John pulled out his phone and called Scarlett immediately. The phone clicked and the technomancer’s voice rang sarcastically from the speaker, “Not even one day and you already need me for tech issues, don’t you? Can’t you do anything yourself?”

“I really wanted to, but things just got a whole lot more complicated.” The Gamer quickly explained the situation to her. “I need you to scan through the computer for any hints of Neo Alexandria, confirmations of the Golden Rose moving, or any other bases that may be mentioned.”

“Hook me into the computer, and I’ll get to it,” Scarlett gave the answer. John was already on it, connecting the PC and the phone through a simple USB cable. Soon, windows were popping up and vanishing in a matter of seconds. “Fucking Gaia, you weren’t kidding when you said there was a lot of shit on this computer,” the redhead complained and the monitor went dark.

“Did ya just ragequit?” Rave asked.

“No, I stopped the PC from loading graphics because it was way too slow,” Scarlett told them. “Also, thanks for all the things I’ll never unsee. I knew that cunts were stretchable, but I didn’t need visual confirmation that unbirthing is a fucking thing.”

“I’ll pay you back in basic cuddling, handholding and loving sex when I’m back,” John told her. Never before had he craved the vanilla flavour of intercourse as much as he had after seeing the depths of depravity. “Maybe even some simple flirting while laying in bed. Sound good?” He was owed an answer. “Scarlett?”

“Sorry… I just threw up.”

Salamander cackled. “I know that handholding is the ultimate degeneracy, but that seems a bit much.”

“I won’t even start to describe to you what just appeared in my fucking head, so yeah, sure, let’s run with that bloody bullshit and pretend I didn’t just…” Everyone could hear the loud gulp over the phone. “Fucking… I’d rather stand between Nia and Alice and stare at their Nevr’est than data mine this PC.” The sound of glass being placed on a table interrupted her words. Then the running of liquids.

“Whisky?” John asked.

“Spiritus,” Scarlett croaked and audibly took a shot of almost pure ethanol.

Despite her clear suffering, the technomancer managed to muddle through the computer in the span of ten minutes. The reward for it was meagre. Scarlett managed to enter her email account thanks to the password being locally saved and through that confirmed that it was the Golden Rose attacking. The exact location of Neo Alexandria and other important outposts remained obscure.

The most detailed bit of information they got was intel on how the demon situation was kept under wraps. Apparently, each demon summoned was put under a magically binding contract that would erase part of their memories if they ever decided to leave New Libraria. Apparently, demons had a particular susceptibility to magical contracts like that. It fit with the folklore image of such entities, so John accepted it at face value.

The question of how the human side held back intel was still open, but he wouldn’t get answers to that by sitting in this defiled church. “I’m going to get drunk and hope the hangover erases the memory of this,” Scarlett said but then sighed. “You’ll probably need me later, won’t you?”

“Most likely, yeah,” John answered. “Maybe I’ll stumble over other computers that need a quick decoding.”

He had considered just leaving instead. With the Golden Rose already on the offensive, it may have been wiser to pull back and let the situation play out. Whether Fusion or the Golden Rose came to control New Libraria mattered fairly little in the short term and in the long term their factions would clash in some fashion. This land was, most likely, not going to matter a whole lot. Not with how Abyssal warfare functioned.

As the situation was right now, he didn’t have enough information to know whether or not the Golden Rose was justified in its attack. It may have been that New Libraria was full of people who made human sacrifices willingly. It may also be that the Golden Rose was about to instill oppressive order on people who were just eccentric.

Staying blissfully ignorant of the possibilities and retreating to avoid an immediate confrontation with the Golden Rose was certainly a politically moderate course of action. Personally, however, John felt incapable of taking that route. He was too curious about this stable Kingdom connection and unwilling to take the gamble on things just working out without him. If the Golden Rose was morally correct, supporting them would let him learn more about them. If New Libraria was morally correct, he had a duty to intervene in the conflict. At the very least, he could siphon some refugees off the conflict to settle in the vast empty land he had. Curiosity, personal responsibility and opportunism, he could cater to it all if he kept going.

“Fantastic, so I can’t bleach my braincells with alcohol,” Scarlett sighed. “At least make this a worthwhile profit margin.”

“I’ll do my best.”

____________________________________________________________________________

John and his travelling harem were lingering on the long couch in the living room. Their legs were outstretched on the extension pulled out from underneath the sofa, usually meant to transform it into a second bed but currently used purely for comfort. A number of blankets covered all of them. While the heating system of the bus worked flawlessly, there was a general want to cuddle and nakedly being stuffed under a warm blanket was a pretty intimate way to go about that. Sadly, a blanket large enough to cover all of them was impractical, so they had to separate into cuddle clusters.

