“Are you really fucking sure about this?” Eliza asked when John undid her arm constraints. “100% certain that this is a good idea? Because I, sure as fuck, am not.”

“HAH!” he laughed mockingly. “I’m rarely 100% certain about anything anymore. About this, I am pretty sure though.” John threw the shackles on the dinner table and didn’t think about them much further. Eliza had shown that she could stop a bit, so he trusted that she could go about without crushing anything too valuable.

John inhaled the scent of his apartment. He had stayed away so long, the part of his brain that blocked out familiar scents had unclogged. For the first time, he could actually smell these surroundings, rather than just feeling neutral.

It was a blend of numerous things. The smells of healthy soil after rainfall, charcoal and flowers intermingled represented the elemental’s presence in the room. A layer of orange, cherry and sandalwood from Aclysia and her oils, not to mention John’s own cologne. Under it all, a refreshing bit of mint, Rave’s usual smell. Ultimately, it all combined into a sweet and husky smell that made John feel home but was perhaps a bit heavy for people unused to it.

Walking to the kitchen, John let a hand slide over the table, then looked down at his hand with surprise, seeing the dust he had just scooped up with that motion. ‘Right, three weeks no cleaning by Aclysia,’ John thought and brushed the grey, fuzzy matter off. It wasn’t a whole lot, less than should be expected really, but it was clearly there. The maids would get to it later, there was no need for him to do anything about it.

His target was the sweets closet in the kitchen. The thing creaked open just a little bit, and a POOF next to John’s ear alarmed him to slam it shut again as quickly as he could. A living lightning bolt stopped in her tracks since her entrance into paradise had been sealed. Blue crackling ebbed away, leaving the dominantly green air spirit inside to reveal her tiny form.

“Let me in there, pleeeaaaaaaaaseeeeeee?” Sylph immediately began to plead. “I have been such a good girl lately. I should get what Eliza got! Like, just instead of spanking, I should get super much sweets and stuff. Don’t you know what they say! Sweets for the mistress, more sweets for the maid and the most sweets for the concubine!”

“I think the saying goes ‘Gold is for the mistress – silver for the maid – copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade. ‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall, ‘But iron – cold iron – is the ruler of them all.’” John didn’t even know why he bothered finishing saying all of that, since Sylph had probably stopped listening less than halfway through, nodding in a relentlessly over-emphasized way.

“Yes, yes, gummy bears – colourful gummy bears – are the rulers of them all, nicely said, big Jay!” she said, showing that she had actually listened but only heard what she wanted. “And clearly, I, Sylph, supremely cute connei… conee… conssseei…” the thunderstorm elemental babbled on for a little bit, trying to pronounce the word connoisseur. Eventually, she gave up on that, “…appreciator of all things sweet and courtesan, concubine and green-haired adorbs-adorbs elemental deserve - deserve! - marshmallows!”

“Okay,” John agreed and watched the tiny air spirit explode with glee. The smile on her face was of such amazement that the Gamer just couldn’t help himself but pander her a little bit to see it more often. “But!” he still had to discipline her a little bit, since he didn’t want her to become annoyingly entitled, “you’ll have to wait on the dinner table and take whatever I give you without complaining, okay?”

“Sir, yes, Master, Sir!” Sylph made a perfectly rigid salute in the air, keeping that pose for a few seconds as she hovered around John’s head. It looked rather entertaining, like someone was dragging a cut-out photo of her over a background in a picture modification program. Only once she was at the edge of John’s vision did she break that stance and properly flew, moving much quicker to the living room.

‘And all I wanted was to get something small,’ John thought as he opened the closet again. Only to slam it shut again out of surprise when another voice spoke into his head. Well, that there was another voice was hardly cause for concern, it was just the suddenness.

The melodic voice had a simple request, ‘Do you have something for me?’ Along with it came the rise of Undine out of the puddle she had crept along the floor as. John wasn’t quite sure why the slime girl just loved flowing around as a shapeless blob, only to reveal herself in all her bouncy, gooey glory when she was standing somewhere, but she sure did it a lot.

“Okay, first off, don’t do that,” John scolded the ocean elemental. Tapping against his head, he pulled the closet open finally and had a look inside. “If you’re in my thoughts, you could at least let me know by not concealing your presence. Second off, you’re supposed to speak out loud, young lady.”

