John rose to his feet and the two maids, the First Servant of State and Fusion’s financial minister respectively, followed suit. They stood two paces behind him, their poses and uniforms exactly the same. Hands folded in front of the long, slit skirts of their maid outfits, they seemed unfitting for a government role and were simultaneously a regular sight on official events of this particular federation. The differences between them were only in the length of their hair, a slight difference in cup-size, the position of the mole under the lip (being right for Aclysia and left for Beatrice) and where they looked. The long-haired maid looked lovingly at his back, while the short-haired one stared passively ahead.

The Gamer saw all of this through a knock-off Mandala Sphere he had possessed in absence of the real one being available. He had a habit of using it to make sure he was looking good. Optics were half the speech. Nobody respected a speech about environmentally friendly industry that was held in front of a coal plant. ‘Well, that depends on the framing,’ he thought to himself, pulling his shoulders back to emphasize his muscular figure a bit more. The days in which he looked lanky no matter what he wore were over. Regardless, his build was on the thinner side and he had to stand right to look truly impressive. He looked better without clothes, due to the almost total lack of body fat. One of the few blessings he had previous to his magical improvement.

“Honoured House of Commons, Speaker of Commons, my attending ministers,” he nodded down to the members of the executive that sat to the side of the seat of government, “it’s a pleasure to be here with all of you today. Your faithful attendance and steady work for the people of Fusion shows that this federation I started can prosper beyond my limited range. The laws you introduce, be they made with my blessing or not, show the freedom we can enjoy and the differences of opinions we can express, from which progress is born.”

While he took a breath, applause was heard all over the room. John had to keep control over his face to not show his annoyance with that fact. ‘What vanity to applaud at me aggrandizing you,’ he thought. ‘This cuts into my speech time too. Keep your claps for the end of the speech.’

‘Should I silence them, Master?’ Aclysia reached out.

‘No,’ John was swift to respond.

‘Inquiry: are you keeping your claps for my butt after this?’ Beatrice wanted to know.

‘I’ll definitely give your ass some attention later.’ The Gamer now had to withhold a smile, and solemnly continued the address, “I want to welcome today the new representatives to this fledgeling body of ours. In particular, I want to say hello to the new party that has joined us. As I understand your program, you are here to question what the government does and see if you can liberate us all a bit more. I do very much enjoy the time I spend in Florida, so maybe it will be good for all of us to become a little bit more like you. The democratic process will decide and our lives will surely improve in the long run.”

Again, cheers, this time in a pause that John had intended for that. As they ebbed away, he leaned forward, rested his knuckles on the marble tabletop and tried to look all around more urgent. Once it was silent, he raised one hand to carefully gesture with. “This federation we have needs to be protected from our enemies, whether those are terrorists, criminals, or malicious entities close to a force of nature. Prosperity is built on stability, stability is built on safety, safety takes from individual freedom and a lack of individual freedom ultimately threatens safety. The art of statecraft is one of fine balance, of being careful what precedents are set and when we, those that make or execute the law, reason ourselves into mistaking personal gain for public benefit. It is the tightrope of privileges, rights and duties. Today, I wish to speak about a duty I have.”

John straightened up again, but kept his eyes downcast, as if he was regretting what he had to say next. Inside, he was almost sickened by how good at acting he had become through all of his Charisma. He knew exactly what he was doing, how he was framing things to look as good as possible.

“New Libraria… has failed to respond to any of the contact attempts we've made,” he said slowly. “Whether it was the foreign office… the minister… or even myself… we found no way to contact them that resulted in an answer. We tried finding phone addresses or emails, we enlisted the help of information brokers and even sent carrier pigeons.” He laughed drily and shook his head. “Nothing. As you know, during recent interviews, I publicly requested for them to come to us. Still, the foreign office has yet to hear from them in any capacity.”

Three breaths long, he paused, let a heavy mood descend on the entranced crowd. When a beautiful young man with superhuman Charisma and a baritone like butter on freshly baked bread spoke, people listened. They listened very carefully indeed.

“You may call me paranoid, but after the crisis of the Gestalt guilds, I’m not willing to have neighbours that refuse to communicate. Whether they have a Lorylim problem or not, whether we come to clash with them or not, whether they have something to hide or not, we cannot afford the risk of having a potential gathering place for enemies right on our borders. We need to know who governs New Libraria, if nothing else. To that end, I beseech you, the representatives of the common people of Fusion, to sanctify me leading a small elite force into Libraria’s territory for a military expedition. We will find out who or what they are and act as we have to.”

He let his gaze wander over the crowd, established eye contact with random members of the House of Commons. A good speech meant he wasn’t just speaking to a mass of people, but every individual of that whole. “In order to have a secure nation, we must think carefully about the drastic actions we take. Regardless, drastic actions must sometimes be taken. If we are unprepared for the storm, we will surely be broken by its winds. Thank you for your attention.”

People applauded all across the chamber, either out of respect or because they were genuinely impressed by the speech. Even the Free party, traditionally John’s biggest detractors, lent their clapping to the crowd. As much as they wanted to be left alone, they also didn’t want to die. A sensible choice of self-preservation.

