Conquering players in another world
Chapter 271 - 273

Chapter 271: Chapter 273

John’s first reaction to his girlfriend arriving back at the top of the platform was to awkwardly step in front of her with his arms open. Her eyes were hidden behind her bangs, a mess that looked even more dishevelled than usual. There was no other indication needed than the flappy state of her persisting cat ears.

She took a weak step off the platform, and two quick ones followed, then she pressed her head against his chest, and he closed his arms around her. "I was too hasty," Rave mumbled, her muffled voice trembling.

"Yes, you were," John said in a tone that was as gentle as possible. She wouldn’t want him to be anything but honest.

"I blew all my powder from the start, and mother just strung me along while she waited for me to get tired," there was something like a sniff, then a bit of a giggle, "I was totally the mouse there, not the cat."

"Your mom is a cougar," John joked and was rewarded with a minor gut punch for that.

"Weirdo," Rave laughed, and that sound alone repaid him for the pain. He gently rubbed her head for a few more seconds before she calmly freed herself from his embrace. Copper eyes slightly reddened and with some tears still dwelling inside, she turned to Lydia. "Sorry, I totally lost," she apologized.

"Yes, you did," Lydia’s arms were crossed, her fingers danced over the sharp turn of her elbow. Then she sighed. "This was the anticipated outcome. We will have to strategize about how to go forward."

A grumbling noise came from Thana, and John, keeping an arm around Rave’s shoulder, looked over to the blood mage. Most likely in an attempt to prevent herself from saying anything stupid, Thana was biting down on her hand. To be more exact, her overly sharp teeth were applied to the squishy bit on the outer side of her left palm, below the little finger. There was no blood drawn, but it still looked rather uncomfortable.

To accomplish this rather awkward task, Thana had bent her arm in a way that made her elbow point at the ceiling. It looked quite silly. Which is why Rave laughed in her face for it. The emotions of confusion and anger both flashed over Thana’s face, then she started laughing as well. Quite a bit louder than Rave and a tad (a lot) crazier.

"You fucking suck," Thana told her at the end. "Why would you blow all your load at the start? If you have premature ejaculation issues, at least tease a bit!"

"Cause I suck," Rave smiling in a way that was almost usual, if it wasn’t for the dejected way she looked at the floor.

"Time to get that fixed." Copernicus walked along the railing of the platform. "A good start would be to understand why you were fundamentally wrong in your training. You fight as if I don’t exist, Jane," he said; "You fight like your mother, alone, when you should be thinking about how we should fight together."

"Wait, why do ya tell me now? And didn’t ya, when we made our contract, say that you will just empower me while I fight?"

"I am a cat, I change my mind," Copernicus yawned. Funnily enough, that was a valid answer. Cats could be pretty indecisive dicks. "If you give me reason to assist you, I will. I take no pleasure in my Lightbearer losing. You are supposed to be capable enough so that I don’t need to help you, but now that you have been properly humiliated, I think it is time we further our bond a bit."

"You delayed this to humiliate her?" Lydia asked in a disapproving tone; "And lose me a point on top of that?"

"I already told her and I will tell you again, Lylytina," the sun cat mockingly meowed. "I am not bothered by your nation of sinners’ struggle for power. All I care for is for my Lightbearer to provide me with a secure and interesting life." Copernicus’ eyes wandered back over to Rave, "As luck would have it, that includes her being the strongest she can be. I do not usually fight, but once in a while, hunting is fun."

"Basically, what you are saying is that even a house cat kills a mouse sometimes," John, who had seen all of this coming from the moment Copernicus had spoken up yesterday, teased.

He earned himself an annoyed hiss. Copernicus jumped at Rave, and she caught him. "Ya are such a stupid little kitty," Rave said and scratched his belly as she held the cat in her arms.

"Of the two of us, the stupid one would be you," the suncat answered, working on Rave’s hand with his paws, claws retracted.

"So ya gonna teach me how to punch mom in the face next fight?"

"I will try," Copernicus purred. "You are not allowed to lose unless I want to teach you a lesson, Jane. Having a weak summoner is a disgrace."

