Chapter 2170 – The First Harem Tournament 8 – Watching and Waiting

John stood at the balcony and watched the clash of the army segments. Four groups of 25 soldiers each were clashing in a simulated mountainous landscape. One was led by Chemilia, one by Ted, one by James and one by Elu.

Getting the elderly woman into the capital had taken a bit of effort, but she had relented on the fact that she still had to be seen every now and again. John’s break with the Hidden Tradition was not exactly public. Ahanu had done as Lydia had leveraged and retreated from public life and the leaders of the Native Americans since had been wisely neutral in their exclamations.

John was trying to do his best by them, but that best seemed to be not good enough for a sizeable portion of them. Not the majority, the Gamer had gone through the trouble of calculating it to calm his own emotional reactions to the constant needling, but enough to make it bothersome. Most days, he tried to cling onto the fact that the Hidden Tradition did have reasons to be wary. On some days, he was one bad comment away from flying over to their capital and swinging his proverbial dick around.

The military privileges they had been granted had been shattered by the needs of the time. That was a betrayal in one sense, certainly. Simultaneously, John could objectively say he had put the Hidden Tradition in a much better position than they were before. Their borders were guaranteed, their heritage sites respected, their most important festivities acknowledged across the entire empire and John had even gone so far as to exempt them entirely from being eligible for any noble land assignments. Yes, they had bled in the Lorylim War, but so had everyone. They had won that war and now the Hidden Tradition would not have to worry about anyone invading them for as long as Fusion stood.

‘I don’t need them to worship the ground I stand on, but a little bit of gratitude and understanding would go a long way,’ John thought bitterly. ‘I am really souring on these things… it should sort itself out in a generation though…’

Playing the waiting game was a dull solution to a lot of problems. It was also incredibly effective.

A fact that Chemilia was also taking advantage of. As per usual, she proved herself the best tactician of the four. Since their forces were as evenly matched as Observe allowed, this was a 4-way war of macro decisions and individual acts of excellence. Chemilia had always been fantastic at the former and competent enough at the latter. Her husband was better at field command, yes. It just wasn’t enough of a gap to get him the win here.

Especially not when he was busy clashing with James.

The dark-skinned general threw himself into the battle as he always did. Fundamentally, Ted, with his earth magic, was the stronger of the two but James’ Innate Ability empowered his attack and defence the more damage he took. Combined with the man’s impressive willpower, he was quite the foe.

Both men preferred to lead from the front. Not their best habit. Fusion’s generals had their position not because they were the strongest Abyssals John could find, but because they made competent tactical decisions and had high charisma. Handing out military rank based on individual power would have been akin to promoting the mortar shell over the supply officer.

“A second of your time, Earl?”

A voice like a knife gliding through deep snow crawled into John’s ears. It was an altogether unpleasant sensation, though not one that fazed him. Looking at the woman speaking was similar.

Methenia danced along the balcony railing. She was an androgynous, weird humanoid, moving with the grace of flowing mercury. John was convinced that this body she presented was just a shell for ease of interaction.

Today, she was wrapped in a cocoon of black and white bandages. The dividing line of the colours ran cleanly from her crotch all the way to her jugular. There, the dividing line tilted, continuing up her skin and leaving both her chin and her nose slightly more white than black. Ultimately, it stopped at the exact middle of her hairline, which was somehow even more annoying to John’s preference for symmetry. The two black diagonals randomly running across the white half of her face didn’t help.

Her hair, a mass of silver streaked with gold, was liquid and swirled behind her in the air as she kept on with her endless dance. She was a tall woman, almost as tall as John was, skinny and with scarcely a chest to speak of. Her hips were developed enough to give her a vaguely feminine silhouette, but even there was little to behold.

Methenia was doubtlessly attractive to some men. Her face wasn’t bad and her alien aspects probably allured some. For John, the sharp-toothed fairy was too far down the monster side of the monster girls.

The overseer of the Midnight Court hopped off the railing and spread her arms out in as much as a bow as she managed while still dancing.

[Methenia AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/1b1240e53e1e.png ]

“You are unsurprised to see me, Earl Newman?”

“I could sense your approach. All the same, I’m surprised that you left the Midnight Forest,” John said. “I was under the impression you couldn’t stop dancing on the portal.”

“Such was true, such might be true again,” Methenia responded, moving in half-circles back and forth in front of John. “Matters have changed. Much will still change, Earl.”

“Still calling me that title, hmm?” John wondered. “I am an emperor now, you know?”

“Yet, to the Seasonal Courts, an Earl is the rank that is appropriate to be bestowed upon you.” Methenia grinned widely, her sharp teeth showing. “I have come to congratulate you for that fact. It will serve you greatly in the centuries ahead.”

John pulled his eyebrows together. ‘Momo, come out here, immediately.’

‘Why, what’s happening?’

‘Methenia is here and she’s being decisively too direct in her warning and that worries me the most of all.’ A cheer directed John’s attention to the crowd for a moment. He half expected Methenia to have disappeared by the time his gaze returned to her, but all she did was dance to another spot. Momo hurried through the curtains, arriving at John’s side just as he asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what was said. You value clarity so much, Earl Newman, I bestowed it upon you as a gift.” Methenia twirled around her own axis. “Viscountess, so pleasant to meet your moonlit self.”

“Baroness of the Midnight Brambles, I see you dance on thorns still.”

“Always, milady.” Methenia bowed her head even deeper towards the viscountess.

