“I get the feeling I should have knocked first…” John reflected on his actions, looking at the display in front of him. It was a debauched scene, Ted lying on his back on top of the large business table, naked. John couldn’t see a whole lot of the man, though, only his middle and legs, as the general’s crotch and face were covered by two women. One was expected, his pink-haired wife Chemilia, riding his dick with the fervour of the sexually fulfilled couple.

The other, however, was someone John hadn’t expected to see around here. A blonde, with a balanced figure and more toned muscles than he had previously guessed to be under her black bodysuit, was sitting on Ted’s face with a pretty ecstatic look on hers. Right up until she noticed the Gamer and almost toppled over out of her face-straddling position.

“Mister President!” the blonde woman caught herself in time, only having shifted enough for Ted to rise up from his pinned position with a look of slight disgruntlement on his face. Given his passive nature, that was already a clear indication that John’s interruption was not all that welcomed. “Didn’t expect you to come in!”

The newcomer was Corith. The woman that had fought Rave in the semi-finals of the tournament and the chief of security of Amacat. Well, former chief of security, as a quick Observe informed John.

‘I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her whatsoever while I was visiting Amacat,’ John thought while he slowly stepped backwards through the door again. “I’ll come back in like 10 minutes, feel free to finish your business,” he said and just closed the door. There was no telling whether they actually resumed the fucking. The walls were soundproof, something he himself had made sure of.

He leaned against the wood-covered lower half of the hallway and pulled out his smartphone. Dropping Rave a quick text about what just happened, he awaited her inevitably amused reaction while just humming to himself. ‘Had to figure someone else would use the precautions I made to the Guild Bank to have some fun on office hours,’ he thought to himself.

Chemilia had been his stand-in regent while he was gone, along with a number of other people. As this was the current place of governance, with his central administration located in these rooms, having her work here was expected. She had been given her own office, and now she was using that office in similar ways as John would.

‘I wonder whether this is my bad influence,’ the Gamer thought. Chemilia had been amongst the many officials that had caught him mid-act a number of times. Being on the opposite side of the dynamic was interesting.

The thing he wondered more about was Corith’s participation in the whole thing though. The generals being a bit on the easy-going side when it came to sex wasn’t surprising to John; the very first time he had met Ted, they had ended up naked and drunk in the same room within a few hours. Courtesy, largely, of their respective pink-haired girls.

‘Another question being if I want to try and score with that woman myself,’ John caught himself thinking with his dick. Regardless of the origin of that thought, he looked at it properly and decided he would just leave Corith alone. He had just recently gotten an island full of maids. Not to mention that the entire CPDI cast of hot catgirls likely wanted to sleep with him at least once. He could spare backing off some potential conquests in order to let Ted have some fun with a small harem of his own. ‘Wow… I now have arrived at the point where I skip out on potential partners because I feel like leaving someone to other guys…’ John realized just how far he had come on the front of sexuality.

Eventually the door opened and a fully clothed Chemilia waved him in. “You really should have knocked,” she said, as he followed her into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. All windows had been opened to get the smell of hot sweat out of the room. No signs of recent copulation remained, everything had been cleaned neatly.

A glance towards Corith showed that she had gotten off, at least. An Observe towards Ted, however, showed that he had definitely not.

However, he also didn’t mind by the look of it. John could not understand that whatsoever. The last time he had agreed to being edged for a prolonged time, he had done so knowing he would get off eventually. Being brought to the edge and then just dropped sounded like it would drive him insane. Thankfully, the saying ‘to each their own’ existed.

Both he and Chemilia were wearing the first issue of Fusion’s new standard uniform. It was based on the old Little Maryland uniform, which in turn was based on the standard American army one. It wasn’t much to look at, especially since they had taken off their jackets and hung them from an assortment of hooks on the wall. Just buttoned up shirts and comfortable pants, both equipped with a number of pockets, big and small, to carry utensils if needed.

In contrast to the American uniform, which was usually some shade of dark green, the Fusion uniform was predominantly a dark, greyish blue. The exception to this were the silver stripes on their sleeves, showing their ranks as generals. They were better visible on the shoulders of the currently unworn vests. Also, on the left side of the chest was the symbol of Fusion, six comets of individual colour and details pertaining to the elements.

