John had to say that, in person, the White House looked a good bit smaller than he had anticipated. It was still an impressive building, the white façade meticulously pure, the pillars stretching decoratively and those tall windows sitting in a perfectly even array across the three storeys as the American flag waved on a flag post atop the roof.

However, he wasn’t here to walk into this version of the White House. John didn’t know Trump or whoever would succeed him, neither did he have any real interest in real world politics since they didn’t affect him. Old John’s only interest in politics had been whenever people decided video games were to blame for the most recent school shooting. New John made his (untaxed) money through magic, lived in a dimensional pocket on government property, sold items on an international black market (for most intents and purposes that was what the Abyss Auction was) and fully intended to marry as many girls as he wanted in his lifetime.

So, as great as it was to look at this building, John was his own government and did not care for the authority it represented. “Compared to Abyssal architecture, it is rather unappealing,” Lydia put her own thoughts into words.

“It’s like looking at the shrivelled up cock of a nudist on Antarctica after giving blowjobs to John for the whole day,” Eliza agreed. The metaphor was as odd as they came, but it was hard to disagree with that.

Those two were the only ones with him at the current time. Mostly because nobody was interested in politics. To be fair, neither was Eliza, and Lydia just accompanied him because he asked, wanting to stay as much out of official affairs as possible for the remainder of her stay. The reason why he wanted these two to come with him was quite easy.

It would be complete suicide to ambush him while these two were around.

“Alright, let’s check on the other side then,” John stated and raised his hand.

In essence, everything John looked at stayed the same. The fence, the trees, the house, even the bodyguards, they all stood at the exact same spot as their real-world counterparts. However, there were numerous differences despite that. As if someone had decided to take the textures and decided to design a White House +5, everything was amped up in its luxuriousness.

The house got lines of gold framing wherever it could get away with, the trees themselves had leaves of silver and platinum colour while the grass was a wonderful light green with tips of blue. Not all of it was a display of vanity, however, as the golden lines formed intricate patterns that doubtlessly served some magical purpose. It was impressive, exuded an aura of power and was build on the backs of an overtaxed working class.

At first glance this building, along with what else he had gathered so far, gave John a pretty easily identified enemy around here. Even with that knowledge, things weren’t that clear-cut.

Technically, the military was still part of the government, so the fact that he liked Chemilia meant that he also liked somebody who was part of this clearly corrupt ruling apparatus. Also, the people here still lived way better than the average folk had over in New York, and if he just went in and smashed this whole thing, there was no telling what chaos it could cause.

What the best way to handle this thing was would be shown only in the future. For now, he had a meeting with the leader of this golden heap. Afterwards, when he had a better grasp of the situation, he could try to come up with a scheme. “Alright then,” he announced and they walked up to the guard at the door.

It only took a moment to inform the man that he was there and that he had an appointment. The trio was escorted across a walkway and into the building, then through the numerous walkways inside and finally into the historic room, the Oval Office.

It was lacking all of the artefacts of past presidents John was roughly aware of through media consumption. The pictures and busts of other people were decorating the walls instead, looking not less majestic in their demeanour but having no impact on the Gamer, as he had no idea who he was looking at.

A moment of hesitation struck John when he saw not one but two people sitting inside the room. Of course, there were numerous bodyguards as well, but those melded with the background, unlike the two suited up individuals, one behind the large mahogany desk and the other sitting in a comfortable swivel chair in front of the same desk.

The former was a man in his late fifties with an impressive build. When John had seen the pig-like bureaucrat that had met him, he had expected the president to be of similar flabbiness. Instead he was met with a short, muscular old man whose suit was barely able to contain the thickness of his biceps. His hairline was receding and had largely turned grey, with only a few streaks of black remaining, but his skin had fallen only the slightest bit and the dark brown eyes behind his glasses looked as keen as they could be.

The other person was less impressive, a brunette that had her silky hair in a ponytail. Her crossed legs were stuck in somewhat odd pants, widely cut and with pieces of cloth dangling off the sides without any clear purpose. Aside from that she looked rather plain. Good, but not immensely so.

