Collide Gamer

Chapter 183 – A fluffy Monday 3 – They can go shopping

“That was…an experience,” John said when they were passing through the crowd, a bit later. Whether their little adventure had gone unnoticed or not, John didn’t know. He heavily doubted it though. Then again, he also did not care in the slightest.

“It was indeed a new kind of knowledge,” Aclysia, holding his hand as they walked through the public, confirmed.

They were on the lookout for a clothing store. John had seen numerous upon entering the mall, but all he and Aclysia passed now seemed to be nothing more than a small room behind the rather large window with some articles in it. No assortment, no catalogues, no nothing, just one individual sitting inside, amongst a few benches. John finally decided to march into one. Either he could get a recommendation or he could find out if he was missing some context.

This particular store was overseen by a dwarf, about the height of his hips, but twice as wide. With a thick build and an even thicker beard, John missed that it was a female dwarf until he heard her. “What do’ye desiehr?” she asked. Her voice reminded John of the friendly atmosphere inside a game shop when everyone was playing Magic the Gathering and just nerding out together.

‘Normal people probably think of pubs instead,’ John poked fun at himself.

Before he could answer the dwarf was already babbling on, “Are’ye here for that pretty flower ye bring with’ye? Truly, a magnificent beauty.”

“Thank you,” Aclysia said and let John’s hand go to bow before the dwarf. “John did his best to make me beautiful, so recognition of his success makes me happy.”

The statement confused the shopkeeper for a moment. Long enough for Aclysia to stare at her hands. The bow had been an instinctive gesture, but now she missed something. With a smile John extended a hand and took hers again. In a wordless gesture, Aclysia put her other hand on his arm as well and snuggled up against him, her head taking her new favourite place on his shoulder.

John was a bit embarrassed about the scene. He wasn’t quite as brazen when his blood wasn’t pumping from passion, caused by either lust or battle. On the other hand, Aclysia had no understanding why this scene was a bit awkward, and neither would she have cared if she had, she was happy where she was now. Quietly, John agreed that this actually was worth any amount of awkwardness.

The shopkeeper pulled herself together and clapped her hands, letting out a short burst of laughter. “Ah, created one nice girlfriend for ye, did ye?” she asked and winked at John. It seemed that this little exchange, and a look at Aclysia’s aura, had been enough for the dwarf to get a rough idea of the kind of relationship John had with his artificial spirit. “I ain’t judg’in.”

“I guess you could say that,” John stated, putting her imagination right would have taken more time and probably raised more questions.

What was he supposed to say? ‘Oh no, I created her as my tank and then she kind of became fuckable and then I fell in love with her, which made her part of my harem’? No, he wasn’t here for small-talk, better leave the shopkeeper under the impression that he was one of the, apparently common, people that used their skills to get themselves an easy and obedient girlfriend. She would probably forget him by next week, if he was just like the rest.

With that in mind, but mostly because he felt like it, he turned his head and put his free hands on Aclysia’s chin and pulled her into a short kiss. “I wish to purchase some clothes that she can wear in the normal public,” he laid down his intentions afterwards, Aclysia returning her head on his shoulder.

“Ah, check out our assortment then,” the dwarf gestured for them to come further inside. Following the invitation, John was about to ask where that assortment was, all he saw was a plain beige room, when, in front of him a blue box appeared. It was big enough to stand in and open at the front. He was apparently expected to step in. John hesitated; the shopkeeper quickly realized why and gave him the explanation he desired. “This will bring ye to your own private changing area, so feel free to try all clothes there, they are only temporary illusions anyhow.”

“Doesn’t that cost a fortune to set-up, let alone maintain?” John asked, completely bamboozled. A teleporter and an illusionary clothing gallery? The efforts that must take…

“Nay. We are using the built-in functions after all,” the dwarf told him in a business voice. “Wouldn’t be easy to maintain this elsewhere though, but the Cologne Mana Factory gives ye mana a’plenty, and the whole mall is made to allow easy mana flow. What it does is localize where ye took the teleporter from, sticks ye in a room and then plays the store’s program. This way me and the other shops don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“But…” John remembered the amount of shops he had passed. “If you all offer this service, why are there so many of you?”

The dwarf raised a bushy eyebrow, “Ye are new to the Abyss, aren’t ye?”

“I come from America, we didn’t have these kinds of structures there,” he searched for an out that didn’t reveal his inexperience. No reason to give away more of his personal information than necessary.

“Ye either lying or ye never have been to New York,” the dwarf said, “Thorne has a centre built just like this one on Times Square.”

Thorne. That was the second time he had heard that name. According to Magoi they were some kind of middle-sized organization, now he learnt that they were located in New York City. He would best look into this before returning to the USA, after his affairs here in Germany were in order.

“Never been there,” John admitted.

