“Just what is it with you and maid uniforms?” Maximillian asked, actually paying attention to his drink and the guys for a change. Not that he stopped groping Aletra in ways inappropriate for polite company, but quite acceptable in the odd dimensions of ‘proper’ conduct that John moved in. How exactly he had tailored himself a life where he was having a harem-approved night out with the guys to the tune of strippers, the Gamer didn’t know, but he sure appreciated it.

Admittedly, he had been a bit skeptical about the presence of unknown women before. It had seemed like it would just make things unnecessarily awkward. However, they were paid professionals and it showed. They didn’t interrupt any of the men’s conversations, stayed reserved and smoothly partook once addressed or things seemed to slow down. The only thing their presence barricaded was talking about more secretive issues. Albeit, most of those John wouldn’t have wanted to mention in any public setting.

That analysis aside, John had just heard something completely outrageous. “Just what is it with me and maid uniforms?!” he bellowed, making himself as big as possible, while remaining seated. “Do you seriously question the beauty of the maid outfit?”

“Do you?” Magnus added with one of his thick eyebrows raised, an unlikely ally in this time of distress.

“No, no.” Maximillian raised his hands and waved in a dissuading fashion. One quickly wandered back to his beer, the other (even faster) to Aletra’s ass. “Maids are attractive, absolutely no doubt about that. I am just saying you’re being a bit too enthusiastic about it.”

“Well, you’re welcome to hold that wrong opinion,” John declared and looked back down to the phone in his hands. This entire discussion was just a smaller thing in the larger topic of the stripper request. While John had already sent his personal order, the one for the lady that would (wo)man the stripping pole had to be democratized.

“All I am saying,” Maximillian continued after taking a sip of his beer, “is that she is going to take it off anyway, so what’s the point?”

“That she is taking it off in the first place!” John immediately countered.

“Stockings,” Magnus added the single word, as if it was a factual and complete rebuttal. In John’s opinion, it was perfectly valid. It also started a chain of other beautiful things about the maid outfit.

“Garter belt!” he put another one out there, only to make sure.

“Lace lingerie,” Magnus one-upped him.

Rather than search for something else, John aimed his further berating at the king that deserved it. “Do you just want her to waltz in here naked and start dancing?”

“I mean, that would be pretty hot, would it not?” Maximillian stated.

“Yes,” John conceded, “but not as hot as her stripping out of the maid uniform! Where is your sense of wonder?”

“My sense of wonder is below my appreciation of naked women,” he stated and looked at the ebony beauty in his lap with hungry eyes. “What do you say about that, Aletra?”

The red-collar girl grinned, grabbed her tiny top and pulled it over her head in one smooth motion. Delicious nipples the colour of dark chocolate came into view, already hard atop her small breasts. “They say actions speak louder than words,” she purred and dropped the piece of clothing on Maximillian’s head. Before it could actually land and obscure his vision, it suddenly changed trajectory to fall towards the ceiling, leaving the gravity mage to lean in and suck on the perky breasts.

“You know, I am slightly envious of that,” John exclaimed.

With a wet smack, Maximillian let go and took another swig of beer. “You should. I do prefer bigger tits, but by Gaia, this slut is smooth in all places. Exactly what I wanted this evening.” He softly spanked her ass and gave it a nice grab. “How old are you, I wonder?”

“31,” Aletra responded, taking Maximillian’s beer from him to take a sip herself.

“And you don’t look a day older than 25. I love the Abyss.” The vacationing king let himself be kissed. A small stream of beer ran down his chin. The sip she had taken hadn’t really been for Aletra herself, evidently. Somewhere next to them, the discarded top suddenly dropped to the floor.

“Not what I was referring to.” John leaned back in his chair again, checking and unchecking boxes to see the ‘available’ number change. “I mean being able to use your powers for pretty mundane actions. Because the things I learn create skills, I don’t have the choice to use them to show off.” He raised a hand as if he was going to conjure some sort of demonstration, but nothing came. “Although I have a number of ways to rain arcane destruction on you, I can’t freeform arcane energy. I get that the resulting spells would be much weaker than properly formulated and consolidated energy, but I would like to be able show off a little bit more.” Suddenly, a sword of mana stretched one metre out of his hand. The purplish-blue thing persisted for the standard 3 seconds, then scattered into harmless particles that faded away. “The only ‘exception’ to that is Possession.”

