“Country rooooads…” Tock. Tock. “…take hoooo…” Tock. Tock. “…to the plaaaace…” Tock. Tock. “…I belooooong…” Tock. Tock. “…West Virginiaaaaa.” Tock. Tock. “Mountain Mamaaaaa.” Tock. Tock. “Take hooo…” Tock. Tock. “…country rooooads…”
‘Did anyone ever tell you that it is impressive that you can sing in three tones simultaneously?’ Delicia’s voice echoed in his head in all the smugness that ca with the set-up of a joke.
‘Which three would that be?’
‘Wrong, loud, and with enthusiasm.’
‘It is fortunate that my audience has no choice but to listen, then.’ The Gar took a few more of the long nails and drove them into the corners of the wood one after the other. He had spent most of the early afternoon bricklaying. When he had run out of mortar, he decided to spend so ti in the shade instead, preparing the wooden fra inside the barn. The old building was an interesting place to spend prolonged ti in. The architecture was from a ti when a reliance on wood ant that the projects had to make certain compromises. There was so much more open space where sturdier walls would have allowed for additional stowing room.
‘Yeah, I would run away screaming otherwise. Screaming just so I don’t have to hear your howling behind !’ Delicia returned. ‘But man, good on you for not letting reasonable people get you off your path. Commitnt truly is your greatest virtue, John.’
‘Which is good, otherwise you’d be stuck as a core forever.’
‘Weeeeell… weeeeeeeellllllll,’ Delicia stretched the word obnoxiously, ‘it’s been a month and you’re just sitting there nailing wood.’
‘What else would I be nailing?’ the Gar asked suggestively.
‘Oh, I don’t know, not like you’re spoiled for choices, you manslut.’ Delicia cackled inside his thoughts. ‘Hmm, but could it be that you’re still not satisfied, hmmm? Do you want to get between my big alchemist jugs, hmmm? Or my shortstack dumptruck ass, hmmm? Can’t resist my beautiful feminine wiles, can you?’
‘You lack the grace and self-respect to be called feminine,’ the Gar responded drily. ‘But yes, once you have a body, I will absolutely try to flirt you into submission.’
‘Think I’ll fold like another one of your harettes?’
‘I am picking up just a slight note of anticipation at the idea.’ John put the corner fra aside and stretched. Delicia’s core in his pocket shifted slightly.
‘It’s a sha I do not have hands, otherwise I could call a psychiatrist to check you for your delusions of grandeur.’
‘So did I hallucinate it when you previously said that you would enjoy the opportunity of getting courted by one of the most powerful and sexiest n in the world?’
‘You must have been, because who would ever toot your horn like that? No one as reasonable and smart as I.’ Delicia cleared her non-existent throat. ‘Speaking of smart ones, how did the eting with the new girl go?’
Between John, Nightingale, and whatever other harette felt like having a talk with the immobile alchemist that day, Delicia picked up every bit of news that was floating around the harem (most private matters aside). This had only intensified since they had settled in here. Although many of the harettes still had responsibilities in the Hudson Barrier, many more saw his vacation as their own opportunity to tune out and relax. Part of that relaxation manifested in way too much free ti and so spent theirs inspecting the other potential addition. John would definitely have to institute a private embargo on additional harettes for a while. Let everyone settle in and get to know each other.
While those thoughts bounced around in the back of his mind, he gave Delicia the breakdown. ‘Huh, you attract all sorts of talent, don’t cha?’
‘That one really was exceptionally lucky – you don’t happen to be a Latebloor yourself, do you?’
‘Nope, just enthusiasm and elbow grease. How much will that matter anyway? When I get your Perks, I’ll be all kinds of set. You’re a bullshit factory.’
‘That is accurate if unflattering.’ John put his tools back on the shelves. ‘To the point of getting you your body, let’s check the progress on that…’
‘Less than halfway still,’ the Gar brought the bad news. ’46 out of 100, to be exact. I’ll be able to skip a bunch of levels soon, but not the whole stretch. The store says I can buy 100 Skill Levels, but for Artificial the effectiveness is usually reduced to half because it’s so impactful.’
‘I said I would be patient, but, honestly, could you do anything to hurry that up for ?’ Delicia requested.
The Gar contemplated that question. Short: yes, he could. Long: the primary way to get Skill Levels was through using the Skill, obviously. In the case of Artificial Spirit, it was steadily going up on its own, as John never disabled it. The speed was accelerated when the Artificial Spirits did sothing taxing, such as fighting, but not to such a degree that John felt like keeping them in a constant state of combat for efficiency’s sake. Outside of the natural progression, John could hurry Skills along by acquiring Skill Levels via the Achievent Store or as rewards from activities such as Quests and Raids.