There was a lot of movement beneath the blankets. The haremettes were touching and kissing each other in a number of more and less lewd or loving ways. Compliments, friendly insults and general banter were exchanged while the group at large barely paid attention to the movie running on the large flatscreen mounted to the opposite wall. Occasionally, they laughed or talked about a scene. Generally, they were too engaged with each other.

John was no exception to this. Sharing his blanket with Metra and Beatrice, he had a purely kind and cute time, snuggling up to the two of them. Neither of them was the hugging type. Metra’s violent mindset and sexual submission to him didn’t mix to create anything of the sort. Beatrice’s passiveness and general servitude didn’t yield anything in that regard either.

While that meant that cuddling with them wasn’t as satisfying as it would be with Gnome, Aclysia or Sylph, it was still far from a displeasing affair. Their general sentiment towards body contact may have been to disregard, but when love was involved, such things often changed. As such, they were a happy bundle of slung around arms, kisses and sweet nothings. Most of the latter came from him, Metra only said a chosen few things and Beatrice said almost nothing, but it was still nice. They were leaning on either of his shoulders and pressed their naked bodies tightly against his sides. Hands travelled up and down his abs, just as his own caressed the swing of their waists, hips and thighs. The groin areas were generally avoided for the moment.

“Like what you feel?” Metra whispered into his ear, his left hand currently pressing against her abs. As someone who valued athleticism in his partners, her midriff feeling hard was somewhat of a turn-on for the Gamer. Soft bits were nice, but John was happiest when the jiggle was concentrated around the butt and thighs, with additional consideration being given to breasts (he was perfectly happy with small ones, though). A bit of fat on the tummy could be attractive, he admitted, but he preferred flat stomachs and softly defined midriffs to that.

Metra was more than softly defined, especially in the midriff area, but that was only a splendid variation in his harem. “Extremely so,” he whispered back and then leaned down to kiss her. She tasted metallic and sweet, an odd but familiar and pleasant taste. “Come here.” He grabbed her with a bit more force. A moment later, she was on top of him. Not to ride him, that would come later, just for a more intimate hug that more than just he could enjoy.

Changing her position, Beatrice quickly embraced the two of them. Passive and silent as she seemed to be in that moment, the adoration in her eyes was absolutely true. “Who do ya think you’re looking at, sass blaster?” Metra hummed amusedly.

“Someone I love,” Beatrice responded swiftly and leaned up.

“Should be illegal for you to be sweet,” the ancient weapon mumbled and reciprocated the advancement.

John grinned, as he watched two of the many beloved ladies in his life engage with each other. Tongues, usually used for verbal fencing between the two of them, were tangled together in a very enjoyable way. His half-mast rose to a full erection, inevitably, but he remained quiet and appreciated the romantic moment.

Someone slid under his blanket, claiming the open spot at his side. John didn’t have to look over to know who it was. The smoky smell and rising heat under the blanket was all he needed to know, and the giant mounds of soft flesh pressing against him a moment later cleared up the rest. “Got some space for me, stud?” Salamander asked.

“Always.” John grinned and gave her all the affection she could ask for.

The harem continued to remind one another of the way they preferred to love one another. Jack sat in the driver’s cabin. The radio was on, but rather than play the news of any mundane station, out of the boxes came the words of a political work. A modern theory on how communism could be properly and peacefully transitioned into, the Gamer wasn’t too great a fan of it. It dripped of naivety and utopian thinking. The broad strokes being disagreeable with him was unsurprising. He knew his biases, although he was certain he was right when it came to collective ownership being a horrible idea. Exactly because he was so certain of it, he needed the belief to be challenged every now and again. Digging one’s heels in was easy, but not the path to wisdom.

This work failed to convince him on any of the great benefits of collectivization. However, it at least reminded him why people were drawn to it, what problems it addressed and gave a few ideas what to do about them from the state side of things. Many of these ideas were interventionist to the extreme, but every tool had its time.

‘Love being in two places,’ Jack thought, dwelling in the sensations of the cuddles exchanged above. The memories between his true body and the double were updated with minimal delay. Therefore, despite the desynchronized consciousness, there was no time or need to grow jealous. Jack wasn’t his own being; he was an Extension of John. Even if the two thought streams weren’t actively crossing, they were part of the same mind.

While the main body concentrated on forgetting all the truly defiling imagery he had been subjected to on the computer, Jack got to listen to something that would have made Eliza raving mad if she had been around. He also got to mull some more over their situation.

‘How many demons can I expect?’ The double tried to make an educated guess, but came up short with any way to calculate this even approximately. Demons being rare was self-evident. To date, John had made contact with two, maybe three. There was Ifrit, the apparent god of demons, and Nashara, the succubus currently living in Miami. Arguably, Undine was a demon, due to being a corrupted elemental. The borders of the term were pretty vague, describing a collective of races with similar characteristics but no shared heritage or history. Like the term ‘vegetable’, the cut-off line for what was the characteristic of a true ‘demon’ wasn’t fully agreed on either. Certain was only that there were certain species everyone instinctively agreed upon were demons.

