Collide Gamer

Chapter 198 – An unknown how and an unknown why

“So, Siena, let’s go over the rules again.”

John did feel a bit like gloating, which maybe didn’t do good for the shadow spirit’s image of him, but he certainly felt like it was justified. It wasn’t everyday he got a success this clean.

“If you need to listen to your own voice that badly…,” Siena’s irritated voice echoed from his shadow. There was a mild reverberation to it, as if she was inside a long hallway, instead of Lydia’s car. Keeping her in his shadow had been, after he found out that she could do that, the logical choice.

“So, the first rule is simple.” John fixed his sleeves, making sure his suit was as unblemished as he thought it was. “You don’t kill or hurt anybody, including myself, unless I allow you to.” The reason for that rule was quite obvious. The second they had formed a contract and left that world of darkness behind, Siena had tried to attack him again. Mana Protection gave him enough time to speak the first rule, however, and from there on out he put up the remaining rules in relative peace.

“I suppose I can be more patient when it comes to penetrations.” Siena rose from the shadows – right next to Rave’s head. “You have such a pretty face, but a little more red wouldn’t hurt,” she whispered into the techno-lover's ear.

A flash of light from Rave’s palm expelled Siena from her current shadow. To describe correctly what had happened, half her body was cut off as the shadow it had resided in suddenly vanished.

John had seen this happen before. The Wall Shadow in the school had also been cut off at the tail when Rave had done the same thing to it. Unlike that monster though, Siena’s body was made from pure darkness. Her being expelled didn’t violently cut her in two. It did deal damage still, it just wasn’t as drastic.

Siena avoided a graceless flop on the table by diving into another shadow. It was fascinating, like watching someone flow between gravity-immune pools of water. In the space behind the tinted glasses, she had nearly free reign.

“Rule number two, you stay within 5 metres of me, in real space, unless I give you an order for whose fulfilment you need to go further away,” John told her. This rule was to keep her both in range and out of his head. Siena and the other elementals didn’t get along in the slightest. Whether she genuinely disliked them or just wanted to make John’s life a little worse, she kept trying to stab them all. Something that, save for Sylph, she was perfectly capable of.

Even the tempest elemental wasn’t that much faster.

John had no idea where all of those buffs came from. Elementalist only pushed for 1% All Stats and Elemental Unity gave 2% to her two Main Stats, likely being Agility and Wisdom. The remaining increases were a mystery. John only knew that it was 10% for everything and 35% for Agility and Wisdom. Intellect be thanked for him being able to make calculations for things like these on the fly now.

“I am yours to keep on a leash, summoner.” Siena tenderly wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just don’t pull too hard. I might try to find a way to cut loose.” A moment later she tried to turn that loving embrace into a chokehold, but her body was unable to tense up enough to be of harm. She moaned in disappointment and disappeared again.

 “Rule number three, you don’t take or cause any action that would make Gaia want to punish me.”

“Such a waste. What fun are boundaries if you don’t overstep them?” Siena appeared on the seat next to Lydia and put a hand on the table. Her long claws scratched at the surface. “Would you like to break some boundaries with me?” she flirted with the princess.

In response Lydia turned her rapier into a sort of swatter and hit Siena’s hand with it. The shadow spirit hissed. “I much prefer administering punishment,” Siena stated, still scratching at the table.

“Stop damaging my property,” Lydia demanded, eyes a dark grey.

“Rule number four, you can’t tell anybody how I beat you,” John said.

“I will obey, ‘Master’,” Siena sighed lustfully as she continued to work on the table, splinters falling to the ground. Aclysia’s lips became a narrow line as she stared at the nightmare elemental. Something about the way Siena said Aclysia’s favourite word must have rubbed the artificial guardian the wrong way entirely, or there was some other reason for her disliking the sensuously erotic shadow spirit. Either way, Aclysia radiated concentrated annoyance.

John, in the meantime, tried to unravel why Siena was so complacent in this. Her goal seemed to be to do whatever would annoy him, so obeying a rule just like that was suspicious. When he realized his mistake, he sighed. “Okay, Rule number four is now: You can’t inform anybody how I beat you,” the scratching on the table stopped immediately.