Undine’s blind, golden eyes narrowed in a dismissive way, the rest of her expression staying as melancholic as always. “Apologies.” That single word was so dry that John wondered how it could come out of a being made exclusively from magic induced water. “I would like some sweets as well. Can I have some?”

“Sure.” John wasn’t even sure how this happened, but as Salamander, Gnome, Stirwin and even Siena also appeared in the kitchen, all showing their interests through various gestures and glances, the Gamer was forced to just plunder the sweet stocks. With arms full of sugary treats, he returned to the dinner table, where Sylph was sitting in a chair, using her human sized form, chatting with Eliza.

“And then I zapped him and he went… well, he went nothing, he just stood there like I didn’t zap him, all shiny and metal and I was thinking, like, ‘I want to kick your shiny metal ass!’. Actually, I was thinking I wanted to bite it, but then I thought that was too close to kissing, so I decided against it, because I don’t even want to kiss John’s butt, because I think that’s weird, but I like when he kisses my butt, so maybe I am weird?”

It sounded like she was talking about the fight against Jeremiah, but John wasn’t completely sure. “You are certainly weird,” John told the thunderstorm elemental, putting the load down on the table. “But you’re adorably weird, so it’s fine.” He picked her up, a rather easy effort since she weighed basically nothing, sat down and put her down in his lap.

The leotard wearing girl let it all happen without struggling. Indeed, she only moved once she was in his lap, making sure everything sat perfectly and comfortably. John bundled up her hair and gently moved it so it spilled over her shoulder. It fell even past the seat, the tips waving in some invisible winds.

John felt her body electrify his senses in a deeply pleasant way. It was hard to describe, since being hit by electricity wasn’t exactly pleasant usually. Like numerous, extremely thin rivers of warm, refreshing water running through his skin was maybe the best way to put it. The tiny girl was vibrating excitedly when John reached out to the pile for her. Everyone else, save for Eliza, also took something.

“Can I have that? Can I?” Sylph asked, looking excitedly at the package of gummy bears he pulled open in front of her. Proud that she managed to keep her hands to herself this time, he put the open pack on the table and pulled out a single one of the edible gelatine bears. “I can have that, right? Like, I get that, right?”

“Yup,” John confirmed and fed her the small thing. While she was chewing and happily swinging her legs under the table, the Gamer cuddled the fairy-like girl. Much to the jealousy of the other, lap-sitting sized girl across the table. “Hey, you can have cuddles too, Eliza,” he let her know, grabbing the one thing he actually wanted to get from the closet.

It wasn’t much in terms of size. Value wise, however, the single sweet was immense. Wrapped in actual gold foil, it was a round chocolate whose intense cocoa fragrance was oozing even past the metal wrap. Dark chocolate around a nougat filling, a hazelnut in the centre, all of it of the highest quality, refined by the highest magical means.

It had been something that John had apparently ordered while drunk during that little orgy he had with the four generals during the Little Maryland affair. He didn’t remember, but the fact that it was there didn’t change. Like a bottle of extremely fine wine, he had just put it aside for a special occasion. Tempting Thana with it seemed like it fit the bill.

“Just eat that… but just don’t be the one to eat,” John explained.

“Yes, Master,” she stated in a sweet, submissive tone, putting the sweet in front of her on the table and staring at it. Her reaction was obviously layered on top of some more complex emotions that John could see stir under the surface of her unusually empty expression. The whole punishment routine was there in the first place to keep her from getting too frustrated or sad over her current lot in life.

‘If Thana never caves, I’ll have to think of something else,’ John realized. He was pretty certain that the goddess of genocide would give in sooner or later. Only pretty certain though, so he’d better make a back up plan. ‘I’ll do that later,’ he decided, after looking at the clock. He only had 50 more minutes before he had to get some more guild leader things done. Better to use this time to relax.

Getting more gummy bears, he fed Sylph, who continued to supply him with his necessary dose of adorable by squealing happily in his arms whenever she got another hit of sugar. “Soooo gooooood, gummy bears are so good, sweet, fruity, sugary things, I love them, I love them so much!” the air spirit exclaimed.

“Just stop before you start hallucinating,” John warned her. He had come to live with, and even appreciate in some ways, Sylph’s immense chattiness. However, when she was tripping on a sugar rush, something he wasn’t even sure why it happened, she became a bit too difficult too handle at times.

