“We’ll leave you to it,” John said, when neither he nor Momo had anything more to add to the analysis. The sassy support followed him. Each step carried them further away from the tower and closer to the place they stayed at.
“Did Lee seem stressed to you?” Momo asked. The young Fateweaver had been uncharacteristically quiet, especially for when John was around.
“She’s experiencing so early exhaustion,” the Gar explained.
Momo raised an eyebrow at his definitive tone. “Observe again?”
“Just an educated guess,” he said while shaking his head. “I’m keeping the passive Observe off when I don’t need it.”
“Are you actually trying to respect people’s privacy?” Momo humd.
“I would lie if I said that was my primary motivation. The passive Observe, like the active one, is an extension of my ability to read people.”
“So, it’s fine to check on people with whatever abilities people have? Is it fine if the journalists stalking you are just gifted enough? Can Scarlett just scan everyone’s files?”
John stopped and considered that for a second. If he looked at it through that lens, he realized fairly quickly that there may have been more of an issue than he thought. The ease at which information was obtained had little to do with the moral content of getting it. The question was how much soone demanded that information to remain secret. “Good point… I suppose I like giving myself a pass sotis.”
“You, , and everyone else on this green Earth,” Momo rolled her eyes, “you’re not that special.”
“I’m special enough for you.” John smiled and took hold of her hand.
“Hmph…” Momo mockingly blew air out of her nose, while their fingers intertwined. “I guess you must do sothing right for to put on this embarrassnt.” She tugged at the chest of her maid outfit, barely visible in the cut-out of her poncho. Each layer of cloth was stretchable. Technically, it was part of Momo’s body, but she didn’t feel with it nor could she consciously move it.
“Don’t you dare call maid outfits embarrassing, I will kiss you!” John threatened, while he opened his Class nu. “To finish the Observe point, I just try not to rely on it too much. I like reading faces better. Reacting to changes in the interface can make conversations robotic.”
Momo sighed, as if she was frustrated that she had to give him a complint. “I guess if there is one thing you are, it’s a smooth talker.”
“Wasn’t always that way,” John reminisced and tapped on the tracana Master Class.
“You’re just going to pick one now?” Momo asked.
“Unless I feel like the choice needs so additional input, I have no excuse not to,” John responded while reading through the options. “Much as I like the discussions, for this Class and during a grind session, I don’t want to stop to get everyone together. Plus, I can just reach who I have to ntally.” ‘What do you say about Developnt of Wrath?’ John reached out to the affected woman.
‘Sounds best out of those three, so go ahead,’ tra responded swiftly. The question whether or not she trusted him with her future developnt did not even co up. Between the other three Artificial Spirits, it was clearly evident that John respected wishes when it ca to Stat and Perk distribution.
As per the other two Perks, John still had no interest in an additional tracana contract and, while there was sothing to be said about the total 1000 free Stats Lust of Wrath would contribute, they were not allocated where tra got a lot of use out of them. Her getting absurdly horny was hot, yes, but she was already way above average in that regard, like the rest of his harem. Charisma was the more useful Stat of the two. In no way could John see a future for the First of Wrath where she chose to beco a diplomat though.
Manually distributing her Stats had no direct scaling benefit, but control over such things was always good. Also, it was likely to flow into other Perks that bound tra tighter into his systems. As long as they remained together, that was a likely good thing for both of them. Their relationship was going strong and would continue to do so as long as John had anything to say about it.
John checked what his next Class Challenge would be.
“Hmm…” the Gar scratched the back of his head, “I don’t like this Class Challenge.”
“Why? Because you have to put effort into that?” the target herself sassed at him, letting go of his hand and crossing her arms.
“No, I don’t like that I’m now incentivized to rush things with you,” he explained and stopped where they were.
Momo stopped too, after two more steps, and looked at him with one of her white eyebrows raised. “I don’t mind either way, but we can discuss that while sitting indoors, right?” she asked.
“Well, I may or may not have told Jane to prepare herself for my return, so things will get ssy the mont I go back in there,” the Gar reported.
“Ah…” Momo took a very long breath and let it out audibly. “Can’t have a heart to heart ever without sex getting ntioned, can you?”
“I can but the circumstances would need to be specific.” While he said that, he crossed the little distance between them. Together, they made their way over to the stone couch they had used in the initial hours. They sat next to each other, legs touching, little distance between their torsos, but otherwise keeping their hands off each other. “What do you an you don’t mind if we rush the last bit?”
