Collide Gamer

So much had happened since the last grinding session, that seeing the endless green plain was more than just nostalgic. In its simplicity lay the promise of excitement whose only potential drawbacks were pain and annoyance. As a Gamer, John had always appreciated grinding in some way. He appreciated it all the more now that he had been reminded of how much of a privilege it was to grow more powerful in this relatively safe environment.

As before, Lee’s version of the green plain was different from her father’s. This space was a manifestation of her will, a manipulation of Gaia’s blessing that created Illusion Barriers upon request by those gifted with magic. Rather than just grass, the landscape was one littered with ruins of concrete and wood. Many looked like they belonged in modern urban settings, many others were an assembly of various architectural styles from history and video games.

“Time dilation and Fateweaving are stable,” Lee reported, then did a salute. “Your majesty, your harem is now contained with you.”

“…What kind of joke is this now?”

“Dunno,” Lee admitted, relaxing her posture immediately.

“Your commanding officer did not allow you to be at ease,” Fianna chimed in from the side.

The Cardinal Chosen of the White Tiger morphed into her true shape. Like a pond, her skin gently rippled, transforming into the pale hue of the Northern European kind. Hair went from brown to white and decoratively dishevelled. Proportions shifted beneath the casual clothes that were revealed.

‘Oh no,’ John thought immediately. Fianna had chosen to wear what the harem had internally dubbed a Gamer attractor. Her legs were covered with black spandex. A bright green border delineated where her thigh ended and her gluteus maximus began. White fabric clung to her ass with such tightness that it disappeared between the cheeks of her bubble butt. The shadows painted the picture of roundness, a shifting masterpiece of the female form, adjusting as she walked with military elegance.

Fianna took great care in making him see all of it. The sniper strutted past him, until she was right of Lee. At that point, she suddenly spun on her heels, clacking them together as she faced him. The lower edge of her crop top fluttered, her moderately sized breasts large enough to cause the front to curtain. A gap was left between belt line and shirt, showing the lower half of her midriff – the pale skin seemed to scream: ‘A womb tattoo is needed here!’

“I am glad to have been given permission to accompany you, Sir!” Fianna declared, striking a sharp salute. Perhaps to differentiate aesthetically from Scarlett, Fianna had her robot arms display their nature more overtly. Synthetic skin remained the dominant part of the surface, but there were wider gaps, showcasing metals and plastics. It was the cyborg look over the puppet joints that the redhead prominently used.

John indulged himself in the sight of the posture. There was clearly more to it than submission to her chain of command, a fact Fianna had not been shy about. What exactly it was about stern women saluting for him that made it so alluring, John had a pretty good idea on. Sincere subordination in the hierarchy of his love life had always been attractive to him. Something about her being a cyborg made it even hotter though.

In the background, the maid cadre visibly evaluated Fianna’s conduct.

“At ease,” John ordered, then demonstrably turned away from the sniper. He did not want her to occupy his attention quite yet. “Lee, can you put our house up?”

“Uh, yeah, sure!” Lee responded hastily.

The entirety of the present group laughed when a statue of a butt the size of a mansion suddenly popped into existence. Eliana laughed the loudest, her shrill and unsteady laughter accompanied by her clutching her stomach. Ehtra and Moira were tied for the quietest, both hiding their grins behind raised hands in a futile attempt to put themselves above such base humour.

“Shaddup!” Lee snapped at all of them, her face beet red from embarrassment. She put her fingers in her ears and clenched her eyes shut. The statue of the butt popped out of existence as quickly as it had spawned.

In its place, a mansion was erected. The building process was like watching a Sims speedrunner put a massive house together. Wall for wall, furniture for furniture, until the gothic estate had been created in its entirety.

‘Fateweavers sure are something,’ the Gamer thought. It was a shame that these kinds of powers required some supporting Innate Ability to be actually useful in combat situations. Even Magoi, with all his experience, could not manipulate an active battlefield. Manipulating copies of real places was a lot harder, as a baseline, and the concentration required was constantly interrupted by the fighting.

They headed into the enormous house. The front door led into a large foyer. Aclysia stepped next to a little pad that she must have requested in advance. “Please drop your luggage here, we will assign you your rooms after the strategy discussion.”