John should have been getting back into the Music Library Raid anyway. The first boss they had fought had been level 500 and the entire selection of bosses in that Raid had been advertised as around the sa difficulty. The final boss of the Raid, being Steve the Shop Owner, was level 530. If they didn’t get back into that soti soon, this would be another Ohmior situation where they just stomped through it. That was interesting, in a few ways, but it was less rewarding both in the spiritual and the EXP way.
Even if he out-levelled the current bosses by more than 30, John still needed the majority of harem combatants around to deal with that. ‘Maybe we’ll sink a few hours into that tomorrow,’ he considered. ‘After so bricklaying. I’ll need help if I want to get those walls up in ti.’
Another side-thought, occurring while the rest of his erudite mind unpacked the question Delicia had posed within a second. Raids were not an option. Quests, however, were and John had a reliable and fun way to get access to those.
‘Want to go on an Adventure?’ he asked.
‘Oooh, that sounds like a fun idea!’
_______________________________________________________________________________
‘It would have been pretty awkward if I entered a real Kingdom right now,’ the Gar thought and looked around. The description of generic starting area did indeed fit. They were in the middle of so sort of isolated patch of the landscape. Hills and walls separated them neatly from the outside. Protected, the basin was filled with a forest that was dense but not too dense, had a field that was large but not too large, and possessed a central structure that was impressive but not too impressive. A basic blue flag with a golden lion on it waved atop the five towers of the chapel-like structure.
Sadly, no Skill Levels in this Quest, but John had anticipated that anyway. The good news was that the Quests would all reward him with so level of GP, which he could use to buy Skill Levels eventually. Either he got Skill Levels or he got currency to buy Skill Levels. There was no losing here.
‘Alright, let’s treat this as a ‘choose your own adventure’,’ John contacted Delicia. ‘I’ll be your humble player character.’
‘Humble? How could you ever use humble and you in the sa sentence? Apologize to that word. Co on. Get on your knees and beg for its forgiveness. Do it, my player character.’
‘Don’t make drop you,’ the Gar warned her.
‘You wouldn’t, Gale would never forgive you.”
‘Got there,’ he conceded. ‘Anyway, what will it be? Do you want to be a good girl or do you want to be a little edgelady?’
‘What do you want to be, hmm, hmmm?’
‘I think you have massive good girl potential,’ John responded sincerely. ‘You would definitely make for nice cuddles, squishy as you are. Plus, I think you would look adorable with a happy little smile on your face.’
‘I, uhm, uh, I… what the fuck, I thought we were doing a sexual thing? What about calling your good girl and such stuff?’
‘If you want to, although I would need to wipe that smug grin off your face first, you brat,’ the Gar responded firmly in that deeper, darker tone of voice. The reaction to it was so intense, he felt the excitent radiate off her surface thoughts before she could reign it back in. John made a ntal note of that. Delicia having a submissive streak would be far from surprising. Not all won that behaved like brats were looking to be ‘put in their place’. Won that behaved like a brat towards one of the most renowned doms on the globe, well, that was a different story. Constant innuendos certainly did not help.
Counter argunt was that Delicia behaved teasingly with most people. By her own confession, she was being aner with him than with most people because he could take it. That had been the starting point of their typical banter and the many conversations since had only deepened that. As the weeks flew by and their bantering beca more intimate, John picked up signals regarding her enjoynt of submissive fantasies more frequently.
‘Psh, and how would you do that, huh? Stuff my mouth and spank ? You probably can’t think about anything else, imagining my fat ass rippling about.’
A shirt that said ‘pin down’ would have been about as subtle.
‘Your exaggerated honesty is amusing,’ the Gar told her. ‘My other brats put on the denial routine, so this is rather refreshing.’
‘And you’re back to delusions. I’m not one of your brats.”
‘Not denying being a brat though?’
‘Nothing wrong with being a brat, if you’re right!’ Delicia declared and giggled triumphantly. She had a particular laugh, invoking a bit of a spoiled, ridiculing feel, just as much as it was carefree and loud. ‘Anyway, you go talk to Tom. I’m not heartless enough to leave him standing there forever.’
John looked at the NPC. The entire ti he and Delicia had their back-and-forth, the bald man had been waving. Any normal person would have gotten a tired arm by now. Even weirder was the consistency of the motion. Uncannily robotic, it would have been fine as a video ga animation, but as a real phenona it just made John feel like he was staring at an automaton with particularly convincing human features.
