A Contestant's Want, a Master's Duties

Felix only just heard Cammy enough to nod along with what she was talking about. That was because ever since Jamina and Kei Winter's transformation happened, his mind had been overwhelmed by that, once again, his reality had been retroactively altered. Specifically, the male version of Winters had never been his math teacher. To say this was a massive change would be an understatement, because it removed one of the last major impediments to him being happy in high school. But the sheer breath of the changes went further than that, as it had become a butterfly wing esque bit of chaos in his life.

"Cammy, our timeline changed again," Felix interrupted her making another joke about her new boobs, but hearing that brought her pause. "Do you remember who my math teacher was?"

"Mr. West I think... wait," Cammy said her eyes going wide. "It was once Jamina, wasn't it? But now that is so many transformations ago, and Kei Winters has graduated. What do you sense is different in this timeline?"

The name Mr. West brought to Felix's mind a fairly standard math teacher, but one who was a massive improvement over the male Winters, the memory of which was already fading from his mind. This teacher had quickly realized Felix had a disability, and got his parents, school staff, everyone he could involved, to deal with it. The school provided stuff was able to determine that he had a working memory disorder which was a fancy way of saying that he couldn't do a math equation that took a lot of steps. In addition, unlike Winters, this math teacher was capable of realizing that this wasn't something studying was going to make up for. There was possibly more to his difficulties with math than that, but a combination of his parent's lack of money, and him being in his last year of high school, had taken further testing off the table. All of it together had left Felix with a teacher dramatically superior to Winters in terms of recognizing his issues, but not as much of an improvement to his life as he expected.

"Well, a lot, but one of them is we got into fights over college," Felix said. "I was on the path to graduating from high school but..."

"... you couldn't figure out what to do after college," Cammy finished for him. "I wanted you to join me, but you kept saying there was nothing for you to study that'd be worth the expense, and that you had no way of paying for it. Your parents certainly couldn't, and given I had just thrown my dad under the bus, I couldn't tap into my family's money to help you either."

The last time the timeline changed, Cammy came off as an angel who loved him unconditionally, and was also the best friend growing up that he once didn't have. In this timeline she was still all those things, but also someone who had expectations, and just like with his mother, ones that Felix couldn't meet. However, she felt he had given up too early on the prospect, and hadn't in general thought enough about what he was going to do after high school. What made it hurt the most was Felix knew she pressed him on this because she cared about him and his future. There was no malice in this pressure, and yet, it still felt horrible because once again, he couldn't do anything to satisfy the people in his life he most cared about.

"Before this latest alteration, I'm pretty sure I was destined to be a high school dropout from how garbage my last math teacher was," Felix said. "So I guess it is progress if I get a high school diploma I couldn't anything with."

He could tell Cammy wanted to say something, but whenever she was about do, the words caught in her throat. It reminded him of the parent-teacher meetings where Mr. West was very clear to his parents that he wasn't going to have the same expectations of Felix as he did with other students. This wasn't out of malice, but because the teacher had realized his issues were just not surmountable with raw effort, and they didn't have either the time or the resources to try to fix it properly. It had made his parents speechless, because they realized their son was only going to graduate high school from an act of mercy that required a teacher to accept their son just couldn't actually do the material the class expected him to. The only expectation was that he did just enough in his math class to show he was trying, so as to help his teacher give him a passing grade without it looking like he was just waiving him through.

"Was it worse with Smith before?" Cammy asked, finally finding her words. "I remember how furious you were with him earlier this week, but here..."

"It was worse," Felix said in a very matter of fact manner. "He could tag team with the person I used to have as my math teacher to make me look like a problem child. I think he did that to get out of punishing the bully Nox used to be."

"Whereas in this timeline he couldn't do that," Cammy continued for him. "He had to actually do his job, although I do remember how much Smith dragged his heels about it. Did it change anything with Noah or Hailey?"

While she didn't mean it to, Cammy's question was painful. Felix could remember how much Noah and Hailey were figuring out what their lives were going to be about by figuring out their college plans. It drove him how he was stuck in place as a boy who couldn't do anything, surrounded by people far smarter and more driven than he was. The memories made him cry, despite his best efforts otherwise.

"They had it all figured out and I..." Felix trailed off. Cammy pulled him into a hug, and he just bawled his eyes out into her shoulder as they waited for the last few contestants to come back...

Jamina Lightbringer realized that the male Winters had effectively been vaporized out of existence. He was someone she remembered, but would anyone else? Would Felix remember him enough for her apologizing about the person she used to be to matter? She wanted his forgiveness, especially as so much had changed from Kei Winters graduating.

