Perks, Plans and Progeny

John woke up under the open sky.

The rays of the sun kissed his face. When he blinked himself awake, he could immediately see. ‘Aclysia is not going to like that,’ he thought. His maid was always concerned that sleeping with contacts in would lead to bacterial growth. He both doubted such bacteria could harm him and, even if they could, what exactly would they even do? Make him double blind?

Still, he tried not to sleep with his contacts in. What made his women happy made him happy and Aclysia asked for nothing but the best for him. Who could resist that? Plus, even if he logically did not find a way this could harm him, his own paranoia was happier with the risk removed.

‘Once in a while isn’t that bad,’ he thought as he kept resisting the impulse to look down. A wet slurping combined with the typical sensation of his dick tingling in response to the up and down bob of a woman's head informed him that, regardless of location, this was a morning like any other.

John ran through the usual game at double speed. The typical number of potentials was greatly diminished. He had not toggled off his fertility yet, a risk that meant all but those already pregnant would have stayed clear of this one. That limited the options to Eliana, Aclysia, Nathalia and Nahoa. He could safely exclude Nahoa from that list. For one, because her mouth had quite the unique texture, and for two, because she was cutely snoring into his ear.

Between the remaining three, the truth became obvious quite fast. Aclysia was too methodical for the wild up and down he experienced. The pacing was erratic, changing rapidly while the woman’s tongue venerated him with no deliberate but plenty of instinctual focus on his sensitive spots. That left only Nathalia and Eliana and the tightness of the lips wrapped around him fit the latter much more.

“Eliana,” he grunted, then looked down to find the Lady Sanguine performing the fellatio with the utmost veneration. He grinned at the knowledge that he pulled this woman out of the depths of depression and had put her into both the mental and social position to lead her own little queendom. It wasn’t much… Actually, it was a whole lot and he had every reason to be proud of that.

The blood mage hummed, pleased at the recognition. She stopped for a moment, letting his cock slide from her eager lips, so John could sit up. He had slept across the broad seat of the throne. He had not been obliged to, but it just felt like the right thing to do. He stretched, his morning wood twitching, his back popping. As he rolled his neck, Eliana took him into her mouth once more. Next to him, Nahoa stirred, opening one eye before deciding she wanted five more minutes.

John chuckled. Like the emperor he was, he put a hand on the serving haremettes’ head, guiding her up and down at his preferred tempo. While he enjoyed the privilege of a thick thighed short woman giving him an expert blowjob, he let his eyes wander over the aftermath of the wedding festival.

It was another warm, overcast day. By the time John had laid down, the festivities had long since wound down. None had the stamina he had and by sunrise only the youngest party animals were still out and about. Judging solely by the position of the sun, it was about three hours later. Activity had picked up again, those that had left early now active again after a night of rest. People consumed the last scraps of food and enjoyed the carnality of it all one more time, eager women draining their men’s balls in public, but it was all notably subdued compared to the exultation of the previous day.

Once they left that platform, things would officially be taken down. The street would be given a deep clean, the stalls dismantled, the braziers removed, and the city returned to its regular activity. The children would be allowed back into it. All would return to normal.

‘I should probably sponsor a nursery,’ John thought. ‘How many babies got made tonight? A hundred? That’ll be a busy couple weeks in the maternity ward… easy way to endear myself to the locals.’

John let the thoughts drain from his mind as his pleasure reached its zenith. It was a nice and warm day. He sat on a throne of debauchery. He was cumming down a beautiful woman’s throat. He was now a father-to-be of four children.

Life was great.

________________________________________________________________________

Aclysia returned from the bedroom, having stored away the last of the tribal ‘clothes’ for another day. Whether it was in a tribal ceremony or a purely fetishist night in the Sex Dungeon, they would see use again.

The first maid took her place between Beatrice and Claire on the Harem Couch. Lu Zhi was absent, Lydia was using the Harem Comms, and Layla was allowed to be there by the graciousness of the other women.

Jane sat next to the brunette, explaining to the newcomer what was about to happen. “So, when John picks up a Perk, or several, we like to be around so we can give our input. Usually, we just weigh in when we have something to say, sometimes it’s a very important Perk and he’ll ask us all for input. Basically, if ya think ya need to say something, just say it.”

“Yet, mind your decorum,” Nightingale weighed in from the other side. “You develop a sense of when there are openings to speak with time. Try not to interrupt.”

Layla nodded repeatedly, visibly glowing. They all were operating on about three hours of sleep, but none of them were any worse of it. The benefits of being superhuman for everyone in the harem and, for Layla, the pure joy of having spent a night sleeping among them all. It wasn’t quite the harem’s bed, but it was a close second. The reformed stalker was radiant, smiling with such undiluted happiness that it made her appear like the embodiment of innocent femininity.

It was a bit scary that a woman with such depths of vengefulness could be this cute.

“We got three things to do,” John said and turned to Nahoa first. “Do you want me to set the gender for our child?”

The maidolotl shook her head, having already made that decision for herself. “I do not mind either way.”

“Then we will know tomorrow,” John said. Though they had to wait the full 24 hours until the window on the Sex Choice ran out, the confirmation that the seed had taken was already found in the Breeder Class. A new Perk was available. “Then we have two Perks to choose and then we should have a little strategy meeting.”

“Roger, roger!” Sylph chirped. “Go on ahead, Johnny!”

“Breeder first,” John said.

