They only played about thirty minutes of Minecraft before John’s girls started trickling back home. When he did say his goodbye, he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or saddened.

“John got a girlfriend,” Rave teased him, while he fucked a still bound Eliza. Her legs were attached to the legs of the lounger now, making it easy to take her from behind or give her a nice spanking in passing. While the day was slowly approaching its end, the Gamer wasn’t releasing his cocksleeve until he was ready to use her as a pillow for the night.

“Yeah, I have one, and she is currently wondering if she’s asking for Jack or taking Eliza’s mouth,” John returned.

“Ya know me so well,” Rave grinned and slapped his naked ass. “Ya smart, ya loyal – and it’s just a matter of time until ya sleep with Lee.”

John groaned, because he didn’t have the energy to convincingly disagree with her. “Is it that obvious?”

Rave put her crossed arms on the frame of the BDSM lounger and grinned at her boyfriend. “I mean, she is totes your type.”

Cackling Metra stepped next to Rave and mimicked the Lightbearer’s pose. “She does have three holes, after all.”

“Oy, my standards are higher than that,” John complained and took one hand off Eliza’s hips to gesture about the room. Most of the lovely ladies around weren’t paying attention to him at the moment, too busy speaking to each other. They were in their social exchange part of the day, where they talked about events that had occurred, discussed interests and philosophy, and gave each other advice about what to do tomorrow. “Look at all the smart, beautiful women we gathered here.”

“Naked women,” Rave added.

“Wet and willing to get fucked at your call, my king.” Metra lewdly giggled.

A loud SMACK echoed through the room, when John hit Eliza’s ass with faked frustration. The submissive masochist screamed into her gag. “Yes, it is a harem of smart, beautiful, perverted women that all love me,” he answered with a grin. “Do you two have an issue with that?”

“Ehh, dunno, the loving ya part is debatable,” Rave teased, only to glance over her shoulder when Jack appeared behind her. “See this handsome young lad right here? This is who I love.”

“I’m literally me,” Jack whispered into Rave’s ear. They aligned her bubble butt with his erection.

“Debatable.” That was the final word Rave dropped into the conversation, before he penetrated her eager, tight cunt. It was incredibly easy to fuck her into a wordless stupor. Without the blowjob shifts around, his girls were more needy at the end of the day.

“Lee is a good girl,” Aclysia, walking up to the left side of Eliza’s confinement, chimed into the conversation. “Her interest in you, my Master, is highly approvable.”

“Shooo goooooood,” Rave moaned, her big butt cushioning the impact of each thrust.

“I really don’t want to get into trouble with Magoi though,” John groaned, mostly because he got close to cumming. His thrusts synced up and he pumped both Eliza and Rave full of hot seed. “That aside, why are you so sure this won’t be another Marie case?” He knew the answer already, but he had to at least try to convince himself.

“Ya fucking kidding me?” Metra mocked him. “Come on, it’s so absurdly clear. Marie is a stuck-up cunt.”

“Wanting to monopolize my John,” Aclysia shook her head.

“…Gaia… Ahh… Marie…” Rave tried to say something between climactic convulsions. “She… only wanted to get to know you. Lee is hanging…”

“She’s hanging out with us,” Salamander came to Rave’s rescue, who was all too happy to resume in her simple moaning. “And she’s a great gal. Almost unbe-lee-vable, really.”

There were two waves of groans that went through the room. The first from everyone who heard the joke and the second from everyone who heard the groans and had to ask what they were about. Sylph burst out laughing, Salamander cackled proudly, John rolled his eyes. “I guess,” he conceded and cut off the topic there. “Hey, Nia.”

“Yes?” The blonde looked up from the book she was reading.

“How did the Sands of Time search go?”

“Progress was made,” the pariah reported swiftly. “We noticed that the sightings occur in consolidating areas. The centre hasn’t been found yet, but it reduces the search area. I have a handle on it.” After a second of thinking, she added, “Please enjoy your vacation, darling.”

“I’ll do my best.” John grinned and came inside Eliza another time.

