The Gamer Chapter 1378 – Slowing Down (Patreon)

Two days had passed since Sylph’s bunny girl acquisition.

Notable events? None. Meeting with Fade was pushed back until they returned to the Guild Hall, on Siena’s request. She wanted to enjoy the rest of the vacation without thinking about whatever task her mother would put her to. John could respect that and it was only a couple more days anyhow.

Instead, they gave it their all, working day and night to put the remaining walls up. Because time was running short, they agreed to do away with the limiters at that point. While they maintained mundane speeds as far as walking went, not needing any breaks and moving with superhuman precision accelerated things tremendously. Soon, the walls were up and the frame of the roof followed.

‘Five more days to get that sorted,’ John thought, scanning through the remaining building materials they had in storage. A month to build even just the walls of a mansion was impressive and it looked, all around, nicely done. A bit on the bland side, being only brick with windows. Plaster and ivy would deal with that.

That was a project for another time. Now, they only wanted the roof done. Insulation, shingles, and solar panels. That would be enough work to keep them busy while they slowed down their local operations.

John was still doing his inventory tour when he sensed someone sprinting into his sixth sense range. A moment later, she jumped on his back. Instinctively, he supported her perfect butt with his hands. Arms wrapped around his head, blocking his vision. “Guess who?” the peppermint smelling girl purred.

“So difficult.” John giggled, not least of all due to the wild hair that tickled the back of his neck. “Ever thought of putting your hair in a ponytail, Jane?”

“Ya know why that suggestion is illegal, tiger.” Rave took her arms off his eyes and let them dangle loosely over his shoulders. “We are having a serious talk about you right now.”

“Are we?” John carried her over to where he had stacked the shingles on a wooden platform. It would be easier to move them out and up that way. “Well, hit me, I suppose.”

“Ya think you’re good? To get back to our regular life, I mean.” Rave tightened her arms a bit around his neck. “You promised me you’d extend the vacation if you didn’t recover, so take a sec to think this through.”

John bounced her on his back to reaffirm his grasp on her. “Yeah,” he responded, when he felt ready for it. “Yeah, I want to get back. This was fun, but there’s just so much I still need to do.” He carried her out of the barn and into the sunshine. It was another scorcher of a day, which made the feline Lightbearer purr in delight. “I’ll enjoy my last few days of not having to think about governing or journalists or Lorylim. I’ll also enjoy facing these challenges again… well, not the Lorylim.”

“Tad too disgusting, those, to ever really like fighting them.”

“It’s just that the best-case scenario of beating them is that we lose nothing,” John explained with a sigh. “There’s nothing really to be won in an engagement with them except time until the next incursion. The first foe… wish there was a solution to take care of them for eternity.”

Rave scratched him behind the ear. “Ya can rack your brain on that after ya put the roof up. There are more immediate issues.” One of the dangling arms flopped in the general direction of where Hailey and Nightingale were enjoying cold beverages. One was drinking beer, the other simple water. The harpy tried to reduce her casual alcohol consumption.

A wise decision, since she would be treated to much expensive wine when they went back and she would start using her saloon in its full capacity. Alcoholism really was a sin for every strata of society. Whether it was cheap swill or ripened whiskey, every human could get lost to that vice.

“What do your mindreading eyes see, should I push her a bit?” John asked.

“Hmmmyeeess… nooooo…. Mhhhhmaaaybeeee?” Rave’s indecisive hums had him laugh. “Not fully in her brain yet, ya know how it is.”

“As a matter of fact, I do not know how it is,” the Gamer denied. “Your mindreading powers remain a mystery to me. Once you get the download on someone, you’re scarily accurate. Otherwise, you’re slightly above average and easily biased.”

“Aww, thank you.” Rave’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Ya wanna sleep on the couch tonight, hm?”

“You ever find it interesting that only women get to make that threat?”

“Of course we do, kicking a girl out of her bed is cruel and unusual,” Rave responded, like it was the most common sense thing in the world. In some ways, it was. “Anyway, no idea if ya should push her. I think she’ll figure this out in the time she has left with us here.” She stretched her legs. John understood the signal and let her down. “Imma do some investigating, you do what tigers do.”

“Prowl around and look for something to eat?” John suggested in an amused tone.

“Something like that.” Rave departed with a wink.

