There were a few things that John’s ‘victory’ that day accomplished. First and foremost, it pacified the area for good. Between the capture of the remaining subversive elements, his pretty hard-fought victory in the tournament (the idea that Rave hadn’t been fighting seriously didn’t even surface) and his humiliation of the Lake Alliance, he got complete acknowledgement by everyone who still had been unhappy with his rule.

It helped that he didn’t punish a whole lot of people. After sitting down personally with everyone, he separated those who were pulled along from those who tried to rise up with conviction. The latter he then further broke down into those that could prove dangerous if left inside the country and those that wouldn’t. Aside from those few who were both convinced and dangerous, he let everyone go with no or minor punishments, like community work hours or fines.

For those few, John had the luxury of just banishing them from his lands. If they had been terribly high level, killing them while he had them pinned was basically a necessity. As it was, he stripped them of all their resources, money and land, and sent them out on the street, making sure they were aware a return would nullify this pretty mild punishment.

Going by his usual strategy, John would have to execute them. Death was, after all, what he threatened to those who didn’t take his initial ultimatum to either leave or integrate. Pretending to integrate only to stab him in the back later was something he had to punish quite harshly. He would have as well, normally, because if there was one kind of people John had no mercy for it was traitors.

The reason why he was lenient in this case was that he had done everything in his power to encourage this rebellion. Encouraging someone repeatedly to stab him in the back only to then murder them all in cold blood was not an act he was comfortable with. Sure, it was still justified, they were no less traitors, but it just felt dirty.

That made the Small Lake Pact about 12 people lighter. Not a huge loss, but not inconsiderable either. Combined with Aclysia’s actions beforehand, the guild had lost about a fourth of its former members to death, in a few cases, and simple flight in most. That still left John with well over two-hundred new Abyssals, many of which were adept in the local combat magic, so perfect for guerrilla warfare.

In summary, the main thing John had come here for, integration and reform of the Small Lake Pact, had been an absolute success. All that remained was to organize them into a proper strike force and then he could use them as he and Scarlett had previously planned.

The secondary benefit of the convoluted scheme that had lead to this, otherwise attainable, result lied in the humiliation of the Lake Alliance. So far, their war had been entirely cold. Although John wasn’t quite sure if he would draw parallels to the Cold War. A comparison to the Phoney War, the eight month period at the start of World War 2, during which the French and Germans were largely just looking at each other over the border, seemed better. Granted, that also wasn’t 100% accurate, because there were actually a few manoeuvres there, as opposed to the total silence so far.

Anyway, it was arguable whether or not this ‘battle’ switched the current war from cold to hot. It was over in less than a minute, a failed ambush and a subsequent, allowed retreat. No lives had been lost. However, thanks to this whole thing happening under the many eyes of third party reporters, the entire story would soon hit the public, which was entirely in John’s interest.

He would seem magnanimous and competent, letting the enemy live while having found out their plans well in advance, while the Lake Alliance, and Jeremiah in particular, would seem like they were incompetent. They lost nothing but face and that was entirely how John wanted it. The families of the soldiers back home would hopefully make a bit of a fuss, not wanting to bet that Fusion would be that nice next time, while the Lake Alliance’s leadership was now hesitating and wondering just how careful they had to be when planning. At the same time, the surrounding guilds were sure to even further distance themselves from the party so clearly on the backfoot.

All of which would play right into John’s plan to end this war in a simple, white peace. Nobody was going to earn or lose anything.

“But why though?” Rave asked when he explained this to her. “Pretty sure we could take them out.”

John had to pull the spoon out of his mouth before answering. Well, that and chew the piece of meat that had come along with the explosion of flavour from the stew he had just shovelled into himself. It had that perfect temperature, hot, but not so hot it was burning his mouth or anything. “Given a few more weeks or months of preparations, pretty likely, yes.”

“So why aren’t we?” his girlfriend continued to ask, overpowering the voices that echoed towards them from the nearby living room. They were currently standing in the kitchen. Well, John was standing, the Lightbearer was sitting on the black surface of the kitchen counter, just a bit away from the sink. The rest of the furniture had a metallic grey to it, while the tiles were a clear white.

“Because we aren’t going to stop after the Lake Alliance,” the Gamer answered and glanced towards the open door to make sure nobody was listening in on them. Through the replacement sphere in the actual room, he couldn’t spy anyone who was close to the door.

To be triple sure, he gave Sylph some of his mana to keep sounds from leaving this room. The only thing he wasn’t secured against in this situation were nearby placed eavesdropping spells. Sadly, he had no counter to these to this day and they would be equally effective anywhere in the house. Thankfully, they were pretty rare.