A sudden alarm bell caused every bodyguard in the room to reach for their weapons, but the man behind the desk just raised his left hand with a knowing smile. “It is fine,” he said; he had a deep, calming voice that he wielded way more effectively than Bearings ever had. Rather than pretending that he was fatherly or anything, he simply spoke with authority and carried himself in a friendly manner. “Our guest here simply used his Observe magic, nothing to be alarmed about.”

“Just a reflex, I apologize,” John stated and made a little apologetic bow. Not only had he gotten nothing out of using Observe, he had also just made a fool out of himself. ‘I vastly underestimated who I am dealing with here,’ he admitted to himself when he straightened his back again.

“A bad reflex to have,” the woman at the table stated, giving John an inquisitive up and down. “But where are my own manners?” she stood up and walked over to offer him her hand. “I am Lerylia Hertham, ambassador of the Lake Alliance.”

‘Fuck,’ John thought as he smiled friendly and shock her hand. “John Newman, leader of Fusion,” he said, for diplomacy’s sake. The presence of a third party, particularly the strongest force in the general East Coast area, complicated things massively. “Happy to make your acquaintances. With me are Lydia Augusta von Hohenzollern and Eliza Baros,” the blood mage looked displeased at the sound of her own last name but stayed silent.

The president rose from his desk, he was surprisingly short once on his feet, at about 1,65m if John had to guess, and with an amused tone he also introduced himself, “I am Abraham Ryemeier, president of the Little Maryland. I hope you don’t mind Lerylia’s presence; she insisted on being here and I do owe her a few favours.” He gave them a warm smile, then looked over to the two women John had brought. “I do offer you a seat, but it is to my understanding that you do not wish to be involved in matters political, Queen Augusta.”

“That is correct,” Lydia answered. “I only came because you seem to take an interest in me.”

“And I do deeply apologize for the actions taken in the name of my government,” Abraham stated, letting his head hang in shame. “I instructed him poorly when telling him to treat you with respect and I have only my own incompetence to blame. You are welcome to stay if you want to be involved in my discussions with the leader of Fusion. If you wish to enjoy your stay as a tourist, I offer that one of my guards show you around the White House. Many things are here to see.” He looked over to Eliza, “I extend that offer to you, Miss Baros. Knowing your history and temperament, I think this discussion will only bore you.”

John felt like he was the basketball in a slam-dunk scenario. Abraham had turned the incident at the dock into a scalpel that he now masterfully swung to cut all of John’s backup out of the room. By specifying that the president intended to have a discussion with the ‘leader of Fusion’ rather than ‘John Newman’, Lydia staying would mean that she went back against what she had said before. He did all that while being perfectly courteous and offering her a look around in a property few people ever got to see from the inside.

Saying no would not only make her a liar, it would also send clear signals to the ambassador of the Lake Alliance that she was actually here just to support John. Same went for Eliza, if the blood mage decided to stay, John may as well write ‘I don’t trust any of you’ on his forehead with the subtext of ‘If I wanted to, I could have you all murdered’.

He had come into this house carrying expectations of enemy weakness and was cut down quickly. For now, he had to play along. Lydia agreed on her own, while Eliza waited for a little nod from the Gamer before tagging along.

Now it was only him, Abraham and the ambassador. ‘Alright, seems like I locked myself in hard mode,’ John admitted to himself as he took his own seat, after being offered one. While he had lost the preparation stage of this negotiation, John was in no way the loser of this diplomatic battle yet. Just because the enemy team had the home field advantage, there was no reason to just give up trying. “Well, let’s hope they don’t stumble about anything you want to keep secret,” John started it off with a light-hearted joke.

Abraham laughed and the ambassador chuckled, a display so convincing John wasn’t sure whether it was fake or not. “Indeed, wouldn’t want them to find my predecessor’s stack of dead hookers,” the president winked, and now it was on John to giggle, which he genuinely did. It was a good retort. “Ah, but entertainment aside, I must say that my time is limited today,” the president then went ahead, “As much as I would like to joke around, I need to go make decisions that turn my hair a bit greyer.”

