Chapter 1768 – Days Going By

“Can they step down?”

To that, Stirwin had no answer. “None ever tried. The five Mothers and one Father were chosen among the primordial elementals to be the rulers by Gaia herself to assure the balance of the new system.”

“Assuming Gaia wanted that system to remain forever, she would have picked people that would never tire of ruling,” John finished that thought, then shrugged. “Not that it matters to us, I doubt even my BS could let me contract an elemental ruler. That would melt down the scales. In any case…” he smiled at his women (and somewhat at Stirwin, but the Celestial Devourer knew as well as John where the priorities lay), “…glad to have all of you back. Let me give you the rundown of what else has happened.”

Picking up after the destruction of Atlas’ corpse, John told them of the end of Macuil, the aftermath of the fights, the limited happenings since, and his plans for the direct future.

“Aclysia must be livid about the loss of the plane,” Siena remarked.

John scratched his temple. “She is rather annoyed, yes, especially since we are not getting a replacement anytime soon.”

The downside of making a wealthy population was that there was more demand for expensive goods. Services of people that could make dimensional folding enchantments of that scale were one such thing. The number of people that made private planes for wealthy Abyssals was low, especially in North America, and it would take the market some time to scale up to the new demand – if it even did. Planes were not exactly a good that needed constant replacement.

In other words: the builders that provided work of quality John saw worthy for his women were busy. While he could have asserted influence and authority to get pushed ahead of the queue, there were two problems with that. One was that he did not like doing so. The other was that the people ahead of him in the queue were 90% the same politicians he was currently trying to get in an amicable mood again.

‘If I get a new plane on speed order, Emrik will just use that as ammunition to say I want to leave again,’ John thought and rolled his shoulder. ‘Ah well.’ “Anyway, let’s go,” he said and turned around. A whipping motion conjured a rope of silver mana from the top of his finger. It flew towards the door handle, then shattered. John clicked his tongue. “That was meant to wrap around the handle and pull it down.”

“Okay, scratch that though, what was that? Did you just fucking shape a spell freely?” Salamander drilled down.

“Awesome, right?” He smirked. Despite his failure to even open a door with it, he was in a fantastic mood. He led the way as he explained. “I got a new Master Class and it allows me to Free Cast. It’s super inefficient but I still get to do it. I need more Levels in the Class before the complexity is worthwhile though.”

“Is that your priority on Classes then?” Undine asked.

“No, I am finishing Starforger first. The last Class Level has no Challenge, interestingly enough. I just need to get to 725, which I should reach in 4 days. Just in time to witness that Small Lake tournament.”

“That will be fun.” Salamander grinned.

“We have the less fun task of resettling the Aztecs first,” John said. “The Worldturtle is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I went down there on a commercial flight with the Ambassador Double. We’ll be greeting the people on the shore on this end.” He scratched the back of his head. “We have about an hour before we have to teleport over. I need you to build some basic structures.”

“Let’s not waste an hour. We might not get all the houses done before then,” Gnome said. “I mean… i-if no one else wants to stick around?”

Sylph seized the opportunity to babble. “I mean, I mean, we could use the hour to do deep contact cuddles instead – I like getting deep contact cuddles – but if the cuddle rock says we should be stacking rocks instead, I’ll be Gnome’s greatest soldier and say roger-roger!”

“What happened to your confidence, brave leader?” Salamander teased. “When we were fighting Xipe-Totec, you were badass as fuck.”

Bashfully, the brunette pushed her index fingers together. “Uhm… Uwuwuwu… th-thanks?” She glanced repeatedly at everyone, who amusedly shook their heads or just giggled at the leader of the elemental clique. Gnome clenched one fist and pumped it to animate herself. “Umu! How is Nahua doing?”

“Poorly.” John stopped and turned to the group. “Would you like to check on her now then? We will have to coax her out to join us anyway.”

“Yes,” Gnome was quick to confirm.

