Chapter 1785 – The not-so-Small Tournament 7 – Small, Mad, Wild and Weird
“Come oooooooon,” Eliana complained, her chin on his leg. “Let me suck your coooooooock!”
“That would be rude,” John answered.
“Fuck Moi-moi – FIGURATIVELY!” Eliana screamed before the redhead could take offense to that. “And then fuck me, literally!”
“That would be a little more agreeable,” John answered, to the confused head tilt of the pretty little psycho. “I’ve just looked back on my recent sexual record and found that I’ve been getting a tad lazy. I shouldn’t just get sucked off all the time.”
“Wha- but I fucking love having your cock in my throat?!”
“Yeah, but I love actually making an effort to make you feel good. There’s a reason I don’t just bombard all of you with commanded orgasms.” John pulled the hyper-masochist into his lap for some more cuddles. Playfully, she wound away, like a cat that still wanted the pats. She got kisses all over her neck as her reward. “I’m not saying no more blowjobs, just that I want to be less self-indulgent in me…” he squeezed one of Eliana’s plump thighs, “…and more indulgent in you. You wouldn’t want to deny your Master his wishes, would you?”
“No,” Eliana panted.
“Good girl,” he whispered. After all of that, he was too turned on to mind the Warden that was drinking tea with Rave and Nathalia. ‘Ah well, she knows what I am about,’ John thought and quietly removed his pants. Eliana had never bothered to put her clothes back on. Impaling her on his cock was done swiftly, her wet cunt taking his full size readily.
Just having her in his lap was not enough. Arms slung under her kneepits, John folded her together. “AH!” Eliana moaned loudly, when he pinned her underneath him on the couch.
“Don’t be rude,” John grunted into her ear and put a hand on her mouth. Both of them picked up the annoyed grumble, but Moira did not bother to call them out. The backrest of a couch between them was enough to keep her from complaining, apparently.
The conversation over tea continued. John kept his hand on Eliana’s mouth, who did try her best to keep her moans quiet. Tried and failed. Her Master remembered all the ways he could angle his cock to exploit her sensitive body. Her muffled cries felt all the louder for the pretence of secrecy they were engaging in.
“See, isn’t this more fun?” John grunted into her ear. He slammed against her juicy ass one more time, then stopped. His balls tightened, delivering to Eliana the hot load she so deeply desired. Her folded frame writhed underneath him, the orgasmic quivers tightening her lungs, pressing all the air out in a quick and loud scream, before leaving her voiceless and o-mouthed.
Eliana just giggled in response. When his orgasm ebbed away and his cock experienced that limited time of unpleasant hyper-sensitivity, he pulled out. His arms remained slung around her for a minute though. He had her hair and neck and shoulders to kiss and those delightful noises to hear that she made when he squeezed her and-
“Master, it has been ten minutes,” Aclysia’s voice softly chimed into the situation.
“For real?” The Gamer reluctantly let go of one of his favourite body pillows. “I could have sworn it was just barely sixty seconds…”
The murmuring from beyond the lounge proved the maid correct (not that he had doubted her to start with). John made it a point to be on time, so him being late was noticed quite quickly by the crowd.
The murmuring stopped when he stepped out from the magical shadow that kept his private area private. Covertly checking that his pants sat well, he sat down. “Rules as usual: once the fight begins, only items created by powers may be wielded in addition to those already on you. The star is now falling. Prepare yourselves.”
The two opponents of the round, Tachia and Ankleshanker, stared at each other across the divide. Despite being the last of her little family group to make it so far, the plant mage grinned wide. Ankleshanker wore a grim expression. He must have done his homework on the sadistic tendencies of his opponent. Even if he was secured from death, he would not enjoy it if he was on the losing side.
“DO I HAVE TO PUT CLOTHES ON?” Eliana shouted from the back.
“It’d be better if you did,” John answered in a raised tone. “Although the broadcast is 18 plus so…”
That was all the pretty little psycho needed to hear. Ignoring his request, she strut out into the light, naked except for the harness and boots, and freshly fucked for everyone to see. If the people didn’t know why he had been late, they did now.
