How?! Why?!

“So, Siena, let’s go over the rules again,” John said to his shadow. He was inside Lydia’s car as the group was on the way to the Cologne cathedral again. “If that is your desire,” her irritated voice, with a slight echo effect attached to it, ran throughout the car.

“So, the first rule is simple,” John, fixing the collar of his completely unblemished suit, stated. “You don’t kill or hurt anybody, including myself, unless I allow you to.” The reason for that rule was quite obvious, the second they had formed a contract and left that world of darkness behind, Siena had tried to attack him again. Mana Protection gave him enough time to speak the first rule, however, and from there on out he put up the remaining rules in relative peace.

“Mhm, as long as you allow me to skewer anybody sometime, that might not be so bad,” Siena said and melded from the shadows right next to Rave’s head. “You have such a pretty face, but a little more red wouldn’t hurt,” she whispered into the techno-lovers ear. A flash of light from Rave’s palm expelled Siena from her current shadow. To describe correctly what happened, half her body was cut off as the shadow it had resided in suddenly vanished.

John had seen this happen before. The Wall Shadow in the school had also been cut off at the tail when Rave had done the same to it. Unlike that monster though, Siena’s body was made from pure shadow, so, while it did some damage to her, it wasn’t lethal. “Such a tease you are,” The shadow spirit just regenerated and fled into the next shadow, the one to John’s feet.

“Rule number two, you stay within 5 metres of me, unless I give you an order for which’s fulfilment you need to go further away,” John told her. This rule was to keep her both in range and out of his head. Siena and the other elementals…yeah they didn’t get along in the slightest. Largely because Siena wanted to stab them all, which she was completely capable of, the only hindrance being Sylph.

Which she was almost as fast as. John had no idea where all of those buffs came from, Elemetalist only pushed for 1% All Stats and Elemental Unity gave 2% to her two main attributes, being Agility and Wisdom. The remaining increases were a mystery, John only knew that it was 10% for everything and 35% for Agility and Wisdom. Intellect be thanked that he could make calculations for things like this on the fly.

“I am yours to keep on a leash, summoner,” Siena now sighed into his ear, arms tenderly wrapped around his neck as she appeared from behind him. “But don’t be surprised if I try to cut myself off if you pull too hard,” a moment later she tried to turn that loving embrace into a chokehold, but her body was unable to tense up enough to be of harm. She moaned in disappointment and disappeared again.

“Rule number three, you don’t take or cause any action that would make Gaia want to punish me.” “Such a waste, what fun are boundaries if you don’t overstep them?” Siena appeared on the seat next to Lydia and put a hand on the table. Her long claws scratching the surface open. “Would you like to overstep some boundaries with me?” she flirted with the princess.

In response Lydia turned her rapier into a sort of swatter and hit Siena’s hand with it. John doubted that the moan and lip biting were the response Lydia wanted. “A bit of punishment always gets me hot,” Siena said and continued to cut things into the table, “although I prefer to be the one doing the slapping.” “Your lack of respect for property makes me indignant,” Lydia, her voice as iron as ever but with dark grey eyes, said.

“Rule number four, you can’t tell anybody how I beat you,” John said. “I will obey, master,” Siena sighed lustfully as she continued to work on the table, splinters falling to the ground. Aclysia’s lips became a narrow line as she stared at the nightmare elemental. Something about the way Siena said Aclysia’s favourite word must have rubbed the artificial guardian the wrong way entirely, or there was some other reason for her disliking the overly sexual shadow spirit. Either way, Aclysia radiated such concentrated disliking that even Rave felt it, raising an eyebrow.

John, in the meantime, tried to unravel why Siena was so complacent in this. Her goal seemed to do whatever would annoy him, so obeying a rule just like that. When he realized his mistake, he sighed. “Okay, Rule number four is now: You can’t inform anybody how I beat you,” the scratching on the table stopped immediately.

“Tsk,” Siena clicked her tongue and raised her hand, the word ‘spell’ being itched into the table. “You know, I am not happy with men who don’t let me finish,” she said and dropped back into the shadow, her form dissipating into a black mist. She reappeared next to John, her vampire like fangs right next to him. “I didn’t believe you when you said you had a harem,” she whispered, “but look at all of those girls, staring angrily at me.”

She put a leg over his crotch and bit his earlobe. There was a slight attempt at chomping down hard enough to draw blood, but she couldn’t even do that much. “It makes me so wet,” she groaned.

“Rule number five, when I tell you to behave, you disappear into my shadow and be quiet until I call you again,” John ignored her advances and, with another click of her tongue, Siena sunk into the ground before he would pull away her right to speak.

“Is her voice always dripping in sex?” Rave asked. “Seems so,” John answered as the car pulled in front of the cathedral. “And here I thought Nathalia was trying to sound sexy all the time, with her bad case of smoker’s lung,” the techno-lover said. She was living with John’s feelings for the dragoness, but that didn’t mean that she had to like them. Another testament towards the fact that he should raise Charisma further, seeing how Nathalia wasn’t even an official part of his harem, yet caused so many problems.

Then again, maybe her being part of the harem menu wasn’t actually a requirement for problems to occur. Every thing that wasn’t directly linked to his abilities wasn’t a pure numbers game. An example of this was how his abilities had damage numbers, but the enemies didn’t possess any HP bars. Even the one for his allies were just estimations. What was too say that the pure fact that he saw Nathalia as a member of his Harem, despite her not having appeared in the menu yet, wasn’t enough to kick off problems? Either way, he should still raise Charisma.

‘Two more levels to reach the 25+ bonus,’ he thought as they left the car. The group consisted of Lydia, Rave, Aclysia and John. Preferring to stay at home now that her being announced was done, Momo hadn’t come with them.

