in your absence so far. I foresee that one who wields the blade of the state is necessary to prevent paralysis of the whole body, however.”

“Shouldn’t be an issue to keep the executive staffed now that there’s no Kingdom I pull my most capable members of staff into,” John said and looked to Momo and Beatrice. “Anything Emrik pulled in my absence?”

“Just the usual partial politician shenanigans,” Scarlett reported. “Managed to push through some bills that give outsized favour to his local areas. I’m actually in a legal battle against your government right now for unfair practices.”

“Well, that’s just great,” John said sarcastically. “I can see the headlines already: ‘John Newman’s mega-corp lover uses influence to destroy bill aimed to support local businesses.’”

“Relax, it’s a suit of a daughter company of mine being led by lawyers I hired against a government office you don’t lead and overseen by a judge you didn’t appoint,” Scarlett responded. “Plus, haven’t you learned by now that there’ll be negative headlines no matter what you do?”

“I like it when they don’t have a point.”

“They don’t, it’s a bullshit bill that shoves money into the pockets of people without the necessary merit to compete on the open market.”

John sighed and waved to signal he didn’t want to pursue this at the moment. There was a lot more on his mind and he would have to thoroughly read the bill in question to form an informed opinion. “The fundamental issue for which we went to the Iron Domain still needs to be resolved,” he returned to the question of ‘what next?’. “Not sure what’s taking Nightingale so long, but until Delicia arrives, this chapter isn’t properly closed. Plus, I’m obliged to court her.”

“Bunch of new arrivals in this clique.” Rave grinned.

Claire’s face twisted into a grimace, while she produced an annoyed groan. John could imagine what her complaint with the situation was: that the harem was already going to expand when she’d only been there for a day. All that could be said to appease her was what he had promised, that no one in the harem was left isolated. That and that Nightingale or Delicia joining the harem was not certain.

At least with Nightingale, John would have placed a high wager that it was more likely to happen than not. Delicia was a wildcard. He only had one interaction with her and it had been pretty brief. Sickness aside, she was an incredibly attractive shortstack and she seemed to have the worst sassiness and brattiness in that small, curvy frame. In other words, she was exactly the kind of woman John was attracted to.

Knowing all of this, Claire distracted herself by getting off her chair and finally moving to the maid uniform that had been waiting for her since yesterday. For the next five minutes, she munched down on the fabric. Then, she showed herself in all the beauty of her new attire.

It didn’t mean much, considering she grew the clothes out in the first place, but the maid outfit looked like it was made for her. Her natural appreciation for the black and white style of the servant uniform was evident in how naturally she wore it. The long, slit skirt parted around her thighs several times, as she posed and moved inside her new clothes. Black strands of garter belt stretched between her upper hips and thighs, connecting to stockings that would not have needed the support. Ever so subtly, the upper rim of the semi-translucent piece of smooth fabric squished in the thickness of her thighs.

The tightly sitting corset accentuated the bottom-heaviness of her frame by contrasting her wide hips with her comparatively narrow waist. Towards her chest, her sides curved outwards softly, leading the eye naturally to where her petite breasts diligently filled white frills. The humble bit of roundness on display did not expand enough to create a view of her cleavage, but that only added to the elegant whole of the piece. The black gloves with the Fusion emblem at the upper rim covered her arms up to the shoulders.

“I love this outfit,” Claire hummed, spending some time marvelling at herself. “It makes even me look good.”

“You make the outfit look even better,” John disagreed. Claire replied with the warm, satisfied hum of a content woman.

Taking the edges of her skirt, she curtsied with a diligent smile on her lips. “Thank you for the compliment, Master.” After straightening up, she grabbed the separated, front strand of her slit skirt and pulled it aside. “Don’t you think your loving, newest maid deserves one more initiation?” The move revealed her bare pussy, which dripped with immediate need. Just the idea of presenting herself had turned her sopping wet.

What was one more whirl?

_________________________________________________________________________

Three hours later, John left the Palace. He had gotten to enjoy an hour of additional orgies and then spent two hours with Undine, giving her another break from the stressful return home. It remained only stressful, which was as good as it got. Three more days and his mana would start coming back.

