Collide Gamer

“Your turn.” John turned to Ehtra.

“To repeat what the smug creature said: you don’t need to repeat the alphabet back to me,” the grey angel answered, sour as always.

‘Three repeats, Gaia is being a bit lazy today,’ John thought. ‘Then again, why cycle out good options? I like all of these.’

No Pity was the natural option to take here. Last whirl around she had gotten No Remorse and that one had proven to be disgustingly effective. Buffing her Stats by up to 200% by shooting a 400% bonus damage bullet was obviously incredible. The only weakness of that was the ramp up time. The only unfortunate part of the effect was the shortness of the buff, being only 1 second long.

Extending it by 5 seconds was obviously incredible. With sword and gun, she would hail down attacks on the enemy. Could any of the other three options compare?

Gun Mastery 3 was good, but hardly necessary. Ehtra made use of different ammunitions, sure, but those special circumstances were rare. Most of the time, the mini-rockets with the most explosive yield were used. Trick shots were hardly necessary when she had another Skill that made her bullets track their target.

Exterminatus was good, but it would be even better once Ehtra had more buffs. In other words. Exterminatus should be taken after the fundament was established. Picking the Skill now was like building a roof first.

Judgement Bullets, the new option, was interesting but not strong enough to really compete.

“Cease your constant thinking and pick the obvious best option already,” Ehtra stated.

“We all have our bad habits,” John retorted. “You are presenting me with your boobs, even though we know we don’t have time.”

“Just a test of your will, Master creature!” Ehtra insisted, all while blushing and pushing her breasts up further with her crossed arms.

Three utility options, none of them too impressive. Smiting of the Insects theoretically had a combat application if she ever fought someone controlling creepy crawlies. It was doubtful it would be capable of anything more than mundane pest control though.

“I want… the… ing one…” Ehtra mumbled.

“What was that?” John asked in a smug tone. He had genuinely not caught it, but he knew when his grey angel was opening herself up for teasing.

“I want the cooking one!” she repeated, much too loud, and cutely stomped. “It’s not like I want to learn how to feed you or anything, idiot!” Newest update provıded by novel⚑fire.net

John’s answer came as a sing-song, “Your wish is my command, maid of mine.”

‘All repeats, effectively.’ John contemplated the options. Accelerated Aim 2 was a 25% pace increase when the previous upgrade had been a 100% pace increase, so that was less immediately good. Warning Shot was the better option when it came to pure Aim gain. “I favour Dispatch,” he said to the military maid.

“As do I, Sir,” she confirmed his choice.

The logic was simple: it gave her a tool to take out lower-level targets more reliably without Aiming first. Of these three options, it was the one he could see being relevant most frequently.

One interesting option, one guaranteed choice and one head-scratcher. Fianna already had sharp teeth literally made out of metal. He had to assume there was some boost here, but how necessary was it really?

Though he was certain to take the inventory, its utility was simply unmatched, he at least gave Sticky Paws a thought. It had interesting use cases… in theory. In practice, the fact that she didn’t get to choose what was picked made it a gamble.

So, the inventory it was.

“I fucking love getting new toys.” The sole non-maid of his Artificial Spirits grinned ear to ear. Every second that passed ignited a little rage in her, a constant background feeling in their mental connection that never went away. Her title was not for show. Just about anything incensed the First of Wrath. It was her control over that anger that was most impressive. All she showed of it was a bloodthirsty tint to her green eyes.

“Any preference?” John asked.

“I don’t need the ranged attacks. It’s either Break or Wrathful Impact,” Metra answered.

John concurred with that analysis. “Between those two?”

“Don’t care, your choice, my King.”

John ultimately went with Break. While Wrathful Impact was absolutely good, Metra was not lacking in good Rage spenders. If it showed up again later with less stiff competition, he would take it. For now, giving Metra an option to hit even harder was the best one.

‘One repeat, but I hadn’t seen it in a bit,’ John thought. ‘War Howl is still good, but so are the other two options.’

Javelins was such a simple change to the ‘All is a Weapon’ Perk, but it made the First of Wrath so much more terrifying. She could stand at the edge of an engagement and just pelt everything that moved with stones, chunks of dirt, glass shards, or whatever else. Effectively, she would be able to pull off Gnome-manoeuvres.

War Howl had the advantage of being a fantastic morale breaker… but when he wanted to break enemy morale, he could just send Ehtra instead. Marked Prey similarly was good, but others did the same thing better.

They agreed on Javelins, putting Momo up next.

