Chapter 459 – A little break between dishonest battles

Chapter 459 – A little break between dishonest battles

“I know you guys don’t understand what I am saying,” John opened up to the monster currently trying to put out the fire covering it by rolling around, “but I really missed you guys.” The enemy was then put out of its misery by Aclysia stabbing through the little gap between the eight eyes, set on the front of the carapace.

It was refreshing to kill something that actually just existed for the purpose of giving him a way to level-up, rather than people with friends and families. Came without the whole ‘sting of regret’ thing. It was doubly nice that these were not any old monsters.



Those were the current iteration of his old friends. It was always fun to beat those guys around. No matter what version, the strategy was basically the same: Stay away from the darkness and bait them into controlled engagements.

Granted, staying away from the darkness was a bit hard now that they were in some monolithic cave where the only light sources were John’s shoes and a certain crocodile hanging from his belt in his item form, but they managed. It helped that there was a hack for this environment in the shape of Shadowflame just putting every enemy around them to the proverbial torch.

“Lots and lots of darkness to set ablaze,” the combination of Siena and Salamander cackled in pyromantic delight as they advanced and just cooked the enemies on the way. Eventually, her time was up and they had to advance more carefully. At least for the half-hour that it took until she could form again.

With Salamander igniting their path and Gnome leaving markers to make sure they didn’t run in circles, the group explored the cave and its many, many winded paths. It took eternities, since they had to move methodically.

Not that John cared; he was in the dungeon with the express purpose to waste time. It had been six days since the start of phase 3 and they were moving ahead of schedule. In the business world, that was good, in the emulation of a realistic war scenario, that was bad. Scarlett needed more time to make sure she got the situation on her side just right.

Meanwhile, he had gone through issuing the IOUs, conquering all of his old territory back, adding a whole bunch more and a few different things. The official reason why Collide’s continuous assault was halting right now was consolidation. In other words, the girls not with him in this I.D. were taking turns being bodyguards to Magoi or other newly appointed government officials as they checked that the territories they now controlled abided by their constitution.

John had made a few of those diplomatic visits himself. Particularly enjoyable was the one to the Ikea, where he was celebrated like a returning hero when he disposed of Trebba for the second time. He had dragged the slave trader back to the Guild Hall and put him in with the fishmen and other prisoners.

Originally, John had intended to make a decision on all of them after the war. With how quickly the prison population was growing though, and the difficulties that came with trying to hold people that had superhuman strength and magic, it became apparent rather quickly that a decision needed to be made.

After having spent two days rolling around with his eyes open at night about whether he should just kill them all and be done with it or how he could ethically judge them all, John had arrived at the logical and obvious solution. He couldn’t. What he could do was set-up a court system, write some laws, and get them voted on by a hastily formed cabinet consisting of the leaders of the individual barriers he had taken over.

Not only did that lift a lot of the moral burden from John’s shoulder, as he was now running a democracy and not a dictatorship, but it was also a nice test-run for how to form his eventual government.

‘I should make one of those visual representations of how the government works that were in my history textbooks,’ John thought. He could basically see it in front of him already.











At the heart of the web was a bed and, in that bed, illuminated by purple fire candles, lay a gorgeous dark elf. She had basically no breasts but long white hair and the typical greyish black skin with long ears pointing up from each side of her head. Clad in only a thin robe that stuck to her body, she raised a hand and waved him closer with a single delicate finger.

Now, John was having a hard time not being hard around this time. His weakness towards pretty women was well-documented, he hadn’t fucked a drow yet (and he really wanted to) and his newly raised Libido didn’t help. As he had promised Rave, he was currently getting his least useful Stat up to 50. The sex had been amazing with every point along the way.

Anyway, all of that made his pants quite tight and him hoping that this was a treasure room. ‘Sadly, I am not naïve enough to run face first into such things,’ John thought and threw an Observe at the drow female in front of him.



‘FUCKING HELL!’ John thought as his erection did him the favour of disappearing rather quickly. This wasn’t just a trap room, this was a TRAP room!

“It was worth the try,” the androgynous voice of the confirmed male sighed, before he conjured a bunch of spiders. They crawled out from under the bed, dropped down from the darkness under the ceiling or simply appeared between Draconis’ hands. They weren’t big, only about fist-sized, but there were a lot of them all closing in on John.

Four things happened at the same time. John used Arcane Echo. Salamander reinforced that Arcane Echo with her unleashed bonus. Simultaneously, she created a torrent of fire. A torrent that was then further reinforced, in turn, by Sylph creating a large gust of wind. What that combined into was a quick-moving blast of devouring heat and arcane energy that swept quickly through the small room, taking out the wave of spiders immediately.

More would follow quickly though, if they didn’t take care of the source. Aclysia was already on that, breaking through scattering ashes of dissolving monsters and towards the bed. Eclys cut the air in front of her, creating a silver line in the darkness that sliced apart the resting place. Draconis was already on the run from the weaponized maid, who was out for vengeance for the drow sexually confusing her master.

Overall it seemed Aclysia was the quicker one, but on his home-turf the dark elf had the advantage. One John aimed to take away, as he poured mana into Gnome again. “H-here goes nothing!” the stone elemental declared ramming her fists against either side of the narrow passage they had entered through. The net crumbled at several places as destructive tremors rocked through it.

One of those places happened to, luckily, be under Draconis’ feet. John had just wanted the whole structure to collapse, causing the lower part of the sphere to become an improvised arena, but that worked as well. Throwing out his right arm, he extended a large tentacle of water towards the elf.

“Oh my, that could be abused erotically,” Draconis managed to get a last quip out, as the tentacle wrapped around his thigh. With one footing lost and the other leg in hold, he didn’t manage to dodge anywhere before Eclys sliced open his back.

Two books fell to the floor, neither of which John had any interest in. At least this had been worth a buttload of experience. ‘Never think that word in the context of traps again,’ he scolded himself as they went on to finish the rest of the dungeon.