“There are worse fates,” Magnus remarked from the side. Whether he was taking offense or not, given the Fateweaver’s own lack of talent and power, in the traditional sense, was not apparent by his tone or behaviour. He just drank his water.

“For sure,” John just agreed. “Just a minor thing I would like to have but don’t.” The Gamer grabbed his own drink and took a huge gulp. The gin and tonic rushed through with a pleasant sparkle.

“Sorry if that’s a stupid question,” Nina spoke up in the short-term silence, “but from the way I heard your powers described, couldn’t you just learn about manipulating arcane and it would create a skill that would allow you to do that?”

“Not quite that easy.” John shook his head. “In general terms, whatever skill my powers create will be pretty clear in its wording. I pay this much mana and get this effect. There might be skills with variable cost, but I haven’t had one with a variable outcome yet. The closest I get is to channel mana through the elementals, and while that does work, it comes at the disadvantage of costs being rather vague, so I over-invest most of the time.”

He had no issue describing all of this to the blonde, or any other stranger for that matter. The basics for this were all in that info gathering still flying about and the elemental bit was simple inference. Realistically, this was information anyone could get if they were determined enough to scratch at the surface. Something like an actual list of all his skills, he would keep much closer to his chest.

“Basically, the system is built to give me things that have an easy mathematical through line. If I had skill that was just ‘Move Dirt’, how would the cost be calculated? In cubic metres? Would the density of the soil play a role? Would it just be the weight of the afflicted area? How could I figure out the cost before I use the skill?” John realized he was rambling and cut himself short. “So, yeah, I can’t have such freeform things easily available. It wouldn’t work well with how the system works.” He finished his glass. “But Gaia could at least give me a way to cancel spells, that way I could do some threatening without having to fire the thing into the dirt afterwards. New drink please.”

“Same thing?” Nina asked, taking the glass from him.

“Same thing,” he confirmed, and she made it so. Looking around, a question occurred to him. “Where are the toilets by the way?”

“Upstairs,” Magnus stated, pointing at the steps that curved along the circular wall. “Horrible design flaw.”

“Yeah,” John could only agree. Presuming somebody was extremely drunk and had to puke, or just generally pee, making them stumble up a flight of stairs was just cruel.

“It is,” Nina agreed, having doubtlessly some stories to tell about incidents that had caused. Knowing drunk people, there was a lot of vomit to be cleared off the floor after especially wild mornings. “Be a trio of darlings and keep yourself under control, yes? If you need a pause, just go to the roof for some fresh air.”

“Alright,” John answered, Magnus simply nodded and Maximillian gave a thumbs-up, his tongue occupied inside Aletra’s mouth. They quickly thereafter finalized their stripper request and John dropped a text message back home that he was pretty likely to bang a hooker that night.

Rave answered with a kiss emoji and a picture that contained her, spreading a bound-up Eliza’s pussy, and the rest of the girls, engaging in all manners of lewd interactions on the couch in the background. Underneath were the words, ‘Don’t forget what you have at home, tiger~’.

He, with the utmost guarantee, would not.

“What are you grinning at?” Maximillian asked, momentarily freed from his prison of French kisses, as Aletra rose from his lap to quickly take her hot pants off as well. She reminded John of Metra a fair bit, at least when it came to exhibitionism and clothing choices. As far as John knew, the berserker babe didn’t have an expansive track record of being a slut. That was a side she had awakened thanks to his actions.

“You know, just my girlfriend telling me I can have fun for the night.” John smirked and saved the picture in his ever-growing folder of pretty harem pictures. “As long as I come back with an appetite in the morning. And I can guarantee that I will spank her perfect round ass tomorrow.” His new gin and tonic arrived and he enthusiastically attended to the drink. “Unless I get the worst hangover ever.”

“Well, who has the right to be envious now?” Maximillian grumbled, but his attention didn’t stay too long at it as a now naked, and definitely wet, Aletra popped back down in his lap. She whispered something in Maximillian’s ear, he whispered something back, then she reached down to his crotch. The height of the table prevented John from seeing anything more than that, a doubtlessly deliberate design decision.

