Full Words, Empty Kisses

John was experiencing a drawback of his new status, which made him quite happy. Whenever the world presented him with a strict upgrade in his circumstances, he regarded it with great suspicion. His reduced workload had come with a variety of invisible costs. Now, he was also experiencing a direct consequence of his position as the sovereign.

People wanted to meet him. A lot.

It made absolute sense. Now that his word was the law, or was superior to the law, anything he said went. People wanted to secure his approval for things so when someone came asserting this code or another, they could just hold up the imperial decree and go unmolested.

Obviously, John did not care to grant a lot of these petitions, but there was reason to at least hear them out – if only because not doing so would leave people of import rather miffed.

Courtesy of the extra bodies, being stuck in a rotation of meetings with various industry, thought and party leaders wasn’t that bad. It was also a situation he expected to relax as the other women put up their Guild Halls and became the effective leaders in a given area. It also wasn’t even as time consuming as the previous paperwork. It wasn’t as if John hadn’t needed to be in plenty of meetings before. He had lost about 50% of the paperwork and gained about 20% meeting time. The net change was clearly tilted towards him having a whole lot more time.

Which led to John currently dancing with Nia in the middle of his office.

Classical music gently played on the speakers, giving a guiding rhythm to their steps. It was no waltz, no tango and no foxtrot, it was just them moving according to their desires. A step this way, a step that way, then a shared twirl.

Smoothly, it translated into John raising an arm and Nia spinning beneath it. The long skirt of her colourless dress barely fanned out, gently refusing conventional physics, and bellowed once she came to a stop. She dramatically fell backwards, to be caught in the arm around her waist. John let the lithe woman’s weight pull him down a bit, before smoothly lifting her into range of his lips.

They kissed. Their tongues caressed one another in a flutter of motion. Her fingers curled into his upper arm. Their free hands found one another again, interlocking. A well-oiled mechanism, they returned to being upright and resumed their dance.

John wanted to make small talk with Nia, but even after all this time their communications were often short. The blonde just wasn’t talkative. No amount of training her expressiveness changed that fundamental nature – and that was fine. In dance, they had found their love language. What words failed to express, these steps and kisses could.

The dance calmed to a simple sway. Head on his shoulder, eyes closed, Nia remained snug in his embrace and calmly tilted side to side with him. Time was frozen and yet ticked on. A string of moments where one bled into the next seamlessly. A little piece of order and certainty in a world full of moving parts. An oasis with the clearest water one could think of.

“My darling,” Nia whispered into the quiet.

“My Nia,” he whispered back.

A twitch of her shoulder was the only command he needed. He took her for another whirl, then followed the suggestions of her barely perceptible movements to step towards his desk. Though he was leading, it was her input that informed his motions.

He ended up with his butt in his luxurious seat and Nia seated in his lap. They were simply existing together, a loving union of a purely amorous kind. Only the tapping of the keyboards diminished the scene somewhat.

Ehtra and Beatrice had the decency to reduce their usual staccato of typing to a slower patter of fingerfalls. Quick mental communication made sure his maids weren’t taking on any work that should be going to him. Ehtra wasn’t answering any stupid emails, like she so often had to, but was instead working on a suggestion for the outline on the share of noble land in each state. Beatrice was in correspondence with the Abyss Auction about making a concerted push to make the Token the primary currency used in the stone market.

The Token's worldwide adaptation was going quite smoothly. Slowly, but smoothly. Fusion’s image as a bit of a troublemaker wasn’t impacting the economic influence too badly for the simple reason that the coins were backed up by themselves. If he had been trying to push a new fiat currency on the world, the Token would be stagnating right now. Uncertainty around Fusion mattered fairly little though. Worst case, if the currency failed, all of those currently holding Tokens would just melt them down and turn them back into USD.

In terms of the outlined progress towards making the Token the global currency, they were still mostly in step 3. The Token was seeing a lot of use in Fusion’s internal market and when John paid with it abroad, it was almost always accepted. The Token had recognition and it was gradually seeping into markets, distributed by the Abyss Auction. Right now, the strategy was to target specific markets that Fusion had a significant share in and convince all the big players in it that it was just easier to switch to Tokens.

The idea behind that approach was simple: since money flowed on its own, all they had to do was assure that their money flowed from more points into the rest of the global market. Regularly, this approach was met with a lot of pushback by the owners of other currencies, but the unique situation John had found himself in was that there was no such rival. With the allies he had made and the situation in place, there wouldn’t be either. Who in their right mind would challenge the man with the bottomless Mine(s) in a contest of creating a metal-backed currency?

The Concord may have tried to make a specifically Baelementium backed currency. Elemental metals could be created by buying mundane metals, iron most commonly, and then enriching them with the mana of summoned elementals. John had produced Baelementium like that in some quantities before he had gotten access to it via the Mines and passive enrichment from the maids.

The problem with that plan was simply the amount of manpower it took. Getting metals out of the Mine, for Fusion, was not only productive effort in terms of economic output, it also trained Abyssals in underground exploration and, to a limited degree, combat. In a sense, the Mine was also producing a cadre of adventurers that could be drafted into the military, if need be. Manually enriching Baelementium, on the other hand, took people that were already powerful and forced them into a menial task.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t do it, only that, if they did, the goal wasn’t to win against Fusion long term. Such a scheme would be executed with the intent to disrupt John. That would work, doubtlessly. Dramar could be pressured. The black dragon had no loyalty to John, he had just identified the Gamer as the best vehicle to get a currency made that he had dreamt of. If there was a currency war, then the Abyss Auction stood to gain leverage.

“What are you thinking about?” Nia asked.