The three non-haremettes accompanying them did as requested, then followed everyone else into the main room. It was expansive, as any room that was supposed to comfortably hold almost 30 people had to be. It was also pretty small by that standard, since excess space was more of a detriment for a community as tightly knit as theirs. Who wanted a couch that had enough space that they did not form a cuddle chain?

“Down! Down with the tyranny of clothing! Down with it!” Sylph babbled, tearing clothes off her petite curves that John was 100% certain she had only worn to strip out of them.

Without a word spoken, Aclysia, Beatrice and Claire caught the flying clothes, folded them up orderly, then put them into a laundry basket that Delicia pulled out of her inventory. The basket was consequently handed over to one of the Fae Maids that manifested.

“Join me in nudity, sisters and sisters! Join me, cast off the yoke of that which covers your forms! Be free of your annoying fabrics, bask in the heat of Jane’s preferred temperature, be naked and fondleable, yes, that is how we are meant to be!”

“Okay,” Lyndell responded.

John scratched the back of his head and let the horny mushroom absorb her dress into herself without any comment. The little propaganda speech of the air spirit made many of the present women expose themselves. Others remained, like him, clothed. With respect to Moira, more so than the other two guests, John wanted to keep things on course until they had the foundations laid down.

“Pleasant change of pace…” Momo muttered in response to his thoughts.

“That’s a lot of whispered snark from a brat in correction range,” John warned her.

She stuck out her tongue.

John put his arm around her waist and dragged her, flailing and squawking, to the executive seat. Once there, he pulled her down with him, covering her in kisses until the maid was so blushy and embarrassed that she could no longer put up any resistance. Undine helped herself to the place on his left, receiving a longer, deeper kiss in greeting.

With a tranquilized brat in one arm and a gothic slime lady in the other, John was equipped to start the meeting.

“Alright, the goals of this grinding session are rather simple. First, we are getting back into the swing of things. That means we are not going to push exceptionally hard. I know that, with the state the world is in, it may appear that we need every level we can get… but the truth of the matter is that we don’t.”

John looked around the room, seeing the less analytical of his women raise an eyebrow at his declaration. Moira appeared downright offended at his apparent lack of enthusiasm. Lydia would no doubt have looked the same, had she not been aware of what would come next.

“The Lorylim war has proven that we already are at the pinnacle of the world. For all that we have lost during it, realistically, once the Lorylim had lost the element of surprise, we were not pushed back on any front. The only creature we were incapable of defeating was Tiamat herself, which another 200 levels are unlikely to have changed.” He paused and shook his head. “That’s not really true, we probably will get some more bullshit in the next 200 levels, but not even Romulus could have dealt with that one is the point.”

Taking another pause, he looked around the room for any interjections. When there were none, he wrapped up his explanation.

“The point is that we are now firmly nestled at the very top of things, When we strike together, the only entities in the world capable of stopping us are so overpowered that even at max level we would likely be helpless and such entities are exceptionally rare, if another one besides Tiamat even exists.”

“Interjection: Remus,” Beatrice spoke up.

“A good point,” Aclysia agreed with her faux-twin. “The Godmaker may create a challenge such as that, Master.”

“He might,” John agreed. “I am not presenting you with a rationale to be complacent, only for one as to why we are not pushing for the utmost during the next 18 days. As for our program, unless Gaia suddenly presents me with a-“

The Gamer stared at the window with a mixture of annoyance and genuine resentment. There was a part of him that still hadn’t forgiven Gaia for staying her hand in protecting his parents. Like he had said to the supreme deity, he was trying to let that grudge go. It was a futile one, his logical mind knew that. It did not mean the emotion did not sometimes surface.

He swallowed his resentment and annoyance and let out a resigned sigh. Pressing ‘Yes’ was a foregone conclusion, he only delayed doing so to let everyone else read the window.

“Alright, so my original plan was to just start the new Raid and advance as far as we could go, but Gaia just decided that we should do this differently,” he commented on the situation while the window was moved from haremette to haremette. His eyes wandered to the three women that were not part of his harem, who had all taken a seat on the same part of the enormous couch. “It says I need to add a woman to my harem to finish it.”

Fianna opened her mouth, only to stop herself. Moira crossed her arms and glared at no one in particular. Lyndell raised a hand, “I volunteer.”

