The Gamer Chapter 1294 – Fusion Festival 1 – Before the Checks (Patreon)

John was annoyed with the press, for unusual reasons.

Normally, his annoyance came from libel, slander, and deliberately negative framing of his person. Today, he was annoyed because they had done investigative journalism of the surprise-ruining kind. ‘Nightingale to be announced as second Patron Goddess of Fusion!’ the title of the article read.

That Nightingale had joined his harem and become a Patron Goddess had, so far, not been publicly announced. Changing the entire sky made it difficult to insist John had tried to keep it a secret. Speculation was one thing, but the article stated they had a ‘source close to the President and Nightingale’.

“One of the people you invited for tea must have talked.” John put the tablet he was reading the article on onto the new coffee table. It looked exactly like the old one. A frame of dark wood containing a smooth, deep blue, glass plate that made up the majority of the tabletop. No scratches or burns anyway and Beatrice had invested enough money to make sure it would stay that way.

“I will investigate,” Nightingale stated, sitting cross-legged in an armchair. She did not seem shocked nor bothered. “Is this not ultimately beneficial? I am not widely known.”

“Well, it does let me gauge public interest before making the announcement,” he admitted. Because she was a relatively young goddess, Nightingale’s existence was indeed not widely known. Most gods actually lived a life of relative obscurity. Much like people only knew of a few people in the royal houses of a few select countries, so too did the majority of gods go unnoticed despite their influence. Many were nomadic, never staying anywhere long enough for their identity to become known. Others only interacted in very small circles, if any circles at all. For a god to be widely known, they had to be old, affiliated with a prestigious institution, or exceptionally powerful – all three of them in the best case.

Nightingale was a young goddess, not yet officially affiliated with anyone, and, as far as gods went, middle of the road. Didn’t help that her powers were about obscuration. Had her and Nathalia been of the same power, the latter still would have been more infamous purely because creating volcanoes and scorching entire landscapes was more eye-catching than blocking all senses.

‘Wonder why Nightingale is weaker than Nathalia anyway. Is that pure seniority or do modern people, with all the lamps around, just don’t respect the night as much?’ John shooed that question away and asked a more important one, “Did you plan this?”

“No.” The harpy picked up her glass filled with mint-infused ice water from the table and raised the straw to her lips. While remaining laid back, she put the now empty glass back on to the table with her talons. Aclysia swiftly picked it up and went to the kitchen. The night goddess followed the movements of the maid with appreciative eyes. For her nakedly flaunted assets and the service, no doubt. “It was a risk I was aware of.”

“You aren’t planning anything behind my back, are you?”

“Would it be bad if I did?”

“Unless you want to surprise me with something, kind of? It’s not good for my paranoia, I’ll tell you that. This is a space of universal trust.” John gestured around the room, where the various haremettes were distributed. Some were hanging out elsewhere in the Palace, for space and volume reasons. All of the harem in one room could get quite loud, as any gathering could be.

Nightingale raised a wing in front of her mouth and chuckled. “I did not plan for this article,” she responded.

Anyone else, John would have called out for being oddly specific, but Nightingale had that habit of addressing exactly what she meant. “That’s good then,” the Gamer said. The tablet was running around the table, at the moment, as everyone around read the article in turn.

John leaned back, the Couch around him morphing into a lounger. It was one of the rare times where he was, in all of his nudity, not beset by any of his haremettes. Usually someone in his harem was in a cuddling mood. For some of them, that was a permanent fixture. Aclysia was steadily busy preparing cool drinks for everyone, however, while Beatrice and Claire were outside helping with the last set-ups of the festival.

John himself would go out there soon. It was the day before the festival unofficially began, Thursday in other words, and he needed everything to be in tip-top condition. Several foreign dignitaries had announced themselves. Many of them were from guilds that had helped him during the Iron Domain affair. Most of these favours had already been repaid or were in the process of being repaid. The Gamer was completely certain that most of them only saw it as getting their foot in the door, diplomatically speaking.

Why stop fostering relationships with a rising power at one interaction?

Contemplating when to head out and where to go first, John was stirred out of his thoughts when he felt something warm and soft settle on his head. It wiggled around a little bit, causing his hair to rub against smooth skin. “You should shave yourself bald,” Momo complained and crossed her legs. They dominated most of John’s field of view.

