The Gamer Chapter 1401 – Fluffy Monday Awakens 5 – Animals and Alchemy (Patreon)

The young bovine nibbled on John’s shirt. Barely big enough to even reach the, apparently, tasty cloth, it chewed fruitlessly. Cows didn’t have upper teeth and thus lacked the capacity to chomp and tear to the degree required to do more than soak his shirt with saliva. Its ears flopped, as did its tail. Playfully, it headbutted against John.

“I want it!” Claire squeaked and fell to her knees.

The calf let the vampire hug its neck and even rub her head against it. Whether it was the particular breed of the animal, the specific personality, or the presence of Nia that made it this docile, John did not know. Not to besmirch the animal handling of the blonde, stroking the short fur of the bovine along the spine, but for once he was certain that it was the first item on that list. For the most part, anyway.

They were at an Abyssal farmer’s market, specifically the part where young animals were housed. Mundane farmers had selective breeding, Abyssals had selective breeding and biomancy. The result was, predictably, animals that were both exceedingly friendly and efficient when it came to their feed usage.

From its playfulness to its trust, the calf behaved like a particularly large puppy. John freed his shirt from the teeth. He was doubly thankful he had decided to grab some of his Oklahoma clothes for this task. Even if his regular shirt cleaned itself, he preferred the saliva on this set of clothes. A thought that was just another showcase that humans were animals that thought primarily in terms of purpose, not reason.

The calf did not care that its new chewing toy was removed. It was too distracted being doted on by the pariah and the vampire. Constantly its fur was being rubbed. “I waaaaaant iiiiiit,” Claire pleaded with big eyes. “I’ll cuddle and brush it every day and it will taste delicious!”

John snorted at that last bit. Struck as Claire may have been by the various animals they found around the shop, she was perfectly clear on the purpose of buying farm animals. In the end, these were not pets. These were animals to be kept to either be consumed or to produce something that could be consumed.

Just because something was meant to be eaten did not mean it had to live a cruel life. Looking at the young cow, the Gamer saw both a good source of protein and a fellow inhabitant of this planet. The very least he could do for an animal he wished to eat was to make sure everything until the slaughter was as fulfilling as possible.

“Put it on the list.” A shopkeeper eagerly scribbled it on the third piece of paper that they had started to fill. When the President of the nation came into the market, some attention was to be expected. Normally, he would have dismissed such favours, but today it was appropriate. He was buying an immense number of goods, after all.

When John turned back to the fenced area, only Claire still kneeled in the clean hay. “You’re the best, Master,” she said and scratched the calf under the chin. “See you soon, cutie.”

Claire did a little twirl, on her way back over to John. Her feet hit the concrete of the corridor along the wall that connected the various areas. Then she stumbled, purely on purpose, John was sure. He caught her anyway. His body took a step forward before he could even think about it. The few things he still did without triple-checking his thoughts on the matter all had to do with his haremettes.

“My hero,” the charismatic maid swooned and pressed her puckered lips on his in a sickeningly sweet manner. John lifted her up and she kicked the air in joy. “I’ll be busy with all of these. I’ll be busy with the work I take on. I’ll be busy through it all.”

“If I didn’t trust you, I’d advise we buy less,” John hummed and put her back down. Together, they walked forwards, following the walkway along the walls to the next segment.

Nia was waiting for them, chickens sitting on her head and shoulders. The remarkably golden birds had their eyes closed, taking a nap on the pariah. The air around them was distorted mildly by the steam coming off them. “Phoenix chickens?” John took a wild guess.

“We call these magma chickens,” the shopkeeper explained. “They’re very sociable and thrive in both hot and cold climates. What makes them especially popular is that they cuddle up to other animals and keep them warm. They’re easy to keep, but a bit difficult to breed. Under all but the most specific conditions, they boil their own eggs.”