"Well, I will live, learn and move on!" Rave exclaimed.

"Ehem," there was a female voice that John barely knew clearing her throat. They looked over to a green-haired girl waving at them, accompanied by two knights clearly ready to drag her away if Lydia told them so.

"Hey, sis," Liz, Rave’s younger sister, greeted.

She had the same teardrop shaped face and stunning good looks, although the Asian heritage shimmered through more intensely in her. The curse of her family manifested in an intense green colour. Her hair was much straighter than Rave’s by and large, but still curled excessively towards the tips, especially at the back.

The two of them also shared their glossy pink lips, which ignited the wish in John to see both of these lips slide over his dick. Banging two sisters at the same time was somewhat of a primal desire for him and most men, he had no idea why. Probably because Rave was hotter than the sun (at least in John’s opinion, his girlfriend looked better than Sol), and having a girl that looked a lot like her at the same time was double the awesome.

Sadly, Liz had a boyfriend, so that route was blocked. Not that Rave was likely to agree to this in the first place. "Whaddya want?" the pink haired girl in question said.

"Well, mom can’t come here herself, because newspapers, so she sent me over," Liz looked over to John. "I would have just called, but somebody switched numbers without telling me."

"I am fairly certain that I sent you an SMS with my new number," John said and checked. Indeed, he had.

Liz clicked her tongue after looking through her phone for almost a full minute, "Who uses SMS? Write me on WhatsApp or something! Whatever." The green haired girl made the motions of adding someone to their contacts and then put her phone away, "I am supposed to ask you whether or not you are willing to talk now, sis."

Rave continued to scratch Copernicus’ belly, deep in thought. That in and of itself was making John smile a bit. His girlfriend usually just decided things in the spur of the moment; the fact that she didn’t just outright refuse or agree meant that she was actually considering what she wanted, not just now but going forward.

"I suggest we go," John said, squeezing her shoulder in what he hoped to be an encouraging display of his love. ’I got your back,’ is what he wanted her to understand, and the fact that she leaned against him made him sure that she did.

"Okay, I did get to pummel her for a bit, might as well hear what she has to say," Rave agreed, and as if a thorn that had been stuck in her side for months finally had been removed, she relaxed completely. The fearless smirk returned to her gorgeous face.

John understood immediately. It wasn’t the question whether or not she would even talk to her mother which his girlfriend had been pondering over, it was whether or not she could forgive her. Back when the two of them had announced their candidacy for the tournament, it clearly had been a no.

If she had found the will to talk to her again, then Rave, so it seemed, had found it in herself to listen to her mother in earnest and judge whether or not she would forgive her. That was a clear step-up from the question of ’could’.

The fact that John understood all of this just by the smile she wore on her lips made him realize once again just how lucky he was to have her. Between the smile and her slightly red eyes, he saw her for who she was. She was a certainty in his life, a lovable anchor that he shared his world with. Finding someone that he could understand on such a deep level, that could understand him the same way, was beyond fulfilling. How long the odds must have been for him to run into her?

It was a useless question, and the answer didn’t matter anyway, it only mattered that it had come to pass. As if guided by an invisible hand, John bowed his head as she stretched her neck towards him. Their lips met in a kiss that sent shivers down his spine.

Her lips tasted of saltwater and tears of defeat. Nonetheless, they were the lips he loved most in this world, these pink glossy lips; no matter how they may taste in a bitter moment or sweetest of victories, the person they belonged to was the one that he wanted to remain in his life forever. No doubt about it.

As the shiver spread through his body as a pleasantly warm tingle, their kiss, a kiss only romantic and not filled with any lust, continued. Only when the warmth had spread so far that it basically had become part of him, neither having cooled down in the slightest, did they stop.

"That one was awesome, more of that," Rave commented under her breath. Then they had Liz guide them to wherever Nariko was waiting for them. Lydia excused herself from the affair, as did Momo. Thana had to be promised cake in order to follow the support. Nia simply vanished when they weren’t looking for a moment.

