Chapter 766 – Tournament of Oddities 1 – Rules and Clarifications

Chapter 766 – Tournament of Oddities 1 – Rules and Clarifications

The Gamer spent the rest of Sunday exploring Paradise and having sex, often times both. A massive, Roman style bath house served as the replacement for the shower back home. Thanks to having multiple pools, each of which was claimable by a single group at a time, they had relative privacy. Relative due to the fact that access for other people was barred but the view wasn’t, leaving a bunch of people to watch them. Depending on the girl asked, that made it more enjoyable or didn’t matter whatsoever. The opinion that it was a detriment had basically been eradicated in John’s harem. Only Gnome had the slightest bit of hesitation about things, and even she could be eased into accepting the situation.

Aside from that, they had done some wandering on the beach, after the thunderstorm had cleared. Because the sand was still wet, the enjoyment was kind of limited. A beach just wasn’t the same unless it was sunny and the wind was too weak to blow sand everywhere. Their time there was pretty limited and they opted to see what else the skyscraper had in store.

They found an 80s style arcade, an internet café, a swinger club, a couple of restaurants, indoor gardens, mushroom farms and a bunch of other things. Paradise contained a very random and very active ecosystem of shops and other facilities. In the end, John and Rave had some fun on the roof, on the latter’s insistence. Getting fucked a hundred metres over the ground, against the railing, and publicly was right up her alley.

All of that done, they just went to sleep and then spent the morning of the following day waiting for them to be called. Sometime around noon, Wendy knocked on their door. “Rise and shine, doggo,” she said, when John opened the door.

“...I got two issues with those four words, which is a pretty impressive ratio,” the Gamer responded. “First off, I’ve been awake for hours. Second: doggo?”

“You’ve been running around fucking your bitches yesterday as if you had to mark your territory, so I say doggo is pretty accurate,” Wendy retorted.

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t have anything to say in his defence. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken umbrage with someone calling his girls bitches, but Wendy just had that friendly banter sass to her that made it hard to be angry about what she said. “Anyway, are we finally starting?”

“If you come right along, absolutely!” the goddess declared and marched off. John followed after her, as did the usual trio of Aclysia, Beatrice and Rave. When it came to the elementals, they opted to follow in an incorporeal state instead. Only Copernicus was an unusual addition. “That your cat?”

“I’m nobody’s cat,” the sunlight elemental responded.

“Wow, he just called you a nobody,” the redhead turned to Rave. “Must feel pretty awful to be rejected by your pet.”

“He’s not my pet, though, he’s my partner. Also, a big tsundere,” Rave responded.

John decided to drastically change the subject. “Can you tell me what I can expect before we get there?”

“Yeah,” Wendy said, and silence ensued.

The Gamer sighed. “Are you seriously pulling the routine where I need to ask every specific question?”

“Maybe.”

“But why would you do that?”

“Because I actually don’t feel like answering anything. I want to see the look on your face, so I need to buy time until we get to the right door – and we are at the right door, fancy that!” Wendy gave him the biggest grin her glossy lips could muster and pushed down the handle. Resigning himself to the whims of his host, the Gamer followed.

They entered an extremely large room, the kind that could have fit a boxing ring and enough gym equipment for a hundred people. At the moment, it was largely empty, though, except for three notable things on the floor and the cameras flying around. Two of those notable things were massive kitchen blocks containing basically every utensil and appliance that found regular or semi-regular use. The third was a long table with three chairs, two of which were currently taken by people John already knew. Neither of which he was all that keen on seeing.

One was Vita. The pariah’s downright hostile behaviour yesterday still rubbed John the wrong way. Her half-assed apology only made things worse. As she was Nia’s teacher and probably the most powerful person the Florida guild had, John didn’t want to push back too much on her but he had also come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to be around her too much.

The other, John had not seen in a while. He was a man with a massive amount of brown hair, all of it combed upwards and held by some extremely powerful styling gel. It gave his head an elongated appearance. The way he wore his suit was a bit goofy, the jacket being half a size too large and flubbing around when he made overbearing movements. “Looooooooong time no seeeeeeeeeeee, Gamerrrrrrrrrr!” he shouted into the desk microphone, changing the pose and the way he held the microphone with every stretched-out word. “You owe me a box of Shroomperotic!”

“Technically, Eliza owes you that.” John crossed his arms. “You are welcome to try to get it off her, Jeff. How is Dra?” He had a staring match with the announcer. John had encountered him twice before. The first time was during the tournament in Rome, the second time was in Amsterdam. Their personal connection was shallow, to say the least, they had never spoken in private and, judging by the cameras, that wouldn’t change today.