Rave respected his pause, probably noticing that her boyfriend was doing something that was important, even if she couldn’t exactly guess what it was. Once he felt like he could speak freely, he continued, “If you’re an expanding empire, which we are for the sake of this explanation, you don’t want to fight powers that are roughly equal to you. You want to continuously eat people less than half your strength, conquests that take a few days and are executed with very little in the ways of resistance. Expending resources, particularly manpower, in a war against a power that can fight back can take years to recover from.”

“So ya want to make peace to gather more power to crush them later?” Rave asked, showing that she had understood the basic concept. “In order for us to keep momentum and stuff?”

“Momentum and save lives,” John added that last thing. “Every war that is finished swiftly and with the minimal amount of casualties on both sides is a good war.” He took another spoon from the bowl of stew he was holding. “I want to make white peace, gobble up more small guilds south of us, Amacat, then just sit still until our quicker growing economy naturally propels us into a state where we can wreck them in a few decisive battles rather than drawn out grinding.”

“Still feels wrong to just keep humiliating them and then back off, when we’re so clearly winning things.”

“Don’t buy into our own propaganda,” John warned her with a wrinkled forehead. “All we did so far were victories on the PR front. Conquering and then holding land is an entirely different beast… especially with how complicated it is to have an actual battle in the Abyss.” The Gamer sighed. “Our greatest strength continues to be that we have a pretty absurd amount of high level individuals concentrated around me at the head of this guild. In the way of rank and file soldiers, however, we are only now reaching fighting shape. The clueless recruits from our heartland, the remaining soldiers from the Little Maryland, the locally powerful fighters from the Hidden Tradition and now the trappers and assaulters from the Small Lake Pact… we have good numbers now, in theory, but they all have such vastly different backgrounds and fighting styles that it’s going to be hard to make a cohesive army out of them.” Another sigh, even heavier this time. “Doesn’t help that I want to maintain all of those individualities to have a wider array of tools at my disposal.”

“Sounds like ya have to do a lot of thinking,” Rave stated and slipped off the kitchen counter in a fluid motion. She looked stunning as always, her tight jeans and cropped, green top showing off what she had in all the right, not all that subtle ways. Firmly, she took the basically empty plate from John, placed it on the counter, and grabbed him by the arm. “But ya can do that tomorrow. Let’s go!”

She dragged him along into the living room.

There stood, sat and walked around about fifty people. The inhabitants of Savage Island, a population that had grown a fair bit after several of the traitors’ former subordinates decided to stay, Aclysia, and a couple of other people, like loyal island owners. The gathering was predominantly female, about nine girls per one guy. Of the elementals, only Sylph and Salamander were present.

All of those that were now living on the island had been supplied with maid uniforms of the same design. John hadn’t even been involved in this, neither did Aclysia have the opportunity to put her thumb on the scale yet. They just decided to do it. Another sign of the changing times that they were now doing things that pleased John of their own accord.

Those women that weren’t clad in the black and white of maids were those that had come out owning islands, the most important of which being Corith, and the two reporters that John had invited to partake. Harilia and Umiela, the two black-haired catgirls from CPDI, had predictably taken the offer. Despite him making quite clear that the press conference he had held between the awarding of the islands and this little party was the only interview they would get from him.

They were obviously out for some other type of material. John was almost willing to give it to them. A willingness that rose pretty quickly when he was dragged along to the massive couch that stretched along one of the long walls of the rectangle shaped room. On the low table in front of it rose a mountain of booze. From beer to vodka to some magically brewed stuff whose names John could barely pronounce, it all stood in a box filled with an ocean of ice cubes. Shot and normal glasses were arranged around the further enchanted cooling box, many of them already used. On the normal dinner table nearby were bowls for people to enjoy the stew, along with normal drinks. So far, those had only been used to mix with the spirits.

Rave ignored all glasses, simply fished out a random bottle of some herbal schnapps. The lid was off with one well-trained motion and got tossed away by the bombshell of a half-Asian pink-haired girl, who took a huge swig. Then a second one. Then a third, quickly grabbing her boyfriend and kissing him deeply.

A couple of drops ran down their chins when the cocktail of alcohol and Rave’s saliva messily flowed into John’s mouth. It tasted sweet in the first moments, then bitter, as herbal stuff tended to do, but John didn’t dislike the taste. Especially as it was followed up by his girlfriends cheeky tongue, swirling around his own.