On their way over, John made sure that nobody followed them by using Jack. The bird was equipped with Reveal. Which was a thing he really should get used to, but he disliked using Spellcarrier needlessly. With its base cost of 3 Possession Slots, of which he had 5 in total right now, it cost him a total of 3 Mana per second, which was more than half of his current regeneration of 5,59.

While far from unacceptable, it wasn’t something he really wanted to pay all the time. He would feel less inclined to not do it if his mana regeneration was bigger, which was a work in progress. Math aside, however, he did spot someone following them.

Their driver hadn’t even raised questions. The Abyss was a weird place wherever one went.

They stepped out of the car and looked at the building in front of them. A giant tower with a design that was a successful marriage between modern day skyscrapers and an obelisk, being primarily made from finely worked stone. The building was several dozen stories high. Most of them were open at the side, allowing delivery drones to fly in and out.

The basic stone skeleton looked, like most bigger structures in this city, ancient but also flawlessly maintained. It was a bizarre look into a time long passed that still stuck to this city and this city alone. A culture that had risen and fallen in the history that John had known before all of this began, amplified by the powers of magic which defied common physics.

Aside from that basic structure though, the walls of the tower with its quadratic base were mostly glass and metal. It appeared that the base structure had been modified countless times, whole floors had been ripped out and replaced with another business.

This was the largest bureaucratic complex in Rome outside of the imperial palace itself. In the second ring of the city stood this behemoth of paperwork, profit and nearly uncontrolled capitalism. The Abyss Auction Rome Headquarters.

"Mom is waiting inside," Liz said.

The inner workings of the building made John question why he even bothered making sure nobody followed them. A good 50 people were active in and around the base floor, making calls, sitting at computers, holding stacks of paper, losing half of them as they ran from point A to point B.

It was an almost comedic display of bureaucracy at its worst. Didn’t help that basically everyone seemed to work against each other; people tripping happened at least thrice while John passed. "Sorry, the interns are always overly enthusiastic," Liz sighed as they made their way through.

"You say that like you are already part of the upper structure," John noted.

"Nah, but I can join as an apprentice whenever, I have an open invitation," she smirked. "And that’s only half thanks to mom’s influence. ’Cause I am awesome!"

"She is your sister, alright," John joked towards Rave and earned himself a little bit of a pinch in the side for that.

They entered an elevator at the side of the building. Located inside a glass tube, they had a wonderful view over the city as it quickly ascended. "So, how has life been, sis?" Liz asked. "Haven’t really spoken in like... 5 years?"

"Ya know, punched that guy, started dating this nerd," she pointed at John with her head, "being awesome. How was it for you?"

"You know, zapped this guy, started dating some jock, being rad," Liz pretty much mirrored what her sister said.

This was nice, in John’s humble opinion. Sure, the two of them weren’t chatting vividly, like sisters on good terms would do, but at least they were exchanging a bit of small talk. John could feel the air get heavier when the lift’s door opened, though.

They were on the highest story of the building, which spoke volumes about just how high Nariko’s current standing in the Abyss Auction must have been. The room they stopped at was a highly luxurious office room. The black carpet was so clean that John almost didn’t want to step on it, but Liz went ahead, so he followed.

The reason for the heavy air was, without a doubt, Nariko sitting behind an elegantly swung, dark blue tinted glass table. She moved her eyes off the computer screen and looked at the arrivals; with a simple wave of her hand, she gestured for both of them to sit down. "I’ll go make some tea," Liz said, opening a door that led to living quarters that likely filled the rest of the story.

Nariko punched in some more words into her keyboard before turning to Rave and John. "Do me the favour and take a shower, Jane," she said.

"What?" Rave immediately sounded annoyed, which was a supremely good start for family talk.

’Whatever the outcome of this will be, it will be hard to convince me that Rave got her social side from her mother,’ John thought.

"You are still wearing that battle suit and are probably covered in salt, go take a shower and borrow some of Elizabeth’s clothes," Nariko turned back to her work, "we can talk afterwards."

