“Do I look good?” John asked, pulling his collar straight. His suit sat tight, the Suit of the Chosen for once in its jacket shape. It was as black as the night, harmonizing nicely with the copper red shirt he wore underneath, sharing its colour with the suit’s inside lining and sleeve buttons. The Pants of the Chosen followed the same colour scheme and the Skittersteps made for a good finish. Shining, the flexible chitin that made up the outside of those shoes didn’t look too different from polished, black leather. Thin gaps between the plates were easily dismissed as decorative lines, having the same dark colour, but losing the reflective attributes.

“Do ya really need to ask that?” Rave asked and kissed his cheek. “Ya put all of those points in Charisma for something, right?”

“I would have more than double what I currently have if I hadn’t listened to you in prioritizing Libido,” the Gamer returned with a smirk as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. His jawline was sharp and a lot more masculine than it used to be, albeit not so extremely square that it made him look rough. His hairless face, well-formed brows aside, was attractive beyond a doubt. He still looked somewhat plain but the kind of it had shifted. From being the standard nerd who only got noticed when some bully wanted to tax his lunch money, he had transformed into what someone would expect on the cover of a Playgirl magazine. A somewhat ‘common’ kind of attractive, but highly attractive regardless. The brown eyes and short brown hair certainly didn’t help.

“Ya can thank me for that this evening,” Rave cheekily responded, putting a hand where her mouth had just been. Softly she directed him to face her instead. “Enough looking at yourself, tell me how I look, tiger,” she demanded with a smirk.

The answer was absolutely stunning.

She wore a dress from the same tailor that had made the one she had on when they last visited John’s parents. Like that one, it was backless, shoulderless and sideless, leaving much of her smooth skin and even a considerable bit of side-boob exposed. It was a delicious view. Rave’s breasts were firm and decently sized, leaving quite a bit to be looked at even with the satin covering the indecent bits.

Looked at purely from the front, the dress presented a more elegant than sexy look. The top part of it extended from the waist to her neck, wrapping around the back of it to remain in place. It hid her stomach and her breasts from frontal view, only showing a bit of her naked sides, most of her collarbones and the entirety of her shoulders.

The skirt was separated into several triangular strands that overlapped around her hips. They were considerably shorter at the front only reaching to her kneecaps while going all the way to her ankles at the back. The dress was primarily copper red, keeping her in style with her boyfriend. Black and silver embroidery decorated all parts of it, taking the shape of waveforms.

Rave twirled on the spot, easy with the gracile ballet-esque shoes she was wearing, and the strands flew around her like an unfolding flower. Once she stopped moving, she brushed back her wild hair and smiled up with her glossy pink lips. “I take it you’re totally stunned because of how gorgeous your future fiancé is?”

“You do know me the best,” John smiled and bowed down to give her a quick kiss. “You could wear a trash bag with sleeves and you would still be among the most beautiful girls at the party.”

Rave understood that her only competition were the other harem girls and giggled, “Let’s not do that to Lyly though.”

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“Yeah, let’s not,” John grinned and put an arm around her, guiding her out of the bathroom. Entering the living room, the Gamer was greeted by much of the harem in their best clothes.

Aclysia and Beatrice were wearing black satin dresses, a few white lines running through to break up the monotony of the colour. The designs were sleek, shoulderless and neckless, the shiny fabric fitting their forms from the chest to their pencil skirts. Wearing black chokers, they created the deep impression of submissive secretaries that did more than just bookkeeping for their employer.

Also wearing a choker, Eliza had taken great care in looking good for this day; she had even been openly enthusiastic about it. Her hair was thoroughly combed and put into a high ponytail and she wore a light purple dress the colour of her eyes. It was simple, compared to Rave’s, but not as straightforward as those the maids were wearing. Shoulderless and showing off a nice bit of cleavage, the dress sat tightly around her waist and extended into a straight skirt that was slit open at the sides. Little bits of golden embroidery gave it an extra flair.

The elementals were a mixed bunch.

Gnome was wearing her natural clothes and for good reason. The dress appeared as if she was wearing the very season of autumn. Gold and yellow, it was decorated by symmetrical black and dark-brown veins that made it seem as if it was fashioned from fallen leaves. The rim of her short skirt only furthered that impression, taking the many shapes that leaves could. Only the two slits in front of her legs were straight.

As form-fitting as her dress was, most of her body was actually hidden from prying eyes. The dress began below her collarbone, too far up to show any sort of cleavage, and while her shoulders may have been bare, gloves that fit with her dress hid her arms from high up to her fingertips. There was a little territory under the rim of the skirt where her light skin was visible, below that stockings and shoes hid the rest.