“Prioritize keeping her in line,” Lydia turned her annoyance on John.

“Tsk,” Siena clicked her tongue and raised her hand. The word ‘spell’ had been etched into the table. “You know, I am not happy with men who don’t let me finish,” she said and dropped back into the shadow. She reappeared next to John, her vampire-like fangs right next to him. “I didn’t believe you when you said you had a harem,” she whispered, “but look at all of those girls, staring angrily at me.” She put a leg over his crotch and bit his earlobe. There was a slight attempt at chomping down hard enough to draw blood, but she couldn’t even do that much. “It makes me all tingly.”

“Rule number five, when I tell you to behave, you disappear into my shadow and be quiet until I call you again,” John ignored her advances and, with another click of her tongue, Siena sunk into the ground before he would pull away her right to speak.

“Is her voice always dripping in sex?” Rave asked.

“Seems so,” John answered as the car pulled in front of the cathedral.

“And here I thought Nathalia was trying to sound sexy all the time, with her bad case of smoker’s lung.” She was living with John’s feelings for the dragoness, but that didn’t mean that she had to like them. Another testament towards the fact that he should raise his Charisma further. If there was any fix to this, and future, harem situations, it would definitely be him being capable of getting across what he meant more reliably and expressing his love in a way that didn’t make the girls jealous of each other. Not that Nathalia even was part of his harem yet.

Then again, maybe her being part of the Harem Menu wasn’t actually a requirement for problems to occur. Not everything related to his mechanics was a straightforward numbers game. An example of this was how his abilities had damage numbers, but the enemies didn’t possess any HP bars. Even the ones for his allies were just estimations. What was to say that the pure fact that he saw Nathalia as a member of his harem, despite her not having appeared in the menu yet, wasn’t enough to kick off problems? Why should the other women in his life only react once that threshold was crossed? In any case, raising Charisma and his number of Relationship Slots was certainly wise.

‘Two more levels to reach the 25+ bonus,’ he thought as they left the car. The group consisted of Lydia, Rave, Aclysia and John. Preferring to stay at home now that her being announced was done, Momo hadn’t come with them.

Lydia took a moment to tell the driver what had happened. They agreed to word it as a ‘minor accident’ so that Romulus could be charged for the damage. The ruler of Europe was paying for all parts of the services after all. The princess was shamelessly and pettily abusing that fact.

That being said, when the limo that pulled up to the cathedral was entirely gold, John doubted that Lydia would be the biggest contributor to costs.

Maximillian stepped out and shot them an annoyed glance, which Lydia returned in kind. Afterwards, she turned to the Gamer. “A question, John. Why isn’t one of your rules: ‘Protect me whenever necessary’?”

“Because she wants to kill me herself, so she won’t let me die,” John answered. Siena had mined her way through his surface memories and he, in kind, had taken a deep look at her motivations. While her past was shrouded, her current goals were simple: she would try to make his life as hard as possible without causing him to die. She saw herself as the only one allowed to pass that judgement.

It only got worse as she fell in love with him following him destroying her in one attack. Apparently, she had an urge for revenge killing that was so strong it turned into love. This woman was in serious need of some kind of therapy and apparently the Mother of Shadow had chosen him to provide it. ‘I’ll just do as I always do and hope that’ll be enough,’ he thought. ‘She chose me for a reason, so I’ll just be me.’

Just like last time, they were way too early. However, all the key players were already assembled. Romulus was sitting on his throne, eyes closed and lost in thought. The way that was different from napping was the emperor’s tapping of his index finger on the lean of his throne.

The electors were also right where they were last time. The table was back in one piece, although the duke who caused its destruction, the ruler of Saxony, was looking like he could smash it again at any moment.

Sol and Luna were at their usual places. The hall was brimming with people. “The fighter selection really brings in a lot more people than the election,” John commented.

“Course it does, tiger,” Rave mused. “Election is politics, this is entertainment. One’s a bore, the other is cool.”