John was just sober enough that he could sense the effect that the alcohol had on his judgement in this situation. ‘Normally I have just a blanket aversion to other guys getting their dicks out where I can see it. That always goes away when I get drunk. Wonder where the initial aversion even comes from? I don’t mind public showers, like the swimming hall. Only exception is my father, but I think that’s relatively normal? Who likes seeing their parents naked? Given that, must be my basic competitive side showing? Other males in the room equal potential hindrances to fucking the attractive females? Sounds pretty primitive… and about right…’

The introspection came to a sudden end when he heard footsteps. It didn’t take a great pair of ears to pick them up, the steady loud ‘Tap – Tap – Tap’ had the trademark sound of high heels. Apparently, there was a staff access on the second floor. At least that was the quickest explanation John had for the fact that the pair of sound-causing feet soon appeared in view.

Her legs were slender, with thighs a bit thinner than John preferred, all packed up in leather pants that gave her shapely ass a nice shine. A clingy, black top revealed a fair bit of midriff, a flat stomach that belonged to a dancer. Above that, she had a decently shaped rack. A tad smaller than Rave’s, a tad bigger than Lydia’s. Her long hair was a simple brown and styled in a somewhat wild fashion. As for her face, she looked quite attractive, as was to be expected, with a particularly full set of lips.

She wasn’t as good looking as any girl from John’s harem, at least that was his take on the matter. Regardless, she was great to look at and her ass was nice. That was about all it took to make John interested. “Janna said we could just call you John, Mister Newman?” she asked in a voice that was wonderfully casual. No overplayed sultriness, no attempt at making herself seem overly intellectual, just a normal person using normal words.

“I assume Janna is the nice redhead at the reception,” John said and then nodded. “Yeah, just my name is perfectly fine. What’s yours?”

“Lemia,” she answered and arrived at his chair. “Mind if I sit down, John?”

“By all means.” He grinned, just too eager to finally have something to occupy his hands with. In one fluid motion, she turned around and landed in his lap, squishy ass pressing against his half-erect dick. “We’re going to have a fun evening,” the Gamer dared to prophesize, while he started sliding a hand over her legs. Sitting, it was clear that she wasn’t as tall as he had first taken her to be. High heels really did play a trick in that regard. She could only be a few centimetres taller than Eliza. ‘Maybe I should stop measuring everything against my harem?’ he asked himself and then quickly decided that he would just continue as he was.

“I was very excited to hear you would be here today, John,” Lemia quietly stated, putting her arms around his neck and twisting her position a little bit so they could look at each other. The black choker on her neck harmonized nicely with the rest of her dark outfit. As did her dark green eyes. “I wanted to thank you.”

“What for?” he wondered, brushing up the inside of her thighs.

“Making this place. I was sold as a slave from England.” She brushed strands of her hair behind her ear and looked at him with all seriousness. “I would have spent my entire life stuck in a mana factory if it hadn’t been for you cleaning up around here. Thanks to your laws and provided housing, I was able to build myself a life out of the shambles, in these past few months. I am not the only woman, let alone person, I know that has a story like that. For that, truly, earnestly, thank you.”

That hit John a bit by surprise and he stopped in his sexual advances for the moment to hear her out. “It’s nice to hear that I did something good from someone directly,” he admitted. “I usually just get to look at system trends, not the reality on the ground.”

Lemia laughed and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “No need to get too serious, I just wanted to get that off my chest. How often does one get to meet the leader of the guild Federation they live in?”

“When said head is that guy,” Maximillian chimed in, “and you’re working at a strip club, I would reckon about twice a year at least.”

“You picked this place!” John shouted across the table.

“And I have no regrets,” Maximillian declared, slapping Aletra’s naked ass with enough force that it echoed this time around. The ebony girl moaned with raw, perverse passion. The sole article of ‘clothing’ she was still wearing, the red choker, was clearly not just for show. All the while, her arm was moving in very suspicious motions, but John had no reason to concentrate on that. Now that he had his own girl, he had much closer curves to pay attention to.

That was just a side-theatre though. When it came down to it, he was there to have a good time with some guys he knew for a change. “Whiskey,” Magnus simply said, handing the glass of water to Nina, interrupting the silence.

“How can you drink that stuff?” Maximillian wanted to know. “I always found whiskey and scotch to be disgusting.”

“You’re young,” Magnus simply retorted, reaching into the inside of his suit and retrieving a metal box. Once on the table, he opened it to reveal an arrangement of cigars. “Smoking here or outside?”

“Outside, please,” Nina told him, and the Fateweaver just nodded.

“Smoking cigars is a pastime I can respect, however,” the king added to his earlier statement. “If one has to dirty their lungs and the surrounding, it should at least be with style.”

