John looked at the map of New York. The city was his, as was New Jersey. Every other minor power in the province was broken, meaning that John now only had to consolidate his power to take Collide to the rank of a regional power. From there, he could play with the big boys. Diplomatically, that was.

They had not managed to find Jackal. After finding the teleporter, it had already been smashed on the other side. With no clue where to search and the USA being everything but small, it was impossible to still get him. That was the only bad thing that really came out of this faux-war. It was a clear threat that loomed over John’s future. The Lorylim clearly planned to do something dirty in the USA, as many other forces did.

“Seriously, Scarly?” His thoughts of future plans were interrupted by Scarlett looking weirded out at Rave. With her hat on and her shoes on the conference table, the technomancer would have gotten herself scolded by any housewife.

Which was exactly why Aclysia shoved her feet off the table. “No staining the furniture!” she warned, glancing at the dirt on the otherwise meticulously polished table. John had seen her clean the thing before, it was great. The thing was so big, she had to climb on it and with John around she had pushed her ass out needlessly and worked with impractically slow and wide movements.

“You are not the boss of me,” Scarlett mumbled into the cigarette she put in her mouth. By the time she was reaching for the lighter inside her suit, the stick of tobacco was already on its way to the nearest trash can.

“No smoking indoors!” Aclysia warned, slowly getting worked up into a frenzy not unlike the one she experienced when someone was threatening her kitchen.

“What the fuck do you have a living dustpan for if she keeps complaining about needing to do her job?” the redhead asked John.

“To love, cuddle and worship her ass,” he answered truthfully, “because she is not a living dustpan but the lady of my leisure and you will come to say the following words in the next month: ‘You are the best, Aclysia’. I guarantee it.”

“I doubt that,” Scarlett turned back to Rave. “Anyhow, Scarly, really?”

“A, ya will say that about Aclysia,” the technolover stated. “There is just no doubt about it. Two, if ya want to sleep with my boyfriend, ya gotta accept the silly nickname.”

“How about I just fuck him anyway?” Scarlett asked. “He wants me.”

“I do,” John agreed, “but Jane and I have an understanding, so you have to convince her.” He sighed and forced himself to relax; he had been tense ever since they defeated Izha’s Inconvenience earlier. There were just so many things on his mind, but now it was just the same old banter. Which was good, it really helped him get back to normal.

‘I simultaneously hate and love that sassy ass,’ John thought. He could now get two things he really, really wanted, so that was nice. Also for later, this discussion in front him was happening right now.

Scarlett clicked her tongue; she knew all about their agreement already, of course, having rummaged through their phones in the search of data. “Why not give me a better nickname, like Red or something?”

“Nope, Scarly,” Rave insisted.

“That is so tasteless,” she crossed her arm, drumming her fingers against her arm. “And I REALLY need some kind of drug pumping through my veins right now. Yo, less aggressive maid.”

“My name is Beatrice,” the same answered, having stood in a corner like a decorative plant. “But you can call me Bae.”

“Was that sarcasm?” John asked, dumbfounded.

“Could have been,” she answered.

“Okay, whatever, Bae,” Scarlett knew about the fact that it was internet jargon but she also appreciated that it was just one syllable so she didn’t care. “I need you to fetch me some liquor or whatever.”

“Affirmative,” Beatrice did a little bow and went to see what she could do. Meanwhile, Scarlett and Rave went back to bickering.

Instead of listening to that, John went ahead and allocated his new Statpoints into Libido.

Well, that was something. John didn’t really feel like he needed the help in either shooting even larger loads or in impregnating girls. The one time he accidentally did it, he had needed exactly… actually he didn’t quite remember how often he had cum inside Eliza in that first orgy.

He still had one 1 Statpoint remaining afterwards. He threw that one into Strength, putting his status screen in disarray.

‘Damn you,’ he glared at the 51 that ruined his perfectly divisible-by-5 numbers. In good news, Source of Satisfaction was levelling much quicker since he had started raising his Libido. He now was at 3 minutes refill time.

Also, he had gotten his billion dollars. At the end of all of this. When he wanted them to start with. Plans really never survived contact with the enemy. Or with John’s moral compass, apparently, since he could have had this nice and at his pace if he had just said ‘I don’t care about you’ to Seth and his people.

That just didn’t sound like him though.

Also, he had way more money than that.

There were a lot of assets that were now his and lots of cash reserves of now dissolved companies that had gone to the guild. He was still skipping out on collecting tax money, so that sum would grow even bigger once he went ahead and did that. The sum of money that Lydia had paid to get him Magoi’s service finally didn’t look that absurd anymore. Although this made John realize just how big a headache Gaia must have been dealing with from keeping the world economy from collapsing under the amount of dollars flying around under the radar.