_______________________________________________________________________

The next day, John was left more to his own devices. The anti-burnout treatment had worked splendidly for Eliza and she had retreated to her room with the spark of inspiration in her eyes and words of minor self-deprecation on her lips. Given her usual modus operandi, that was a massive improvement.

Metra was theoretically available, but John didn’t want to keep her around needlessly when she could be productive. Large as Fusion was, some muscle would always be needed to make the job of the growing police force more secure. Realistically, Metra really wasn’t necessary as support for any raids or operations that were currently going on. Her presence in those operations, particularly as the one who led the charge, did serve to make the police force more loyal to John’s cause though.

When one wanted to make sure that a community was happy with one’s rule, it was important that the local law enforcement spoke well of their overlord. Because Fusion recruited their police out of the communities they were policing, at least in the optimal cases, those peacekeepers became pillars of the localities they patrolled. If they had good things to say about the way Fusion did things in maintaining law and order, then that spread good word of mouth and kept grassroots support for the government high.

If there was a disadvantage to things, then that Metra’s appearance tended to spread the influence of the Wrath Party. John could imagine what about seeing the ancient weapon bulldoze a crime syndicate in a few hours made people believe that militarism was the logical consequence of government. It might also be because the people that lived under a crime syndicate for a while came to believe that might makes right.

The police were far from the only way to make sure members of a local community were happy with the central government. Good infrastructure, low taxes, streamlined bureaucracy, helpful officials, clear paths of communication, all of those things raised the general opinion of the government. As a rule of thumb, the state was most popular when it was barely present and highly capable in the few things it did. If the government was large, took on more and more responsibilities, then it would inevitably fail at some tasks. Because people always focused on negative aspects, that would be all that stuck.

Didn’t help that government was usually quite slow to reform itself, but that was more of an exasperating than fundamental factor.

When it came to the rest of the harem, Aclysia and Beatrice were going after their usual work. Nia had last told John she was going to the Menagerie, which meant that she was likely drowning in cute animals at the moment. The elemental girls (all elementals, actually, since Stirwin was also present) were hanging out on the Light Island. Apparently, Lee was also there, which was dangerous but John could do nothing about it. Lydia did come over for an hour, which they used extensively. That was some treat during the day, at least.

Finally, Rave was in a meeting with business people to secure some donations for her next philanthropic project. The way she had described it to John, she wanted to help finance art houses in Fusion’s major and medium population centres. Self-servingly, those would include discos. With Fusion’s more easy-going culture, John was all fine with that. If they weren’t meant to be, they would go bankrupt in some years and the property would be repurposed for something else. That was just how the free market sorted things out.

Rave was also busy planning another party for tomorrow. Once again, Lee was involved. It was not the party to her arrival that Rave had originally proposed. Instead, the party happened because the Gamer’s girlfriend made it a point of principle to organize a girl’s night whenever John organized a guy’s night.

“Do we have everything straight for tomorrow?” John asked over the phone.

“I mean, not sure if I would say three guys going into a whiskey bar is straight…” Maximillian grumbled, the whispering of paper in the background. The self-exiled king was still living in the Embassy. If John meant to, he could have had this conversation in person with a ten-minute walk. However, that meant leaving the house and John felt really good about indulging in his own gamer habits.

Even if he wasn’t in the gaming room at the moment.

“You need to do something about your strip club addiction,” John stated drily.

“It’s only a problem if I run out of money,” the gravity mage joked. “Anyway, whiskey bar doesn’t even sound that bad. It’s just we could have whiskey and tits and ass and pleasant company in the Little Whirl.”

“Maybe I don’t want tits and ass.”

“Sacrilege!” A loud slam of a palm against wood, likely Maximillian’s work desk. “Actually, on second thought, please do turn gay. I call dibs on your haremettes.”

“Let’s be real, you couldn’t handle them,” John smugly answered.

“Where there is a will, there is a way,” Maximillian declared. “Anyway, why the whisky?”

“I just think it’s neat.”

“…I do hate you, buddy.”

“No, you don’t,” John laughed and made a turning gesture with his hand. It was not meant for Maximillian but for the birdcat John was playing with while the call was going on.