Her hair, too, was in its natural shape. A braid on each side of her head ran backwards and both joined at the back of her head to fall down along with the rest of her lightly waving, hazel hair.

Next to her, Sylph wore a green summer dress. The skirt was long and flowing and the strands holding it at the shoulders an irregularity among all of the fantastical dresses around. It showed off her cleavage, but didn’t emphasize it overly. Same was true for the short hourglass figure it covered. A summer dress was in itself a simple and seductive piece of clothing and on someone like Sylph, it just worked perfectly.

Undine had chosen to display herself in her human disguise, leaving her as a pale, black haired and curvy goth woman of immense beauty. The thick black eyelashes around her golden eyes eliminated any need for additional mascara and harmonized well with the black dress she was wearing. In its sleekness and the texture of the fabric, it was similar to those of the maids, but it was only black and continued all the way to her ankles. The top was also cut differently, showing an impressive cleavage and being secured through black strands wrapping around her shoulders. The entire dress showed off her dark beauty and natural elegance.

Where Undine’s dress was mostly elegant and only deliberately sexy around the chest, Siena and Salamander wore dresses that were almost entirely designed to turn heads. While this was in no small part because of their characters, there were also their tails forcing some design compromises.

The skirts of both of their dresses were slit not only at the front to allow easy leg movements, but also at the back to allow their tails to extend outwards. In both cases, this caused a gap that left part of their butts permanently exposed. It was much worse for Siena, since the base of her tail was much thicker than Salamander’s. The moonshade elemental was showing off essentially her entire ass. Because of this, the panties they both wore were essentially part of the dress. When it came to the remaining cut, they were quite similar to Undine’s, being tightly sitting and cleavage displaying. This meant that Salamander was equalizing her lack of ass-display by presenting her absolutely massive tits. Siena’s display was sharper, in every sense of the word. For the occasion, Salamander decided to go with long hair.

Her fellow redhead, Scarlett, had dressed up as well. Wearing a red shirt whose collar stood out from underneath a black jacket, she showed a little bit of her petite chest by leaving the uppermost buttons open. A black pencil skirt complimented the look of a businesswoman and also emphasized her bubble butt, the more pronounced feminine asset the androgynous technomancer possessed. She even wore black high heels for the day, making her and Siena the only ones to do so. That Scarlett had been willing to wear something outside her usual suit had been surprising to John. It would have been good enough for today, but it seemed she wanted to go the extra mile.

Same was true for Metra, who was wearing more than her usual skimpy crop top and hotpants. A grey version of Aclysia and Beatrice’s dresses, with the white lines otherwise copied over, the brown, blonde berserker babe was rocking her formal dress with more than a tad of unorthodoxy. One may have expected her above-average muscularity to be what made her wearing a dress look odd. While one would have had a point with that, Metra wasn’t buff to such bodybuilder levels that it was more than a momentary distraction. Fundamentally, her body was formed after John’s tastes and therefore still more leaning towards womanly than she was towards muscular. The real eyebrow-raiser were the sandals she wore with the dress. Secured with leather straps around her lower legs, the footwear looked like it belonged in a depiction of ancient Rome, clashing with the modern look of her dress.

Regardless, Metra insisted on keeping them on. As weird as John may have found it, it didn’t ruin anything, so he let it pass.

Lastly, Nia was wearing her usual dress from the nirvana. While it was what she always wore, it was also, like Gnome’s dress, the best she could have possibly worn. Unique and beautiful, the colourless piece of non-fabric complimented her appearance. All John could have complained about was that the long skirt didn’t allow her to show off her thighs but, given they were heading to an event of relative publicity and expectation of decency, that was probably for the better.

The Gamer knew he was already pushing things a bit with this ensemble, given how openly his girls flaunted their beyond good looks, but he saw nothing too obscene in what anyone was wearing at the moment. Really, only Siena and Salamander were pushing it and that was in large part due to parts of their bodies that were just unusual. As far as he understood, it was acceptable for humanoids with tails to show off their backsides. They didn’t have much in the way of choice anyway, if they wanted to wear dresses. It was either creating a slit like they had or cutting in a somewhat awkward hole.

John smiled at all of them. He didn’t have anything to say. Having helped each of them put their clothes together and get fully prepared over the course of the morning, he had complimented them all thoroughly already. He could have repeated everything he had said, and he doubtlessly would at some point, but right now they were content. Instead, he checked his phone for the time and nodded to himself. They were moving along according to schedule.

“Alright, let’s go,” he spoke up, giving a second for anyone to voice last things they needed to get out of the way. Nothing came and so they went on their way.