‘De-facto, you don’t have a heart,’ John pointed out.
‘Oh, wow, such a fantastic observation. Hey, did you know you don’t have boobs?’
‘Debatable.’
‘What? Did you get fat in the few seconds I wasn’t looking? Man, I know you don’t have any impulse control, but that’s just sad. Got to detract a bunch of points from your hotness score…’
‘I’m not fat!’ John played his annoyance up a lot. He usually did this when bantering with her. Much like Momo liked getting humiliated by him, getting faux-angry at Delicia was oddly entertaining. She annoyed him in a good way. That was just the essence of good sass though.
‘Okay, okay… if you insist… but how does that make sense then, hm?’
‘I own the boobs of a bunch of won, just like I own the rest of them.’
‘And there you go making won chattel again, good job.’
‘There’s massive differences in types of property. My won aren’t the sa as my shoes or my pets, but they’re all still mine. I don’t care about other won the sa way I care about mine, because I obviously care for my property. They’re my partners, my household, not my chattel. What good owner lets their assets deteriorate? Ever t soone successful that doesn’t try to see the things they care about prosper?’
‘So, what, you owning won is the prerequisite for you caring about them?’
‘It’s a word to describe the type of relationship we have. Look at it this way: I obviously have an investnt in my harem. An emotional investnt, not necessarily a monetary one. Typically, the very act of investing in sothing ans that you take ownership of part of it. Thus, my emotional investnt does partly make them my property – which is valid only as a mutual exchange, of course. You don’t even need to bring the whole BDSM dinsion in there. I want my hamr to work because it is my hamr. I want my pet to be well-fed because it is my pet. I want my woman to be happy because she is my woman. Those three aren’t the sa, but they have the sa foundation. Property is a word that went out of fashion to describe these things because people imdiately think of slavery. I think that’s a bit silly.’
‘…Because you think it’s hot, don’t you?’
‘Won’t deny that that’s a reason,’ the Gar responded, amused. ‘That’s bringing the BDSM dinsion back in though. Anyway, I think everyone has the freedom to give up as much as they want to be owned by soone else and to take as much responsibility for soone else as they are willing to shoulder. Do you disagree with that?’
‘Do I disagree with an obvious fact of human psychology? Gee, let think hard about that one…’ Delicia fell silent for several seconds. ‘Wow, I actually don’t! Can you believe it? I know, I know, difficult to believe anything that cos from a green ball in your pocket. By the way, I’m closer to your dick right now than I have ever been to any.’
‘Impressed?’
‘Not feeling anything, so you definitely don’t have that big dick energy.’
‘I’ll make you choke on those words soti.’
‘Psh, yeah, right. If you want to stuff my throat, I’ll have to give you permission first. What are the chances of that?’
“Hello, brave adventurer!” Tom spoke up suddenly. The words pulled the Gar out of his ntal discussion. Both he and Delicia focused on the NPC, executing a set of overexaggerated motions as he talked. “The lands of Adventuria are in grave peril! Alas, little can be done here. Why don’t you start by picking so herbs? A well-fed soldier is a motivated soldier and a motivated soldier keeps the vile greenskins at bay!”
“I’m personally rather fond of so greenskins,” the Gar confessed. Conversing with Delicia put him in a mood to think about shortstacks. The goblin he had fucked before, Worlina, had been even shorter than Delicia, as goblins tended to be.
“I do not doubt that so of them may be nice, but the invading orks are marauders and they must be dealt with!” Tom responded fervently. “Please pick up those ten herbs!”
“You know I can literally blow-up entire city blocks?”
“You can find the herbs northwest of here.” Tom pointed at a point sowhere behind the chapel. “Be wary. Wolves have been seen in the area.”
‘Wolves and herb gathering, very stereotypical,’ the Gar thought and set off. Anything unusual they wanted to do with this Quest they could decide on while being out there. ‘Anyway, I think chances are high.’
‘So confident of getting between my tits, hm?’
‘You’re practically begging for it,’ the Gar pointed out.
‘Maybe I’m just leading you on because I’m bored out of my skull?’
‘No, I don’t think so… I think you’d rather like being my property,’ he put a lot of emphasis on that last word and let her work out in what way he ant that. The previously described mutual ownership of partners in a relationship. A more lopsided surrender of autonomy to him like Aclysia. Perhaps even an existence bordering chattel, like Eliana liked to pretend she was in. The thing was that her pretending that was the level of ownership he had over her effectively made it so. There was nothing there but their mutual agreent on how much she gave and how much he took.
‘We’ll see,’ Delicia chirped.
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