Velka obediently dropped to the ground of her cabin and rolled on her back. The three-month-old Magryph was the size of a middle-sized dog. She was about 90 centimetres long, tail not included, and 55 tall. Her growth had slowed recently. Since she was supposed to reach her full size only after a year, and there were another 70 centimetres to go there, John wasn’t worried about that. Velka was already quite big for her age.

She was also adorable. Rubbing herself against the ground, all four of her legs raised, tail and tail feathers flopping and fluttering, wings spread out, she was a display of soft black and white fur. Expectant warbles came from her beak, as the perfect blend of Australian Magpie and black cat lay there, staring with her upside-down red eyes at her owner.

John repeated the turning gesture. This time, Velka did a proper tumble, ending up on her back again. ‘Such a cute little thing,’ the Gamer thought, not speaking out loud due to the call. His right hand reached out to Velka’s belly. He had just started rubbing her when her entire body sprung on his arm like a mouse trap. As if to punish him for the lack of treats, she worked him with her back paws and front talons while her beak nibbled at him. Being licked by a bird tongue was always a peculiar experience.

John took the mild pain in stride and kept scratching the fluffy belly. “Anyway, was just calling to make sure we’re still on.”

“Totally. Just you, me and Magnus this time around, yeah?”

“Yeah, Ted is occupied. Apparently, he and Chemilia have date night or something.”

“Incredible,” Maximillian said in a deeply disappointed tone. “How dare he?”

“I know, right? Bros before hoes.”

“He’s just not the same since he got hitched.”

“He’s been hitched since you hit puberty.”

“And he probably hasn’t been the same,” Maximillian countered. “What are you doing contradicting me? I thought we were having a bit here.”

“Sorry, I just like proving you wrong more than I like acting like a dude-bro.”

“I do get the feeling that proving me wrong is just about the only thing you care about in life,” Maximillian hummed. “Anyway, you didn’t answer the whisky club question. If you just want to have a night drinking, we can do that in your Palace.”

“Yeah… but that feels different, you know? I want to go out, waste some money, and be in a semi-public setting. I think that’ll be more fun.”

“I guess… but why a whisky club?” Maximillian grumbled. “A normal club would at least have girls. A whisky club is where rich men with a cigar addiction hang out.”

“Well, Magnus likes the idea.”

“A – whisky club – is – where – rich men – with – a – cigar addiction – hang – out,” Maximillian repeated slower, as if he was talking to a total mid-wit. “Of course Magnus is happy about it. Not only does he not want to flirt, monogamous guy that he is, he also fulfils all of the other target audience requirements.” There was a pause in the conversation. “Maybe I’ll at least get entertainment from the two of you having a fight.”

“Why would we fight?” John asked.

“Depends on whether or not one of you brings up his sister.”

“…What do you know?” the Gamer asked in a grave tone.

“Mrrew?” Velka made a disappointed noise when the hand stopped scratching her belly. For some reason, that also meant she had no more casus belli on his arm.

“A lot more, given that answer.” Maximillian’s grin was audible. “So, how many nudes did you get already?”

“None!” John was quick to deny. “We just gamed all day yesterday… and… fuck me sideways, Max…”

“I’ll pass,” he managed to fit a quip in there.

“…that girl is WAY too hot.”

“And you can’t have her.”

“And I can’t have her,” John lamented, picking up Velka with one hand and pressing the purring chimera against his chest. “Meanwhile, she clearly wants me. She showed me her sex toy collection. What kind of girl shows a guy her sex toy collection during their first gaming session? And she does this adorable thing with her hair when she gets flustered, where she plays with the tips. It’s torture.”

“Man, on one hand, I feel you,” Maximillian responded. “There were a lot of girls I couldn’t flirt with because it would have been improper for someone of my standing. Luckily that’s currently not an issue…” He paused for a thoughtful second. “The Schadenfreude is sublime though.”

“You are a true friend,” John drily stated.

“And, as a true friend, I will laugh when you fall on your nose and then help you up,” Maximillian declared. “Anyway, paperwork to do. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” John agreed.