It was dark outside, when they stood on the roof. The east coast of the USA was engulfed by night, to no surprise. Regardless, he and the harem were awake. They had spent the entirety of Tuesday lounging around and sleeping so they would feel as if they started the day at this very odd hour. This was, largely, because they actually were. Stepping into the teleporter, needing to go in two waves due to the size of the group, they appeared over in Germany.

The sun there had risen already, glowing above the horizon and spending light to the morning hours. Gathering up in front of the house that served as Fusion’s embassy, the party was quickly approached by a servant already waiting for them. “Her majesty is eagerly awaiting your arrival and is waiting in her quarters. Will you need me to show you the way?”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” John denied the offer with a friendly nod and then got moving. He didn’t want to waste the servant’s time. The staff of Lydia’s palace would have enough to do today without needing to show him around. Although it was doubtlessly true that Lydia came to visit him more often than he came over to hang around her, he still took the time occasionally. It wasn’t just his choice that had created their current dynamic anyway. It was much easier for Lydia to keep their get-togethers discrete if they hung out in the privacy of his Guild Hall and its web of teleporters. When they wanted to have a nice day in Berlin, the eyes and ears were everywhere.

Aside from him, several of the girls also regularly went to spend a few hours with Lydia. Rave, who was the beating heart of intra-harem relationships, Nia, Undine and Scarlett were all known to come over quite often. Siena and Gnome sometimes took the time when Lydia let them know that she had the time for tea or something like that, as the moonshade elemental and the queen of metal enjoyed having arguments regarding this or that topic. Everyone else came over when they felt like it. Everyone in the harem was on good terms with each other so everyone talked to one another, but smaller cliques forming was inevitable no matter how well a large group got along.

John reached the simple wooden door that led into Lydia’s apartment within the medium-sized palace and knocked. The door unlocked audibly and then swung open. Nobody stood on the other side, instead Lydia sat in an armchair by a clean and currently unused fireplace.

Lydia’s living quarters were spacious, but not overly so. While large, the living room was not gargantuan. Same was true for the bedroom John knew was just one door away, and the balcony. Only the bathroom was considerably above what a normal person would have afforded. The hardwood furniture that stood on the equally solid floorboards was practical first and pleasing to look at second, all of it fashioned to last at least a lifetime. The largest single piece of furniture was a truly gargantuan work desk with a multitude of drawers and shelves integrated under and over the main work surface. Metal sheets separated stacks of paper and allowed Lydia to immediately retrieve whatever information she needed without lifting a finger. A single laptop lay almost reluctantly among the orderly arranged parchment and office appliances.

For all of her reformations in terms of political structure, the queen was rather unwilling to use modern technology in her bureaucracy.

As dominant as that desk was, the room wasn’t purely focused around work. A piano with metal keys took up a corner with its presence, and where books and binders didn’t need the space, the shelves, boards and other surfaces housed numerous plants. Lemongrass and lavender were obviously present, spreading a nice smell through the room. By the sizable fireplace that Lydia was sitting at, a carpet was sprawled out under several armchairs.

Lydia’s living room was not arranged to house a lot of guests and it wasn’t even her main office. It was her inner sanctum and not open for just about anyone to enter. John and his harem poured in without a care in the world. The Gamer only stopped to really admire her when they were all in and she stood up to greet them.

Her dress was a flowing piece of silver brilliance. A long skirt flowed along with every step she took, its rim decorated with black embroidery that formed numerous words and sentences in Latin and German. It sat tightly around her waist and midriff, showing the curves that had been so noticeably improved with John’s help in August. The outline of her breasts was half visible, her cleavage on open display and surrounded by yet more embroidery, this time forming the heraldry of the two-headed eagle among the decorative lines. The dress continued over her shoulders and as long sleeves that widened towards the ends. Although her hair had not been changed in basic style, the base of her braid held a gem-encrusted pin and the end of it was bound together by a golden ring, rather than the usual simple band.

The very same eagle that was depicted on her dress stood on the back of the chair she had just risen from. The colour of her feathers was remarkably close to Lydia’s hair, a red shade of auburn. Small dark dots lent more shades to the Reichsadler’s body and the lowest row of feathers on her wings was black. Both heads of the god of emperorship looked in John’s direction. With every new ruler, the deity was reborn, with a new body and gender fitting that of the leader of her patronized guild.

“I despise dressing up in such unnecessary a fashion,” were the first words Lydia had for her guests.

“It’s not unnecessary, not if you look this good in a dress,” John told her and went in for a more pleasing greeting in the form of a quick kiss. “That aside, you shouldn’t worry about such things today. Just stay relaxed and have fun. Today is all about you. It is your birthday after all.”