It was probably to her luck that all Abyssals ever wanted to buy from the real world were cheap groceries. At least, John hadn’t met anybody who could throw fireballs that was also interested in Tesla’s current stock value.

Also about his guild: The member count kept increasing as everyone in New York got with the program. Well, he was threatening to tariff the hell out of everyone who wasn’t, so there was a bit of coercion.

“Yo, tiger, while ya have an erection from raising your Libido,” Rave guessed exactly why the tent in his pants existed, “could ya strip? Gotta get my negotiation material just right.”

“How is him being naked going to fucking help ya with…” Scarlett occasionally slipped into the same slurring sometimes. She also stopped when John disrobed completely with the click of a button. “Hooolie Shiet,” she gasped at this cock.

When the blood-soaked technocrat reached out to touch it, as if to convince herself that the thing was actually real now that she saw it in all its girth in person, Rave swatted at her hand. “Only watch – no touch,” John’s girlfriend mused. “Unless you accept Scarly, then ya can have him to yourself for the de-maidening.”

Being physically weak, that swat caused the pale redhead to pull her hand back and rub the back of it. “This is how you get your address leaked to a squad of cheap goons with a love for pink cunts,” she mumbled looking at the dick. “I seriously need a glass of vodka right now.”

“I return,” Beatrice reported, holding a cup of something. “I successfully acquired…” she made a suspect pause, “…let’s say coffee.” She made a weird gesture that John didn’t quite understand, looking to the side in a clearly mischievous way and letting out a short, “Heh,” while grinning crookedly. Under John’s confused gaze she explained, “I have acquired the hobby of ‘being weird’. It appears to be entertaining to people. I also wanted to spice up my blandness.”

“Pretty sure your spice is your blandness,” the nude Gamer gave food for thought.

“Agreed. Also: disagreed. Blandness alone is boring. Imagine me being a meal made out of mashed potatoes with random vegetables mixed in.” In the background Aclysia wondered if she could make that work.

Scarlett grabbed the drink and sniffed. “Fucking hell, this really is coffee,” she complained. “Why would you do that to me?”

“Parameters for the request were: some kind of drug pumping through your veins,” Beatrice returned. The passive maid pointed at the cup. “This fulfils the parameters.”

“Okay, one maid is a buzzkill and one takes everything too literally,” Scarlett took a sip, “got it.” A great advantage of the fact that they could murder her with the flick of a finger was that the technomancer was not in the least paranoid about getting poisoned. Not that John planned to.

Beatrice, however, had something to more say, “Addendum: I actually did search for harder drugs than caffeine and found these.” She raised up a small plastic box that created in John an instinctive wave of excitement as he remembered a shroomed out of her lust Eliza cumming from being slapped in the face. Without any foreplay. “I do hope you enjoy your first time.”

“Did you seriously just drug her?” John was not okay with that. So much so that he forgot to ask from where that box came.

“No,” Beatrice opened the box to reveal its still filled state. “Surprise. I put two unrelated statements together to create a shocking situation.”

At least one person in the room found that funny, being Eliza as she rotated with her chair. “Classic, I like her now. Fuck it, I love her now. She is a low-key sarcastic bitch.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a passive maid providing overly unemotional commentary,” Beatrice bowed as she spouted those words like someone selling Ikea pencils.

“Okay, fuck it, I can’t stand it any longer!” Scarlett declared. “I need that dick in me, right now, even if it means being called Scarly. I have been touching myself three times a day for 32 days thinking about it and this is it,” she took the mushrooms off Beatrice and threw them down her throat, “and you act like this is my first fucking trip to the city of lights.”

“Welp, ya heard the gal,” Rave smirked. “Got my approval.”

There were some interesting things there. Some sass, that was normal, a warning John didn’t really need but better heard one time too many than one time too few, and lastly that Scarlett took two Relationship Points. Probably because she would have clashed a lot with the group otherwise. Or maybe, as his harem grew bigger, newer girls needed more upkeep? If it was the ‘clashing’ explanation, Eliza would have needed three of those in the early days.

Anyway, he had an erection and Scarlett was about to go on a trip of sexual ecstasy, so theorycrafting had to wait.

“Great, now you are part of both my guild and my harem,” John declared, dick dribbling some pre-cum at the upcoming steaming climax of this whole chapter of his life. Nothing better than consensual sex with a hot new girl to end a war. “I should warn you though, you probably wouldn’t have been able to weather the entire first time even without the mushrooms.”

“I took them because I expect that, these things should keep me energized and wanting to go on… when they kick in 20 minutes or so,” Scarlett relayed her plan.