“I’ve already made my decision to co back to you, okay?” Momo responded, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “I’d just like that to be… complete in every way. What are we even looking at, like 20 more points?”
“About,” John confird with a nod.
Scoffing, the fairy maid crossed her legs and leaned back. “Putting a number on love. It makes sense in a way, yet it does annoy a lot.”
“It is a pretty cold way to look at sothing so fuzzy.” John put an arm around her and leaned in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. Although her expression remained sour, she wiggled a little bit closer to him. “So, what do you want?”
“I don’t know!” Momo exclaid, her lips trembling for a couple of seconds before she burst out laughing. It was an oddly free laugh, making the air around them swirl with rainbows, as if oil was spilled. Before John could comnt on the strange phenonon, no doubt caused by her mild fairy-fication, she continued, “Could you imagine if I said that? All that Intellect, Wisdom and Charisma and I couldn’t understand myself?”
“In my experience, the self is one of the hardest things to unravel.”
“I guess that’s true for most people.”
“Didn’t you spend months agonizing over whether or not you wanted to co back?”
“Eh, I spent months agonizing over who I want to be. I knew well enough who I was, I think…” Momo looked out into the distance, the clear sky that the Illusion Barrier guaranteed them. “The Stat raise may be influencing my stupid mories.”
John brushed over her smooth, white hair. It was long and straight, both in terms of the way it fell and for how her bangs and the strands that frad her face were cut. Those white, silky strands had a sowhat segnted look to them, like strips of paper. Without hard borders, just John gently combing through rearranged the unusual display. “What do you want?” he asked again.
“To… urgh, this is going to sound so cliché,” she complained.
“That’s not a bad thing,” he softly encouraged her.
Her white eyes darted in his direction, then back to the horizon. Sylph was dodging a series of fire blasts in the distance. “It’s cringe is what it is.”
“No.”
“What a brilliant refutation,” Momo’s sarcastic response was as dry as the deserts she had explored, “absolutely displaying your genius.”
“There is no way it could ever be ‘cringe’ to talk to about what you feel,” John elaborated further. “This is what you have a significant other for: to shoulder the burden of being together. If there is sothing you want to change, then I should know about that first.”
“Touché,” she relented and sighed. “I just want to love you, okay? I made my resolution, I`m happy next to you, and I want to stop being the only one around that’s… not quite there. It’s only been five days and I already want nothing more than to just drop completely into this life. Rushing towards the point at which I absolutely love you... okay, it’s a bit scary, but only because I have never felt that strongly about soone before. I trust that it’ll be alright with you though. I love you… even if you are a giant dumbass sotis.”
“Just couldn’t let that end as a heartfelt confession, could you?” John teased her.
“I suck at heartfelt,” the sassy support mumbled.
“Do you though? Every ti any of the girls need sothing, you’re the first to notice it.”
“No, I’m not, I’m just the first that does sothing while you and Jane do the talking,” Momo insisted.
“Then you suck at sentintality.”
“Do you have to correct right now?” she pouted.
“Isn’t being an how we show affection to each other?” the Gar asked, close enough to sll her hair. The sll of old books and ancient dust had left her by now, in its stead had co the sweet sll of flowers and the fragrance of the forest after rain. “Or did I misread the entire last year?”
“If anyone would be capable of that, it would be you.”
“Overthinking sothing so much I assu the opposite does sound like a possibility.”
The two sat there together in silence for a bit. John wasn’t exactly sure what to do. He wanted to press her further, for the reason of her expressed wish and, much less valid but not totally out of his mind, because Rave was waiting for him to co back. Letting Momo take charge of the conversation for a bit seed better though. In the end, he was proven right on that hunch by her speaking up again.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Momo decided. Sliding away from him on the couch, she left him a bit confused, until she unfolded her legs. The front strand of her skirt was orderly tugged away between her pale, smooth legs. Invitingly, she tapped on her thighs. “Lay down.” John was not going to say no to nature’s pillow and soon rested his head on her lap. Looking down at him, blushing intensely for whatever reason, Momo reached for his short hair and brushed through it. “Stop looking at like that!” she demanded.
“Looking like what?” the Gar teased her.
“Like you’re judging or asking what this is going to accomplish!”
“I assure you, that’s entirely your overthinking.”
“Stop doing it anyway!” The sassy support put a hand on his eyes. “Keep them closed or I’ll die of embarrassnt!”
“Fine, fine,” John chuckled. Behind his closed lids, he noticed the colour changing when she raised her hand again. He repositioned himself slightly, so that the softness of her naked thighs supported his head and neck better. “What now?”
