Chapter 530 – Victory & Mouth 6 – Ave…

Chapter 530 – Victory & Mouth 6 – Ave...

The rest of his day back, John spent genuinely relaxing. He took a five-minute stroll across the beach, remembered that he was a perverted nerd and went back to his new palace. It was nice finally exploring that building, although he knew the layout already, given that he was the one who made it.

The base floor, in all of its expanse, was easily defined. The square layout was divided into four evenly sized areas, separated by a cross shaped hallway that ran from the large doors to a central, spiral staircase. Two of those areas, northwest and southeast, were dedicated to guest rooms. Where the northwest had just one really luxurious apartment, the south had several rooms of about the same living standard as John had enjoyed over in Mansion Hohenstaufen over in Rome.

Northeast was one giant, currently largely empty room, that John simply had named the ballroom. Although he didn’t really expect a lot of actual balls to be held there, he wanted to prop it full with rare art to show off whenever there was any sort of party. Rave wanted to install all the necessary things to make it into a disco. Whether they found a way to do so without having the giant lights ruin the room for the upper-class purposes remained to be seen.

On the idea of it, the Gamer didn’t find himself on the opposition. One of the things he had been most careful about had been to make the walls very thick and isolating. This made it perfect to have loud sex between these walls, to throw a giant party without waking anyone not attending or to murder someone who cried for help quietly. Granted, the last thing was not in the design purposes, but it would work nonetheless.

Southeast was a bunch of differently sized chambers for the sole purpose of backroom discussions. It was a palace and seat of his political power after all, so there was a decent chance there would eventually be large gatherings of people here that’d rather have discussions in privacy.

Interesting to John, on this day off, was the upper of the two floors, however. His new living quarters were... too big. There had been too much space in the design process. Around 1600 square metres. That was more than 100 square metres per person. Under those circumstances, giving everyone their own apartment was rather easy.

Well, there was no need to give everyone their own apartment in the first place or to use the 100 average for everyone. Undine, for example, just needed a sizable bathtub (or a small pool, depending on what definition the watcher fancied). They also didn’t each need a living room as large as John had on the yacht. Or a kitchen. For the elementals, who would likely use those rooms sparingly anyway, he hadn’t included such commodities. The Artificial Spirits also didn’t need all that much space. He still gave them plenty of it; maybe they wanted to have a girls night in their rooms or something, and John wasn’t going to confine them with a lack of playground.

He had made his own complex to be the heart of the entire thing, in location and design, making it the biggest. There was a room, basically just one giant bed, big enough for twenty people to sleep in comfortably. A large bathroom nearby, with the much-wanted group shower, as well as a small living room for John and his small gathering of girls. A small kitchen attached to prepare snacks.

For the actual kitchen that Aclysia would be using to feed all of them was located just down a hallway that connected John’s apartment with a bunch of public spaces. A gaming room, a sparring room, an indoor pool, an even larger living room, a relocated fetish room with their BDSM equipment, it was all there. Some of the rooms were superfluous, definitely, but John had to do something with the space.

Up there, he enjoyed the high life. Between catching up on some game releases he had missed, filling up his Steam library with games that he would likely never get to finish due to time constraints, and getting pampered by good cooking and great sex, John Newman felt like the prior days had just been a bad dream.

Despite his best intentions, now that he had the chance to grind again, he only did it for 3 hours. Quality time with his girls just felt like a more worthwhile investment. He knew that he was wrong, of course, since he was on level 169, about to gain another class level. Thus, on the second day of his return, he forced himself to not take it relaxed and actually do what he should have been doing.

Another Assault on the usual timer elevated him to level 170. Now he had...

‘I have two class levels to spend?’ the Gamer looked at his window in confusion and did the basic calculation. ‘I am level 170, so that 17 points base, plus the three extra on the maximum I got from quests, makes 20. I currently have 1 level in Lover Boy, 1 in Arcanist, 3 in Fateweaver, 3 in Gamer, 3 in Puppeteer and 8 in Elementalist... that’s 1...2...5...19... so I only should have one to spend?’

Looking for some sort of breakdown feature inside his menu, he eventually did find the answer: the Quest he had gotten and finished while he was drunk. It had given him an extra maximum Class Level that could only be spent on Lover Boy. Between his hangover and the panicked gathering of the generals, he had completely forgotten to use that and followingly had completely forgotten about it period.

‘Well, better late than never,’ John thought, going ahead and spending that point. He had no need to beat the challenges, since he had three free level ups for that lying around.