“I have a question, John,” Lydia said after explaining and apologizing to the driver and giving him the details for Romulus bank account. The ruler of Europe was paying for all parts of the services after all, and Lydia was going to shamelessly **** that fact, both to save money and to cause the pettiest amount of damage she could. Seeing a stretch limo painted in gold roll up next to him, playing loud music and seeing Maximillian step out of it, John however doubted that the princess would be the biggest contributor to overall cost.

The two of them shared a moment of mutual starring of annoyance, before Maximillian went ahead. “Your question?” John asked to destroy the awkward silence that followed. “Why isn’t one of your rules: ‘Protect me whenever necessary’?”

“Because she wants to kill me herself, so she won’t let me die,” John answered. Just like Siena had mined through his memories, only on the surface of everything, although he had no doubt that she was going as they spoke, John had taken the leisure to check on her convictions regarding him. It was pretty easy, she would try to make his life as hard as possible without killing him, as she saw herself as the only one who was allowed to achieve that ‘ultimate pleasure’.

It only got worse as she fell in love with him following him absolutely roflstomping her. Apparently, she had an urge for **** killing that was so strong it turned into love. ‘I hope she is as good in **** fucking,’ he thought as they went through the gate.

Just like last time, they were way too early. However, all the key players were already assembled. Romulus was sitting in his throne, eyes closed and lost in thought. The way that was different from napping was the emperor’s tapping of his index finger on the lean of his throne.

The electors were also right where they were last time. The table was back in one piece, although the duke that caused its destruction, the ruler of Saxony, was looking like he could smash it again at any moment.

Sol and Luna were at their usual place. The hall was brimming with people. “The fighter selection really brings in a lot more people than the election,” John commented. “Course it does, tiger,” Rave mused. “Election is politics, this is entertainment. One’s a bore, the other is cool.” “You are part of the problem,” Lydia drily stated and pulled out her phone as they stepped to the side to allow the other newcomers to get in.

When she lowered her phone again, she looked up to the front and Romulus. No, not Romulus, to the giants left. Luna pulled out her own phone from a dimensional pocket and looked at the display, then she gave a thumbs-up in the groups direction.

“You have the phone number of the moon?” John asked. “Selbstverständlich,” Lydia answered in her home tongue. “Don’t you say ‘Of course’ to that,” he reprimanded. The princess have him a careless glance, “Let’s just say that, unlike Sol and Romulus, Luna is approachable.” Then she looked back at Romulus.

Who John caught starring right at him for a moment, and the anger in his eyes nearly made John faint. The reason for that anger was quite simple, John was wearing the whole ‘World Ender’ set and every single one of these items had an aura similar to that to Nathalia’s, for obvious reasons. Romulus wasn’t the only one to notice, even as he closed his eyes again the people were pointing at John and whispering to each other. Worst of all was Sol, whose eyes he could feel at his back even when he was turning away from the commotion to find a nice place at the edge of the room.

Wearing these items, however, hadn’t been his own idea, but Lydia’s. “If Romulus is going to make the German’s angry over a symbolic loss of their autonomy, I will be the champion of those disgruntled many,” she had said at the breakfast table, drinking tea with a straight face. “And you wearing equipment that seems to come from the goddess he has banished shows that I am willing to resist him.”

“Wouldn’t that also damage your position with the patriots that dislike the Illuminati?” John carefully suggested back then. “I think Nathalia, is more closely aligned to them after all.” “Even if that were the case, which it isn’t, the fire of destruction has never officially announced any political or national leaning, it wouldn’t matter. I am not confirming any ties to her after all. You are,” Lydia had smirked, “so I will have you take the fall if all of this goes south.”

“That’s very not good for me!” John had complained. The princess had waved it off. “It is highly unlikely that there will be major outrage. Besides what are you going to lose? You hold no political power here and if I lose you return to America -where nobody cares what happens here- and if I win this whole thing will blow over,” Lydia told him. “I also got around 500 billion other reasons for you to accept this idea.” Well, that had been the end of that discussion.

“So, what did you write her?” John brought the discussion back to now, doing his best not to fear for his life, while simultaneously thinking about how he could learn the art of politics, to say many words filled with nothing at all, for his public statement the fastest. “Rave’s full name, for the announcement,” Lydia answered. “Ah, well, I guess that works,” the techno-lover in question said.

“Well then, let us proceed with today’s announcement,” Romulus shouted about an hour later. The cameras everywhere had sprung back into action, Lydia and Maximillian where in place. John was still at the side of the hall, but Rave was tip-toeing close to the front, ready to get up there. Unlike John, she couldn’t wait to get into the spotlight.

“Sol, Luna, reveal the fighters to us,” the giants voice rumbled and Rave’s name was written into the air by elegant silver light. With leaping steps, she made her way to Lydia’s side. John’s eye fell on the enemy fighter before he saw her name.

An Asian woman, with dark-blue, dishevelled hair that was bound into a ponytail. She had blue eyes and looked quite beautiful, rivalling even Rave (which may meant that John was slightly racist, cause he thought that two looked very much alike), despite her face having the wrinkles that came with being close the fifty years old. Wearing mostly practical clothes, from the brown leather vest to the sturdy pants, she walked with elegance, making her choice of shoes, socks and sandals, all the way more out of place.

She raised an eyebrow at the people she saw at the front and John turned his head to look up her name.

Na. Something in John pulled together, a very bad feeling in his guts. Ri. ‘Oh please let this not be what I think this is,’ he thought and was thoroughly disappointed. Ko. A shout came from Rave that echoed through the cathedral and on abyssal television.