“No idea! The guy is an absolute pain! He’s impossible to find or contact! Unless he wants to be part of something, then he shoots me a message and just invites himself!” Jeff threw his hands into the air for just as long as it took to create a dramatic pause. “Almost like he doesn’t exist between gigs, super odd, super annoying!”

‘I would avoid contact with you as well, between jobs,’ the Gamer thought. “Are these cameras on, by the way?”

“Oh yeah, all being livestreamed since the moment you entered!” Jeff told him. “They start the program before the program around here!”

“...Why even bother with the explanation then?” the Gamer sighed. “Alright, whatever, I agree to your terms, publicly as I have privately.” He rolled his neck and smiled confidently. “As my future allies, I trust that you will not do anything that’d cause me to hate you, as I hope you trust me in return.”

“Look at you being all leader-like,” Wendy said and rose from her chair again, sort of defeating the point of sitting down in the first place. “Anyway, here’s the contest for the day. Jeff, do the only thing you’re useful for and hype it up.”

The commentator slammed one foot on the table and raised one fist into the air. A pose as inspirational as they came, it was completely wasted on the goofy announcer and his ridiculous hair. “We!” he started, emphasizing every word as if it was a revelation received by the one true Lord, “Will! Have! A! BAAAAAAAAAAAAKEEEEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOOOOOOFF!” He leapt over the table and in between the two kitchens.

“That’s right,” Vita chimed in from the table, her tone strangely similar to that of a weather forecaster. “In today’s contest, John Newman and his harem of pretty girls will be facing off against our very own Wendy in a contest of cooking.” A dangerous glint entered her blue eyes. “Originally, Wendy wanted to make this about serving chicken nuggets, but I told her I would erase her from existence if she harmed Fred. Have you seen Fred?” The giant screen suddenly switched to a livestream of the ‘guild leader’ getting fed some grain. “She’s adorable.”

“Yeesssss! Instead Wendy will mercilessly outbake the Gamer in a contest to make an apple pie!” Jeff made a large gesture towards the kitchen to John’s right, where Wendy had already taken position and was now giving her smuggest pose.

Smiling, hand on her chin, she looked at a low-flying camera and declared, “None can stand up to the baking of the cutest fast food idol ever made!”

“That – is – rrrrriiiiight!” Jeff roared. “How could the Gamer possibly hope to challenge-“

John raised a hand and interrupted the hype-man with a simple question, “You know, this is absolutely not going to work, yes?”

“Huh?” Jeff wondered.

“Look, I can accept the jury looking pretty stacked in Florida’s favour. I get it, you organized the event, you get to pick who sits on there. Having one of the contestants as a jury member though?” the Gamer waggled his finger between Wendy and her empty seat on the jury table. “That’s a bit much.”

“”Uhm.”” Jeff and Wendy declared in unison.

“I told you this was going to happen,” Vita added. “What was your answer? Right, none, you ignored me, because you were busy not planning for an alternative.”

“Of course, I ignored you, you had fun teasing me with that creepy aura of yours!”

“Your overreactions are hilarious.”

‘Siena?’ Undine’s voice suddenly reverberated in John’s head.

It only took a moment for the moonshade elemental to respond, ‘Yes?’

‘There is a soulmate of yours over there.’

‘Perhaps, but it’s more stimulating when I do it.’

“May I suggest something?” John spoke into the banter and pointed at his girlfriend. “Jane could take the third spot on the jury for this trial.”

“Ya mean I don’t have to stand in the way while Aclysia does the baking?” Rave wanted to know. “AND I get to eat apple pie afterwards?”

“As long as you promise to be impartial,” he responded, got a quick kiss as his reward and looked to Vita, as he didn’t respect Jeff’s authority whatsoever and Wendy was evidently unable to organize properly. “Sounds good?”

“Sure,” the pariah just said, and the Lightbearer started moving over.

“Uh, right,” Jeff cleared his throat and tapped back into the hype in his soul, aiming to spread it to everyone in the room and at home before their screens. “Although Wendy will ABSOLUTELY destroy him in the baking challenge, without question, they still have up to two hours to make the pie. While the ingredients supplied can be used in any combination wanted, the shape is limited by the supplied pie plate. The jury will then give each cake 1-10 points and whoever has the most points total wins. Now, there is only one thing left before we start: John Newman, place your bet!”



“We should also mention that this is an adult program,” Vita added.