“I believe that. However, I would rather fail the Quest than hurry along a matter of love.” John got the window back in front of him, then pressed yes. “However, I can already see that the two of you worked out between each other that Lyndell should get the prime time first.” He glanced at Momo. “Something you no doubt were aware of as well.” Fresh chapters posted on 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁

“I, urgh, mhm, mhhhmmaybe?” the fae maid sputtered. “What makes you say that?”

“I can smell a scheme from a mile away and it’s not like Lyndell is hiding it.”

“I am not. I want your hands all over my body,” Lyndell stated.

“There we are. Conspire then, make your moves to win the hearts of this harem of mine by the end of the week.” John gestured widely. “That’s your Quest to fulfil, not mine. As for everything else.” John scanned the window again. “The Arena and the Siege will be done easily enough. The Floor Dungeon will likely take several hours. It’s the two bosses that are going to be the major time sink. We only have 5 days for that as well.”

“I believe the stated time dilation was 1 to 6?” Moira asked.

“Which brings me to the second point of order,” John said. “Grinding aside, these are the holidays and we want to celebrate on the final day of each day.” ‘Words that only make sense in the Abyss,’ he added mentally.

“Fuck you!” Eliana cussed.

“On day 1, my lovely, patient, adorable…”

“…pissed, horrible, unbred…”

“…Eliana has her birthday. That is to say…” He checked his phone for the time. It was 00:02. “It’s technically her birthday right now, but we will pretend it’s not until we get there.”

“Five more days of peace,” the pretty little psycho thought out loud, “and 18 MORE FUCKING DAYS THAT I AM GOING TO SPEND UNBRED!” She inhaled deeply. “…Sorry for shouting.”

“On the second and third day, we are obviously celebrating Christmas Day and then we do a Boxing Day, because we can.” They were doing it the (mostly) American way this year, rather than the German way that they had done it the two years prior, mostly due to convenience for Lydia. “Which brings us to the last point on what we are doing during this trip…”

The maids took that as their signal to pull out a variety of binders that each of them had in their inventories. Within seconds, the coffee table between them was covered with the various files of venues, planned events, availability tables, preference notices, and all the many things a famous couple had to consider when tying the knot.

“Marriage planning,” Rave sighed and picked up the first binder. “Imma be stuck on this for the next eighteen days… why don’t I have multiple bodies?”

“’Cause the world couldn’t handle that much awesome,” John responded.

“Oh, the rare straight compliment.” Rave acted as if she was swiping something out of the air, then put it into her pocket. Well, the place on her naked thigh where her pocket would have been. “Gonna keep that one for later.”

“Alright, now that we have the order of operations clear…” John stood up, “let’s not dally.”

“I should point out at this point,” Moira drawled, “that you just casually revealed to me that she is your woman after all.” She pointed at Lu Zhi. “Unless you wish to tell me you are harbouring the empress of China for your amusement and having anal sex with her is just part of your regular program.”

“Well, fucking the backdoors of my haremettes is in my regular program,” John retorted.

“There was no point in pretending.” Lu Zhi shrugged.

“Now, I may have missed it, because I am a liwdle stupid,” Nahoa interjected, “but where did you leave Daiyu?”

Lu Zhi turned her head. When she did not see the lady-in-waiting behind her, she climbed over the backrest to check the floor. When that still did not lead to her seeing Daiyu, she let out a long sigh. “She probably found the biggest bathroom around and is currently hiding in the tub. I will find her.”

“I do not understand why your favourite retainer is the most useless one,” Nathalia remarked.

Whipping back around, Lu Zhi met the orange gaze of the dragoness with her own slit pupils, set in spheres of jade. “You take that back.”

Nathalia’s eyebrows pulled together, arrogance wrestling with kindness. The latter won out and she reluctantly bowed her head in apology. “Harsher words than were appropriate. She appears to be too shy for the task.”

“Daiyu is incredibly shy, yet she has always executed our will faithfully, harboured no resentment and never begged to advance the position of her clan unduly. She is our most loyal follower and no slander will be permitted in our presence.”

Loyalty was the highest good one could provide in the world, on that John agreed.

Nathalia accepted the chastisement, then the conversation moved on.

“Alright, so while we start with the marriage planning… I will also go and start with the Siege Dungeon,” John said and got up with his real body. “I can get that sorted while everyone gets situated. Once I am back from that, we are opening the Raid.”

And that was the plan for now.