When she had gotten back, the demon took her aside and explained the new situation. "You now have 50 VP. Do keep in mind any sexual act Kei Winters did with Felix has already been counted, so I suggest you get a bit more creative when looking for VP opportunities."

She needed that VP, and more than that, closure on everything she had once done as Winters. However, was forgiveness was even attainable at all? However, that brought to mind something that was off the table before, because as a high elf with her background, she could potentially cast her own magic. Jamina Lightbringer was used to healing minds clouded by dark forces, which very much included demons, and perhaps she could use that to reveal prior memories. On the other hand, it'd be showing him a life that never happened, so it wasn't as clear cut as the others. Regardless, she knew she'd have to try.

All this thinking on magic caused Jamina to remember that Kei Winters had introduced magic to Felix's world. Jamina didn't know the details though, and she needed to talk with him about it. What would he remember of magic, if anything? Was their world still new to it? Or was the reason crying into Cammy's shoulder because of how magic had altered his world? She had seen many times in her role as a Lightbringer how magic used poorly could do so much harm, and Kei Winters didn't strike her as the type to be restrained with using such new power.

Daring not to speak at first, Jamina Lightbringer just walked over with the utmost gentleness to where Felix sat with Cammy. As she waited for him to calm down, she whispered in elvish a spell. The spell could be cast in any language but she found it most comfortable to do so in the language she had grown up with, and besides, she didn't want anyone to overhear what she was doing. It would just sound like mumbling to them, as she cast a spell that brought peace to Felix's mind.

The effect was subtle at first, but grew in intensity. Jamina Lightbringer had many times used this spell to sooth grief. Not forever, but often, people needed a break from their emotions to deal with the horrors of war, if only long enough so that when they did have a breakdown, it wouldn't be during battle, or when others needed them. Samuel talked about how a leader needed to be a fortress others could lean on, no matter how bad things got, so magic like this was quite important to him.

"Felix?" Jamina Lightbringer asked. "Before we got here, did your world have magic?"

"No..." Felix trailed off as a bunch of new memories entered his head. "Wait, Cammy, do you remember that weird stuff on the news?"

"Something about strange creatures, and unlike all the times people think they had spotted Bigfoot, or similar such nonsense, these were in crystal clear view," Cammy said. "More than that, despite a bunch of study, nobody could show the footage was faked. I think when we were last there it was just... wait."

"That was brought by Kei Winters," Jamina Lightbringer said. "My memories of my former self have not been removed, but have been mostly subsumed by the memory of the woman you see before you. My last name is Lighbringer, as that is my role. I once had a family name like you do, but that was a long time ago."

Both Cammy and Felix looked at her in confusion, unsure of how to react to the new Jamina. Both had seen her transformation, but hadn't processed the implications. She suspected they would wonder whether this was another dyad, given how many the group had experienced before. Still, this was a situation where she needed to keep moving, and asking the right questions.

"Felix, do you even remember who your math teacher once was?" Jamina Lightbringer asked. "Or who he was in the latest timeline?"

"Once, but... I think the memory has already faded," Felix said. "I know someone named Winters used to be my math teacher, as I remember quite clearly all the conversations I had about it with you earlier this week, or Kei Winters for that matter. But I cannot remember his first name, or even what he looked like. It's just like the incident that once brought us all here in regards to how gone from my mind it is."

Jamina solemnly nodded. "It was who I once was. The demon let me keep those memories, I suspect in part knowing that, for all intents and purposes, that man is dead. Worse than dead in a way, because now he never existed..."

Cammy and Felix continued to talk with Jamina for awhile. They figured out that magic had been brought to their world, and that the news reports were about creatures that had escaped from the facilities built by Kei Winters. Those facilities were funded through a combination of military research, and, Jamina suspected anyway, exploiting other worlds for resources like gold, along with perhaps using magic to power machines. While she hadn't done it in her world, she was familiar with others who combined magic with technology, and that was in a world far more primitive than the Earth they had originally come from.

This conversation was brought to an end when Janessa Smith came back. The angel had been missing from the room she was transformed in for awhile, but nobody knew where she had gone. Cammy glared at her all the same when she saw the angel look at her boyfriend hungrily.

"If you have had sex with Felix, you will get to vote on this," The demon said, grabbing everyone's attention. "Otherwise, you'll just have to watch as he gets transformed again."

The last statement was clearly directed at Janessa Smith, who the group realized was the only one who hadn't had sex with Felix, other than people in a dyad anyway. It would've been an embarrassing realization for Hailey a week ago, but being **** to talk about sex all the time from her transformation had systematically destroyed any sense of shame or similar about such topics for her. This was layered on top of a transformation that had clearly given

"Felix is a caring guy, but even he can still sometimes forget the needs of his sexual partners," The demon said in a playful tone. "All of these transformations are meant, either through controlling his orgasms, or through his erections, his pleasing of the harem. I know some of you have been frustrated by that, so this should help fix it."