“Will you answer John’s question or not?” Aclysia asked, evidently wanting to hurry this along. She only had her Master for a few hours and she was going to use them.

“Ay, see, we need to create the clothes ye choose to buy. Come with me for a moment,” she stepped in front of her shop, the couple following her, and pointed above the glass door.

There was a series of symbols above a blue light that John hadn’t noticed before. “These symbols show what the shop can create,” the shopkeeper explained, while pointing at the three symbols above her shop. First was a pretty dress, “I make clothes for women,” next was an armour with clearly feminine curves, “also armour,” then she pointed at a 1 superimposed on a wand in the background, “with minor enchantments. The blue bar shows how rested the owner of the store is, ye shouldn’t ask for complicated stuff from a person that has no mana left, ye know?”

John nodded. On the surface they may all offer the same service, but in reality, these were all shops with their own specializations. He would need to learn all of these symbols and their meanings to understand completely, but now that he knew what all of this was about, the mall transformed from a place where people simply went to buy stuff to a bazaar. There were a lot of stores here, so there was room to haggle, to find reliable but mediocre stores as well as hidden gems, knowing where you got a certain service guaranteed, finding somebody you liked and who knew what would be best tailored to you and so forth.

“Let’s say I chose to buy something from you,” John probed further, once they had gone back inside, “how would that go about?”

“Ye select an article and the enchantments, it tells ye the price, and when ye accept, I get working,” she pointed at an almost invisible door at the back of the room. “Ye leave the room or keep browsing, either way ye get your dress and I get my money then or it gets automatically withdrawn if ye have a fancy wallet dimension.”

He did have that, and he had slightly more questions, but there was someone else here who wanted his attention. Softly tugging at his arm, Aclysia looked at him with puppy eyes. “Can you pay more attention to me, John?” she pleaded with a tone in her voice that, in combination with her green eyes, made John’s heart melt and push any other thoughts into the background.

“Yes, sorry,” John said and smiled at her. “This is your day after all; you want to try the clothes here?”

“I would very much like to, yes,” Aclysia lips changed from pouty to happy, and they now entered the blue box.

He heard the words, “Ah, the yeng mege’s” behind him as he got transported.

The room they landed in only had a simple black couch and a small, circular podium. The podium was located directly in front of the couch and could only be looked at from there, every other angle was blocked by giant mirrors, allowing whoever stood up there to check themselves out without a problem. A fourth mirror hovered up at the ceiling, allowing for a complete surrounding with the reflecting surfaces, if one wished so.

It seemed obvious enough who was going to be where. John sat down on the couch while Aclysia climbed the two steps of the podium. Once up there, an electronic pad slowly descended towards her position. She took it without another word and looked at it with a puzzled expression. John allowed himself a quick look through her eyes.

“Ah, this allows you to create your own outfits,” John explained to her while he looked at the detailed depiction of Aclysia on the small screen. There were separate sliders and tabs for things like skirt length or colour or really anything. Materials and enchantments were also included. The price tag was in the lower left corner.

He retreated from her mind, not wanting to spoil any surprises she cooked up. “Well then, pick some clothes,” he told her and leaned back.

“John, these clothes cost more than several tons of groceries,” Aclysia carefully pointed out. “Perhaps we should visit a normal clothing store.”

“Nonsense,” John waved off, “you are only going to wear the best clothes, Aclysia. Clothes handmade for you, everything else would be a bigger waste of money.” He looked at his balance, he was at half a million dollars right now. “Also, it’s not like I need to be thrifty.”

Aclysia still didn’t look happy about the price tag. John tapped on his leg as he thought about an argument to convince her.

“How about this,” he said when he got an idea, “I give you an allowance?”

“An allowance, John?” Aclysia tilted her head quizzically.

“Your own cash, you can spend it however you like. I think you are pretty deserving of it,” he explained.

“I can’t possibly accept such favouritism,” Aclysia tried to wind her way out; she didn’t seem comfortable with the prospect of having her own cash reserves, even after having looked over his finances for so long. The more John thought about it, the better he liked the idea himself, however.

“I will extend that to Momo and the elementals, of course,” John told her. He left the four spirits as a vague group, because he did not actually intend to give Salamander and Sylph their money directly.

Salamander would just get tons of inflammable materials and indirectly put his money on fire. What Sylph would do, John couldn’t even imagine, all he was sure about was that it would involve insane headaches on his part. Instead, he would have Gnome look over the quartet’s finances. Although the stone elemental was easily embarrassed, it wasn’t easy to talk her into nonsense. On the contrary, sometimes Gnome would be annoyed enough to put her foot down, and then all of the elementals listened to her. It was a rare occasion, but enough to introduce a semblance of order into that group.