“You little cunt,” John reprimanded her whilst laughing and ruffled her hair.
“Nudity was an option?” Nathalia asked, clearly annoyed that she had not been informed of this, and sat down on the other side. Her scales vanished as she did so.
“It’s the discouraged option,” John told both of them.
“Fuck you and your fucking clothes, I hate them!”
“I concur,” Nathalia stated.
“And fuck you, you should be reading the undead army bit!”
“I do not want to. I prefer exchanging chatter with you two.” The dragoness put her elbow on the table in front of them. Her eyebrows pulled together. “Isn’t that the same goblin you fought in that tournament in Rome?”
“Fucking brilliant mind behind those smouldering eyes of yours!” Eliana burst out into cacophonic laughter when Nathalia gave her a sideway glare.
Down in the arena, the fight began with a silver flash. “GO, MY LOVELIES!” Tachia shouted, throwing out her arms and spreading seedpods in all directions. They rapidly expanded into massive, carnivorous plants.
Ankleshanker responded to the onslaught of maws by turning tiny. John could still see him, his senses finely attuned, and Tachia’s plants seemed just sensitive enough to notice what was moving on their many stems and stalks. The average viewer, however, would have just seen a knot of plant matter continuously turning in on itself, chasing after a green skin they could not perceive.
‘Stop pointing the camera at Nathalia’s tits,’ John warned one of the people in charge of filming via his Travel Computing technomancy Skill. Cheekily, the cameraman pointed them at Eliana’s thighs instead. John’s left eye twitched. The problem with presenting himself as the understanding ruler that could be bantered with was that, every so often, people did not take him seriously. A strongly worded warning and glare later, the focus was put to the fight again.
“You should punish the person publicly,” Nathalia remarked.
John raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you live in my head?”
The dragoness showed a proud little smile. “I saw the camera moving and your sour expression as it did. Jane’s mindreading, I do not have, but I can observe.” She leaned over a little further. “You ought to punish it when people do not listen to you.”
Down below, Tachia’s constant giggling was interrupted when Ankleshanker suddenly emerged from the thicket, twin daggers in hands. Sizing up to his regular height mid jump, he sliced at his opponent, carving a bloody X into the plant mage’s chest.
A massive plant maw came from the side, aiming to swallow the goblin whole. Ankleshanker rapidly increased his size further. While teeth dug into his arm, his increased mass was too much to bite down on properly. Under the oos and aas of the crowd, he sliced the head off the vine hydra, then shrunk down to the size of a flea before the regrowing maws could catch him.
“I don’t want to punish people just because they had a little bit of fun,” John responded.
“It’s about disrespect,” Nathalia stated plainly.
“Punishing people for disrespect alone is the tool of the dictator.”
Nathalia rolled her eyes. “That is the modern mundane in you talking again. You know better than that. Those that do not adhere to a standard and get away with it will continue to violate that standard. It is that simple.”
Ankleshanker continued to use his ability to shrink and grow to weave in and around the attacks. He took the stray hit, while delivering crippling blows to his opponent. The assassin had learned about not getting entrapped since fighting Lydia in the tournament. The fight was shaping up to be a manifestation not of power difference, but of an experience gap.
“Is it the standard that I want to enforce that people cannot have fun around me?”
“Depends on the kind of fun, doesn’t it?” Nathalia sounded mildly frustrated with him, but stuck to the point. “You are losing yourself in the details in the execution of a broader issue. You are the head of whatever you want to call this guild. The difference between a good ruler and a bad ruler is not the shape of their government but their usage of power.”
“When the fuck did you become a scholar on this?” Eliana asked.
“I’ve decided that this entire monarchical debate inside the harem was a good point of learning more details about all of you that I have unjustly ignored. Admittedly, I fell down on the side of the crown by intuition even before talking with the others.” Nathalia shrugged. “Ultimately, I found Lydia and Metra on this more persuasive than Momo and Delicia.”