“Tell how I can help you,” Momo instructed. “I’m just sick of being helped all the ti. This is a relationship, right? How am I supposed to love you if I can’t pull my own weight?!”
“You’re a very unique person,” John chuckled and felt a flick against his forehead.
“Thank you, Master, for your insightful comntary. Next ti you create a being, may I request that you make a dumb, nympho bimbo without free will so she doesn’t have to suffer the burden of existence actively?” Momo’s dry annoyance only made him wish to tease her more.
“Well, to start with, you could call ‘master’ like that more frequently.” John made a displeased expression. “I can’t even say it the right way. When you girls say it, especially you maids, there is a special ring to it.”
“When Aclysia says it, definitely.”
“No, you just said it just like her.”
“I don’t know if you have noticed, but I am sassing you. Aclysia would never do that.”
“I have and you still hit that special tone right,” John insisted.
“Do I?” Momo took a short pause and then repeated the title a few tis, “Master… Master… Master… I guess I do?” Her soft legs shifted softly under him. “I guess I do… weird.”
“Maybe you have so respect for after all,” John suggested, only to have his ear softly pulled. He took the signal to move on. “If we’re being completely honest, Momo, I wanted you to beco my chancellor, whether you wanted to be in my harem again or not. You already agreed to that. I need you in that position. Aclysia did her best, but she just wasn’t cut out for that job, with her temper. Of the others, only Scarlett has any aptitude for that kind of demanding work but she would sooner quit drinking than work in the governnt.”
“You think I’m good for that?”
“I know you are.”
“You rember how much I loathe public speaking, yeah?”
“We increased your Charisma tenfold, you’ll be fine. Besides, that’s mostly my job.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, yes, I do.”
“Then stop stroking my hair so lovingly,” he called her out.
The hand kept moving and a short silence settled over them. Momo broke it with a simple question.
“…Anything else?”
John opened his eyes and Momo, who had been intently staring at him, imdiately reddened again. “I love you,” he told her. “I hoped with every fibre of my being that you would co back to and you did. Like all of my harem, you are special. There are things I know I can lean on you for more than the others, just like you can lean on them for the things you and I can’t quite do. You being here makes us complete.”
“I told you to keep your eyes closed!” Momo sounded almost panicked.
John laughed. That this was the only response to that confession felt perfectly fitting. “Well, what are you going to do about it?” he challenged her. “Perhaps what I want most from you is to look at you, my beloved, shy fairy.”
“Oh no, you’re not giving cute nicknas!”
“What if I do though, my white star? What are you going to do, my dear monochro fae?”
“I’ll go and fly away to flee from my contracting insides. Maybe I’ll take Eliana with , save your ‘dear broken angel’ from her fate.”
“She would co back by the end of the day, begging to be punished,” John said and sat up. “Either way, we’re done here.”
Momo blinked rapidly. “What do you… did I hit 180?”
“About the ti I opened my eyes, yeah,” John told her and shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you what exactly you needed to hear, but you heard it.”
“Did I though?”
“What, I thought you understood yourself so perfectly.” John grinned.
“Oy, no using my words against !”
“I didn’t sign that contract.” Grabbing her by the waist, the Gar pulled her over his lap. Despite her displeased expression, she willingly moved along and straddled him. “Do you want to call everyone?”
“No… I think I can take one romantic mont just between us,” Momo said and bowed down into a kiss.
Their lips t with a tingling sensation more intense than the usual feeling of loving touch. Energy flowed through wherever their bodies were in contact. John could feel it even after it left him, flowing towards that spot underneath her navel and manifesting as dark blue, swirling lines. As those lines consolidated into the intertwined shape of a heart above where her womb would be, so of the mana flowed back into John. Tingling, a mark to pair with hers appeared on him.
Long after the ritual had concluded, the two of them disengaged and inspected the changes on their bodies. Momo lifted her top to check, John raised his hands.
The last mark he had gotten, Nathalia’s, had appeared on the base of his left middle finger. Momo’s was on the opposite hand or, to be more exact, below it. Winding around his right wrist, the sassy fairy’s mark mirrored that of Scarlett on the left. “Seems like Gaia agrees that you will be my right-hand woman,” John joked.
“Don’t read too much into that,” Momo chastised him and gave him another quick kiss. “Now, let’s see what you did to Jane.”
“And what I can do to you now,” John whispered into Momo’s ear. “Don’t forget all that cos with that mark.”
An anticipating shiver went through the sassy support.
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