They did not need to change direction in the hallway, only the intent of their destination. They turned a corner that had previously not existed, then marched up to the door that John had placed elsewhere a few days ago. He opened it to the expected tock-tock-tock of the hammer and chisel. “Is it ti-“ the demigoddess began to ask, then stopped when she saw the elementals step in. “I am sorry!” she blurted out immediately.

“It’s alright.” Gnome stepped forwards. “You did not know better.”

“A lack of knowledge makes the sacrifice for a crime twice as high,” the demigoddess said, then shook her head. “That translates poorly into English.”

‘Uhm, uh, huh, what’s this about?’ Sylph had the decency to ask via mental connection.

‘Nahua called our cuddle rock weak. She must have seen the error of her ways when we gave her torturer a deadly spanking,’ Siena answered.

‘By the way, can we talk about us having a collective Babel Phrase?’ Salamander chimed in. ‘Because that shit is awesome.’

‘What do you want to talk about there?’ Stirwin wondered.

‘That that shit is awesome?’

Gnome squatted down next to Nahua, who sat cross-legged on the floor. The brunette gave the demigoddess a second glance, then looked at the wall. Giving Nahua the warmest smile a human face could create, the first of John’s elementals asked, “Mind if I helped you with that? I’m always eager to learn new stonecutting techniques.”

“I… are we not supposed to leave?” Nahua asked.

“We’ve got an hour,” Gnome assured and sat down next to the demigoddess. Her hands trailed down a wavy groove in the stone. “Is that line giving you trouble?” the brunette continued the conversation, before Nahua could deny the offer.

“Yeah… I messed up the spacing on the sketch. I thought I could fix it later, but it just got more skewed…” Nahua clenched the chisel in her hand. “I can’t do anything right.”

Gently, Gnome placed her hands on that of the woman with the axolotl gills. “Stone may always remember mistakes, but a statue is not finished until the final polish has been made.” Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Nahua, the brunette drew little signs on the wall with her fingers. The motions did create grooves in the stone that disappeared as soon as she had spoken. “What if you introduce some symmetry like this?”

“That… could work?” Nahua followed the sketching finger. “Could you not just…” She shook her head. “Never mind… I would be honoured by your help.”

“John, can you get us seven in an hour?” Gnome requested.

“Sure,” he agreed and left the room smiling. He knew when he got a not-so-subtle request to leave. His apartment door appeared exactly opposite of the room.

He entered to the pleasant sight of Ehtra in her maid uniform sitting on the Couch. Next to her were Aclysia and Claire. None of the three remained seated, instead hasting over to form up in a line, Aclysia at the centre, Claire to her left, Ehtra to her right. “”Welcome back, Master,”” they spoke in unison. All three did it with veneration in their voice, one with melodic, one with manic, and one with bashful undertones. It all harmonized into a wonderful welcoming committee.

“Thank you very much, my maids,” he said, trying to sound as thankful for them as they were for him. Of course, he had a thousand more reasons to be thankful than the reverse and therefore his words failed to deliver it all. But he could put the power of his thoughts behind them to compensate.

Broad smiles blossomed on the faces of the three servants. Immediately, Ehtra moved a grey wing between her blushing features and the Gamer’s eyes. That she did it faster than Claire could lunge at him was impressive. “We are not worthy of such deep gratitude. We are not worthy of such deep love. We are not worthy of being in your employ,” Claire greeted him with her alliterations.

“We are worthy of whatever Master bestows on us, who else would judge?” Aclysia disagreed, while Claire hung from his neck. She added herself to the hug, the only difference between their obsession with him the level of grace they covered it with.

If John was not supposed to stick his dick in crazy, then why was crazy this good to him? ‘Probably a different kind of crazy,’ he thought and gave both a quick kiss. They were not even partly satisfied with that and went to cover his neck in more caresses of their soft lips. ‘I must be the only man in the world that loves it when a vampire goes for his neck.’

“We had a wonderful talk until you came in,” Ehtra complained.