“Can they free range?” John asked. A lot of the difficulty of keeping the Abyssal animals would be solved if they created a semi-natural ecosystem in the Protected Space. That way, Claire would have to spend less time doing chores and more ‘ranging’. Not the traditional way to run a farm, but what really was traditional compared to John’s mundane understanding?

Unsurprisingly, Claire wanted twenty. John haggled her down to ten. Money wasn’t the issue, but properly balancing all their new inhabitants certainly was.

Claire ran ahead to the next area, like an excited child. John just smirked at seeing her in such a carefree mood. He knew the jaded soul that sat at the core of all of this, the one that had risen out of the filth and muck of a torturous tyranny. Claire deserved to smile like a cinnamon roll.

Each new animal was another cause for her to be excited. From electrical emus to mundane otters, the shop offered everything. Not all existed for the purpose of dietary needs, many were for the aforementioned ecosystem balancing.

“This would be your entire purchase,” the shopkeeper stated and gestured at a holding cell.

A whole swarm of animals, farm and otherwise, were standing, swimming, and climbing around the multi-terrain area. Claire and Nia let out simultaneous, high-pitched squeaks and rushed inside. Together, they engaged in a storm of pats and cuddles. Around the calves they frolicked, squished the abundant feathers of an emu’s lemon-shaped body, laid down to be swarmed by happy little piglets, and laughed all throughout.

Claire’s joy was so fantastic to behold and Nia’s was a rare treat. Her laughter was a bit awkward, slightly off the ‘proper’ pitch, and he loved every moment of it. As did the animals, who crowded closer around the blank. Nia grabbed the vampire by the wrist and pulled her into a deep hug, before both vanished from view underneath affectionately rubbing heads and fluttering feathers.

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For the first time since dealing with the elementals, John actually just sat and watched one of his girls work.

Delicia was entirely silent, her face devoid of any of her usual smugness. Instead, she was highly concentrated, following the alchemical process in a section of her multi-layered contraption. She stood atop a platform, elevated several metres in the air. It was suspended between four pillars, which themselves were attached to two brass rings that curved around the circular chamber. The rings were held up by seven horizontal bolts that pierced the first ring and then melded with the second.

The whole construction looked too flimsy to have held together properly and left no room for electronics. Magic powered it all, guided through a console on the platform. As Delicia pushed the button, her elevated position moved diagonally along the ever-expanding, ever-changing wall of glass and metal.

Delicia clamped down the entrance tube of one of the segments and waited for the gas within to drain out. Seconds passed and a wave of colour change cascaded outwards from where she interrupted the flow. Up the many connections, spreading out like a web complicated beyond reason, everything shifted down one step on the colour spectrum. Then Delicia finished installing the replacement and it all reversed.

“Do these shades look slightly brighter to you?” Delicia asked. “You do have the better eyesight.”

“Yes,” John answered immediately. He could see that plain as day. It was slight, not worth mentioning without being asked. Then again that was his layman opinion. Delicia hummed in satisfaction and pressed a button. The platform lowered until it settled atop the rails in the floor.

The alchemist walked over to him and suddenly straddled his lap. Sitting on top of him, face to face, the shortstack hugged him. “Thank you.”

“…Who are you and what have you done to my Delicia?” The Gamer took her by the waist, tilted his head to inspect her from multiple angles. She gave him a reprimanding headbutt, or at least tried to. Their height difference turned it into a tap of his chin.

“Urgh, don’t be a dick when I grace you with my gratitude!” The alchemist’s shout was followed only by the constant bubbling and hissing of her laboratory. Her blue eyes dashed to and from his features. Her lips were drained of colour, pressed together. Red dusted her roundish face. It was adorable and vulnerable.

John lifted her by the thighs and settled her back down that little bit closer to his chest. The warmth of her ample bosom squished against him, especially once he hugged her. He wanted to become her world, give her nothing to glance away to, and so he kissed her lovingly on the lips and then lingered, forehead to forehead. “What’s the matter?”

