Collide Gamer

Chapter 269 – The Fluff Strikes Back 1 – No matter what may come

“So, this is the best we could do, huh?” John monologued as he looked at the garden. In the daylight, the true extent of the damage became visible. About a quarter of the floating island lay in ruin. The majority of the damage affected the garden, large parts of which was now a mostly dried field of upturned dirt. The destroyed plants had been up-rooted and piled up elsewhere to be removed later today.

The rest of the damage affected the numerous grass areas, which had turned into even more swamps. The island’s magical systems in combination with Salamander and Undine’s draining efforts had left those in a relatively fine state though. One summer, and it would all look the same.

All in all, the damage had been kept to non-important greenery. The gate connecting the island to real-space was still standing, and the damage the hundreds of litres of water had done to the surface below was negligible thanks to the perks of magical architecture.

Lydia was, nevertheless, currently issuing a public apology and was down there in person to fix the mess. John had sent Undine with her, it was of no use to hide her existence any longer. The healing of the information broker Janna together with this incident would be enough to tip most people off on the fact that he had a water elemental.

Lydia had initially been against the idea, citing that some people would recognize the Lorylim scars and connect the dots. Undine, however, insisted, and the princess ultimately relented. It wasn’t like they could hide the slime forever.

“Master, I am here to report on the matter you told me to keep an eye on,” Aclysia said as John, rubbing his chin, thought about how to best fix this mess.

“Oh? Anything new?” he asked, his attention now lying with her. The matter in question was what the news was saying about the vanishing of over a hundred World War 2 veterans.

While John knew the truth, that Herman had sacrificed them to return Thana to life, the question what reality would make of this was still of concern. Gaia, however, had found a rather crude solution for this. Shortly after John had left the perimeter, she had set the building on fire.

At least John had to assume that Gaia had been the one to do it. The fire then, marvellously, hadn’t spread out to the bordering buildings. While there had been corpses found, none of them were recognizable. “According to the news, the investigation goes on, but as of right now, they blame it on an arsonist. Looking further into this, I found out that the arsonist has abyssal ties,” Aclysia reported.

“So Gaia is killing two birds with one stone here,” John presumed. “…did you spend your allowance on buying that information, by the way?”

Aclysia cleared her throat, coughing into her raised fist, and averted her gaze, “This may be the case, yes, master.”

“You do insist on ignoring my wish to use money in a way that makes you happy, don’t you?” John teased, wrapping an arm around her waist.

“Spending money on your well-being is what makes me happier than anything, Master,” Aclysia informed him.

“Are you talking back to me right now?” he asked, bringing his mouth closer. “What a bad servant you are.”

He stopped a breath away from Aclysia’s lips. For a moment they just stood there, then she couldn’t take it anymore and pressed her lips on his. She smelled of raspberry today, even tasted the part. Greedily, he kissed her and just forgot about the world’s hardships. How wonderful it was to have someone like her at his side.

“Did you add flavours to that inner cocktail of yours?” John whispered when their kiss finally broke, their foreheads still resting on each other’s. The way Aclysia, and Momo as well, worked was fascinating. Most of what they ate resided in some sort of pocket dimension, a feature exclusive to Artificial Spirits with the Living Material attribute.

They could pull and store materials inside that space as they wished, with a certain limitation of how quick they could change things, of course.

While he would have liked to throw Aclysia over his shoulder and just run around the place right now, a simple gesture of his good mood, he couldn’t do it. She was, to put it bluntly, too heavy.

Even outside of combat, when most of her body was made from magically enhanced silicon and rubber (materials that made it so she felt almost human to the touch, but a certain, not at all unpleasant, artificialness still remained), Aclysia kept ‘bones’ which consisted of whatever the strongest metal inside her was at the current time.

The updates of those had slowed down. Refined Body 2 apparently had a hard time enriching better and better materials as time went on. That was of little surprise. From what John gathered about the previous materials inside her, they were mostly alloys, consisting of mostly ‘weak’ metals and low amounts of ‘strong’ ones. As time went on, the weak ones were upgraded with Refined Body, increasing the amount of strong metals. John fully expected her to be made completely out of mithril some point in the future.

The process scaled with her current level, however, so that would probably take quite some time. Once she did, though, John would swim in money. He had seen the prices for mithril on the Abyss Auction. By giving her some cheaper material to feed on, he could generate a ton of value.

‘Not that that is needed to increase Aclysia’s value to me at all,’ John thought and kissed his artificial guardian again. For all he cared, she could lose her powers tomorrow, as long as she remained by his side and stayed as the adorable maid, he would love her. Their minds linked up, and the mutual feeling weaved through their thoughts.

John kept this state going for as long as possible, even as the kiss broke. They started walking, arm in arm, without needing any communication to do so. As John thought about the potential combat applications of this state, it fell apart.

Aclysia looked like she was a slight bit disappointed in him. “John, why must you think of fighting in moments such as these,” she pouted, and John kissed her on the cheek to make up for it. Fortunately, Aclysia was easy to please. All she demanded was his company. She stopped pouting and instead snuggled closer to him.

“What can I say? I like practical things,” John defended himself now. “At the current time, our communication is near instantaneous, but we still rely on words, pictures and feelings. If we could get that up to this complete state of oneness, that would be great.”

This was, for the most part, true for the elementals as well. Albeit the connection with them was more immediate and reliable than the one he had with his Artificial Spirits. Still, he achieved these moments of absolute understanding more frequently with Aclysia than with anyone else. Save maybe Rave, but that was another kind of connection.

“I would love for us to be able to enter a shared state of mind whenever possible,” Aclysia agreed, although for very different reasons than John. “I have to give to protocol, however, that I am against joining in mind permanently.”