The Gamer smirked at her and put his arms around the two maids. Positions swiftly changed from them pressing against his chest to them nestling up to his sides. It let him walk with them to the Couch. Ehtra followed them with jealous eyes, but did a ‘harumph’ and averted her gaze when he looked at her.

“What were you doing? Book club?” John guessed, looking at the three copies of a novel on the table.

Aclysia insisted on the maid cadre being in sync and Momo worked with her to make that a certainty. Together those two assured that the maid cadre remained a tightly knit sub-group inside the harem through continuous group activities. In terms of consistently meeting factions inside his harem, only the crafting crew and the chaos brigade could be considered more of a unit. Both of those groups were smaller.

Besides that, everyone needed their hobbies. Aclysia was the main householder. All of the other maids supported her, despite their individual main duties. Beatrice was his finance minister, Claire had dedicated herself to managing livestock on his properties and in the Guild Hall at large, Delicia had her alchemy, Ehtra was his secretary, Lee (who was more an honorary member anyway) had her Fateweaving, and Momo was his chancellor. Between work and chores, they had to find time to sit down and enjoy themselves. It was healthy and John insisted on it.

Book clubs were a solid way to keep new conversations going. One of the drawbacks of their lifestyle was that a whole lot of their day to day was shared and that made for few new conversations. The sheer volume of people in the harem made up for this, in large part, because it was difficult to have detailed conversations with everyone on a day-to-day basis. Because the maids constantly worked next to each other, the problem remained quite present in their sub-group. Shared readings gave everyone a new topic to discuss for a few days or weeks at a time.

“Lord of the Rings.” John picked up the book and turned it between his hands. “Did you finish it today?”

“We were discussing our favourite characters, before you came in,” Ehtra kept lamenting. “Obnoxious intruder that you are.”

“For someone that loathes me so much, you sure are comfortable in the uniform,” John pointed out.

“…I don’t loathe you, idiot…” Ehtra muttered, blushed a little more, and hid the entirety of her face behind the wing. When she peeked over the edge again, John was seated and smiling at her. He tapped his lap twice, then put his arm around Aclysia again. “…Okay…” she said in a tiny voice.

Wings dismissed, the maid sat down in her Master’s lap. In trained unison, she did so by straddling him while the two maids next to him moved just enough for her legs to have space. Chocolate brown thighs settled between John’s own and the pale and vampirically pale thighs of the other two maids. All three pairs were thick, squishy, and fully revealed, the side slits of their skirts having been peeled back.

‘Well, technically they are covered by garter belts and stockings, but who looks at those and thinks they are an obstruction?’ John pulled at one of the straps on Claire’s leg and let it snap back into place. “You all look gorgeous,” he complimented, to unified blushing and giggling. All three maids were hugging him. “Your favourite characters?” he reminded them of the conversation.

“Ehtra, you were talking about Aragorn,” Aclysia purred.

“…Yeah, I like Aragorn the most!” Ehtra said, as if it was some kind of embarrassing confession. “I know I’m basic, but the reluctant king reclaiming the throne at the time of need does it for me!”

“No shame in that,” John assured her. She puffed up her cheeks and shoved her tits in his face. ‘Always with the mixed signals.’

“Personally, I’m a little fonder of Theoden,” Claire continued. “A flawed man yet flawless in his admission of it all. Even when all was against him and even when he stood little to gain, he led with his all the forces of his people against the evil.”

“Of course, you two pick the kings.” John let out an overdramatized sigh. “What about you, Aclysia?”

“My preferred character is Frodo,” she revealed. “An educated man, a man that first had his calling forced on him, then shouldered it willingly, a man that was corrupted in the end and felt shame for it when he was once more of sound mind. Flawed he was and he did the best he could.” She closed her eyes and placed her head on John’s shoulder. “He needed those around him. He knew that. He knew also when to go alone. He knew when to go together. Wisdom that saved the world.”

“Let’s hope my wisdom will do the same,” John whispered.

Aclysia laughed, three little sounds like pure bells ringing. “Not all is about you, Master.”

What a delightful statement to hear from her.