Upon seeing their longest serving general again, the three soldiers that had gone up to John relaxed visibly. The Gamer had to commend the valour of these people, even if their assumption had been wrong. Going up to him and demanding answers, when they had been convinced he was murdering them all, was a lot harder than aiming the cannons at the yacht and Harbour gate and fire away. That would have been an even worse awakening. John didn’t have the hull repainted only to have a hole blasted into it.

Imerella quickly ordered the soldiers to continue waiting on ship and give news that everything was alright. Wrapping yesterday’s events in a bunch of diffusing coats, she mentioned with no words why they hadn’t reported back or where the other three generals were, only that they were safe. This gave them enough time to begin the clean-up process.

Aclysia and Beatrice scouted the ship’s interior for any traces of disorder. Meanwhile, John placed the puddle that was Undine in the bathtub and let her soak for a while. It was pretty interesting to see a dehydrated ocean elemental, the water that fell on top of her immediately being absorbed into her body. When she eventually woke up, she did so without a headache. Despite the fact that she had not only gotten second-hand drunk per John’s mental connection but also put bottles of several alcohols into her system.

To nobody’s surprise, water spirits got drunk very quickly. Just good for them that they had such an easy hangover cure. Either way, she went to restore Rave and the generals, who then all took very long showers. All of that took about two hours, which John spent in his office. Where the generals eventually knocked on the door and they restarted their discussion. Without Rave, who had voiced her disinterest in being part of the actual political stuff.

John was reading a very stupid complaint letter that somehow had made it on his table about the food he offered for free on the construction sites not containing enough tofu. ‘I demand tofu be served every day to everyone, in the spirit of the environment!’ John read the thing and scratched the back of his head. The back of his leather chair lowered as he leaned against it and half-turned. A movement not done to reread the thing in a more relaxed position but to reach the giant goldfish bowl that was resting on one end of the massive mahogany table he had put into his office. “You can play with this,” he said to the inhabitant of the bowl.

The golden crocodile hatchling, who had been happily swimming circles and tumbles in the water, settled on the ground and then shot up. With utmost precision, his tiny jaws snapped up the paper larger than himself, as Stirwin flew in a small shower of water onto the desk, mangling it like dogs allegedly did to homework.

Said desk dominated the otherwise small room in the Guild Bank with its presence, claiming about a fourth of the total space. John was a firm believer that he deserved a big desk. One big enough to hide three women under, to give a specific example. Also the room would get bigger when he actually got to upgrading the building. He therefore felt completely justified in putting some oversized furniture in the room in advance.

For when the upgrade would be happening: whenever he was done with the generals and this mountain of paperwork of the last 36 hours. He interrupted tackling the latter in favour of offering the four generals a seat. “It’s less comfortable here than in the conference room on the yacht, but…” he let the sentence end without further words, as Aclysia was currently getting rid of some rather persistent stains on the table there.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Chemilia was holding her husband’s hand with a wide smile. Her skin seemed to glow almost, like she was beaming happiness. It was rather evident that she had needed a good fucking, although John wondered how Ted’s newly discovered fetish would play into having a harem. Then again, he had also bent her over the table, so he would probably have no troubles switching it up as he needed. Not John’s problem anyway.

“It was…” Terkal grumbled, glancing across Chemilia and Ted and over to Imerella, who crossed her arms and looked displeased for a reason obvious to John, “… a very surprising experience. That’s all I am going to say about yesterday.”

John sighed in the shortstack’s name. “Alright, you do you, buddy,” the Gamer was not going to get involved in their affairs either, instead he scratched Stirwin under the chin. The light spirit had turned the paper into a bunch of shreds. “Okay, let’s continue where we left off before my girlfriend put a tongue into the situation,” he announced, picking up Stirwin and loading him into his breast pocket, where the infinity elemental wriggled around until only his head was peeking out.

“Wherever that was,” Terkal was back to his old bashing attitude, immediately challenging John on everything. “Fusion has no army, no navy and no real allies. Why would we align with you in this.”

“Because it takes less energy to complete this structure than it would to reform yours,” the Gamer answered quickly. “Do you know the idea of system collapse?”

“Of course,” Terkal crossed his, once again human, arms, “a system that doesn’t reform and only adds more and more machinations on top of the base will eventually collapse.”

Nodding, John continued, “A fate that befalls basically all governments, given time. The Little Maryland is about to collapse with or without me. You know this, I know this, and if he is half as smart as I think he is, Abraham knows it too. Chances are, he is planning on it to use your insubordination to punch through his own reforms.” John let that sink in for a moment, the happy squeals from Stirwin entirely unfitting for the tense atmosphere in the room. “I am giving you a simple choice: do you want to rebel against him and try turning back the clock on your guild or do you want to join me and build something new?”

He was expecting complaints, something along the lines of ‘we can continue as is’, but nobody seemed to think that. There was a third and fourth choice John skipped out on, being bowing down to Abraham or fleeing respectively, but he trusted they weren’t considering those.

“Again, you don’t have an army,” Terkal stated.