1. Ladies First: Felix can only orgasm if a harem member has orgasmed first from his attention.
2. Harem Orgasm Rules: Felix's orgasm permissions decided by harem, but he must be allowed to cum in some instances, and only those who he has cummed into through some type of penetrative sex or through a contestant giving him a blowjob, are allowed to participate in deciding said context.
3. Hard on Demand: Felix cannot go soft, no matter how many times he has orgasmed, as long as a harem member remains unsatisfied.

Cammy was exhausted already by the options presented. Unlike last time, she very quickly went around to the group and urged them to not go with Harem Orgasm Rules. They already had a transformation the group had to keep track of, and heck, they probably needed to have another vote on soon, hence, having a far more complicated transformation for them to hash out an agreement on would just be a headache. It wasn't a difficult argument, as even Z didn't want to micromanage Felix that way, and Castelilise pointed out that Felix had no attraction to stuff like chastity belts, or the broader idea of orgasm prevention. He found the idea repugnant, and humiliating without an ounce of sexiness, at least in part from growing up like many boys who were insecure about their dick size.

That left two options, and Cammy could tell neither were thrilling for Felix. She decided Ladies First was, while frustrating in the case of something like blowjobs, something that ultimately wasn't that bad. Everyone, or at least almost everyone in his harem, could cum from penetration. That would, in of itself, made a huge difference, and just meant in the case of blowjobs, whoever was servicing him needed to masturbate while doing so, although admittedly it was unclear whether that'd work because that wouldn't be from his attention. Barring that, it'd just mean accepting that blowjobs were something to get Felix ready, not something that would make him cum. Heck, she had heard the goblin could cum from giving a blowjob, so this wouldn't even affect Nox's relationship with him at all. Besides, she knew that Felix cared a lot about the pleasure of his partner, so other than an adjustment period, he could live with that.

By contrast, Hard on Demand required Felix to somehow satisfy a nereid if he ever wanted to go soft. Nothing Cammy had seen about Castelilise suggested that was within the means of mortal men, or at least, not one at a time. For that matter, what was the range of this transformation? It only said if a harem member was unsatisfied, not just his immediate sexual partner, which very much could mean any of the women in his harem being horny would prevent him from going soft, no matter how many times he had come, or how much he had tried to satisfy his harem that day. She knew enough about male anatomy to know that perpetual erections would get painful, and often not in a fun way, something Cammy pointed out to everyone.

Between the two options, the group mostly settled on Ladies First with the exception of Castelilise. The nereid was a fan of Hard on Demand, as she clearly wanted to essentially bully Felix into either satisfying her more often, or letting her seek out other men to fill her bottomless pit of lust. Z was a fan of both, but was won over to Ladies First by the realization that she could torment him with anal sex from just how long it could take for her to cum from it, which caused it to have aspects of both transformations. Hailey, Noah, and Jamina were all quick to go for Ladies First, while Janessa didn't get a vote on any of this, making it a landslide in favor of an option that'd change... a lot.

"Excellent," Vizrokoth said while going over to Felix with a bowl filled with a special gel. "Unlike other seasons, I am going to ensure that our dear master never, ever leaves his harem unfulfilled or unsatisfied."

The demon then got to work coating Felix's dick and balls in the gel. It wasn't a long process, but it was long enough for the demon to continue. "You really are all so lucky. Most seasons don't care this much about the sexual pleasure of the contestants, to say the least, or whether the master takes care of his harem. Did I mention that with eliminated contestants, the master has to get them to cum at least three times?"

That caused the room to go silent. Elimination was something that everyone wanted to move on from, especially Cammy given it had happened to her father. Knowing there were mechanics for eliminated contestants showed that, while everyone was out of the range of elimination, the idea still hung around as a possibility. It was an unpleasant, horrifying realization for everyone in the room. Perhaps trying to reduce that tension, Noah of all people chose to break the silence.

"How did we know that?" Noah asked in a somewhat accusatory tone. "You won't let us see other seasons, only brief clips that reinforce your narrative about them, or letters that are from seasons which may not be representative."

The demon had finished applying the transformation to Felix, and given the lack of visual change from it, Vizrokoth chose to answer the slime girl. "Once we leave this room, and get done with the popularity poll, the library will open up. You can watch all the Harem Hotel seasons you want there. Heck, for that comment, I'm going to have all of you write letters to a season that may make you feel envious, but that I promise you should not..."