John didn’t put a lot of stock in that on its own. The anti-monarchy sentiment in his harem was relatively weak. Momo was against it because she agreed with his principles on the matter and Delicia was against it because she had poor experiences with the aristocracy. Even those two, who were against hereditary systems broadly, would not have protested much when it came to him specifically putting on a crown. Their arguments would be principled but not strong in the current situation. He knew this.
‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely’ was a saying that John was putting less and less stock in these days. There was an element of truth to it, of course. It was that same element of truth that Nathalia spoke to when she said he should punish the cameraman. Those that were not made to adhere to a standard would violate it again and again. The type of person to keep a line of expectations of their own accord was rare.
They did, however, exist and to that end it had to be considered that bad people corrupted power. The difference between a police state and a smoothly run metropolis was not necessarily what powers the law keepers had, but what they were willing to use for what circumstance. People may grumble over regular midnight raids, but they were happy to accept them if it kept drug dealers from running the block. To that end, the real difference between tyranny and justice was sound judgement, nothing more, nothing less.
“I don’t know what the best answer is ultimately,” John confessed. “I can’t deny that I am… better than most people.” He hesitated to say it. Even when he had it in numbers, deeds and theory, it felt dirty to state such a thing. “But does that mean that I should-“
Before he could continue, Nathalia interrupted him with a sigh. “That is your problem. The generic you, all the people that believe we should pretend we are equal. I accept that I have taken inequality too far for all but my most recent months of life. Even now I struggle to see these masses as more than exchangeable workers that exist for menial labour.” Nathalia let her eyes wander over the crowd, taking the time to narrow down on individuals. “That is unhealthy. I know this now. You are committing yourself, if only in words, to an equal idiocy.”
John raised his hand so she stopped for a moment. “Tachia!” he shouted. “You should surrender!”
“Fuck you!” the plant mage cursed, her sharp grin reduced to gnashing teeth. Blood had soaked into most of her clothing. A regular person would have passed out and died from the blood loss and ensuing hypothermia minutes ago. It was only because she was a high-level Abyssal that she was continuing to stand in the first place. Her wounds, however, were many and deep. If she did not surrender soon, healing her would be difficult.
“I cannot guarantee your life if you choose to fight on like this,” the Gamer warned.
That seemed to cut through the adrenaline. The plant mage looked down at herself, finally noticing the state she was in. Her shark-like teeth drew blood when she clenched her jaw even further. Raising her hand, she signalled her surrender.
John fell back into his chair, while Tachia walked towards the medics that were hurrying into the field.
“Equality as a doctrine is unhealthy,” he picked up the talk with Nathalia again. “No disagreement from me there. Especially in the Abyss, where the gaps are so… absurd and evident.” He stopped for a moment, playing with the armrest of his chair. Eliana had worry in her eyes and Nathalia’s gaze softened. It was because of their reactions that John realized that he was silent for quite a stretch. “I do not have a satisfying answer,” he answered with a weary sigh. “I’m slowly getting grinded down on this and I can feel it. All around me are people that are in politics for themselves first and foremost. I thought I was bad, then I faced people who are actually bad and I catch myself thinking what good comes from giving such people weight over my decisions? I reel back from that thought, warning myself that other perspectives have their validity and that I may be missing details. I give them the benefit of the doubt… and am rarely surprised by the outcome. Do I really need all of this cumbersome apparatus of the state to select for talent that I can reliably enough discern with my own eyes? Should I even pay lip service to the influence of the public?” He stopped again. “I do not like the answer that I am likely to come to.”
Nathalia gently took a hold of his arm. “I’m sorry I pushed you on this…?” she muttered, between guilt and righteousness. The tone of a person that regretted the outcome of her words, but not the truth behind them.
A mixture of emotions that John could certainly empathize with. Still quiet, Eliana grabbed his other arm. He smiled at both of them in turn. “It’s good to push me to the edges of what I am comfortable with from time to time – no, do not call me ‘daddy’,” John pre-empted the joke. “That’s down the edge and at the bottom of the ravine.”
“Wasn’t going to,” Eliana lied as easily as she smirked.