“Soooo… you know how I… love you?” Delicia managed to still escape his eyes by instead staring at her own index fingers. Tips pressed together, they moved back and forth in an entirely useless gesture. “The whole… urgh… unironic way?”

“Yes.” John nodded as much as the pose allowed. He’d love to tease her, but this did not feel like the right moment. Travelling up and down her back, he hoped to bring her some encouragement. “I love you.”

“Not the point….” One after another, her other fingers joined the futile gesture. By the thumb, it felt almost like she was emulating a beating heart. It did match the pulsing of the magic through her, the equivalent of blood surging through her form for an artificial body like hers. “I decided I want to be a little nicer to you.”

“…What?” John was actually flabbergasted by the idea. “Our whole relationship is based on you trying to annoy the life out of me.”

“Yeah and you better keep taking all I can dish out, stud!” Delicia finally separated her hands, if only to drum on his chest instead. The pounding of her little fists served only to make him chuckle. “I-I mean… I got flippant with all the nobles around me because they thought they were better than me…” She managed to look in his eyes, for just a few seconds. “You don’t and neither does the rest of your harem…  and I think I may have been upping the ante a bit much over the last few years…”

“To be fair to you, you were rotting.”

“Psh, yeah, I was, but I’m better than that,” Delicia mumbled, trying to regain her confidence. “Here, let’s put it like this: I’ve identified a problem in my social life and I will be reducing the amount of teasing in the mixture until I’ve solved it. I love being the smug girl, but I don’t want anyone to be annoyed with me. You following or you stoopid?”

“I’m following.” John framed her face with his hands, finally forcing her to fully look at him. “You don’t have to change for us, we love you the way you are… but I’m not going to tell you that it’s entirely without merit either. If you tone it down a bit, if you think that’s your best self, I’ll support you.”

“Thank you.” Delicia sniffed and blinked away some rising wetness in her eyes. “I refuse to cry.”

“You can, if you want to.”

“Of course, I can, but I don’t need your money right now,” Delicia joked and kissed his cheek. “Don’t think I’m going to be harmless because I’m a bit nicer to your nerdy butt.”

“I would never dare describe you as harmless – even if you are absolutely no threat to me.”

“All I need is ten minutes to make you shout my name.”

“As if I couldn’t break you in five.”

She gave him another headbutt, a proper one this time, then turned her head around. Her ears wiggled, her very human ears in the normal human way. It may not have been as overt as pointy or animal ears, but it was still cute in its own way. “Ooooh, nooooo, I got a leaky steampipe,” she squeaked and immediately got off him.

Delicia hurried to the platform to locate her faulty part. Even though she did it quickly, she seemed shattered when she inspected the centrepiece of the entire apparatus. The brass funnel that was filled to the brim with refining mechanisms, under which a single sizable flask stood to collect the minimal produce that came from the room-filling contraption.

Switching out the current flask for another, she carried what she currently had to a workbench. With a syringe, she extracted the fingerwidth-deep pool of multi-coloured fluid. A few drops were scattered over testing papers. Sighing, she squirted the remaining contents of the syringe into a waste drain.

“That’s four days down the drain,” she muttered.

“You want a pick-me-up?” John got up and approached the alchemist.

Delicia didn’t even notice; she had both elbows on her workbench and sighed deeply again. “No, failure is just part of research… Uh, actually, what do I have you for if not to cheer me up!” She turned around to see him tower above her. “Oooh, hey there, did not expect you to be this… close.”

Saying nothing, John proceeded to literally pick her up. The alchemist shouted in surprise, then with laughter, as he spun and spun her around, sending her legs flying. It violated every last safety regulation that one could imagine. John was confident enough in his balance that he did not care. All that mattered was Delicia’s laughter.

When he eventually put her down, she was cheerily hugging him of her own volition for a few more seconds. “I do love you – a lot,” she said with a broad grin.

Then she got back to work.