They still checked on each other regularly during the work hours. Not that it was hard to go next door. The wall between them was definitely necessary for things to work in an office space, however. Right now, he was more surprised to find her here, although that was following a trend. The more Rave had involved herself with internal affairs, the more she had found herself liking it. Much to her own surprise.

Seeing her boyfriend, she pointed at her smartphone at her ear and then raised her index finger. ‘Just one minute,’ her gestures said and John sat down on the office chair on the guest end of the table.

“Okay... Ja, nein, I don’t get that,” Rave spoke into the device, rolling her eyes. “See... no, gimme a sec to explain this,” she kept her good mood in her voice though, “you’re not getting additional funding for the project. I like ya, I like your hair, but ya can’t keep giving me nothing and expect me to just rub my hands together and create money for ya. No, I won’t further this to John. I started this project, so I will see to it that it gets done. You promised me some tracks and all I got is a bunch of construction sites in the city. You’ll have to make do with what ya have.”

She stood up and leaned against the table, one hand resting on it and tapping against the wood. Her pink eyebrows were furrowing slowly as a suddenly very whiny voice came from the other end of the line. Although her clothes were still distinctly more fitting for a jog around the park than a bank office, her body language was pretty business-like. As a matter of fact, John wasn’t used to seeing her like this and it reminded him of the mother that best was not named.

No matter the disdain Rave had for Nariko, seemed like some of her attributes stuck. Not that that was news. “Ya know... Okay. Okay. Yes!” she smiled. “That’s the spirit, ya go, girl! You get me that and we can talk again about extra funding.” The talk ended shortly after that, and the Lightbearer put a giant check mark all over a form that required at least 250 words per field to actually count as filled.

As she threw it onto the ‘completed’ stack on her table, John had to point out, “You know that’s not proper procedure, right?”

“Ja, do ya know that the stack of papers on your desk is that small ‘cause I ignore proper procedure to keep making calls and go to meetings?” Rave placed her phone on the table and sat back down. Not in her own chair, no, she circled the table and took John’s lap as her seat instead. Touching his nose with her index finger, she smirked, “How about ya let me get off with a warning, big bad boss? Unless ya want me to lose hours writing boring things that’ll settle dust in some closet.”

“I am lean and at least true neutral!” John complained grabbing her wrist, giving her his darkest possible glare. She looked back with a smile. He continued to glare. Her smile got broader. His cheeks twitched. She winked. Suddenly they were both laughing; something about the situation was just funny. “Okay! You win!” he agreed, wondering if Nariko was also terrible at paperwork or if that was a trait her daughter had built up in defiance. Anyway, as long as it was just her, there was no real damage to his apparatus. Most of the things she did didn’t require proper remembrance anway.

Rave’s main contribution were her people skills, be it via phone or going out there to meet in person. Administratively, she wasn’t all that useful, but the fact that she could get differences between people out of the world with relative ease was valuable. Where her charm failed, which did happen, her brawn was also a good tool to have in the field. “Didn’t see myself ever becoming an office worker,” she admitted.

“Neither did I,” her boyfriend agreed, although that wasn’t the term he would have used. “I thought you would just keep training and fooling around.”

“Yeah, that’s fun and all... but it doesn’t really feel like I am helping this society you are cobbling together.” Her attractive nose was suddenly surrounded by wrinkles as she made a heavy grimace. “I think I am becoming an adult. Taking on responsibility and junk. This is your fault!”

John acted like he was taken aback, opening his eyes wide in shock, “How, what, why?”

“If ya hadn’t shown up in my life, I could have stayed in Springfield and killed time by having small gang clashes and doing fuck all,” she stated and slung her arms around his neck. “A way easier life!”

“Mhm, but would you be happier?” John wondered, and she was leaning in to answer that question with a kiss.

Both of their phones vibrated at the same time. One of them, they would have ignored, but this seemed like too much of a coincidence to actually be one. Rave was actually closer to his phone and thus fished it out of his inner breast pocket. The device recognized her aura and unlocked accordingly. Her eyes travelled over the lines on the display.

A sharp inhale, followed by a long and quivering exhale, along with the emotionless look on her face made it clear that these were bad news. Wordlessly, she turned the phone to John. A couple of sentences on the unlock screen previewed a longer message.

Scarlett: I caught a secret service message from the Little Maryland. Fort Washington was razed. No survivors. They found Imerella’s corpse. What are we...