“I simply don’t know where, exactly, I should draw the line of who I should listen to and who I should punish for disrespecting me… but I can say that I can tolerate a cameraman having a bit of fun in the lull of a fight.”
“I do not mind being ogled,” Nathalia stated. “They can know what you have taken off the market.”
The words and the gentle scratching behind his ear did wonders to get John’s mood back up. “Maybe you trying to get more empathetic is going to be the end of me,” he lamented sarcastically. “It makes you more effective at getting what you want out of me.”
“You should give me a city,” Nathalia demanded.
“Why the fuck do you need a city?” Eliana wanted to know.
“Need?” the dragoness blew little flames out of her nostrils. “I just want one.”
John snorted at her complete seriousness. Their conversation came to a halt, due to the next couple of fighters having stepped into the ready position. The final fight of the day was between the seer Mindpierce and the druid Haek. Already, the conjurer of chimeric wildlife was surrounded by a bear, a wolf and a large eagle, all of them marked by various growths typically belonging to other animals. Mindpierce only had her Asian sword at the ready. With her tribal markings and blindfold, the woman with the shaved head looked like she belonged in the same movie as Haek. A rare occurrence in the highly individualistic landscape of the Abyss.
“Any bets?” John asked, as the star fell.
“So you and your bullshit Observe can fucking scam me out of the money you pay me for being your cocksleeve?” Eliana asked.
“I haven’t paid you an allowance in months, Eliana.”
“Huh?” She looked at him confused and he looked at her confused.
“Did you not notice?” he asked her. He hadn’t even brought it up in conversation since he had just assumed she would check her bank account sometime.
“You have to be fucking paying me! Otherwise my card would have gotten declined, you lying cock!”
“…Has it occurred to you that you are earning enough money off your art that you do not need me to just throw cash at you anymore?”
“…What the fuck are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything, I just said it: you’re earning your own money because people love your artwork and are buying it en-masse.”
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” Eliana jumped out of her chair and fled to the back of the lounge.
“That girl has issues,” Nathalia drawled.
“We already knew that,” John joked. “Bet?”
“No, but I’ll listen to who your favourite is.”
“This is another interesting one. Mindpierce has the level advantage, but their Innate Abilities aren’t direct counters and it’s not so big a gap that I can discount either out of hand.” John played with the ridges of Nathalia’s horn as he watched the fight unfold.
The wild beasts around Haek had charged at Mindpierce the moment the combat began. Currently the tribal woman was deftly dodging and weaving through the multitude of attacks. Her sword was drawn and re-sheathed in swift flashes, separating limbs from bodies. The animals pulled back once hurt in such a fashion, returning to Haek who healed them by letting them drink his own blood.
The attacks of eagle, wolf and bear were steady and well timed. John recognized a pattern that was pulling tighter as the fight progressed. Haek had been measuring the capacity of Mindpierce’s foresight and was now aiming to overwhelm it by attacking in swift bursts. As much as her mind may be able to perceive, her body would hit a limit of what she could react to.
“I surrender!” the woman declared just as the trio of animals prepared for another assault.
John found that interesting. They were both over level 300, so they had to have more up their sleeve than their base Innate Abilities. Then again, it wasn’t just them that had chosen to keep any Babel Phrases or other aces hidden. Likely, they had decided that it wasn’t worth unleashing their true potential in a tournament with such low stakes – and they probably did not want to be the ones to test how durable the shield was either.
John shrugged, he had seen enough of the fighters to get an impression and that was what mattered. “That concludes the first day of the tournament!” he announced to everyone. “We’ll continue tomorrow!”
The crowd cheered and John retreated back into the lounge. To his surprise, he found that Luna had made her way over. The silver-haired, slender half of Romulus’ eternally present haremettes was currently chatting with Moira and Aclysia, the latter about to pour a fresh cup when the goddess of the moon made a halting gesture.
“John, my beloved would like to talk to you,” she told him. “Just you, if you permit. He says the conversation would flow better if it is kept between the two of you.”
John had an inkling what it was about and nodded. He was quite eager to talk about this to the longest reigning ruler on the planet. “I’d be honoured.”