To find Nia, John first had to lay out the bait. In the name of getting the best bait, he therefore had to waste another 3 hours of his life doing an Assault. His personal EXP-gain aside, it was still the best way to fill up the potion.
“God, I love this skill,” John said as he unleashed a hail of Shardbound into a cluster of Warhogs that tried to climb his tower. Two dozen sharp energy constructs rained down on the orcs, many of them only doing mild damage or missing. The few that did land, however, dealt great damage by slipping into the gaps in the armour or straight-up sinking into the orcs’ soft throats and eyes. While it didn’t outright kill all of them, it at least sent them falling back down.
He had conjured and positioned clusters of shards along the outer rim of his tower in segments that he could fire whenever he wanted. Just another thing he could add to his defences. ‘I am slowly becoming a fortification expert,’ John thought as the timer hit 0.
‘Huh, that’s actually fine,’ John thought as he looked at the reward. The 80% reduction he was currently suffering was applied to the experience enemies would give him, not to the multiplier, resulting in somewhat acceptable numbers. While that was the expected thing, visual confirmation was nice.
He would still need to run about 8 more of these to get a level, which translated to 24 hours of real time grinding and about 32 hours of experienced time grinding. While he did have that time, it was the opposite of good.
Realistically, he would only manage to get 1 more level before the next tournament round. Seeing as that was all John needed to get his current goal in stats, he was happy with that though. Could have been way worse.
‘At least I am not crippled for a few months again,’ John thought and made his way back to the mansion.
Once there, he put the Soulpotion on the table and sat down as he waited for Nia to appear. ‘With Assault working properly again, I should continue to be able to get about 1 level per day,’ he thought. ‘The max level is 1000 from what I could gather, so that would be 900 days of daily grinding sessions upwards of 8 hours. That is, naively, assuming that 1 level a day will be maintainable.’
‘Let’s say I would need 1 more day at every 50 levels from now on,’ he continued to run the numbers; ‘Not a particularly educated guess, but I want to have a rough idea. That would mean that I would need, 50 days from now until level 150, 100 further days for level 200, 150 more days for level 250…’ the counting continued for a bit, ‘9500 days or 26 years of daily 8-hour grinds… yeah, there has to be a way to cut that short.’
He would need to ponder about the solutions another time, as Nia chose that point in time to enter the room. She walked straight up to the table and took the Soulpotion. She didn’t even acknowledge that John was there, and was walking on wobbly legs.
“Nia?” John asked as the blank put the potion against her lips. Her body jumped, and the overly loud gulping sound of someone choking echoed from her throat. “Whatever you do, do not cough!” he panically jumped up from his chair to intervene as Nia struggled to prevent exactly that.
If Nia managed to spit out hours of hard work, then that would make John a sad man. The feeling was akin to accidentally selling an item he had spent blood, sweat and tears farming on the auction house, and now he was mashing the cancel button in an attempt to get it back before it vanished into the twisting nothingness of disappointment.
With a forced motion, Nia swallowed the remainder of the vial’s golden potion and handed John the bottle. Unsure what else to do, he gently pat her back as the blank coughed in a held back and ladylike manner.
His hand on her back was met with the warmth of her body. For some reason her emotion devoid behaviour and pale skin had created the idea in John’s brain that she would be cold, like Gnome or Momo were.
Instead, he was met with the same heat that radiated from every human. There was soft skin under the impossibly smooth fabric of her shadowless white dress. Slowly she calmed down and turned to look at John with slightly teary eyes.
“You surprised me,” she said in her usual lack of tone, but John thought he saw something like shyness in her eyes as she looked up to him, half in his embrace with his hand still on her back. The brilliant, clear sky blue of her eyes in her porcelain face were a reflection of innocence. Her pale lips were open just a bit, a breath escaping her.
How someone that displayed, if anything, the bare minimum amount of emotion managed to look cute was beyond John. Maybe it was something that some girls could just do - look good just by existing. Actually, wasn’t that most women?
Nia leaned in and kissed him out of the blue. Before he knew what he was doing, he was already returning the kiss. It was odd. She tasted like nothing, and the only things that connected them were pressed together lips and swirling tongues, normal body heat. She smelled like nothing as well.