She was half-sitting, half-hovering on his head. “That’s an interpretative way to reclaim your face-sitting time,” he commented.

“You owe me, like, a full day.”

“He also owes me some throne-fucking!” Salamander shouted into the conversation. It was a short-lived contribution, as she was immediately pulled back into the game she was playing with Rave and Lorelei. It was some cooperative roguelike.

“There are much worse ways to get this,” John decided and reached up to squeeze her thighs. Both of his hands got slapped. She was doing that a lot recently. ‘Someone wants to be put in their place.’ A snap of his fingers and John said, “Momo, Normality, are you my naughty girl?”

Momo did not respond. For several moments, she remained seated on the top of his head, then suddenly flew up, turned in the air, and landed in John’s lap. Not in the usual cowgirl position, but with her body lying across his legs. The lounger transformed, to give her a place to put her e-reader and somewhere for her knees to settle. The latter was only necessary because her wings dissolved into a cloud of sparkling mist, itself quickly turning into nothing.

“I thought you wanted to sit on my head,” John pointed out and reached for her butt. No reaction this time.

“I changed my mind,” she responded flippantly, pushing her ass out a little more. She was asking for a special something and John drew his hand back to deliver. “AH!” she moaned sharply when the sound of her getting smacked echoed in the room. She slightly turned her head, most of her lower lip hidden behind her teeth. A look she quickly dropped when she noticed his smug stare. “What’re you looking at, perv?”

“Oh, nothing,” John said and gave her another smack. Momo yelped, in pain and pleasure, a second time. A third, then a fourth, and by the fifth Momo suddenly dropped her head and tried to suppress her intense moans. “Didn’t know you could cum from spanking like Eliana,” he teased her, rubbing her big, pale butt.

“That’s totally normal,” Momo insisted.

It really wasn’t, especially not for the only slightly masochistic brat. This was a pure interplay of the hypnotic suggestion and John’s commands inducing pleasure in those that followed them. Momo was aware of that or would have been if John hadn’t used the relatively new ‘Normality’ prefix for his suggestion.

With two women he could effectively mind control available to him, John continued to come up with fun ways to mess with them. ‘Normality’ was a little different from ‘Mind Wipe’. Where the latter just erased the memory of the hypnosis having happened at all, the former made them believe that whatever they did was typical behaviour.

The ‘Normality’ one was quite dangerous for women so suggestible, because it gave John the power to have them parade nudely on the market square, all while having them believe that was totally normal. Momo may have snapped out at that point, Claire… Claire wouldn’t have cared even if she did. Not that John would try. Probably.

John snapped his fingers again. “Momo, Cleanse.”

The sassy support raised her head and looked at him. “Dick!” she declared and re-grew her firefly-esque wings. A moment later, she was in the air, sticking her tongue out at him. “What hypnotic command am I under now, huh?”

“Well, either you would know or you would not ask that question, so none,” the Gamer told her.

“Get out of here with your facts, okay?!” Momo sounded way more agitated than she actually was. He could see the corners of her lips tremble in an attempt to hide her smile. “Speaking of getting out of here, shouldn’t we check on the festival grounds already?”

“I suppose that is a good idea,” John agreed and got up. If he let her tease him any more, him ending up balls deep inside her was an inevitability. “Anyone else want to tag along?”

“I will,” Nightingale said.

“I…” Aclysia began her response, then checked the time, “…have to take out the laundry.” She let out such a gigantic sigh that John could not help but hug her. “Master…” she whispered, holding him tight, like a drowning woman grasping for a life belt.

“Find Jake in my office after you’re done,” he told her quietly.

Even speaking quietly was no use in his superhuman harem. “Booo!” Rave shouted from the background. “Favouritism, booo!”

“If I may, my most humble opinion is that you do not… get to talk about favouritism, head sister,” Lorelei said in the weakest possible tone someone could give backtalk in.

“Did ya just sass me? I’m so proud of you!” Rave said and dropped her controller in favour of cuddling the seer. Salamander started cursing up a storm because they were in the middle of a boss fight. “Would like it if ya could stop coming up with all of these titles for me though. I ain’t collecting them like tiger is.”

John released Aclysia who, after a quick kiss, headed to the chore chamber. Of all the rooms in the Palace, it was probably the one he frequented the least. “To be fair, you started that trend, Jane.”