The guests noticed their hosts sudden return from the kitchen and the rather public display of him putting his arms around his girlfriend, grabbing her ass with one and a bottle of beer with the other. In reaction, they gave applause, cheers and whistles, the pretty perverted kind. Evidently, people already knew where this was heading. John’s reputation didn’t leave much imagination to the contrary. Neither did the music Rave had put on, heavy beats with carefree lyrics, a video of almost naked women dancing to the lead of the singer on the television on the wall.

Aclysia came up and opened his bottle with her bare hands, simply pulling the metal lid off with her own sturdy exterior. A feat John could also have accomplished, but would have been less comfortable doing, considering he was still squishy on the surface. Raising that bottle, he turned, Rave now under his arm. “Alright everyone, I won’t hold any great speeches right now, doesn’t seem to be the place!” he shouted against the music. “Let’s just have a great time and get drunk!”

That was exactly what they did.

John wasn’t quite sure why he had agreed to this plan, suggested by Rave, considering his past experiences with alcohol had always led to some amount of considerable pain, but he just felt like drinking again regardless. Drugs were very dangerous, but for the moment, he was quite happy to forget his worries and just get a bit tipsy.

Which he actually managed to do. Shot-kisses aside, he largely managed to stay away from the liquor and stick to the beer. It didn’t taste quite as good (yet, he was feeling this whole ‘acquired taste’ thing slowly coming true), but he wasn’t getting smashed within less than an hour, so that was pretty good.

Same could actually be said about almost everyone around. John guessed that the people around here had a much higher alcohol tolerance than he was used to. At the very least they didn’t seem bothered regardless of how many bottles they went through. The greatest problem was the combination of many girls and a limited number of toilets. A problem that John didn’t share, simply going outside to get his business done, and didn’t care to learn a lot about.

However, even though people, some very drunk outliers aside, stayed coherent didn’t mean the mood didn’t steadily rise in heat. Guys were dared to take off their shirts, John being one of them and gladly obliging, while the mini-skirt wearing maids were one by one convinced that panties were really not that necessary to keep their outfits together. Foul-mouthed banter was thrown across the room along with the underwear, much of which John didn’t even hear as his girlfriend pushed him into the couch and gave him a lapdance, ending with her naked, but nothing further happening yet.

At least not anything involving John. Same couldn’t be said for the other guys. With one or two girls in tow, rarely three, the other males in the room retreated somewhere else to get to know their female companions a bit closer, to put it decently. Not that they wouldn’t have done it right in this room, but a sober Aclysia shushed them away to the other houses on the island or guest bedrooms. Both John and Aclysia were in agreement that they didn’t want other men in the room whenever this thing escalated.

Which was going to be pretty soon, given the massive bulge in John’s pants following that lapdance. His naked girlfriend was strolling about the place without a care, not even that odd a sight between all the maids, many of which had pulled down their uniforms to show off their tits. At this point, he was the only guy remaining and all the women around kept shooting him glances and looking around.

Then John saw Melthy. Although the redhead didn’t hold a candle to the drop-dead gorgeous babes of the Gamer’s harem, she was quite the beauty. A beauty unapologetically leaning against the wall, one leg angled and raising her skirt, drinking beer with one hand and rubbing her pussy with the other, for everyone to see.

John walked over to her. Despite the alcohol and his condition, he kept his balance flawlessly. Their crossing gaze was his guideline. Speeding up her self-pleasuring in response, Melthy moaned and sexily bit her lower lip as the shirtless Gamer approached. “Having fun?” he asked, stepping way closer than was needed for a conversation. The conversations in the background seemed to grow more quiet, then cease, only the beat of the music accompanying their conversation as everyone held their breath for this development.

“Eh,” Melthy responded in a carefree fashion, one pretty unbelievable considering the wet noises coming from between her legs. “Could be… mhmmmore fun, Master,” her flippant tone wasn’t even something John cared about at this moment.

Instead, he leaned even further towards her. He was taller than her and he loved that, as it allowed him to completely envelop her with his presence when he put a hand against the wall, next to her head. In her blue eyes a fire was flickering. “Well, what do you suggest to make this more fun?” he whispered, close to her lips, coming closer ever so slowly.

“No fucking clue,” the redhead answered, stopping her masturbation to bring her hand up to her lips. For a moment, it looked like she wanted to halt the Gamer, but then she went straight to sucking her own juices off her fingers. When she was done with that, she gasped, “I think you got a few good ideas.”

John pressed his lips on hers.