That was a surprisingly simple choice. Nothing there that demanded he take care of it immediately, just three choices… two of which he did not care about anyway. Urging to Breed was like adding a canister of oil to the kerosene engine of a space rocket. Boundless Fertility was only interesting for the increase in twins and John had no strong feelings on that. Uncomplicated Births, however, was a massive quality of life improvement. All of his women were superhumanly fit, so he had faith that the births would have been relatively easy on them anyhow. Why not ensure that though? For as beautiful as the miracle of life was, the suffering involved in pushing them out was something he could spare his wives.

What man would not?

The Gamer pressed the button leisurely. If any of them had wanted to interrupt, they could have. Courtesy of the Harem Comms upgrade, he didn’t even need to send the window around the room anymore. Life was full of little conveniences.

“Alright, then for the second Perk: penultimate Class Level in Monster Girl Creator,” John said and initiated the selection.

All of these were pretty great. John excluded Monster Girl Supremacy first on the grounds that it was no direct buff to him. He was happy to help his population be stronger, but there was a degree of trade-off that was acceptable and this went way above that. The Abyss was still ruled by special forces, not broad army deployment. Increasing the Stats of all the Artificial Spirits that underwent Monstergirlifiation by devouring materials from Natural Barriers was useful but it wasn’t THAT useful.

‘Actually, the more I think about it, the more this would set me up for problems,’ he thought. ‘We would enter a world where, at least in Fusion territory, Artificial Spirits are categorically 20% better than humans. Since I am practically ageless, I should consider how that would play out given enough time…’

He shook his head. The rule of the Monster Girls was likely going to be a blessed one in a lot of regards, but in others it would fundamentally change the character of the nation. No, better to pick one of the selfish options.

Continued Evolution offered him another avenue for infinite scaling, but it was one John wasn’t particularly interested in. He considered it better to just buy Skill Points and take advantage of the inherent infinite scaling that his Artificial Spirits already had.

Beloved Partners was a massive injection of extra Stat Points and it saved him mana, two things he very much liked. He decided to go with that one. Since there was no disagreement again, he pressed the button.

“Can you imagine if I didn’t have all the cost reductions on Artificial Spirits?” John asked. A pretty large chunk of his power budget over the years had gone into making sure that one Skill remained viable. Even with this latest change, it ate 184,5 mana a second.

“Ya ever mathed out-“ Jane started.

“1107 MP per second.”

“’Course ya did.” She shook her head in amused disbelief.

“Alright, then, for the third point of the agenda…” John petered out when he saw Eliana’s hand go up. “Yes, milady?”

“Shut the fudge up, you crusty cake!” Eliana snapped back. She went quiet for a second, then cleared her throat. “I want to suggest that we expand the first wave of breeding to 10 so we get all the Perks.”

“No,” John immediately denied. “The same thought went through my head too and I get the idea, do not misunderstand me. There is a chance that the last couple of Perks will have substantial upgrades…” That was the wrong word to use when it came to his children, so he paused for a moment to look for a better one.

“Benefits?” Momo suggested.

“Thank you – Benefits for our children, which they might miss out on if they are born or otherwise past the cut-off point for what the Perks say.”

“Right… So what's your counterargument?” Eliana gave him a sceptical side-eye. It was one of the few times that John felt like one of his women genuinely was poised against him and was ready to argue, loudly, for her viewpoint. To be entirely fair to her, she was arguing in favour of their unborn child, a person that was more important than he was by every emotional metric.

“We need to draw the line somewhere. I do not believe that the final level of the Breeder Class is going to be just the end of it and then what?” John shook his head. “Damian will be fine, Eliana. He’s already guaranteed status, power and health. We don’t need to upend our current plans to give another boost to him and his siblings.”

Eliana chewed on the inside of her cheek. She looked around the room, perhaps seeking support, perhaps just letting her eyes wander. When the shattered amethysts returned to him, she slowly nodded. “I am not fucking happy about it, but I see your point.”

John exhaled slowly. “Thank you,” he said and he meant it. It could not have been easy to suppress the urge to demand he tickled every last advantage he could give his first set of children out of his system.

As much as John wanted to, there was just too much going on at the moment. Devos was still active, the Concord had declared an active resistance, and they had an upcoming Middle East campaign to distract Remus. Now was not the time to take another three of his women out of commission.

“Two days from now, Layla and I have our date.”

“Wedding, date, breeding day,” Layla happily chirped. “All the same! Ahhhh, I wish I didn’t know what pleasure was so I could get completely accustomed to orgasms as well that day…”

“Deflowering into impregnation is a privilege in and of itself,” Nightingale remarked.

“Yes!” the brunette enthusiastically agreed, as did John’s penis. He left the hard-on deliberately unattended for now. Talk first, pleasure second. “Still, sad I can’t align all my first times on that day. Past-Layla just did not know the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful life waiting for her!”

John had learned enough about Layla’s past by now. She had been in a lesbian relationship before all of this, though the way she talked about it, it had sounded like it had been on the rocks long before his aura had fried her brain. He only had her word to verify it, but she was lucid enough around him these days that he took that for full.

“If I may,” Lorelei spoke up, continuing the talk. “After that fateful day of receiving the Saint’s seed in a blessed foursome…”

“…Lady, forgive us our sins…” Moira mumbled.

“…the next major event would be the relocation of the Guild Hall to the West Coast, correct?” Lorelei asked.

“Correct,” John confirmed. “Unless the Alignment Surge floods in before then.”

“I do not yet foresee it.”

“Then our plans for the near future are simple,” John said. “The date, the relocation, and then we keep our feet still for a bit. We have put all the pieces in play to keep up our end of the bargain with the Horned Rat. Might as well use the time until then to squeeze in some grinding time, progress the Raid, and genuinely just… have nothing to do for a bit.”

Relaxation was a precious good.