“See, that’s something I can’t get behind,” John shook his head. “I tried a cigarette once and it was the single most disgusting thing I ever put into my mouth.”

“Ah, I can see your problem,” Maximillian snickered. “The cigarette should be smoked, not eaten, buddy.”

“How about you sit on a bag of dicks?” the Gamer suggested, shaking his head.

“Hmmm,” Aletra hummed her way back into the conversation. “I could do the sitting and dick part, Max,” she suggested and earned herself another slap on her chocolate bun of an ass.

“A bit early for that, but if you want to get under the table for a little bit and repay me for earlier, that’d be a start,” the gravity king suggested, and so it was done.

“Don’t groan,” Magnus stated, not looking up from his hands as he clipped the cigars and prepared everything else he needed before going outside. “I’m not in a strip club to hear a man groan into my ear.”

“Don’t worry,” said Maximillian over the sound of his own zipper. “I am absolutely with you on that front.”

“Look at you, being sensible,” John remarked sarcastically. “Just make sure we don’t have eye contact either.”

“Why?” Maximillian asked and instantly broke that rule, to the wet sound of soft lips working on his dick under the table. “What, you think I would confuse the beauty between my legs with you? How insecure do you take me for?”

“Well, you did insist on walking around with that flamboyant cape all the time,” John mused, while copping a feel of Lemia’s breasts. They were 100% natural and soft, nipples hardening under his gentle touch. Already her pale complexion was flushing red with lust as John indulged in more of her body’s softness and searched for her weak spots.

“Are you besmirching my king’s coat as a ‘flamboyant cape’?”

“If the shoe fits,” John giggled.

“That article of clothing is older than your family line!”

“And it still looks ridiculous,” the Gamer insisted and took things a bit further, nibbling, then biting on Lemia’s ear when the reception of the former action was good. Since he had only specified ‘at least slightly submissive’, he now had to explore just how far she went. Asking would have taken a bit of the fun out of it. “Be a good girl and give me my glass,” he whispered a command into her ear.

There was a slight hesitation before she followed. When she did, John almost feared she would drop it. A sudden, explosive moan escaped her as the Charisma-Libido Perk did its dirty work. However, as the reward only came once his hand was on the glass, he just quickly grabbed it before anything bad could happen.

“What did you just do?” Maximillian wanted to know, something everyone else in the room mimicked with their eyes and expressions.

“Trade secrets, buddy,” John answered with a grin.

The king crossed his arms. “You mean Gamer bullshit, right?” he said, then shook his head and emptied his beer. “I would like a pina colada.”

Under the table, there was a popping sound, then a black hand reached up over the rim, “Can you make me one too, Nina? I think this is going to be my night!”

“You’re sucking off the once and future king of Austria,” the blonde replied in a dry tone. “You better hope this is your night.”

“You said it, girl, not me!” Aletra laughed and went back to her task at lips.

“What brand of cigars are those, by the way?” Nina asked while taking the empty bottle from Maximillian. “Hemley’s?”

Magnus turned to her with a surprised expression. Well, as surprised as the stern man could muster. “No, but close,” he grumbled, raising the prepared cigar up. Bowing down, Nina took a quick smell test. “Can you guess?”

“No need to guess, that’s another Icelandic plant, plus it has a cinnamon-like note, so it has to be Rewling,” Nina stated and smiled when Magnus nodded. “My father was big into cigars and I learned a thing or two… guess that sounds like I have daddy issues, given where I work.”

“We all have our cross to bear,” the Fateweaver shrugged. “Whether that’s one you actually have, no idea. I wouldn’t dare to make that assumption.”

“…You’re a lot more serious than our usual customers,” Nina decided, not in a displeased tone, then she walked over to the bar. “Whiskey and two pina colada coming right up.”

“Get them their drinks first,” Magnus decided and stood up. “I’ll be smoking for a bit.”

On a spontaneous note, although his dick told him to stay right where he was, John decided to tag along. “I can use some fresh air,” he decided and gave Lemia another command. “Be a good girl and wait for me, I’ll be very attentive when I get back, I promise.”

“Alright, John,” the brunette responded, let him get up and then sat down to wait. While the Gamer headed for the stairs behind Magnus, his gin and tonic in hand, Lemia ordered some drink herself. Maximillian took the moment to just lean back in his chair.

“We’re drinking Jägermeister when you get back down here!” the king decided for all of them. “One shot for everyone!”