‘Two repeats yet again,’ John thought. “Your thoughts?” he asked immediately. Momo had always been one to prefer making her own choices.

“I am tempted by the Hive 3 for the 20 bonus maids…” The chancellor of Fusion tapped her chin with her index finger. “Though that isn’t really a good reason. Fae Grasp is the better damage option while Shatter is a free addition to my current gameplay… I think Fae Grasp would be for the best.”

“I agree with that,” John said, then tapped the button.

“Why is that even there?!” Momo squawked at the middle option.

Siena laughed, every repetition of the noise velvety and teasing. “You know why,” she drawled.

Turning red, Momo ignored the input.

As tempted as John was to just press that button, it would go against their trust and against better choices. Remote Hypnosis was sexy to imagine, but he could achieve the same effect with some preparation and a phone.

The other two options were both quite limited. Fairy Rings’ theoretically best usage was excluded in the final sentence of its description. Effectively, all that Perk did was give someone a private Momo to call on for some menial task. John hated that idea. Momo was his maid and he wouldn’t give a facsimile of her to another person, much less another man, to do their bidding.

Signature of little Horrors, niche as it was, had its use cases. Momo’s signature was the second most powerful one in Fusion. She was the chancellor, in charge of the cabinet and most of the day-to-day of the empire. That aside, the little peace of mind that at least one of his women couldn’t be shapeshifted into without consequences was quite powerful.

“So, Signature?” John asked.

“Hmm?” Momo’s eyes were transfixed on the middle option.

“…You really do have a very strong hypno kink.”

“No, I- Okay, yes I do!” Momo backpedalled the second she realized her denial was too unbelievable. “What are you going to do, brainwash me?”

Biting her lower lip, the bratty maid followed the rise of John’s hand. Middle finger and thumb were pressed together, threatening a snap that never came. “Not right now,” John responded huskily and put the hand back down.

“Hngh…” The edged nympho squirmed, then shook her head. “Just give me the Signature already.”

He somewhat expected her to notice someone stealing her identity immediately, but nothing of the sort happened. The Perk was selected and that was that. Now it was time for the last of the maids to get her Perks.

Two new choices and both of them were interesting and in competition with a powerful repeater.

Dagger Mastery 1 had an obvious benefit. Nahoa was not helpless with her weapon, a lack of such Skills didn’t go that far. Beyond simple stabs and slashes, she couldn’t do much with it, however. That bit of confidence had stiff competition.

Blood Boil had been previously skipped only because she had a lack of good Diseases and Intensify was so integral to taking advantage of her powerset. Both of those had been acquired, making an active Skill very rewarding to have.

But did she really need it? Of all of his Artificial Spirits, Nahoa relied least on the game mechanics part of her kit. By her nature, she had received much greater boosts in the field of the Monster Girl Perks, which were more traditional magic in their application. Through them, she had plenty of area effects and ways to spread her Diseases.

Adding Seizures to that could be the best choice. Crowd control effects were always powerful and mini stuns that broke the enemy’s rhythm could not be underestimated.

“I would prefer the Seizures,” Nahoa said, when prompted.

“Then Seizures it is,” John said.

Another lewd one, another utility one and both went ignored in favour of the inventory. John pressed that button without a third thought.

“And that’s everyone,” John said. “Now let me just clean up my other remaining windows…”

“Ya gonna use that SEP?” Rave asked.

“I think I’ll hold onto it until Summon Sprite maxes out,” he answered. “It's either that or Summon Hero. Not sure if I want better quantity or quality. Either way, I am keeping it for the moment.” He dismissed the windows, then just… sat there for a moment.

The bend of the couch let him see all of his haremettes at once. To his left and to his right, he was surrounded only by people that he loved more dearly than he did his own life. There were 27 of them now, an absolutely ludicrous number. The depth of his greed was plain in their number. The fullness of his heart was so much stronger.

“It’s now the 27th of December,” John said, woe sneaking into his voice. “There’s so much to do already. We might not be able to come back together for Lee’s birthday and the New Year’s. We have not even three weeks, then… there’s the wedding.” Saying it out loud made him fidget nervously. “We have a realm to tend to, newcomers to the Abyss to appease, and that wedding to arrange… it might be that we won’t all be together again before it starts… but nothing in the world will be more important than that. Whatever else happens, we will all be together again on the 13th.”

The gathered women nodded. Solemn nods, happy nods, serious nods, each an individual expression of a shared sentiment.

“Now… let’s talk about how we split up.”