Collide Gamer

Chapter 184 – A fluffy Monday 4 – If you like it, put a dress on it

Aclysia got back on the podium and started testing the options. “One hundred thousand dollars is the amount you will allow me to spend, correct, John?” she asked while tapping around.

“Correct,” he reaffirmed. After working on the sliders for a bit longer, Aclysia announced, “It seems that the average price of clothes here is about 50000. Those are for sets or dresses.”

John’s eyes almost jumped from their sockets, but he regained his calm. He said he wanted only the best for Aclysia, but what kind of clothing demanded that much money? Magic clothing, most likely.

“Does it say why?” he then asked, his bafflement turned into curiosity.

“Material prices. It says that the cloth to produce the clothes here is of incredibly high quality and has mana woven into the threads baseline to allow for better protection against physical threats,” came the answer a moment later.

Okay, so John was now torn between living with those prices or going somewhere else. Not that anywhere else would be any cheaper. Except maybe for stores in real-space. But then why go here in the first place? It was a bit of a headache. Well, it was until he realized that it wasn’t his decision this time around.

“I want to stay here, John,” Aclysia got ahead of his question. “We have lost enough time already, and I want to do other things today. No money in this world is more valuable than your time.”

John smiled and nodded. “Makes sense, so about two articles of clothing then.”

There was a moment of hesitation, when Aclysia looked at the tablet in her hands. “Do you wish to make the choices, John?” She sounded genuinely unsure if she was capable of this on her own. Even if she couldn’t, she would have to learn today. John had no intention to keep Aclysia as his sheltered maid forever. She had learnt how to be independent in the house and in doing the chores, now she would get to gather some experience in shopping for things that weren’t groceries.

Therefore, he shook his head. “No, just buy something that is suitable for the cold weather, otherwise I don’t care,” he told her. Aclysia seemed slightly unhappy about the decision but complied and started fidgeting with the options again.

She clicked a button and suddenly her dress was replaced with a light-grey sweater and almost white jeans. Plain as the clothes were, on Aclysia’s killer body, every pair of pants turned into a deadly weapon. At least John thought so, when he saw the reflection of Aclysia’s backside in the mirror behind her. The artificial guardian seemed less enthused about the legwear, however. A moment later she replaced the jeans with skin-tight, black yoga-pants. If the jeans hadn’t been a danger to the men of the world, the bubble butt hugging yoga-pants definitely were. Aclysia fidgeted with the sliders some more, the sweater becoming more form-fitting to her curves as well. She added a pair of simple sneakers to the mix, and then she was done.

“What do you think, John?” Aclysia asked and slowly turned on the spot so that he could marvel at her from all sides. “It is a very nice casual look,” he said, forcing himself to look her in the eyes. “You won’t run into problems wearing that, unless we are in the deepest winter…which will probably happen soon.”

“I will add a jacket then.” After a few minutes of searching Aclysia found something she liked. A black coat, reaching all the way down to above her knees, materialized. Held closed by several silver buttons and a belt around the waist, it was a stylish piece of clothing. The dark brown fur along the edges of the hood also worked well with her overall look. John approved, Aclysia added the set to her order, and money was withdrawn from his inventory.

“Well, while we are here already,” John said before Aclysia could leave the podium, “why don’t you buy yourself something pretty?”

“Something pretty?” she repeated with a tilted head.

“Like a dress or something,” he specified.

“Is the dress designated as my normal exterior not satisfactory?” now she sounded a bit worried.

“For me, it absolutely is,” John said with a calming smile, “but we will be hanging around in high society in the future, so maybe we should get some classier clothes.”

Aclysia slowly nodded and took the pad again, to look at more options. After some time, she froze for a second, then went into a frantic tapping. Minutes of fidgeting, filled with the simple silence of satisfaction and anticipation, then she knocked his socks off with her choice. Not because what she came up with was overly sexy, but because of what the dress was.

A white lace top, shoulderless, with fitting, semi-transparent gloves, both of them heavily decorated with winding flowers of extremely delicate design, woven with silver thread. It then flowed down to a flared skirt, long enough to almost connect to the ground. A white veil on her head, Aclysia tried to push it backwards. However, grabbing the illusion of the wedding dress was impossible, so she got rid of it, with the press of a button, instead.

John was lost for words, not only because this was not at all what he had in mind, but because she looked stunning. There was just something ephemeral and saintly about wedding dresses that evaded his understanding, not that he needed to understand beauty to marvel at it. He was unable to take his eyes off her. In the mediocre lighting of the room, it looked like the white dress glowed from within. If he hadn’t known any better, John would have been led to believe that he was looking upon Gaia herself.

“It seems like you like this, John,” Aclysia smiled and was about to click on the order button.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he quickly intervened, having found his voice again. She stopped and gave him a confused look. “I very much like this, but, ehem,” he cleared his throat, “you know what marriage is, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you know that the bride wears a special dress during that day, right?”

“Yes…” It slowly dawned on the artificial guardian.

“Well, this would be one of those dresses,” John tried to be as gentle as possible as he said those words.

