“I don’t know if I find it hot or bothersome that I keep getting bruises from you,” Scarlett said, inspecting her throat in the camera of her phone – the closest stand-in for a mirror she had around. “You have strong hands, that’s the only thing I sure as fuck know from that.”

“Well, then we share the same question,” John said. “Definitely find it hot in the moment, in the time afterwards, it bothers me a bit.” He kissed her on the cheek, while Scarlett pocketed her phone and got back to buttoning up her shirt. “I don’t want to damage my property.”

“And I don’t want to have breathing pains,” Scarlett shot back in a matter of fact tone, her reddish pink lips stretched into a sassy smile. “You don’t want to know how much you really need me.”

“Oh, I am sure you will let me know whenever the next bill of one of the companies you totally don’t own flutters into my inbox,” he mocked her in a friendly tone. “Tell me, how come the market is suddenly flooded with shipbuilding materials, hm?”

“Demand drives price drives supply,” Scarlett only recited basic free market teachings to him. “It is absolutely natural that those materials would appear quickly, while Fusion buys it en-masse for higher prices.”

“Higher prices that collapsed right back down to regular rates after the first wave of deliveries,” John noted. “A clever capitalist would have drained the ‘bottomless’ pockets of the state with as much price manipulation as possible.”

Scarlett blew air out of her nose and stepped away from him. “You’re talking about cronies, not capitalists.”

“What’s the difference?” the Gamer asked, just to get a rise out of her.

“One thinks in selfish, short term gains, the other thinks in greedy, long term gains,” Scarlett returned. “Cronies get the absolute best deal ever one time because they cheat, lie and swindle – capitalists get good deals all the time because they create strong business relationships. Cronyism is pretty seductive, especially if you deal with feeble minded people that roll over whenever you suggest any fucking deal to them, but capitalism funnels human greed into all the right directions. As long as my life gets better at the end of it, I will make yours better. That’s the deal.”

Since John agreed with all of that, he couldn’t really muster a strong defence. Not without going stronger into the devil’s advocate position than he had time for. “How does any of that relate to you pressing prices down so Fusion saves money though?”

“I’m trying to get your middle-management to like my raw material company so it gets business deals in advance.” Scarlett crossed her arms and rolled her neck, in an evidently pleased fashion. “25% less profit in one instance is a very acceptable loss to be the first contractor people approach. Any money is more than no money.”

“Except if you don’t get the losses back in,” John remarked and got himself a raised-eyebrow stare. “No, I don’t think you’re that stupid.”

“You better not,” she retorted and ran a hand through her hair. It was still messy, that she had put on clothes and given it a basic combing didn’t substitute a shower. “I would prefer not to spend the rest of my life, apparently, with someone who is THAT wrong about something so obvious.”

“While I’m looking forward to spending the rest of my life with someone who can take some of the thinking from me.” John put an arm around her shoulder in a loving way. “Now, let’s go, I don’t want to make the elementals wait.”

Scarlett nodded, grabbed her jacket, and they stepped onto the internal teleporter pad in the corner of the room. One flash of light later, they appeared in John’s Palace. It was a small, mostly empty room, with some dividers standing around and separating the walls into segments, each broad enough to hold a teleportation pad. John wanted to establish a teleportation hub around there. He hadn’t really gotten to it yet.

Through a high security door, the same kind he had in the basement, John and Scarlett entered the hallway of the Palace and then turned left. To the right was the cluster of apartments, but he had no need to go there today. Instead, they walked to a previously empty room not too far away. It was easy to make out down the artificially lit hallway, thanks to the door standing wide open and the steady chatter of several girls echoing out from there.

“Good evening!” John announced his entrance loudly as he turned the corner into the room. It was barren and not particularly large, about the size of a low-income household’s living room. It was more orderly than such a place usually was, by virtue of its uncovered floor, walls and ceiling. Only a lamp, dangling from the ceiling, provided any sort of ‘decoration’.

Inside, he found much of the harem. Lydia hadn’t found the time to attend, but everyone else was present for today’s event – seeing the elementals off to their home planes. John reached into his inventory and took out a piece of chalk. The girls made some space in the middle of the room and he got to drawing. Not that he was in a particular hurry, he just had a lot of things to draw.