John watched her strut away, half her bare ass and most of her thighs on display. Rave had taken on quite a bit of colour recently, her skin tone bordering that of Metra. Unlike Hailey, she spent the majority of her time sunbathing stark naked, so there were no tan lines to any of that. There was only the wonderful caramel of her bubble butt shifting with every step. ‘God, I love hotpants.’

Raising his hand, John switched over to the Abyssal side. There was no shortage of delicious targets there.

John looked around the hodgepodge of fantastical structures. What had been a chimera of a landscape was slowly growing together into a coherent unit. The old house and barn on this side of the divide had been torn down by Salamander, removing the mundane influences that stuck out. The mansion on this side was decisively finished and decorated in various ways by Gnome. The difference was stark, like seeing the first hovel one put up in Minecraft versus one’s finished building project after 50 hours of gathering materials.

Gnome had also been putting in the work to give the various places around transitionary zones. Nathalia’s spire was no longer just a random, black and orange landmark. It stood atop a small hill, was surrounded by smaller spires that grew large towards the main one, and the soil was mixed with ash, diminishing as one got further away. A stone path connected the spire to the central gathering place.

The stone platform was also further integrated into the landscape. It looked like the world’s most natural gazebo, covered in plants as it was. The surrounding area had been refashioned with a garden, which was cut into various patches by the roads that led out towards the destinations one could have around the property. Whether that was the bus, the mansion, the spire, the forest, the lake, or the sleeping grove.

John heard the ongoing terraforming effort more than he saw it. Directing his gaze northwards, he noticed a part of the forest that was notably higher than on the mundane side. Where there was a clearing on the property, there were trees giving shade as he walked down the road. Where there was untouched forest, there was a lake and cleared patches of tilled soil. Little buds of green were showing that Claire’s first venture into gardening was met with success.

The forest beyond that was lush, reinforced by the several sources of water that the harem introduced to the ecosystem. The grass managed to resist the merciless sun, still strong and green despite the drying rays.

John followed the road, let it take him across an empty riverbed that meandered up the hill. It elevated a solid 20 metres from the lake, putting it firmly above everything, even the black spire. At the top, there was an artificial caldera. It looked quite natural and John got the feeling that Nathalia had been involved. Whenever she had made this, however she had, magma had not been involved to a notable degree. There were no burn marks on the trees around.

The riverbed connected to the edge of the caldera, which was currently getting filled with water by Undine. Lee sat on a rock next to her, holding a tablet and scratching her head with the back of a stylus pen. Both noted his approach. “You know, I have always wondered how introducing this much water into the Illusion Barrier won’t lead to floods?” he greeted them with a question.

“The EEP takes care of that,” Lee responded. Raising an eyebrow, John requested a more elaborate explanation. “The Environmental Equalization Phenomenon. While the inside of an Illusion Barrier may differ from the surroundings, it will always eventually return to the state of the original landscape simply because Gaia enforces the same weather conditions. Water that could not run off into the larger environment simply evaporates into nothing past the border of the Illusion Barrier, assuring that the level of moisture in the soil and air always drifts towards the same level as that of the mundane space outside it. The border of the Illusion Barrier has more than one purpose, you know?”

“I guessed as much, but it’s nice to have someone know it for me,” the Gamer said and stopped next to Lee. Bowing down, he first gave her a greeting kiss, then checked her screen. On it was a gorgeous drawing of the view from where they currently stood. There were some perspective inaccuracies, as well as stylistic changes from reality and deviations from the exact shape from the buildings. All were within the range of expert craftsmanship though. “Eliana?”

“Yeah, I had her whip it up for me,” Lee confirmed.

“Hello, Master.” Undine flowed her way towards them. Half of her did, accurately put. One Undine still stood halfway down the bowl-shape of the lakebed, the other was right next to them. Between them stretched a continuous band of deep blue ooze, connecting to the amorphous mass where their lower bodies would have been. Undine was careful to keep the pleasing outline of butt and thighs. She knew how to prevent her form from slipping from sexy into uncanny.

John greeted her with no words, only a kiss and a soft pull towards the floor. The squishy blob of goth femininity eagerly followed him down, soon lying with her back against his chest. She was pleasantly cool to hold in this weather. John put his hands on her boobs and absentmindedly kneaded. Boobs were just so fantastically distracting to hold.