Rave pressed her lips together but then sighed, "I guess I could use something clean to wear. Stupid way to say all of that though." With that, the techno-lover jumped out of her seat and followed Liz into the living area shouting,

"Liz, where is your shower?" as the door closed behind her.

John fully expected Nariko to descend on him with something she wanted to talk about without her daughters around. Instead, he was met with a quiet that was only filled with the sounds of a mechanical keyboard rattling down words on a screen.

"...Did you really send Jane away just so she wouldn’t be covered in salt?" he asked after a solid seven minutes.

"That stupid girl doesn’t know what is good for her," his girlfriend’s mother answered and gave him a glance that made it very clear that she did not really mean the shower.

’Okay, I’ve about had it with this,’ John thought- ’If she throws accusations my way, I can do the same.’ "You are a terrible mother," he just straight out said. She furrowed her eyebrows,

"Pardon me?"

"You heard me," John shrugged; "You are a terrible mother. I am not sure about ’terrible person’, but you sure as all hell are not doing the mother thing well."

Nariko sighed and went back to work, "Maybe, I have enough with my own daughter and husband judging me. Your opinion is heard but discarded."

"Don’t you mean ex-husband?" John pointed out.

To his mild surprise, Nariko shook her head, "You can wait until Jane comes back to hear the whole story."

And that he did. Rave returned shortly thereafter in a shirt and jeans which both fit her very well but looked a bit too proper on her. It was just unusual. She also brought the tea with her, "Liz said she is going out or something."

"It seems I cannot even keep tabs on the one of you two that decided to stay with me," Nariko mumbled and grabbed the cup of tea Rave hesitatingly handed her.

"So whaddya wanna talk about?" Rave asked as she fell back into her seat, cold bottle of cola in her own hand. "Ya wanna gloat about how ya beat your own daughter effortlessly or something? Want me to break up with John again?"

"No, I am meaning to tell you... everything. I had a talk with Regan following the revelation that you and your boyfriend were polyamorous. To my shock, I had to find out that he never really informed you about the broader reasons for our official divorce," Nariko said.

"So ya yelled at daddy for a bi-" Rave stopped and blinked in rapid succession, formulating her next words very carefully she added, "did you just say ’official’?"

"Yes, daughter, your father and I never actually divorced... we took an extended break," Nariko sighed. "It is a bit hard to explain without context, so please try to keep your impatience in check and don’t interrupt me, as you usually do."

"If ya refrain from being a..." the techno-lover cleared her throat and reached for John’s hand. "Just get on with it."

"As you well know, our extended family still resides back in Japan," Nariko said.

"Wait, wait," John intervened, "extended family? I thought it was just your grandparents."

"It is... isn’t it?" Rave turned to her mother, who looked seriously disgruntled about being interrupted at the start.

"No!" the blue-haired woman half-shouted; "We are a whole clan! How do you not know this?!"

"Well, ya never told me!" Rave complained.

"I most certainly did!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Jane, even if you are denying me you will use proper words and not this gibberish!"

"Make me!"

"Are you asking me to beat you twice within one day?"

While that did make Rave shut up, John was pretty sure he now knew where Rave had her inability to explain even the most basic stuff from. It was honestly quite fascinating to him, seeing how her mother, no matter the amount of anger Rave held, still had such a massive impact. Not unexpected, just interesting.

"So, starting even further back, as I apparently need to explain our family history to you because you didn’t listen when I did... Did you not listen to my father either?" Nariko suddenly remembered. "When you stayed with him about 12 years ago? I expect him to have laid this out."

"All I remember is him talking about dragon tuna... and I was eight," Rave pointed out.

Nariko pinched the bridge of her nose, "And Regan never informed you either?"

"He was busy NOT talking about ya after ya, ya know, divorced him and broke his heart?" Rave actually looked more amused by her mother looking like she was going to burst out in anger at any second than annoyed that she was missing her whole family history; "All I know is that I am part of the fifth generation and that our family is cursed to have really cool hair."