The circle also wasn’t strictly necessary to dismiss them, but it would make things a bit smoother and he needed it when he wanted to call them back. Preparing it now meant he didn’t have to bother getting it done when he had been deprived of their presence for several days.

Rave stepped backwards, while John carefully drew the perfect circle along where her foot had just been. “Ya can’t fit five circles of that size into this room,” she pointed out. Although she had never bothered learning about proper summoning rituals, given that she just needed to put herself out there to attract elementals that wanted to be contracted, she had seen John get the contracts with the majority of his elementals. Aside from Salamander’s first summoning, she had been present for all of them, if the Gamer remembered correctly.

“I only need one circle for all six elements,” John told her.

“I remember that differently…”

“It was different.”

“What changed?”

“I dunno,” he answered dismissively, finishing the outside circle and starting the process of adding smaller ones to the inside. Some overlapped, some squeezed in between two, all of them would be covered in sigils and signs eventually. The image in his mind was that of a very complicated mixture between a mandala and fantasy babble. “Elemental Unity, Elementalist, having all six kind of elementals? Could be any of those or a combination of them. Fact is, just like I knew how to draw each singular circle from the Skillbooks, I now know how to draw one central circle.”

“Ya said a lot there, but all I heard was ‘It’s a bunch of bullshit’,” Rave summarized it in such a flattering way.

“Can we talk about the fucking fact that our resident money-vampire-bitch over here has used literal cum as her conditioner?” Eliza chimed in.

“Money vampire?” Scarlett seemed more confused by that than bothered by the accusation.

“You have red fucking eyes and you like money. I can call you something else if you want me to.” Eliza raised her hands and counted a few possibilities, “Ungrateful sub-cunt, deepthroat SUBscription, money-masturbating-masochistic-androgynous-whore, greedy shitlady, redhead c-“

“Might as well call me capitalist pig,” Scarlett interrupted.

“Urgh,” Eliza let out a disgusted sound, followed by a prolonged, unstable giggle. “That’s a fucking commie insult, I wouldn’t let that shit touch my tongue.”

“…We may be friends yet.” Scarlett nodded with a smile. It was a comment to be taken with a fair amount of salt. Although the Technomancer remained fairly isolated in comparison to other girls in the harem, she was bantering along properly and without issue nowadays. By all accounts, she was properly integrated. She was just less sociable in general.

That aside, she and Eliza had common fetishes, so those two got along pretty well anyway.

John put the last few lines into the circle, then stepped back and looked at the product. On the smooth concrete floor, the black chalk created a proper contrast. Visibility of the circle was important, something about elemental magic needing to be observable to function properly.

‘Wonder if that’s the same principle as things changing as they get observed in physics… ah, well, I don’t know enough about that to make a real guess on it.’ “Who wants to go first?” he asked instead, turning to the gathered elementals.

“I will take that offer,” Stirwin announced, walking forwards on his four legs. “That way, I won’t have to listen to all of your sentimental goodbyes.” He blew air out his nose, which came along with a cloud of golden mist that dissolved into fading sparkles. “Won’t have to witness the following three goodbye orgies either.”

“We had those in the morning,” John defended himself, exactly as joking as the infinity elemental.

Careful not to blur any of the intricate lines with his movements, Stirwin got into the middle of the circle and looked at his summoner. “What are you waiting for?” he asked, tilting his head.

John followed a sudden impulse and scratched the scaly puppy under the chin. Bigger form or not, Stirwin was strangely adorable. Then again, if humans were as little afraid of crocodiles biting them as they were of their dogs attacking them, crocodiles would have been more popular outside of exotic-loving circles. It helped that Stirwin encouraged such actions by squeaking in an adorable fashion and leaning into the gesture. His tail wagged with heavy movements. If he had possessed normal legs, the drag would have completely ruined the circle.

“Just two more things,” John said, reaching into his inventory and pulling out a raw steak. “First off, catch.” With that simple instruction, he threw the piece of meat at the crocodile. His jaw snapped at it with remarkable control. Teeth and protruding scales dug into it, then Stirwin threw his head back and gobbled the entire thing down in one piece, letting gravity do the majority of the work. “Secondly,” the Gamer continued, “tell your father that I’m thankful for his advice still – and that he should just talk to me normally rather than mimic being a voice in my head next time.”