John could already feel the danger in this simple kiss. He had the annoying tendency to fall for girls who were affectionate and sexy in mere moments. His earlier conviction not to add her to his harem was already wavering from this moment.
“Do you always kiss people that surprise you?” John asked, trying to get his mind back on track.
“Not usually, no,” Nia answered in a way that was more breath than words, “but my instructor told me to get close to you.”
“…That is pretty blatant,” he said and felt his resolve go back up and simultaneously crumble.
The fact that Nia was this honest was appreciated. In the cobweb of lies that John regularly found himself in, this bit of naive sincerity was a breath of fresh air. Or she was lying, but from what John had seen of her this far, she seemed physically unable to tell a lie. He chose to believe in the best in her while also keeping his cards just far enough away that she couldn’t peek in.
So, in a decision that was totally not influenced by his erection, he kissed her again and then distanced himself. “If you tell me that you want to influence me, that goes against your goal,” John pointed out afterwards.
“Oh,” Nia made a single surprised sound; “I retract my earlier statement.”
“You can’t exactly retract things you said,” he giggled.
“Please forget it?”
“No can do, I will be extra on guard regarding you now,” John said, “but we can stay physically close if you want to.”
“Are you asking for sex?”
“Not right now,” John could practically feel his balls protesting the decision not to be drained into the sexy French girl. “I was just wondering if I could see how your training goes,” he stated his actual intent while his erection slowly went down to reappear at a more opportune time. Or just any other time, John really didn’t know, he was just a horny 18-year-old with powers that slowly crept into godlike territory.
“Sure,” Nia said and turned around; “Follow me.”
‘Damned be that dress for not allowing me to look at her ass!’ John thought, glaring at the pure-white surface of her skirt.
_____________________________________________________________________
“Oh, hi, John,” said Richard, and John couldn’t keep his eyelid from twitching in annoyance. The human skin the Horned Rat liked to wear, the look of a stereotypical, masculine, attractive and wealthy corporate suit wearing a suit, was waving at him as he and Nia stepped closer.
They were in a suburb of real-world Rome, an Illusion Barrier where Romulus’ gaze could not as easily penetrate. More specifically, they were in front of a small café, with the Horned Rat sitting lazily in a chair at a small round table.
They had run the whole way here, which had been a bit of a problem for John. Nia could just run through real space at whatever speed she wanted since normal people couldn’t see her, and thus Gaia had no reason to care if the barefooted blonde flew over the pavement at the speed of a car in just a dress in mid-winter.
If John did the same in his suit, which was admittedly doing a pretty good job at keeping him warm since he had upgraded it with the token, people would not only stare but be bewildered. At 44 Agility he was faster than Olympic athletes already. Therefore, he had slowed down Nia with the need of either running at socially acceptable speeds, where people would think he was a weirdo but not breaking the laws of common physics or creating barriers every few metres.
During that process, he at least learned that Nia pulled her shoulders back the slightest bit when she was annoyed. So that was a nice start in the long journey of learning the blank’s body language. Most importantly, it confirmed that she actually had these subtle hints. ‘Now to find the other ones for the rest of her emotions,’ John thought only to then turn back to the dick in front of him.
“I was wondering why you were taking this long, Nia,” the Horned Rat mused, sipping a drink that looked like whiskey on ice.
Nia’s shoulders tensed a bit, and she said, “John is slow.”
“Have you two had sex yet?”
“No, I didn’t feel like it earlier, and he didn’t feel like it today,” the blank answered in her usual empty manner. Her shoulders relaxed, her annoyance must have been pretty mild.
John’s, however, wasn’t, “The hell are you doing here, Richard?”
“Training Nia, obviously,” the Horned Rat answered.
“Why would you do that?”
“To help Lydia win the tournament, obviously, obviously,” the Rat continued in a mocking tone.
“Why would you… no, don’t even answer that. I can already hear you saying it: ‘Why ever would I want the rebellious princess to win over the lapdog of Romulus. I stand totally nothing to gain by this, obviously.’”