“Ain’t nothing weird about tiger, tiger.”

“Fuck you, you useless piece of ass!” Salamander’s tail slammed down on the Couch, as the Game Over screen opened on the TV. “We had such a good run!”

“I thought ya could carry that.”

“Oh, now it’s my fault?!”

“Chillax, Salamander, I’ll make it up to ya.”

“How could you possibly…? Oh… oh yeah, that works.” Salamander calmed down quite quickly as Rave got her head between the red-skinned elemental’s legs and started what a fellow haremette would do in such a situation. Soon there were only moans from the apocalypse elemental. John, Momo, and Nightingale headed to the door.

“She is a splendid matriarch,” Nightingale complimented, as they headed down the corridor.

“That’s one of the weird titles she was talking about,” Momo pointed out.

Nightingale chuckled in her ladylike fashion. “It is the proper title for her position.”

“Will you call this guy patriarch then?” Momo asked, pointing at the man between the two of them. As was typical and proper, John had his arms around both of them. They were all three wearing clothes now, since it was a matter of magic for all of them. Momo decided that the best place for her left hand was one of the Gamer’s back pockets. Normally he was doing the squeezing, but the appreciation felt nice.

“I understand that is a negatively connotated term nowadays.”

“If I cared about that, I wouldn’t have a harem.” John kissed both of them on the cheek. This time, Momo didn’t even try to be bratty about it. She just took it and blushed. Sometimes, she just needed to be shown her place. ‘Well, needed is a strong word. More like, wants me to.’ “Still, you know what I prefer.”

“Indeed…” Nightingale got very close to his ear and whispered, “…Master.”

“Don’t inflate Master’s ego!” Momo complained, blushing when she realized what she had just said. “Stupid… urgh… reflexes!”

“So you reflexively call me Master, huh?”

“I… you know… yes, and what of it?” Momo’s face turned even redder. Gaze averted, she folded. “What if you’re a handsome, sexy, assertive dream man? Can you be a little less nice so I have something to complain about, you supportive… Master?”

“Nice?” Nightingale asked, an eyebrow raised. “Is that the correct word?”

“The perv would let me do whatever I wanted, if I asked for it. Except leave his harem, which is fair… made that choice one time.”

“I have a question about that, if you allow?”

“We’re all haremettes here, next to no secrets.”

“Do you regard that as a mistake?”

“Ah, the usual question,” Momo joked. Basically every new haremette that heard about that incident asked some variety of it. John understood the curiosity and liked to listen to the answers, what about it stayed the same and what about it shifted with further reflection on it. “The short of it is a definitive no. I needed to come into my own and I did, so that was nice. There were some things I wished I hadn’t done in recollection, like trying to have a relationship with a woman that clearly loved her tinkering more than me or how long I wrestled with the question of whether I wanted to be with him…” she poked John’s face, “…or not.”

“Well, you made the right decision in the end,” he said and offered his lips.

“You’re biased,” Momo told him and took the offer. The little wet sounds of their meeting lips was all that could be heard. When they separated, her white eyes looked up to him. “I still love you though… Do I say that often enough? I hope I do.”

“Yeah,” John assured her. “I know what you feel, even if you say the opposite.”

“I hate you,” came the predictable and cheeky response.

“That’s good.”

On his left shoulder, Nightingale cooed with supportive appreciation. Both John and Momo turned their heads to look at her. She responded to their gaze and blinked, slow and adoringly. “I enjoy being with you.” She made them stop for a moment, to give Momo a kiss of her own. “Never did I imagine I would find it so easy to fall in love with the harem of my chosen man.”

“We are a charming bunch,” Momo responded with an honest smile. “Hope you like ball dances. We traditionally have one of those during festivities.”

Nightingale looked down at herself. Wing arms were one thing, but her feet were the true difficulty. “They’re… not my speciality.”

“You could just transform,” Momo reminded. The harpy let out a sound of remembrance, as if she had actually needed that reminder. Considering John had not seen her transform once since she moved to Fusion, that was not surprising. That gave rise to quite a few interesting scenes. A harpy brushing her teeth involved quite a long stick and a lot more head movements. It was no wonder her kind was so good at bobbing.

“I will consider it,” Nightingale promised.