“I have me,” John smiled in a self-assured manner, “I have my familiars, my girlfriend, the original Metracana, the Maiden of Null, I have a strong economy and intelligence gathering capabilities on my side.” The back of his chair straightened up with a couple of creaks. “And I will have an army, if you agree to work with me.”

Chemilia raised an eyebrow, “That is a pretty dull statement.”

“Then let me clarify the wider implications,” the Gamer said. “Fusion rises out of a bunch of anarchistic conglomerates. Everyone here has a business spirit, they know how to fend for themselves, and now they can use those skills in an economic battle where the only stakes are money. A great base to get a booming economy going. Terrible to build an army. There is no tradition to bind them together, no people to drill them and they know no discipline.”

The generals nodded, that was what they had guessed themselves and what they had seen on the streets.

“So I will simply copy paste you,” John came clean. “Well, in computer terms, I am going to cut you out and then paste you over. You as the leaders, however you are organizing your armies, all of it.” He stopped patting the tiny lizard in his breast pocket and folded his hands. “I will have an army and that army at the base is you.”

“How would working for you be better than Abraham?” Imerella was the one who raised the question, with a carefree smile on her freckled face, head resting on her hand. “I want to hear some concrete promises. I am not looking to exchange a potential dictator for a true one.”

“Military spending coupled in the height of a percentage of the GDP, a seat on my council, five seats in the senate and you get to nominate the generals from your own ranks, although I will need to confirm them. A process that can also happen the other way around, should the situation call for it,” John quickly presented a list of points he had thought about in advance.

Imerella laughed, Terkal looked flabbergasted, Chemilia and Ted took it without any surprise. “That is… quite the list of promises,” the tall general carefully formulated. “And you also say we get to keep the current internal organization of the army?”

“For all I care you can also reform it in the process, if you know any areas that need it,” John shrugged. He would have an eye on it himself, but right now he had next to no experience on how to run an army. He had a bunch of knowledge that he could apply in theory, but that wasn’t a proper excuse to meddle in a functioning military apparatus. “Let me repeat: I will have an army if you agree to back me.”

“Doesn’t sound like you want to stop at the Little Maryland in your expansion,” Imerella noted, eyeing him up with continued curious carefreeness. It was somewhat disturbing how nonchalant she was about all of this.

John hesitated for a second, then he admitted, “No, I won’t. Ultimately, I want to found a power that will take the empty seat in the Divided Ten.” That caused some audible inhales. “My ultimate goal is to do as our forefathers did and improve upon the European model with liberty,” he quickly followed that up, “and I am not going to run an empire like Romulus. Just a country where everyone can live as safe as is possible in the Abyss – without fear of getting suddenly assaulted by a gang that wants to sell them to a mana factory for quick cash.”

“Many parts of America are… a rough neighbourhood,” Terkal agreed. “But your end goal aside, you are stuck where you are now without us, aren’t you?”

The Game was forced to agree. “Without you, I will have to concentrate many years on assembling my own army, yes.” No matter how strong he got, there was no way he could reliably govern huge swathes of land with only himself to keep the peace. There needed to be an army until a loyal militia was formed and a militia until a police force was formed. “Maybe this current project fails and I have to flee and gather power elsewhere. The then is unclear, but you want something that aligns with my interest, so we can make a deal about the soon.”

“We would have more power in this new government than we have currently,” Chemilia voiced her support, unsurprisingly she was the first, “and a percentage of the GDP sounds fair to me.”

Her husband hummed in a deep tone. “I don’t like trusting you,” were the only words he spoke.

“I understand,” John didn’t take offense to that. “You barely know me, but we sadly lack the time to test the waters extensively.” The quiet general nodded to that and seemed content with that answer.

Terkal drummed his fingers against his thin arms as he thought. “I have followed your progress for a while, John Newman,” he informed everyone in the room, “ever since you first appeared on television. You are powerful and you keep getting stronger. The winds of change seem to blow in your favour. I don’t like your reputation as a pervert and I am not sure whether or not your prideful ways will ultimately be to the benefit of everyone, as you claim.” The hairless man’s fingers stopped. “But I can say the same about Abraham. Between you two, I think you are the lesser evil for my personal interests. You have my support – in vote and in arms.”

Chemilia and Ted agreed through gestures and John felt a burden lift from his shoulders as he got the confirmation from the required three generals. Still, Imerella had her own opinion to give voice to, “You will have my vote but I will not support you in the case of war,” she let them all know.

John only needed a moment to understand, “Do I understand correctly that you won’t support Abraham either?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I have no strong feelings of support for you, President Newman, certainly not strong enough to fight against my own people for.” This caused the other three generals to shift somewhat uncomfortably in their seat as they were faced with this uncomfortable idea. “No, I will be the safe enclave for those who don’t want to partake in this squabble and the neutral party when the fighting ceases and the negotiations begin.”

“I respect that,” John said to her for the second time this day, this time under vastly more serious circumstances. “You have my word that I will not attack those under your protection and that, should we be victorious, you will be able to rejoin the army without complications. I have no interest in dragging parties that want to stay neutral into this conflict.”