“Obviously,” Richard admitted with a giggle.
“So, he is your instructor?” John asked Nia.
“Yes,” she answered with a single word.
“And he told you to get close to me?”
“Yes,” the blonde tilted her head while looking over to the Horned Rat; “Should I not have done that?”
The Horned Rat made a helpless gesture, “No, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t know it would happen. You are terrible at coercive work, better continue training you at what you are good at.”
The god of knowledge reached under the table and pulled up a box. Nicely crafted from dark wood and cushioned with red wine coloured cloth, it looked quite nice. Inside the fairly sizable box were a bunch of kittens.
Not just kittens, as John noted, but kittens that had scales and long reptile-like tails in addition to their fur. Dragon-kittens, they meowed with almost criminal cuteness as they tapped around, not completely able to control their young bodies.
They bumped into each other, had little play fights where they rolled around as balls of red fur and green scales or just kept meowing. One particularly curious kitten jumped up to the edge of the box and held onto it with great effort.
Hind legs working against the cloth, front legs holding on to the edge, it looked out. Scales and fur worked in a weirdly symbiotic way on its head, and its horn-tipped ears turned as it looked from John to Nia and back. Then it meowed.
Nia took an involuntary step forward. “Oh no, little miss Fae. Patting is for winners,” the Horned Rat said and took the curious dragon-kitten in his hand and scratched its little chin; “Have you won?”
“No…” said Nia in a tone so openly miserable that John doubted for a moment it could come from her.
“Now, show me that you can win something and run around the block; if I am happy with your time, I might let you pat this. If I am not,” the human head was replaced with the Horned Rat’s blank skull. The god’s skeletal grin opened wide, sharp teeth getting pulled apart, a long, dark red tongue coming into view. The saliva dripping muscle came dangerously close to the kitten. “I might eat it.”
Nia let out a horrified squeal. John did not know she had been capable of a sound that loud. In any case, she darted off immediately.
The Horned Rat put the kitten back into the box, “I am not actually going to eat it. Dragon-kittens don’t even taste that good.”
“She seemed rather convinced,” John pointed out and grabbed a chair to sit down without being asked to do so. He had no respect for Richard (at least as a person), so he didn’t feel like he needed his permission.
“Like it takes a lot to convince Nia of something,” the Horned Rat giggled; “A strong girl, not stupid either, but not particularly well-adjusted socially.” John had no retort for that. “So how is life?” Richard asked.
“Small talk, really?” John asked.
“What? We are going to be allies eventually, might as well chat it up a little,” the god shrugged.
“Allies don’t spy on each other… is what I would like to say, but I am from the greatest country on Earth,” John sighed. “I would probably do the same in your situation, albeit I would be less of a dick about it.”
“Scheme around for years and you will be, it makes it way more fun,” the Horned Rat prophesied. “Anyhow, I have something you should check on about someone in your group. Someone has met with Alexej, and it’s very, very bad.”
“What?!” John felt like jumping at the Horned Rat. “How do you know? What do you know?!” the Gamer had to force himself to not flip the table with the dragon-kittens on it.
“This and that. Don’t worry, no harm has come to anyone. Still, you do something for me and I tell you. How about it?” the Horned Rat was in a particularly merry mood apparently, as he whistled a little tune as John thought.
“Fine, have it your way, as always, you damn rodent,” John growled.
“O-hohohoho, look at you acting all ballsy,” Richard laughed, his eyes flaring, “but be careful, angering me too much may get your heart to stop.”
“Would you really eliminate your own assets?” John said and earned himself a thoughtful stare for calling that bluff.
The still air was filled with the soft sound of naked soles flying over the pavement as Nia entered the small barrier again. She looked slightly out of breath and continued to be wobbly in her steps. Whatever grand strategy the Horned Rat was using in this training exercise kept the blank at the brink of collapse.
“Good job, Nia, just one more thing and you can enjoy a bit of kitten patting,” the god said in an upbeat voice.
“What do you want, instructor?” Nia asked, taking half a step towards him, voice vacant of tone.
“I hear sex is a good workout, why don’t you grab John and have a fun time?” the Horned Rat suggested.