The shirt, on the other hand, had the symbol of the member guild on it. This way, the place of origin was both covered under Fusion’s federal authority, but also closer to the wearer’s heart. It was a symbolic choice that Lydia had suggested when they had had a talk about it. In the case of Chemilia and Ted, although they were members of Collide for technical reasons, they kept the symbol of the Little Maryland on their chests.

It was the first iteration of the uniforms, so they had minimal enchantments, all of which were purely defensive. John had decided to take over the idea of the Little Maryland and actually put the main enchantments on an underlying bodysuit. The creation of those was cheaper and they sat tighter to the skin. Negotiations about mass production of those were still ongoing, the person who had produced them previously had been a fierce Abraham supporter. While he wasn’t a traitorous individual under John’s governance, background checks had been made, he was anything but friendly towards the Gamer.

“So, how did this happen?” John wondered, sitting down with a smile. He had just gone through numerous hours of boring bureaucracy, so he could use some sensationalism in his life right about now. “I was aware you two wanted to give this whole harem thing a try, but seeing Corith there is a bit unexpected. I already know that she wants a job here, so you can skip that part.”

Chemilia and Corith exchanged a glance, the general ultimately making a passing gesture that caused the blonde to speak up. She was wearing her black bodysuit now, very similar to Rave’s. “Me and Chemilia actually knew each other from some past things. The relationship between Amacat and the Little Maryland had always been good, so us military folk met up every now and again for training. When I shot her a mail asking for a meeting, she agreed. We met over a nice dinner, we talked about this and that, conversation eventually arrived at you and your fucking habits. Things kind of escalated from there.”

“I see I AM being a good influence on the world,” John grinned, stretching in a fulfilled way. There were likely a lot more details to that tale, but the summary was enough for him. Both of the women made a cautious gesture, while Ted let out a single, amused blow of air through his nose.

“I didn’t want to just accept her into the army without asking you first, so I asked her to come here. Didn’t expect you to arrive exactly on time.”

“I have my good secretary back,” he explained, gesturing at Beatrice who had followed him around without a single sound so far, just looking pretty and absolutely neutral about the situation.

“I check the clock at regular intervals,” the passive maid simply stated, before dropping back to her background role.

“Anyway, I’ll leave this matter entirely in your hands,” John shrugged off. “I trust you to make the right decisions in regards to the military, Chemilia.” Saying that, he gave Chemilia command over a person a good bit above her own level.

However, John wanted his army to be based on overall competence and leadership, not just raw power. Therefore, having a subordinate that was stronger than their superior was a situation that would happen from time to time. In the Abyss, where the power difference were so vast, that could easily lead to an unstable guild, but as long as he himself was at the very top serving as a warning, things would be fine. Hopefully, at least, since he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

At the very least Corith didn’t look like the type of girl that would start any trouble internally. “Alright then,” Chemilia took the responsibility and immediate declared, “Corith, you’re welcome in my leadership staff. You on board with that?”

“Absolutely,” Corith grinned, “how is the pay?”

“Probably less than what you got from Amacat,” John wrapped those words in a joking tone, but they were true nonetheless. “Things are likely to get better down the line though.” Corith nodded, that was the reason, according to Observe anyway, why she had joined his cause in the first place. “Speaking of things getting better, how are your limbs?”

The question was aimed towards their mechanical replacements. “Good,” Ted answered first, raising his hand, moving the finger of his left smoothly. John could neither see nor hear the mechanical movements; under the glove he was wearing it looked entirely natural.

“Your experts do good work,” Chemilia said, so smoothly that the lie inside it couldn’t even be noticed, unless one was already in the know. With Corith around, the mention of Scarlett’s name was best skipped. The general moved her right leg around for a little bit. “I’ll still need more time though. I can walk, I can run, but for fighting it’s still pretty unreliable. A few more days or weeks and I should be back in good enough shape though.”

“I do know that feeling.” John blinked. The quest about his recovery still hadn’t finished and, given the occasional issue he experienced in high-movement situations, there was still some things needed to get used to. However, like Chemilia, he was sure he was on the finishing line.