“Want some help with that?” the Gamer asked and Undine nodded. The amount of water the Undine further down produced suddenly tripled in output when John sent a large amount of mana her way. He would have loved to just send her his excess regeneration, but that was only at 25 per second. The sacrifices of many familiars. When the Ambassador Double was on, he actually ran a deficit. ‘I should probably focus on Wisdom entirely for a bit.’

Undine nuzzled against John, then both of them were shook by Lee suddenly hugging the two of them. The young Fateweaver was blushing intensely and her face reflected annoyance. “Man, I’m so weird,” she complained.

“Yes,” John responded instantly, only to be headbutted by the adorable woman.

“I just want to stop being self-conscious about this,” Lee complained, her blush still strong. “Why am I getting embarrassed about hugging you? Makes no sense. Urgh!”

“Too much control over your emotions can be stifling,” Undine said.

“Yeah, sure, but I’d at least get a general handle on the ones that slip when I least want them to. You understand that, you have that issue hardcore,” the young Fateweaver pointed out. Undine pressed her lips together. “Was that over the line?”

“No, it is correct, and I’m expressing my annoyance with that,” Undine explained her reaction. “I take control of who I am and what I want to do. When this control breaks, it is… overwhelming.”

“Yeah, but you’re usually so… calm. It’s really admirable. Even when you get mad, you get mad on purpose, you know?” Lee told the slime girl.

Who sighed from the depth of her soul and shook her head. “You and others call me admirable for staying collected. I believe that this is the way I should live and some control would serve some of us well. It is not the most entertaining existence, however.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be Sylph,” Lee got where Undine was going. “Still though… I gotta take some lessons from you so I can finally beat my procrastination habits.”

“I thought you wanted to emulate Nia and Beatrice?” Undine asked.

“Yeaaah, I tried that… and it’s like trying to play a tank with healer stats… Nia and Bae, they just kind of do their thing. They don’t need to beat anything back; when they resolve to do something, they just do it.” Lee twiddled her thumbs in front of Undine’s neck. “It’s like those two don’t even know the word laziness.”

“Beatrice only does so she can describe you with it,” the abysstide elemental joked.

“Hah!” Lee laughed. “Anyway… not trying to say you’re lazy but you do have this self-control aspect to you of doing things despite your emotional state, you know? That’s what I need.”

“If you want to, I can attempt to teach you when we go back.” Undine took the hands of her fellow haremette and kissed Lee’s thumbs. Then she asked, “Everything alright, John? You’re so quiet.”

The Gamer shrugged and smiled. “No need to say anything. I’m just happy to be here with you.”

So were the two of them. They repositioned slightly, so that they sat with John’s back against a particularly steep bit of rock, the two girls in his arms. Together, they watched the lake slowly fill up. It was a wonderful day. The water sparkled under the sunrays. Lee’s dark hair heated up notably and she sought shelter from the heat in the crease of John’s shoulder.

“You’ve tanned a bit too,” John realized, beholding the gamer girl. “You don’t take colour well, do you?”

“Said the guy whose tan is locked in,” Lee responded with dry sarcasm. “No, I take after my mother. Dad tans crazy fast.”

“Well, he is a… I’m not even sure.”

“Neither am I, really… makes me kinda a bad daughter, but I never asked where we’re from exactly.”

“I’m the same… then again, my dad is clearly American.”

“My dad was already several hundred years old in Abyssal time when he had me,” Lee responded. “Don’t think I had much reason to care about his birthplace.”

“Weird to think about…” John mumbled. “I find it kind of weird when people over 40 have kids.”

“That’s such a mundane issue, dude.”

“Well, I was born a mundane person… but I’ll also breed a ten millennia old dragon goddess, so.”

“Why that word?” Undine asked. “Breed? It sounds so savage.”

John started an answer, then stopped himself to wonder why he did use that word so frequently. ‘It’s hot,’ worked as a basic answer, but that didn’t really justify his usage of it in regular conversation. “I guess Eliana has hammered that word into my head,” he responded. After a little more thought, he added, “There’s also a factor of it working the best. Impregnation feels so impersonal and knocked up too casual. Breeding just has a nice ring to it… guess that’s just the language drift at work.”

Undine nodded, happy with that explanation. “Breeding works for Eliana and Nathalia.”

“It’ll work for this one too,” John said and ran a finger over Lee’s jawbone. She shivered wantonly, then realized what he implied.

“Oy!” she cried out and then gave him an earful of complaints that made him laugh.