Three more days during which he would find every reason not to venture from his property and certainly wouldn’t do so alone. Being the Gamer was an existence of constant paranoia at the best of times. Someone always wanted something from him, his life was included in that category, and with Particle Skin effectively without fuel, this was the best chance people would get. Barely anybody knew about his current weakness, but it only took one ambitious person taking the shot for it to hurt.

Better to just stay where he was safe and keep an entourage.

At this moment, he was being followed by Aclysia, Claire, Metra and Lorelei. Of them, Metra was his designated bodyguard. It had been her occupation for most of her life, so she slipped into the role effortlessly. Not that she was acting any different than normal. With a tomboyish smile on her face and in her skimpy clothes, the caramel skinned berserker babe strutted alongside him. Being alert was second nature to her in any case. She got good use of her second pair of ears though.

Lorelei was useful as a bodyguard in her own right, due to her precognition. It wasn’t why she was coming along, just a fact John considered.

As for the two maids, Aclysia and Claire were following because they had the same final destination as John. Also, there was something he still had to show the newest maid.

They were outside the Palace, technically, but not actually outdoors yet. Instead, they found themselves in a small, single-room house that was attached to the southern corner of the Building.

“Mrreow?” Velka raised her head, having lazily laid in the corner of the room that served as her bed. The constant shade kept the stone in that area from getting too hot, which must have been quite pleasant given the temperature of this morning. Even taking into account that noon was getting closer and the eternal summer of the Guild Hall, it was a hot day. The randomized range of temperatures he had set the Weather Tower to must have rolled onto the high end today.

John was of half a mind to lay down next to Velka. Instead, he just scratched the Magryph behind the ears. The chimera of Australian magpie and panther had grown consistently while John had been occupied in the Iron Domain and was now about 1,50 metres. At that size, she was already at the average for a fully grown Magryph. The Perk he had in Tamer guaranteed she would get to 1,60, which was the largest size recorded. Not an incredible range, but these particular gryphons were renowned for their intelligence and cleverness, rather than being valiant steeds.

Also, their greed. Their vast, insatiable greed, which manifested in the room in the form of various safes that John had gifted her. Each of them had a kind of lock even a beak could operate, while also being so complicated it couldn’t easily be opened. As Velka matured, she got better and better at making a distinction between what was actually valuable and what just looked shiny. She kept both, the latter was just scattered about the place rather than hidden somewhere.

“This here is Velka,” John introduced the purring Magryph to Claire. “Velka, this is Claire.”

Velka cawed in a manner that roughly replicated the tonal structure of the vampire maid’s name. Carefully, the Magryph got on her feet and circled around Claire. The two of them eyed each other up. The maid with interest, the animal with caution. Velka associated a certain harshness with this uniform. Aclysia and Beatrice were certainly strict with the harem’s pet and Momo was reprimanding in her own way.

Handing Claire some fresh meat from his inventory immediately changed Velka’s demeanour. Eagerly, she approached the vampire, who kept the flesh just out of reach. Impatient, the Magryph almost jumped up on Claire, but then remembered that she was dealing with a maid again. With impatient obedience, she sat down.

‘Feels like yesterday I had to shove little balls of minced meat down her throat,’ John thought. The mixture of pride and nostalgia must have been akin to what parents felt when they looked at their children. It was a satisfying sensation. “See this?” John asked and gestured at Velka who kept tip-toeing impatiently with her front claws. “This is what you act like when you don’t get my kisses first.”

“I mean… I deserve kisses, right?” Claire asked, while waving the flesh around some more. She was visibly amused by the way Velka’s beak tracked the juicy cut of filet steak. She dropped it and hurriedly turned towards John. The Magryph snapped the meat out of the air and Claire pressed her lips on his.

John’s hand came down on her ass – hard. The submissive jumped with joy, while their tongues began to wrestle. If she channelled her obsession into occasionally being demanding like this, then he could certainly live with it. Aclysia handled her more extreme tendencies the same way. Handling build-ups of high demand was certainly something he could do.

Eventually, they moved on to the festival grounds.