“Will do,” Stirwin answered, then he began to fade as John let go of the mental reins that he had been leisurely holding for the past months. “Although he isn’t my father, we were born at the same time, he is just the king of our domain.” With those words, the light spirit vanished entirely.

The vacancy he left behind was odd. When Undine had broken her contract, the resulting gap had felt like a lost tooth. Whenever an elemental died, that was like one of John’s arms had fallen asleep. Having an elemental dismissed willingly was like the odd feeling one got when looking at their room after moving the furniture. Something was missing, but all was there and one knew that. Not too bad and John would get quickly used to it.

“Alright, who is next?” John asked and turned, only to see Sylph already flying up to him.

“Me, it’s me!” the thunderstorm elemental decided. “I want to meet Mom already! I have exchanged so many funny gales with her!” A gale was the equivalent of a tweet on Airter. “I wanna see if I really look so much like her and I wanna tell her all about you!”

“It’s gonna be pretty silent around here without ya around,” Rave chimed in.

“I’ll have lots to talk about when I get back. Lots and lots and lotsa topics to discover! Wonder what the Soundrowned Wastes look like!” Sylph buzzed up and down in the air like a hyperactive bee.

“Alright, alright,” John laughed. She was so excited that he wasn’t even able to present her with the gummy bear he had prepared. “I won’t keep you any longer then. See you in a few days.” With those words, he let go of her as well.

“See ya!” Sylph waved with overemphasized motions of her small arm until she completely faded from view.

“G-guess I’ll go next.” Gnome stepped up afterwards. The autumn elemental in her dress was extra careful not to step on any of the lines. Not that her bare feet were any more of a risk than Stirwin’s had been. “I don’t even know if I’ll meet my mom… can’t imagine she’s interested in a pebble like me…”

“Nonsense,” Siena spoke up before John could. “Stand straight and tell her she’s a cunt if she doesn’t want to see you. You went from just created to Tier 4 in a year AND you are contracted to one of the most important people that exist.”

“R-right!” Gnome nodded and pumped her fists. “Yeah, I can do that! Except for the cunt part…”

“Not everyone has a terrible relationship with their mother,” John said.

“But some mothers are just horrible!” Rave had to add.

“Trust me, yours got nothing on mine,” Siena responded.

“Don’t think you want to make that a contest,” the Gamer tried to put an end to that discussion. “Anyway, if your mother is somehow interested in me, give her my regards. Also say thanks for me having gotten such an adorable cuddle rock.”

“I-i-I definitely can’t do that!” Gnome declared and started fading. “You have to do that yourself! No- I mean- You shouldn’t- Uw…Uwuwuwuwu…” Her voice became quieter until the last adorable syllable had vanished to another plane.

“Alright, let’s just get this over with,” Salamander followed up and hovered into the circle. “I do wonder what kind of person the Mother of Fire is… doubtful I will get to meet my actual progenitor.”

“Who knows, maybe Krieg is on vacation.” John shrugged.

“Maybe Krieg is just a massive name-changing bitch,” Metra grinned and walked over to punch the endflame elemental on the shoulder. “It’s going to be hard to kill the time without you around.”

“You survived seventy years in Eliza’s head, you will survive four days without me, Mat,” Salamander cackled and the two tomboys exchanged a fist bump.

“There was no Beatrice in Eliza’s head, so it’s actually going to be a lot harder,” the First of Wrath decided.

“Statement: given the make-up of Eliza’s being, the chance of at least one Beatrice being in there is approximately 100%,” the passive maid had to chime in. “Addendum: if you mean purely the physical location, I’d be worried if there was any other person in there.”

“Yeah… Imma just fucking leave before I have to listen to more of that,” Salamander announced, and John subsequently let go off her as well. “Later, bitches.”

That only left Undine; the abysstide elemental came towards the circle without hesitation. First, she flowed in the usual fashion, then legs fluidly formed out of her greyish blue mass and she walked in without complications. John stood before her and looked deep into her golden eyes. “Until tomorrow,” he just said.

“Until tomorrow,” she responded just as simply and leaned forwards to kiss him goodbye. By the time she leaned back, she had started to fade.

“Wish you luck with your family and all that shit,” Eliza said. The water spirit gave a thankful nod towards her friend, then she was gone.