"Let’s start from there then," Nariko, scribbling a note on a pad that undoubtedly said ’Reprimand parents and husband for my own failures’, mumbled. "At the end of the Edo period, a Dutch man fell in love with the then female head of our household. It was a chance meeting in a natural Illusion Barrier, as she was the first in our family to have any Innate Abilities and he was an explorer that came to Japan under the guise of a sailor. The romance between the two of them is long, convoluted and frankly not particularly interesting. The important part is that they married eventually, she took his name, and since then we are called the Hollmey clan, whose current head is me."

"Wait, so, uhm, two questions, First, so it’s not actually dads name, and B, so, I am like, the princess of an important Japanese household or something?" Rave seemed to like the second a lot.

"No, his name was Smith," Nariko answered.

"That’s so boring though!" her daughter complained.

"Why do you think he took mine? Your father always liked... eccentric things," Nariko answered.

She took a sip of tea from her cup that, as John now realized, had Hello Kitty on it. He was not quite sure what he expected from the woman that actually married Regan.

"To answer your second question: our clan stems from a family of dishwashers and cooks."

"That’s just as boring!" Rave complained even louder.

"I am quite sorry, Jane, but this is the reality of the situation, so quit your sniffling!" Nariko reprimanded her in the tone that only parents can use when they were annoyed with their kids.

Rave just rolled her eyes, humans could get immune even to that if it was used too often. Evidently, Nariko had used it more than just one too many times.

"Moving on to the current situation," Nariko sighed. "Japan is under constant threat by the Korean seat of the Divided Gates. We have no central authority to turn to, nobody who protects us. In older times, the Mandate of Heaven would have protected us. They have bigger issues than our island, however, and maintaining their diplomatic relations with the Dangun Clan is more important to them." Stopping, Nariko dropped her volume to a low mutter. "I lost more than a few family members to these raids, and you, Jane, will never get to meet your aunts."

A short silence ensued as Nariko took another sip. This time neither John nor Rave had a question or comment. John had heard of these raids before, but he had not expected to somehow be tangled up in that so closely.

"But why would you even let me hang out with my grandparents if Japan is that dangerous?" Rave eventually asked.

"Because it is safe for them thanks to what I did," Nariko told her with a stern look; "With no authority on the island, I turned to the only authority that is global: money. And no one has more money than the Abyss Auction, Jane." She ran her finger over the rim of her now empty Hello Kitty cup, "It is my money that keeps my family safe, my influence that buys us protection from the Koreans. I met your father on the way up the ranks. He was happy where he was, but I couldn’t stop at a simple venturing position. I needed more. It tore us apart that I never had time for you and Liz. He said I should make you my priority, I wanted to make Japan safe for us to live there one day. Both at the same time wasn’t realistically maintainable."

"So, you and dad divorced," Rave said.

"That was a large part of it, yes. I decided that my work at the time was more important, he said I could concentrate on it after you two grew up. We fought over it, a lot. In the end we decided to break it off and publicly split. I sold the ring on the auction as a sign to all my enemies that I was really done with Regan, that they couldn’t get at me through him," Nariko sighed, and the wrinkles cast shadows over her otherwise youthful face. She suddenly looked very tired. "I didn’t want any of this to work out the way it did. Regan took custody over you, Liz insisted on staying with me. So, I allowed her and had her stay safely with your grandparents for most of the time."

"...Is that all of it?" Rave asked as silence fell over the room; "You prioritized work over your kids because you needed money to build a better future, dad didn’t agree, and then you decided to split it off?"

"And come together later down the line and see if we could resolve it, yes," Nariko nodded.

Rave stood up.

"Where are you going?" Nariko asked, stretching an arm after her in a longing motion as her daughter headed for the exit, John at her side.

"You are still a shitty mom," the techno-lover said, "but you are not a bad person, and I need time to get that into my head. We talk again after this whole tournament kerfuffle is over, okay?"

The pink-haired girl kept her head straight-ahead, her mother couldn’t see her face, she couldn’t see her mother’s face. "...We will face off again when you enter the arena," Nariko warned.

"I know," Rave nodded.

"...Then I hope we will talk again, Jane."

"Sure thing, mom."

Only John saw that both of them had wet eyes as he and Rave left.