Chapter 967 – Inhumanely Flexible, Inflexible Creatures

Chapter 967 – Inhumanely Flexible, Inflexible Creatures

The rest of the Golden Rose’s visit went off without any incident. Regrettably, Moira dismissed John’s suggestion to stay overnight. He didn’t care much for her, but the haste with which she got back on her boat meant that the Gamer had no opportunity to flirt more with Lorelei. He wanted to pursue their connection more. Although he didn’t believe in fate, destiny or any such preordained notions, him and her felt like something that was meant to be.

Moira’s meddling with their relationship was odd. Most of the time, she seemed resigned to their mutual interest. Whenever she could use proper procedure to throw a wrench into their flirtation, she did. It had all the signs of someone begrudgingly letting a friend go into a relationship they thought was a mistake. John wondered how these two talked about him in private.

He didn’t get to ask. Neither did he get to send them off in a way that looked good. The Gamer didn’t care for journalists poking their noses in his life and Moira didn’t care to even suffer their presence. Once the tour was done, before John could gather a press conference to take good looking photos, the Order’s ship was sailing back out of his Harbour.

John kept a close eye on the military vessel. Not because he particularly feared the Order pulling some last-minute stunts, but because he still had a few questions about how it had gotten there. A fair chunk of those were answered when the ship just popped out of existence when it hit the river. The Golden Rose didn’t have a Fateweaver capable of maintaining a Mobile Barrier. They relied on an enchantment to move the entire vessel in and out instead. Presumably, they combined that with either basic invisibility, camouflage or mundane disinterest enchantments to keep unwanted eyes off it. The Order wasn’t lacking in funds and crafters, but they had an apparent lack of non-military specializations.

John would exploit that when he got the chance.

Saturday then passed by with John giving all of the necessary press briefings on what had happened, that it totally went as planned and that Fusion and the Order of the Golden Rose were enjoying a stable relationship. Stable, not friendly, being the operative word there. Although John did make it clear in the interview that he did find the Order to be the least objectionable foe he had found on the continent so far.

William Brighton was a right, proper knobhead, but he didn’t have to say that to the public.

Interviews rolled by, John did some more work, and when Sunday came, the Gamer found himself in the certain position that he could take a whole week off. Yes, he still had to be available for emergency calls and, yes, new work that required his signature would pile on while he was gone. The unenviable part of being a boss was that he never truly had ‘free time’. Vacations were just periods where he didn’t sit in his office. If something knocked on Fusion’s border, which could happen at any given moment, he had to get right back into the driver’s seat.

One last thing he decided to do before starting his vacation was to check on the demons. He had skipped out on that yesterday due to other ongoings and to let them settle in. What he had expected to find was a bunch of semi-confused demons awkwardly speaking to each other.

Instead, he found a household filled with moans, laughter and people sticking to themselves. They inhabited a sizable house, located in the area of the Hudson Barrier officially owned by the military. Like everywhere else in the city, the district had a lot more space than people to inhabit it and many mundane houses that had been copied over. Building a wall around a set of them hadn’t been an issue. Equipping it ahead of time had luckily worked out as well.

John was there on a surprise visit, so the demons hadn’t been gathered or anything. It just so happened that around half of them were located in the lobby of the central mansion when he entered. Fifty demons, the vast majority of them succubi, with incubi as the distant second, were all around the massive room. Even as someone who liked his open kitchens, John found the fusion of foyer, living room, kitchen and bar that he found himself in a bit too spacious.

The demons didn’t seem to mind. Many of them lounged on the massive couch, watching TV, others were in the process of using the blender to make themselves some cocktails. Many partook in the excesses of pleasure – in purely hygienic ways, as John approvingly noted. Few sat in corners or on barstools, reading books or things on the smartphones they had been provided with. Their loss of personal memories didn’t seem to have impeded their tool use or their social skills whatsoever.