The phone in his pocket vibrated, and John went to check what message he had gotten this time. His initial expectation was Rave to poke for an update on the situation, the actual thing he got was a bit more urging.

Scarlett: Stop talking and get her ass over here. I have all day, but I don’t plan to spend all of it sober enough to have a coherent talk about strategy.

Scarlett: Seriously. I’ll be drunk on liquor or cock in the next two hours. Get in fucking motion or I am crashing your economy.

Scarlett: You know I can.

He did indeed know that she could do that. Not quite as easily as she made it sound at that moment, but even with a few hours, the amount of damage she could do would probably scratch the billion. “This is all assuring to hear, but the thing I’m here for does ask for our attention,” he therefore decided. While he was about 99% sure she wouldn’t do anything like that, the threat alone was enough to move him to action.

That aside, he was more than happy to provide the ‘cock drunk’ requirements.

“I guess, Ted, dear, you want to come with us or…?”

“I’ll stay and work,” he denied. “Large-scale tactics aren’t my field.”

“Alright, show Corith where we stay while we’re at it,” she winked at the blonde, “members of my staff should always be nearby.”

“Hmmm, sounds like a comfortable stay,” Corith mused, winking after her confirmed superior in professional and love life.

John and Chemilia left the room. When they were a little bit down the hallway, the Gamer said, “For the record, I am completely okay with you using your staff as your own harem gathering. As long as your work doesn’t suffer because of it.”

“It won’t, I’ll end this experiment before I endanger my entire battalion due to incompetence and nepotism,” she assured him. “Still not sure how this entire harem thing will work out for me and Ted. I’m not going to look at your example and assume that it works that easily for everyone.”

“Wise policy,” John nodded, his circumstances were unique after all. “I’ll hope it works out at least on a small scale for you. It’s a lot of fun, if a bit crowded sometimes.”

“Also pretty impossible on a large scale, isn’t it?” Chemilia asked, and John shot her a questioning glance. “Not large scale as in, the number of girls,” she clarified, since John was living proof that that part worked quite well, if one was exceptional. “I mean on a societal level.”

“Ah, yes, that can’t work,” John agreed. Whether it was because he was just smarter from a Stat standpoint or because he had generally experienced a whole lot since starting his journey, he understood that monogamy was actually incredibly smart by now. In a society where polygamy was the norm, the powerful men just had all the women. While incredibly incompetent men were usually doomed to a level of loneliness even in monogamous societies, causing things to stack up at the top drained potential relationships from even the average people.

That was bound to create an absurd amount of resentment for the people at the top. The same could be seen in badly balanced money or resource distributions. In other words, harems like John’s had to be the exception. As sad a fact of life as that was, the numbers game had it balanced out that way. Then again, most people also seemed to be built to have only one proper relationship, with a number of flings that varied depending on the couple.

John had wondered whether he should signal to people that monogamy was good, before they tried to imitate him and the entire system would collapse due to resentment 200 years down the line. However, not only would that be entirely hypocritical of him, it was also a very much theoretical problem right now. Currently, he held the same stance towards it as he did with most aspects of society: keep his hands off any social engineering and just let people do as they please.

The common people would know best what was best for the common people. Maybe it would take generations for people to realize that the initial solution was already the best. Maybe some entirely new social dynamic would form and be a clear improvement on the current way of things. Such things were impossible to say.

“Maybe I should give my hecklers more credit sometimes,” John sighed, it was easy to be against all of those that disliked him on the basis of his frivolous lifestyle. Not like more morally minded people didn’t have a point in talking about decency whatsoever. “Just difficult to talk to people that are already convinced you’re wrong.”

“I would be surprised if all of them were just stone walls without compromise,” Chemilia pointed out. “Personally, I suggest you reach out to some reasonably leadership figure and have a private talk with them to test the waters.” A few moments passed, during which her lips were parted in a certain fashion. It indicated that she had something more to say but wasn’t sure whether or, if at all, to say it. Then, she just slammed the fact on the table, “You’re way too happy to do things in public. Have to say, John, you like to show off to a dangerous degree.”