Fae diplomacy was beyond John. As far as he was aware, he was the liege of Momo who was the head of the Midnight Court by virtue of the Mad Moon, an entity that had appeared in the Guild Hall once after a Tier upgrade. Momo, in turn, had promoted Methenia from the head of the Bramble Court to the Baroness of the Midnight Brambles, a position in which she made sure Momo’s will was enacted, which was John’s will being enacted.

That was the fairly simple feudal structure at the core of the Midnight Court and even that had that confusing celestial body in there. John had no idea what the Mad Moon was, nor where it came from, nor what it wanted. It was a big deal, that was obvious by it being a sapient moon.

The whole deal was worsened by John not knowing what fae even were. Current theory had it that they were a byproduct of making Illusion Barriers. Every now and again, plants that were usually only copied as environmental markers seemed to be actually moved along with a soul. Whether that was Gaia having a giggle or a sign that some plants were magically attuned was impossible to say.

And that had cascaded into the Fae Realm… somehow. Theories really were scarce on the matter.

“Let me rephrase my question,” John said. “What is going to make me having a fae title a fortunate thing?”

“Tisk, tisk, tisk.” Methenia wagged her finger. “Ask not, Earl, more than you are given. It is rude. You have been delivered a warning. You have been delivered a source of jubilation. A morning will come soon, upon which the metal that is mine motion will finish its retrograde journey from the dwellers into the bearer of the water. An evening will come on which the Radiant Moon shall shine upon the sacred maiden. In the day that spans between, a most fortuitous event shall occur.”

Methenia’s heels met with an unnaturally loud clap and did not lift again. Grinning like a skull, the millennia old fae lifted her finger and pointed directly at her Earl. In the background, the people once more cheered, entirely unaware of the cryptic message their emperor had to contend with. All they saw was a game. All John saw was the Bramble Dancer standing still.

“And you, Earl and Viscountess, shall be involved in this not at all. You cannot stop it, you cannot avert it, you cannot change it, it will happen and the world will be a brighter place for it.”

“And what is ‘it’?” John asked.

Methenia pulled her pointing finger back until she placed it on her lips. Alien giggles vibrated her vocal cords as she took several steps back, each longer and more elegant than the last. Then, she was back to dancing, dancing along the railing, up the ranks of the viewing area, and ever closer to the exit.

“I could drag her back by the ear?” Momo suggested.

“What would that accomplish?” John let out a long sigh. “…Metal in retrograde from dweller to bearer…” The Gamer massaged his pattern recognition for a bit, switching out synonyms until he hit something that fit. He needed to check his phone to see if his hunch was correct. Before sharing what he found with Momo, he walked behind the curtains. Best to be shielded by the enchantments again. “Apparently Mercury is in retrograde from Pisces into Aquarius.”

“…Oh great, we are in the middle of a time of power struggles and societal restructuring?” Momo groaned.

“…You know what that means?” John asked.

“I’m a fairy, yes, I know my astrology,” Momo drawled. “We could have a fight about how relevant all of that is for humans, but for fae it’s very relevant… and if I remember correctly, Mercury’s retrograde finishes on the 9th of March… same day that the full moon stands in Virgo.”

“Right,” John confirmed. “And what does that mean?”

“Urgh, it’s… pretty broad.” Momo scratched the back of her head. “Ranges from re-organizing things to getting healthy. It’s a sign ruled by Mercury, so the retrograde finishing earlier on the same day is symbolically charged… the stars are aligning for some…”

“Re-Alignment? A Great Re-Alignment, even?” John suggested.

“Yeah… you know, I am all for teasing people with esoteric riddles here or there, but why are people still bothering throwing these at us?!” Momo put a hand on her forehead and let out a long sigh. “It’s just adding 10 minutes to us understanding something! So on the 9th of March, something will happen. Wild guess,” she drawled those two words in a sarcastic manner, “but it's absolutely related to Richard.”

“What isn’t?” John groaned.

The Horned Rat was a fairy creature, maybe, allegedly. The god was vague on confirming that fact, but at a minimum he had a good relationship with them. March 9th also fit right into the timetable of the Fuse Pulse.

“…I’m not even surprised he held some details out on us,” John mumbled. “Now, question is, do we do something about that?”

“Didn’t you hear, John, we caaaaaaaaaan’t do aaaaaaaaaaaanything,” Momo drawled dramatically, then both of them simultaneously blew air out of their nose. What did some middle-power fae noble know about what the Emperor of Fusion and his Imperial Choir could or could not do? “You’re thinking about doing something just to be a contrarian, aren’t you?”

“Obviously,” John rubbed his chin, then shrugged, “but I think I’ll just let this one happen.”

“Going to do nothing about it?”

“I don’t need to be involved in everything in this world. My gratitude to Methenia for at least warning me I am getting tangled up in some greater scheme. Doesn’t change anything though. I always knew the Horned Rat was using us, just like we are using him… If it’s something big, then we’ll see what it is when it happens.”

“Might be good for us if someone else does something world-altering for a change.” Momo scratched him under the chin. “Takes a bit of the attention off this ever-involved Master of mine.”

“Then he can pay a bit more attention to his bratty maid,” John whispered back.

“Careful, if you’re available, I might have to sit on your face.”

“The horror!” John exclaimed and checked the clock. “I have about 7 minutes before Jane and Lyndell start fighting.”

“Well, you have to start making a dent in your time at some point.”

Momo grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him to the nearest pillow fort.