“Monetary politics,” the Gamer responded swiftly and let the scratches on his chin pull him back to the present. “Your golden hair made me think of it.”

A sweet nothing, but it made Nia smile oh so brightly. She put a flattered kiss on his chin. Her slender legs shifted about. John had a preference for thick thighs and bubble butts, but he would never call her lithe body anything other than gorgeous.

He expected his calm to be disrupted. He was proven wrong minute by minute and hour by hour. He stayed in the office, answering the occasional email that came his way and chatting with the women that came in to provide a service under the table that he currently did not require. He was content, keeping Nia seated where she was and just talking to his women.

Why not have a wholesome day like this? After returning from the tribal festivity that morning, he was erotically fulfilled. Not that he needed an excuse to keep things romantic. Just because his critics said that he was a pervert didn’t mean that he actually was JUST a pervert. Similarly, just because he could have sex every hour of the day didn’t mean he had to. The ebbs and flows of his desires were something to be carefully listened to.

Siena strutted into the room.

That alone had his attention. With her high heels and general character, it was rare to see her move in any way other than a hip-swinging sashay.

“Urgent news?” he asked her.

“Unpleasant news,” Siena responded, stopping in front of his desk. “The Nightfall agents lost track of Esmeralda.”

John sucked on his gums. A Latebloomer of her calibre could not be allowed to move about entirely unseen, so he had entrusted his covert operatives with putting together a team to keep tabs on her. A technomancer, a field agent, a social media analyst, that would suffice to make sure they were aware of her movements. They didn’t need to know every detail of her life, just the broad details of where she was and what she was up to.

After the rejection two days ago, she had gone back to her family. That part was expected. “Last known whereabouts?” the Gamer asked.

“She boarded a plane bound for Delhi. The technomancer had tabs on her until it landed. We have elected not to send the field agent.”

“Wise,” John agreed. Delhi was too big and chaotic a place to find someone there without any real leads. Plus, by the time the agent landed there, Esmeralda could have already been somewhere else entirely. “Delhi is the perfect city to lose us… huge, messy, not associated with any major power…”

“Someone helped her,” Nia weighed in.

Both John and Siena nodded. Esmeralda did not have the knowhow or connections to pull off something like this. Someone had moved under John’s nose and gotten into contact with her. Who? That was difficult to say. How? There were plenty of opportunities for it. John had not kept her under constant surveillance in the Guild Hall. Anyone determined enough could have approached her. The same went for her family.

“Claire has arranged for her family to be shadowed,” Siena revealed.

The Gamer nodded deeply. “That has my full support. Any other active measures you are taking?”

“Just investigating the possible culprits. We have asked Lu Zhi if one of her secret agents may have operated in secret. For everyone else, we are attempting to remain covert.” Siena’s tail whipped the ground. “It is agitating… but… it will be a good way to tease out the abilities of our agents.”

John sighed. It was true that trials were necessary to train the currently embarrassingly weak muscle of Fusion’s secret service. “It is what it is,” he put it to a point. “Esmeralda could grow into a genuine thorn in our side. It’s annoying that it had to end this way, but I can’t say it’s entirely surprising.”

“It’s entirely expected,” Siena drawled. “If you scorned me, I would bring hell to your doorstep as well.”

“I appreciate the honesty.” John chuckled. He knew what Siena was about, she had wanted to bring hell to his house while being with him in their early days. Truthfully, her development into a working member of the harem was one of the many miracles that allowed John’s current social circle. ‘I am lucky to be exceptional,’ he both cautioned and boasted to himself. “Have you talked to Lorelei about it?”

“Claire is doing that as we speak.”

“Then… I have nothing to really add.” John pushed his erudite mind, trying to find any scheme that they could use to find out more. A couple came to mind, but none of them had a high chance of succeeding and they certainly weren’t worth the resources and opportunity cost.

“Just wanted to inform you,” Siena cooed. Her tail slowed in its agitated movements as the shadow spirit began to calm. “How has your day been?”

“Pretty uneventful,” John responded.

“We have been sitting here and cuddling,” Nia answered.

“Commentary: they are not lying. That is all they have been doing.”

“Interrupted minorly by a few emails and a phone call,” Ehtra stated.

“It’s been nice,” John continued. “Feels like things are finally unwinding in my life. No more wars, no more immediate territorial ambitions, and I can just… take the reactive role for a bit.”

“Mhhmmm, you are good at that,” Siena moaned.

“How did you spin that into me being a bottom with your tone alone?”

The midnight elemental blinked with one of her moonlight eyes. “Oh, I am very good with my tongue and throat.”

“Correction: vocal cords,” Beatrice chimed in.

“Which are in my throat,” Siena hissed.

“Criticism: you are lazily using ambiguous language. Aim for a higher calibre of innuendo.”

Siena glared at her fellow haremette. “I will silence you adequately later.”

“Statement: I have time right now.”

“Right now is good then,” Siena sashayed over to Beatrice’s table. The white-horned dragon maid did not resist when the dominant woman’s tail wrapped around her neck, nor did she seem anything besides passively anticipating what was going to happen to her. Made to crawl, Fusion’s finance minister was kept on the leash of the shadow spirit’s additional limb.

John just watched Siena’s enormous ass wiggle left to right as she sashayed out of the room. The door closed behind her. Where in the office building they were going to have sex was as little of concern as whether or not they were seen. This was the kind of debauchery the people working in this building were used to.

John checked the clock. He had fifteen more minutes to go before his day was officially over, but who was going to stop him from clocking out a little earlier? “I think I’ll go check what Undine is up to. Want to tag along?”

Nia just nodded.