If there was any one certain characteristics of demons, then it was the ability to be summoned. Not that the Gamer was entirely certain of that either, given the lack of such conjurations. By Moira’s admission, the Golden Rose had been doing its best to stamp out such knowledge wherever they stumbled over it. Either they weren’t the only ones following such an endeavour or they were extremely adept in doing it. Both seemed likely.

‘All I can say certainly is that there can’t be too many demons,’ Jack thought. Contractually obligated amnesia or not, if a large number of demons came streaming out of a certain area of the map, it would show. It would have to be an incredibly large number, given the size of New Libraria’s territory, but even anything more than a few dozen would raise eyebrows. ‘My investigative forces have reported nothing like that.’

Fusion had task forces for many things. To be more accurate, Fusion had a few task forces assigned to many things. Finding people that were trustworthy and competent was a difficult task for a recently started Federation. Largely thanks to Chemilia and Ted, a few teams had been cobbled together and were researching a number of things that were shrouded in mystery.

The Death Zone was on the top of the list, for obvious reasons, but there was a large list of topics the previously shattered and squabbling forces occupying the area never looked into. The exact paths of the leylines, Natural Barriers that contained rare resources, Protected Spaces that remained from previous North American unification attempts, remnants of ancient trade routes that dated back to the start of the Silk Road, locations and population numbers of fantasy races, potential Kingdom entrances/exits, and, following from the last two, research on the origin, varieties and sociability of demons.

Ever since meeting his first succubus, John had been worried about what a sizable number of demons could do to society, if introduced to it. Nashara had been upfront about her inability to feel love and that her kind only cared about fucking for food and reproduction. Fundamentally, John wasn’t overly opposed to that. If they were genetically equipped to deal with single motherhood, the only issue with such offspring was if the man went into it expecting either nothing or more. Both cases could be solved by just obligating information or public education. The potential enthrallment of men was a bigger issue and one that wasn’t clear on how big it would be.

The size of the issue went along two dimensions. One, how strong was the attraction regular men felt towards succubi and, two, how many succubi were there and how quickly did they reproduce if given free access? If the answer to the former was ‘not supernatural’ to ‘weak’, then there would be no issue whatsoever. If it was ‘medium’ to ‘strong’, then the second dimension came into consideration. If there was a small cluster of succubi that enthralled men, that could be a problem, but it wasn’t a nation-threatening one. If there was a large group or if they reproduced at a rate outpacing normal humans, then John was looking at the difficult situation where his population would eventually be entirely replaced by succubi and incubi. Going by what Nashara said, and what the researchers backed up, half-breeds overwhelmingly retained demonic characteristics.

Was genetic mixing a problem? Generally, no. Could it be a problem if it came about because men were intoxicated by supernatural charm by demons who only wanted them for their cum and whose offspring were, by human standards, tilting towards sociopathy? Quite possibly, yes.

‘Question is what several generations of cross-breeding would do,’ Jack considered the worst-case situation of succubi having extreme magical attraction and popping out a kid every year. ‘If they’re mostly human in behaviour but with horns and tails by the fifth generation, it’s not that bad. If they can’t feel love no matter how many generations pass…’ He sighed, knowing that situation had the same set of solutions as the Gestalt one had. ‘Isolation, exile or genocide,’ he summarized, liking not a single one of those words.

That was just the matter of succubi, albeit he expected it to be the most complicated one. Extermination through sex wasn’t something most people would immediately consider or even think realistic. If fiends turned out to be demons that just couldn’t stop murdering, then applying summary execution to them would be easily justified. It would be similar to eradicating cholera.

‘Except they’re sapient or, at least, sentient beings…’ the Gamer warned himself. ‘Categorizing thinking is dangerous. Any species being irredeemably evil has to be carefully proven. At least when it comes to fiends, the diary showed they aren’t mindlessly brutal. They might be universally… perverse though. Degeneracy of that level is disgusting, but definitely not a reason to exterminate a species. If that was the standard, I get the feeling that I’d have to become very tyrannical to kill everyone who ‘deserves’ it.’ He sighed again. ‘And people think being on top of the world is fun. When I was a shut-in nerd, I at least didn’t have to contemplate when it’s genuinely necessary to consider genocide. Well, I guess I wondered if its justified to murder all orcs or Tyrranids in 40K before. Then again, the answer there is comically obvious.’

He shut the book on that topic for now. As of this moment, there was only one species he knew for sure he should kill every last member of and that was the Lorylim. There, at least, was no reason for doubt. One may be revealed in the future, but so far there had been no evidence, personal or historical, that the Lorylim were anything but malicious. Instead of this, he concentrated on the pleasing texture of Aclysia’s long hair.