By comparison, a fiend (a kind of demon specialized towards combat roles and brutality) had several times the opportunity to commit a crime worthy of execution. Murder was the foremost example, but torture, mutilation and all of that horrible stuff were also amply present when one’s job was to be a sapient murder device. In those circumstances, all that had escaped the Order’s retribution leaned extremely towards the empathetic side.

They still had their inhuman sides. None of the fiends John spoke to seemed to show any sadness or distress over the loss of their memories. They did have both a natural distaste to kill or hurt people needlessly and an instinctual craving for violence. It was a slightly odd balance. John could appreciate it though. A lot of societal conditioning was just making people understand that violence wasn’t the go-to answer for problems. If the fiends understood that, their inherent desire could serve them well in other ways. John suggested to them that they could attend some military drills and promised he would send teachers of moral philosophy over. The fiends seemed more interested in the former.

The devils, however, were highly interested in the teachers. These were the kinds of demons that people would generally call dealmakers and they were also those that generally stayed secluded. After having a few conversations with them, John found that they reminded him of Scarlett. Selfish and generally uninterested in human contact, with a knack for contracts and business. Where their pure-blooded origins would have likely done the demon-typical thing of using every single loophole in their deals to rob the partners of everything they could, the devils that John talked to were either preaching the importance of long-term sustainability or that it would violate the spirits of the contract if the other person wasn’t satisfied.

Those friendly fiends and devils, John was certain Moira meant when she had said that this new life was a mercy for them. In the empire of power that Galku had lorded over, their empathy had made them targets for exploitation, no doubt.

It would be harder to find a definitive field to introduce the devils to. Dealmaking was a less distinct characteristic than being a naturally born whore or brawler was. The Gamer would look for advice from Scarlett about where they could send some moral businessmen and women. Perhaps he would recruit them for his administration. In the end, it would be the devils’ choice.

After all of that, there were two more demons left. One was a Keeper of Secrets, a rare variety of demons that found their gratification in the pursuit of knowledge. He had some avian features about him, blue wings and taloned feet, that gave the man somewhat of a harpy-esque feeling. For the moment, he seemed content to also attend the lectures John offered. He seemed to be more interested in definitive knowledge, like history and maths, than the esoteric though. John guessed that he hadn’t been too keen on cataloguing the horrid rituals of New Libraria in his ‘previous life’.

The very last demon around was an afrit. These fire demons were praised for their loyalty to those strong enough to command them. They would fulfil every command their masters gave them, turning into their right-hand that cut down their enemies with cruelty. The red-skinned, white-haired, one-horned maiden that John spoke to didn’t strike him whatsoever as someone who could cut down someone, much less do it with cruelty. She stumbled over her words, shifted around, seemed generally apologetic and affirmed regularly that she wanted to be a good girl and that she couldn’t serve bad people because of it.

After a short exchange, Aclysia took over that conversation. “You remain steadfast in your wish to serve?”

“It’s in my nature, isn’t it?” the afrit woman asked.

“Your nature does not have to define you,” Aclysia responded firmly. “You may be born a servant but only your choice to become one will let you flourish in the role. I assure you, if you are uncertain about dedicating your life to the wellbeing of someone else, it will be misery for both you and your chosen superior.” The weaponized maid gave her Master a loving smile, before continuing, “If you wish to be a maid, I have a place for you. If you do not, there are plenty of occupations to dedicate your life to. I ask again: do you remain steadfast in your wish to serve?”

The afrit was quiet for a whole minute. Neither John nor Aclysia wished to hurry her. The white-haired maid had been certain that she wanted to continue on her path when her mental faculties had developed enough to comprehend her nature. While she had never doubted the validity of her path and found her fulfilment in it, the artificial guardian had also never doubted that it was her choice. She was a maid because she chose to be. She wanted to offer more people this path. Everyone had to make their decision though.



“...I wish to try and be a maid,” the afrit finally confirmed.