John looked around to see the other elementals enjoy their sweets as well. Their reactions weren’t as overbearingly cute as Sylph’s, but all interesting at the very least. Well, with the exception of Gnome, who was arguably just as cute. Taking bites out of a chocolate bar, she smiled quietly to herself and hobbled in her seat as if she was about to hear very exciting, good news. When she noticed John’s gaze, she blushed but failed to contain her excited hobbling.

Salamander, sitting next to her, was almost wordlessly flirting with her lollipop. Turning the candy on a stick in her mouth, she looked like the stereotypical blowjob enthused girl as she pulled it with a pop, only to give a few good licks. Her excitement at the sugar was a little less out in the open, but she was definitely enjoying herself.

The most graceful about all of this, Siena, stabbed her treats with the tip of her claws, before moving them to her mouth in the fashion of a dangerous devil lady. Her fanged jaw ripped the gelatinous sweets clean off, leaving her to chew in a diligent way, while she read a book she had taken from somewhere. To turn the pages, she had transformed the fingers of her other hand into normal ones, none of the claws to be seen.

Likely accidentally, Undine’s sight was the most amusing. Not a fan of solid food, since digesting that took her a long time, during all of which it would be visible inside her, John had supplied her with something that was basically bought for her anyway. Well, for her and certain sexy times. Namely, it was a spray can containing chocolate cream. Seeing her put that to her lips and just fill her see-through cheeks up with it was simply funny to John. Especially since she regularly over-indulged, giving her cheeks that bloated look.

Moments like these were what reminded him that they weren’t just beautiful or powerful or whatever people might think when looking at them from the outside. They could just be as dorky and adorably as any other person. Being the person who got to see them at these slightly odd stages was an interesting privilege to have.

Of course, normal people wouldn’t have reacted quite that intensely to food. For elementals, eating material goods was a raw and delightful luxury. They couldn’t get too much down, their bodies just weren’t made for absorbing solid matter that way, but it was intensely tasty to them. Being able to eat regularly was one of the reasons, experts theorized, why elementals even agreed so often to getting into contracts. On the elemental planes, they had no food. Only energies that were all around that naturally sustained them.

John was still planning to send them back there for a week or so. He had them all continuously summoned since he had originally gotten their skills. While this didn’t create any drawbacks for them, he wanted them to see what home was. Especially since Gnome, Salamander, Sylph and Undine had all been dormant tier 1 elementals. That was to say, their souls had existed as part of the realm and they had no individual consciousness until John had separated them out through his attempts of getting a contract.

Sometimes he wondered about their names though. All four of them were rather famous names, used in many games or stories to stand for their respective elements. That he grabbed all of them was either a stroke of immense luck or they were just about as default as John was as a name and the actual luck had been that they hadn’t run into anyone sharing them yet. Siena was a different story, but she had mother issues, so maybe sending her back wasn’t the smartest thing to do. He didn’t even know what would happen if he sent Stirwin back there…

‘Speaking of Stirwin, where is he?’ John thought, he had seen the golden crocodile hatchling in the kitchen and the silver eyes had clearly stared with desire towards the closet. That was when he noticed a miserable little squeal from the floor, directing his eyes down. Tiny claws were scratching harmlessly at a foot of his chair, the infinity elemental having gone ignored and hungry so far. “Oh my god, I am so sorry,” John said that, but he had to giggle a little bit.

The crocodile must have walked over from the kitchen and, too small to get onto the table, waited down there. Now John let him climb on his summoner’s hand and then got Stirwin to the table. Barely as long as two hand-spans, half of that being his tail, the light spirit dashed for the gummy bear pack, only to be held by the end of his tail.

That didn’t deter Stirwin from trying to get there anyway. Small and somewhat stupid in this, his lowest, form, he just kept walking, not gaining any ground. Only when John grabbed a gummy bear and presented it to him, rather than Sylph, did the crocodile stop moving. Opening his maw, revealing the copper, flesh-like tissue inside, Stirwin waited for the gummy bear to be sacrificed to his tiny, needle-like teeth.

Which happened at a snap, when John brushed the tip of the gummy bears head against the crocodile’s lower jaw. Small or not, Stirwin was still designed after a creature that hadn’t changed much of its bite-structure for millions of years. With good reason, as even the bite strength of the developing jaws of the hatchling managed to rip the gelatinous body into several pieces, one by one gulped down the greedy maw.

Stirwin was also sated by just one gummy bear, sprawling out his limbs and simply closing his eyes afterwards.