“There is no debate to be had there,” John told her.

The occasional sharing of love they currently had would pale in comparison to a complete and total synchronization of all their thoughts. The danger of the borders between their personalities dwindling away and the complete loss of any privacy was something neither of them could accept. They loved each other, they wanted to be with each other, but they didn’t want to be each other.

The strongest love, after all, was something felt for someone else.

“So, what should we make of this?” John asked as they walked through the former garden. Despite its destruction, John couldn’t help but think that it was at least a bit romantic; the smell of fresh wood mixed with Aclysia’s raspberry perfume managed to tinge the catastrophe in a slightly more favourable light.

The gardens were gone, and something new had to be erected in their stead. No use in crying after them. “As I assume you still wish for practical things, how about we erect a small arena?” Aclysia suggested. “A kind of training facility was recommended.”

“Mhm,” John thought; “That’s a pretty good idea. I wouldn’t be able to create a facility, as I lack the proper skills for that, but an arena I could do…” ‘Or how are we on that, Gnome?’ he asked his stone elemental.

‘Y-yes?’ the cuddle stone answered, her tone indicating that John was interrupting her in the middle of something. Interested, he peeked into her thoughts and found that she was currently busy creating a small statue, depicting none other than himself in the thinker pose, stark naked.

‘D-d-d-don’t look!’ Gnome demanded and shut him out as quickly as she could.

‘So, that’s what you are doing these days, huh?’ he teased as the shame radiated from her like a small, embarrassed sun inside his mind; ‘Want me to sit model one day? Or would it be too hard for you to concentrate?’

‘Y-yes… I-i-i-I mean NO! I mean…’ a confused silence ensued.

John shamelessly plunged in there, ‘So you want me to sit model for you, and I won’t be distracting you? Man, and here I thought you found me attractive.’

‘I do! I mean, you are very handsome, and I just like looking at you naked and…uhm, uhm, uhhh,’ Gnome stopped as she realized what she was saying. ‘I, uh, I…uwuwuwuwu…”

John laughed, and Aclysia smiled softly as she heard him. She rested her head on his shoulder, as they waited for Gnome to calm down. Gently he stroked through her white hair; the left oriented strand between her eyes fell back into place a moment later.

“Isn’t this annoying?” John asked in regards to that strand. “I mean, you got rid of most of the frilly or otherwise highly impractical parts of the dress.”

“In combat I fix the strand in place, it is of no inconvenience. Truthfully, it is actually easier,” Aclysia answered.

“Why is that?” he wondered.

“Maintaining an appearance deviating from my base form is taking a slight bit of concentration. It has gotten easier as you increased my Wisdom and Intellect, but maintaining all changes at all times is… If I understand your biology correctly, it is like constantly keeping your little finger curled. I hope this metaphor is understandable, I am not good with these.”

“I guess I get what you mean… how much could you maintain without effort?” John wondered.

“I could either maintain my hair or the dress in its current state. Moving parts are harder,” came the answer.

“Okay, for future notes, in combat you can drop anything but the softness of your hair!” he declared.

“But Master, wouldn’t this go against your cosplay love?” Aclysia wondered.

“It is all fine, underneath all of these layers you still look like A2. I am much more willing to give that up than the wonderful view of your hair whirling around.”

“My hair is wonderful?” Aclysia asked with a confused blink.

“Of course! When you whirl around with your sword, a determined look to protect me on your face and your hair flying through the air like a cascade of wonderful white. When you are fighting, you are beautiful, Aclysia.”

The artificial guardian blushed a slight bit at the compliment, and happy with this development, John continued to flatter her.

“Of course, you are always beautiful. When you are cooking, that smile that you gift me with when you look over your shoulder in the morning. When you are cleaning, The way you politely  question if I could move. When you are just with me, the look of your emerald eyes…” She looked at him in anticipation of his next words. “…their tender love reflecting someone who doesn’t deserve someone as great as you.”

“Oh, John,” Aclysia framed his face in her hands. “You deserve whatever good comes to you. It is I who doesn’t deserve someone as wonderful as you.”

”You are just saying that because I made you to be loyal to me,” John teased.

“Even if you made me to be as poisonous as Siena, I am certain you would have found a way to make me love you,” Aclysia strongly disagreed; “What would I be without you, Master?”

“Let’s not even wonder where we would be without each other, that’s a dark place. Let’s revel in the fact that we always have each other,” John told her.

“No matter what may come?” Aclysia asked.

“No matter what may come,” he repeated in a serious manner.

“If the world breaks around us?” Aclysia continued to ask.

“Then we will defend our ground together,” he answered.

“If everyone else betrays you?”

“You will still be at my side.”

“If my time has come?”

“I will defend you until my last moment.”

“If I die for your sake?”

“I will never stop protecting the life you saved.”

“And if I were to ever betray you?”

The question lay heavy between the two of them, as they stood on the upheaved field of the night’s fight. “I will do everything to win you back,” he said. “If you, who saved me from despair and anger, who stood by my side, who never complains and is always diligent in your love for me, ever were to turn your back on me, then, truly, I would need to show that I am once more worthy of you.”

Aclysia blinked with slightly wet eyes, “You think too highly of me, Master. I am just your loyal servant.”

“Don’t you dare say ‘I am’ and ‘just’ in the same sentence,” John demanded and kissed her so that she could stop belittling herself. “You are my servant, you are one of the best things that ever happened to me, and not a day passes where I do not appreciate you,” he told her afterwards. “I don’t need you to think of yourself as the greatest thing ever, the fact that you are humble is part of what makes me love you, but there is no need to make yourself less than what you are. A kickass, super-sexy maid that cooks my food and punches my enemies. You are the best, Aclysia.”