“Don’t we all,” Lerylia stated with a heavy sigh.

“Indeed,” John found himself agreeing, remembering all of the deaths his actions had caused until this point. He was good at managing the stress, but there was a definitive burden on his shoulders. “What is it that you want to discuss then?”

“In general? I would love to have a long discussion with you about the relationship our guilds will have with one another,” Abraham answered.

“That would be a long, long discussion,” John commented, “much longer than somebody who has little times for jokes would have today.”

“Yes, so we will have to stick to small formalities today, as I understand you are on vacation,” the president shrugged and looked around the many papers on his desk. While they were nicely sorted, they were still a bunch of folders and stacks. Even in a perfectly arranged library, it could be hard to find a certain book. “I would like to apologize to you for my subordinate’s behaviour at the docks with… where did I leave it…” he opened and closed a few folders and then finally went, “Ah, there it is!”

‘I wonder if that ditzy behaviour is just there to charm me a bit more,’ John thought as he was handed a piece of paper. As he read it, Abraham summarized it out loud, not for the Gamer, but for the third-party present.

“As my act of apology, I would like to offer this non-aggression treaty between the two of us,” the president had a proper pleading, apologetic tone as he explained. “Although you are the head of an entirely new power, the way you were treated on arrival is utterly unacceptable. The details of our states’ relation will have to be settled in a, as we agreed, long discussion, but I would like us to start on friendly footing and leave that little incident behind us.”

‘Well, chucklefucks,’ John thought; once more the presence of the third-party complicated things beyond belief. If he were alone with the guy, he could consider slapping him silly verbally, tell him he was looking right through the ploy and then leave in a pissed stride.

Doing that in the current situation would make the Lake Alliance look at him like an aggressive expander. Which, fair enough, he was sort of looking to be, but his guild currently didn’t have the power to get into a fight with them. He had to tread carefully, while he could dominate probably everyone in this room, his guild didn’t have the military might to back that up on a large scale. “Could I get a glass of water?” John asked to get some more time to think. “Quite warm today.”

“It is indeed,” Abraham agreed, and one of the guards vanished from the room as John read through the contract again.

He had to find a loophole or anything else that allowed him to prevent being pinned down on this. Being unable to expand south for the foreseeable future would limit or at least slow the advancement of his ambitions tremendously. A non-aggression pact was also in his interest, as long as he could wiggle his way out at any point. Basically, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

The glass was put on the table and he took a sip, then he found a formulation he could get hung up on. “…Mhm, I would love to sign this, but this sentence I cannot agree on,” he put the contract down and tapped on it so the ambassador could read it. “’The signing parties promise to exert no military force at any point on the ground each other rules,’” he quoted.

“What is wrong with that?” Abraham asked, the ambassador also raising an eyebrow.

“What if one of my people gets kidnapped and located somewhere into your territory?” John posed a question. “I don’t doubt that you would help me fix that situation, Mister President, but I would like my own people to work on such things as well.” The two of them nodded, Lerylia much more willingly than Abraham. “If I may offer a correction?” John pulled a pen out of his inventory and, when he wasn’t stopped, crossed out that sentence and wrote a new one underneath.

“The signing parties promise to exert no uninvited military force on the ground they lawfully hold,” the ambassador read out loud. “That seems like a splendid correction and a splendid treaty all around. As speaker for the Lake Alliance in this meeting, I greatly approve of this.”

“…It does,” the president agreed more slowly. “Would you be willing to sign this with your correction then?”

“Any time,” John assured, and three corrected copies were quickly made, all signed by both the head of Fusion and the Little Maryland. When Lerylia also put her name under them, as witness to the successful process, it was official, and John stored his copy in his inventory.

“A great occasion for all of us,” Abraham said afterwards, smiling widely. Despite John’s little detour, he must have been under the impression that he had just secured his reign from the new outside power.

The Gamer was also happy. As short as this conflict of words and niceness was, it reminded him again what a proper struggle was. It had been a bit since he had actually been challenged on this front. Victory was no longer assured, and as much as that irked his scheming side, the rest of him was ecstatic at a new hurdle to overcome.