“You are part of the problem,” Lydia drily stated and pulled out her phone. They stepped off to the side to allow other arrivals to enter. When she lowered her phone again, she looked up to the front and to Romulus. No, not Romulus, to the giant’s left. Luna pulled out her own phone from a dimensional pocket and looked at the display, then she gave a thumbs-up in the group’s direction.

“You have the phone number of the moon?” John asked.

“Selbstverständlich,” Lydia answered in her home tongue.

“Don’t you say ‘Of course’ to that,” he reprimanded.

The princess gave him a warning glance, “Mind your tone, mercenary.”

John looked at the surrounding public. “My apologies, princess.”

Appeased, Lydia continued, “Let’s just say that, unlike Sol and Romulus, Luna is approachable.” With that, she returned to staring at Romulus.

Who John caught staring right at himself for a moment. Crossing the emperor’s gaze made John’s knees give for a split second. He caught himself and the annoyed stare moved on. John understood where it came from. He was wearing the whole ‘World Ender’ set and every single one of these items had an aura similar to Nathalia’s, for obvious reasons. Romulus wasn’t the only one to notice, even as he closed his eyes again the people were pointing at John and whispering to each other. Worst of all was Sol, whose eyes he could feel at his back even when he was turning away from the commotion to find a nice place at the edge of the room.

Wearing these items, however, hadn’t been his own idea, but Lydia’s. “If Romulus is going to make the Germans angry over a symbolic loss of their autonomy, I will be the champion of those disgruntled many,” she had said at the breakfast table, drinking tea with a straight face. “And you wearing equipment that seems to come from the goddess he has banished shows that I am willing to resist him.”

“Wouldn’t that also damage your position with the patriots who dislike the Illuminati?” John had carefully suggested back then. “I think Nathalia is more closely aligned to them after all.”

“Even if that were the case, which it isn’t, the Fire of Destruction has never officially announced any political or national leaning, so it wouldn’t matter. I am not confirming any ties to her after all. You are,” Lydia had smirked, “so I will have you take the fall if all of this goes south.”

“That’s not very good for me!” John had complained.

The princess had waved it off. “It is highly unlikely that there will be major outrage. Besides, what are you going to lose? You hold no political power here and if I lose, you return to America -where nobody cares what happens here- and if I win this whole thing will blow over,” Lydia told him. “I also have around 500 billion other reasons for you to accept this idea.” Well, that had been the end of that discussion.

“So, what did you write to her?” John brought the discussion back to now, doing his best not to fear for his life, while simultaneously thinking about how he could learn the art of politics, to say many words filled with nothing at all, for his public statement the fastest.

“Rave’s full name, for the announcement,” Lydia answered.

“Ah, well, I guess that works,” the techno-lover in question said.

About an hour passed, before Romulus raised his voice for a straightforward announcement. “The people have gathered, the ceremony continues. Let us proceed with today’s candidates.”

The cameras everywhere had sprung back into action, Lydia and Maximillian were in place. John was still at the side of the hall, but Rave was tip-toeing close to the front, ready to get up there. Unlike John, she couldn’t wait to get into the spotlight.

“Sol, Luna, reveal the fighters to us,” the giant’s voice rumbled and Rave’s name was written into the air by elegant silver light. With leaping steps, she made her way to Lydia’s side. On the opposite side of the walkway, the opponent did the same.

An Asian woman, with dark-blue, dishevelled hair that was bound into a ponytail. She had blue eyes and looked beautiful, downright gorgeous even. John, for a moment, was confused, because she reminded him so much of Rave. Her stern expression was different, but her features were so similar, especially the hair and eyes. Her face had slight wrinkles, making her appear between thirty and forty. For the most part, she wore practical clothes. A brown leather vest and sturdy pants that sat just loose enough. However, her choice of footwear clashed with the image fiercely: socks and bright pink sandals, flopping about with each of her otherwise graceful steps.

Her looks matched with her odd choice of attire tipped John’s suspicion over into panic. Swiftly, his eyes rose to the display of light above her head, created by Sol. Nariko, it said. John didn’t even get to read her last name, before a shout echoed through the cathedral and the speakers of everyone who was watching.

“Mother?!”