“Let’s say 100 grand each month, for now. Depends how my money gains change in the future,” he then stated. Before Aclysia could put any more excuses in, he continued: “So, since you won’t be spending my money, but yours, you can use it however you wish. Now, knowing you, I believe that you would like to spend your money to make me happy, right?”

“That is correct, John, so you really don’t need to do this,” Aclysia explained.

“But what if the thing that makes me the happiest is you being happy?” John asked.

Aclysia froze in an upright position. He could hear the mana streams that made up her nervous system rush as she tried to wrap her mind around that one. “So, if I get money and spend it, that means Master is happy, which makes me happy, which makes him happy, but I have to spend his money, but it is mine and I spend it, which makes him happy, because I spend it, which makes him happy which…”

She rambled on, having fallen into a circle of minor conflict. Her wish to be happy against her wish to not spend any of his money. Whether it was because Aclysia’s reasoning was somewhat untested or because this specific thing had two of her core beliefs clash, her thoughts turned into a tangled mess.

John honestly didn’t know what to do, he hadn’t expected this kind of backlash. Aclysia was swinging her head from left to right as she tried to assess the situation. “So, it’s best if I do spend creator John’s money. No, wait, that means I spend the money designated for groceries. However, spending it means he is happy. But I still spent his money. But that means I am happy. But I am unhappy about spending money.”

It was like watching somebody desperately trying to catch a wet piece of soap. Whenever Aclysia thought she had it firmly in her hands, it slipped from her palms, flew into the air and the game started anew.

Finally, John helped her mind by adding another variable to the mix. “If you don’t spend that money, I will just put it somewhere until you do,” he informed her, “and you can spend it on groceries too if you like, but today I would be happiest if you bought some clothes you like with it.”

Aclysia stopped swinging like a wobble-head and looked at him. “Really, creator?” she asked. Her tone was of pure innocence, and she looked at him with big eyes.

“It has been a while since you called me that,” John commented.

The artificial guardian blinked rapidly, not understanding what he meant. Then she blushed deeply and bowed below her waist, “I AM VERY SORRY!” she shouted, more in embarrassment than as an actual apology.

John stepped up to pat her on the head. “It’s all good,” he assured her, her white hair softly swaying under his gentle touch, “I told you when we first met, you can call me whatever you want.”

“You did… I did not understand what that meant back then. Wanting,” she said that word like it was a treasure she had to keep. For somebody who had grown into free will, it most likely was. “This day is about me, right, John?” she asked.

“Yes, you can do whatever you want,” he assured her. Slowly she raised her head and walked down the two steps of the podium. Then she put her arms around him and pulled him close. No kissing, no sexual tension, just a hug. John answered the gesture in kind, and arm in arm, they stood there. “Does this make you happy?” John asked, staying away from her thoughts. He wanted to hear it from her lips.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice broke on that single word, and to his surprise, John felt wetness on his shoulder when Aclysia buried her face there. “I am just so happy to be with you,” she cried. “I’ve missed you, John, I’ve missed you so much. I was never lonely these past months, but without you, it just felt like there was something missing from me.”

“Do you feel whole again now?” John carefully asked, his hand kindly rubbing up and down her back. He felt her hands at his back tense up.

“Yes,” she pressed out. They stayed this way, arm in arm, until Aclysia calmed down and pulled back her hands. “I am sorry, John,” she sniffed, wiping the remaining tears away, “I don’t know what came over me.”

“We are all weak sometimes, it shows that we are human,” John said, taking her hands. “When I was weak, it was you who saved me. I will always be there to listen to you, Aclysia.”

He tried his best at a big smile. It was, most likely, horribly inadequate. For Aclysia, who loved him even for the things he failed at, it was more than enough and she showed a shining bright smile in response.

“Thank you, John, I could not ask for a better Master,” she said, thinking her words to be just as inadequate as his smile.

“And I could not ask for a better, ehm,” his perfect answer was ruined as he could not think of a fitting word. Why did he have to be a socially inept idiot now, of all times? Servant? No, too cold. Golem? Way too distanced and technical. Creation? Correct, but not quite fitting. Courtesan? No, not only had Sylph thoroughly conquered that word, but it felt way too focused on sex anyway. Lover? Yeah, that could work!

John never got to finish that sentence, though. Instead, Aclysia chuckled and then started laughing. It was a pure sound, like a series of perfect bells creating a little symphony. How come he had never heard it before? Here he was, trying to help her, put her at ease, and in the end, it was her laugh that seemed to put something inside him back into place instead.

“I now see what the other girls mean when they say you are awkward, John,” she stated and continued to laugh. If a bit of a hit to his ego was what he needed to take, in order to make her laugh like this, he happily would. The smile that was now on his face felt completely right.

“Yes, yes,” he finally stated and nudged her back on the platform. “Let’s finally buy you some clothes, shall we?”