Aclysia’s hand started shaking, and her cheeks flushed in red. “I didn’t mean to be so brazen,” she said, her tone of deep shame. “I am very sorry, John, really, I just thought it looked pretty and that you would like it and...” If she had any more words they were lost as she closed her mouth and took a deep breath. She averted her eyes from John and mumbled, “Not that I would be opposed to the idea of wearing it to that occasion for you…”

His heart skipped a beat. “I love you, Aclysia, but it’s a little early for that,” John said and, after a heavy sigh, added, “not that I even know how Jane would react to that. My future with that kind of thing is more or less in her hands.”

“So…when the mistress tells you to no longer love me, would you do it?” Aclysia wanted to know, her shame having turned into cold fear.

“Oh God, don’t even make me think about that,” John cried out. “Then I would have to choose between you two, my heart wouldn’t live through that process… as per our agreement she kind of has the right to ask me, though.”

“Your agreement about you having a harem, that is?” Aclysia probed, the fear slowly dying down. On closer inspection, it was just that Aclysia distanced her thoughts from his. “Yeah, why?” he had to ask.

“Just making sure, John,” the artificial guardian dropped the topic. There was no fear in her voice. She looked in the mirror to her right. “I wish I could actually wear something like this someday,” she muttered before having it vanish and choosing something else in its stead.

A dress from black lace, more eloquent and less ephemeral. A shoulderless one-piece, its tight skirt stopping above her ankles. No further decorations, just the strand around her neck holding the whole thing up.

“Yes, that would work way better,” John agreed, and a moment later, Aclysia bought it.

“I have spent a total amount of 99651 Dollars,” she informed him afterwards, “my monthly allowance is therefore used up in its entirety.”

“I think Lydia might be rubbing off on you, with all the big words and detailed formulations.”

“That may be the case,” Aclysia admitted, the illusions falling off her when she stepped off the podium.

“Shall we move on, John?” she asked.

John, having a sudden idea, nodded and pointed at the blue box they had arrived through. “Ladies first.”

Aclysia tilted her head in confusion. They had perfectly fit into that box together, why should she port out alone? However, she obeyed and was teleported out. John walked over to the hovering tablet, where the clothes were still on display. He took it and went through the history.

A few moments later, he teleported after Aclysia, and they were back in the waiting room. The dwarf was missing, but busy noises from the back of the shop indicated that she was still very much around. The two of them sat down on a nearby bench.

“It makes me feel a bit bad,” Aclysia told him.

“What does?” he wondered.

“The fact that I am going to eat her work,” came the swift explanation. “She is sewing and working there, and I will just eat it because it is more convenient to wear the clothes that way.”

“Well, with our lifestyle, it is just way better to have clothes that can easily be repaired,” John said, “but it is indeed a bit of a shame, we better take those elsewhere. Would be pretty rude to just destroy her work in front of her.”

“Affirmative, we shall distance ourselves from this store, before I consume the clothes to learn their structure,” Aclysia nodded.

About ten minutes later, the shopkeeper came out with three boxes. “There, nice and folded up, for ye,” she said. “The dress, the winter outfit and the wedding dress.” John gave her an unappreciative look. He frowned, pulled his eyebrows together, crossed his arms, the full program. In her defence, the dwarf couldn’t have known that she had just ruined his entire surprise, but John had expected SOME tact from the shopkeeper. He didn’t have time to angrily stare at the dwarf, who looked very confused, however. His attention turned to the beautiful guardian at his side.

Aclysia still looked at the box with the picture of the wedding dress printed on top with stunned eyes. “But...I spent all the money you gave me…you said that it was for a wedding…” her voice was a whisper of awe and confusion.

“Yeah, it is, and even if our marriage is not a certainty in the slightest, you looked so happy at the idea that I couldn’t help but buy it for you,” John put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s my gift to you. I can’t promise that you will ever get to wear it, but there is no harm done in having you own it. Especially not if it makes you happy.”

Aclysia was at a loss for words, just looking at him with loving, slightly wet eyes. She didn’t break out into tears, not a second time. Instead, she just kissed him on the lips. “Thank you, John.”

John put the boxes into a bag and then into his inventory. After saying his goodbye to the dwarf, they searched for a quiet place where Aclysia could eat in peace. She consumed the contents of the first two boxes without a care. John noted that none of the clothes showed any wrinkles from being folded and stuffed into that box. Whether that was an attribute of the boxes or the cloth, he didn’t know, however.

He was about to unwrap the last box when Aclysia stopped him. “I do not wish to eat that dress,” she informed him.

“Oh?” John blinked in confusion.

 “Wedding dresses are supposed to be worn just once, right?” she asked. “In that case, I want to keep it as it is, if that is fine with you?”

“Of course,” John agreed. “It’s yours anyhow. If you want to keep it, you can,” he put the box back into the bag and handed it over to Aclysia.

“Mine?” Aclysia asked, looking at the bag with wide eyes.

“Yes, yours. You own it, so you can do what you want with it, but you also have to see where you leave it yourself,” John pushed the bag into her hands. The artificial guardian's fingers closed around the handle with slight hesitation. Then she smiled at the box now lying in her lap.

Her left hand softly slid over the surface of the bag, like she was touching something more precious than free will and more beautiful than freedom. “Mine,” she repeated, now with certainty. “I’ll cherish it, John.”