The Speaker took control back after about thirty seconds of applause and proceeded with the protocol. First, people were allowed to respond to the speech or to ask questions. Predictably, people wanted to know how large this expeditionary force was supposed to be and who was in it. When John announced that Aclysia, Beatrice and Rave would be accompanying him, the question of who was in charge in the meantime came up. The answer was that, after himself, the chancellor, the treasurer and the first lady, temporary decision-making power lay with the head of the House of Exceptionals. Currently, that was Magoi.

If it were that John had died, he would be replaced by a pretty complicated system that allowed a new president to be elected from a short list of candidates. As much as John wanted to create a proper democratic republic, he knew that the person at the head of an Abyssal system had to command the power to guarantee its cohesion. Being the leader of Fusion’s military was not, at least not yet, enough for that.

Following the questions, the vote was held and the supermajority easily achieved. Since this wasn’t a joint session of parliament, the House of Exceptionals could theoretically intervene in the legality of this. John didn’t expect any troubles from the smaller and, by the nature of it, more elitist body though.

In the first place, all of this wasn’t exactly necessary. John could have just moved with executive privilege again and used the official reason of going there for diplomatic purposes. Having just managed to mend the relationship with the House of Commons, he didn’t want to damage it again. Repeat offenses were seen as worse, additionally, and he didn’t want to imagine what he needed to give in order to appease them next time.

__________________________________________________________________________

Things moved fast from there. John had already drafted a ‘scouting’ plan. They would start from the southernmost border and advance north, visiting all major population centres they came across. Because of New Libraria’s stretched shape, this was the most effective way to travel all of it and, since they had no idea where any of their outposts or their headquarters were, the group would have to rely entirely on information they found during the operation.

It shouldn’t be too difficult. With John’s recently acquired Barrier Sense, they could discover Illusion Barriers without having to play a game of minesweeper with several thousand square kilometres. With mines of unknown size. And without numbers that hinted at their location. And them having to walk hundreds of metres per ‘click’.

In short, it would be a whole lot easier. Usually, they would have had to take a learned Fateweaver with them to achieve this. Now that John was a ‘learned’ Fateweaver, this would not be an issue.

Following the Gestalt affair, and because of the potential troubles still in the area, John had placed his fifth endless-distance teleporter in the Fusion Colonization Zone. That came in handy to get them there. Their bus was already parked in the area, courtesy of John’s scheming, so all they had to do was get on-board, throw on the mobile generator, and start their drive north.

As for who ‘they’ were, the answer was: him and the harem, bar Scarlett and Lydia. For all the acting that had been in the speech, John was genuinely worried about what they might find. After the Gestalt, he wasn’t willing to hedge his bets. There was too much uncertainty going around.

Of course, the action in the bus hardly reflected that.

A loud slap echoed through the bathroom, closely followed by a loud cry, “Master!”

“What are you?” John asked, his neck turned to watch the naked maid stand next to the jacuzzi. While he was enjoying a hot bath in the bubbling tub and the steady bouncing of Nia on his cock, he was fondling the big butts of the two maids. Both of them were at his beck and call. At the moment, that meant that they were just standing there, growing more needy as they were touched so close to their sensitive cunts, watched their Master fuck another woman and listened to the cries and his words. “Beatrice, what are you?” he repeated his question.

“Your horny, passive servant, Master,” Beatrice answered. “Master!” she shouted his title again, when he spanked her butt another time.

“And do you like it when I slap your fat ass?”

“I love it, Master!” she cried out, her usually passive voice distorted with delight. “Master! Master! Master!” she continued to cry out each time he hit her jiggling rump.

He kept going there, enjoying the cries too much to stop, but moved his eyes from Beatrice over to Aclysia. The weaponized maid’s emerald eyes met his head on. Her desire was written into every facet of them. While her body at large was still, offering itself to the greedy kneading of her bubble butt, feeling exactly like a regular human’s would have, her pink lips were slightly parted and quivered. She was contemplating whether it would have pleased him more if she stayed obediently quiet or if she begged for more of his attention.

“Cum.” That single word eradicated all thoughts John guessed she had as her controlled posture collapsed. Fresh pussy juice gushed from her tight cunt and she leaned forward, supporting herself on the rim of the jacuzzi that dominated the bathroom. Even with magically enlarged space, many would have said that fitting a ten-people jacuzzi inside it was a waste of space. The Gamer, a large enthusiast of whirlpools, did not share that opinion in the slightest.

“Masthtehhhrrrr!” Aclysia slurred when he gave her spasming ass a nice slap. He absolutely adored that habit of theirs, to cry out his title whenever he spanked them. It enticed him to do it so much more. Which was exactly what they wanted, gorgeous, naughty maids that they were.

He kept fulfilling their wish, kept thrusting into Nia’s tight pussy, and kept relaxing in the tub. Through the open door, he heard the laughter and the complaints from the rest of the harem in the living room.