John sat at the helm of a gathering of thirty-four people. In Abyssal terms and given the size of the island, that was a pretty sizable population. It was no Rome, but that would have been like comparing a village in a somewhat wealthy area to Tokyo.

Putting himself, Aclysia, and the six elementals out of the equation, there were still twenty-six more. Eleven of those were the harem of women who attached themselves to whoever was the leader of the Small Lake Pact. Another six were men who had followed the same logic in reverse, staying on the island after Aclysia had defeated their leading lady, who had subsequently fled the area. The remaining nine were people saved from mana factories, primarily the one on this island. They came from vastly different backgrounds, being slaves bought from the Abyss Auction, kidnapped low-level individuals or people that had lost their position in the Small Lake Pact and had been put in a mana factory to remove them as a future threat.

It was a bit odd to see that the males were allowed to wear whatever while all the women had to wear maid uniforms. Aclysia was less bothered by gender equality than she wanted her master to have things to look at. Eventually, he would have to fix that. Not that the girls seemed too bothered by this.

Everyone was sitting around a solid stone table created by Gnome on stools that were basically small pillars of granite with a pillow on top. It was the quickest, most comfortable solution they had. The Abyss Auction had flown those things pretty quickly, after the Gamer had paid for the special delivery subscription to this location. Pillows wouldn’t be the last thing he would buy today, not by a longshot.

As for the people sitting around the table, they were eyeing each other up. Mostly outside of their own clique, if they even had one, but even amongst them there were power dynamics that John did not know about. Not the most stable group to work with, but there was one thing John could give them that would much ease tensions: prosperity.

“Alright,” John stood up and fixed his glasses in position. “Gnome, would you be so kind as to give us a visual of the island.”

“Sure, John!” the soil elemental responded a bit too quickly. She put a hand on the table and closed her eyes. Connecting with the ground beneath her feet, she felt out the borders of the landmass. Soon an accurate representation of the island’s outline appeared on the surface of the table. It lacked any height differences, which maybe would have been a problem for larger projects at other locations, but for the fairly flat island, that wasn’t a problem.

“Alright… can you mark an area along the shore for the new wall please?” His wish was followed, the entire rim of the map rising a small bit off the table. “Hm…” he thoughtfully hummed and stretched to tap on a protrusion on the east side of the elongated island. “Curve the wall off the shore and a bit inland here. Connect it back…” he travelled in a bit south, “…here.”

“Uhm, why?” Gnome asked.

“Because I want to have a beach,” John responded quite simply.

Salamander looked at her black fingernails as if they would ever need a shortening. “Wouldn’t it be absolutely retarded to have a beach if the goal is to defend this island with that wall?”

Having an Illusion Barrier on an island warped the normal rules of Abyssal siege situations quite a bit. Normally, the most effective place to defend against invaders was to leave the job to Fateweavers. They would fortify the Protected Space in a way that would make it harder for unwanted people to enter, limiting them to small numbers if anyone could enter at all.

This was counteracted by the people on the outside, generally Fateweavers themselves, to accelerate the process, creating a barrier on top of the one they wanted to enter. It took steady precautions to keep barriers in the same place from melding. Eventually, the Fateweavers on the inside no longer had the power to prevent it from happening, the barriers melded and the top-layered barrier essentially acted as a plane that dropped a bunch of parachuted troops inside.

Although all of that could still happen on the water, it was a bit more complicated. Particularly if the barrier had defined entrance points in the water itself. Rather than resist such a melding process, it was perhaps smarter to just let the enemy in. As long as the own Fateweavers were in control, the enemy couldn’t just spawn in on the island, even if that was where they had entered from in the real world.

They would need very good swimmers in that situation, or ships with mobile barriers, often severely limiting the numbers of assailants. Basically, it reversed the rules of engagement from some magical shenanigans back to traditional siege battles. As long as the people within the barrier wanted it or the enemy didn’t have some particularly powerful Fateweavers.

“A bit,” John admitted, with all of that in mind, “but if we fortify it enough, the only viable landing spot might as well be a death trap. The beach is going to be a depression inward, leaving a lot of wall to stand on and throw spells down at the enemy from. Combine that with a pretty heavy gate and we should be dandy.”

“Well, if you say so,” Salamander shrugged.

“Anyway, so we’re going to replace that tragedy of a house over there,” John tapped on the northern end of the island where the hive of filth was located, marked with an icon a few moments later. “Thank you, Gnome.”

“I d-do my best!” she stammered, trying a cute little salute that immediately caused her to blush when she realized she was only looking foolish. John patted her on the head as he continued.

“The mana factory is about… here…” he tapped on another part of the map, as wide as he could stretch, and another icon appeared there. “Alright, so that’s the basics covered… oh, right, harbour. Gnome could you put an icon where the current pier is?”

“Yes,” Gnome answered in an almost dreamy tone, John’s hand still caressing her brown hair. Another symbol and John had everything that was currently around, he wanted to maintain and the changes he wanted for his own luxury.

“Now, what do you all want on this island?” John asked the current inhabitants, who seemed rather confused towards getting a choice on the matter. “Don’t be like that, I am treating this basically like a vacation residence. You all will actually live here, so you should tell me what kind of life you want.”

That was met with a whole lot of silence. The incredibly awkward kind, as if he had just asked for people to introduce themselves in a classroom and waited for volunteers. No wonder, these people were not exactly prone to making their own decision. Looking to the strongest to decide everything top down was the norm around here.

“Okay, then,” the Gamer decided that he wanted to get this done today, so he had to be the benevolent dictator. “If you have any suggestions at any time, or questions, just tell me. For a start, all of you should have your own houses.”

“We already do,” one of the old harem pointed at one of the shacks.

“Okay, first, those aren’t enough for everyone,” John could not hide his disdain for those metal sheet roofed catastrophes. “Second, I am not going to let my subjects stay in ‘homes’ that barely have a toilet. You are getting actual houses where a bathtub fits in its own room.” The people weren’t going to complain about that, even if they looked doubtful. “Next, you’re getting farms and greenhouses.”

“Why?” this time it was Melthy who wondered about this.

“‘Cause,” Sylph began palavering, having only muttered to Undine this entire time, “fields are cool! You can, like, plant flowers and stuff and flowers smell good! Good smelling flowers improve work morale, you see, so it makes me a genius to tell you to plant flowers. Also apples are tasty, so do make some apple bushes!”

“Sylph, you absolute fucknugget,” Salamander shouted at her across the table. “Apples grow on TREES!”

“Nah, they’re like potatoes!”

“POTATOES GROW UNDERGROUND!”

“Nah, they’re like melons! You know melons right? If not, look down, you have two right on your chest! Two huge, fire clad melons! I just want to… Yes, I will do that!” Sylph suddenly turned small, transformed into a lightning bolt, darted across the table, changed out of electricity shape and dived into Salamander’s cleavage. Her aim was a bit off. Rather than plop right between the boobs, she bounced off the left tit and was catapulted away. “Wheeeee!” she happily exclaimed.

Salamander groaned in exasperation.

“You know,” John commented while watching Sylph just fly off towards some cloud she seemingly found interesting. “I find it admirable that you’re still trying.”

“I just hope I learn to stop one day,” Salamander grumbled and then flew off after the younger member of the elemental crew. She wasn’t exactly needed in this meeting anyway and, left alone, Sylph was enough of an airhead to fly full speed into the edge of the barrier. There was some limit to this sky.

Stirwin jumped off the edge of the table, as if he could also fly. Barely catching him, Rave reprimanded the small guy with a boop to the snout and then scratched him between the eyes. A moment later a, totally not jealous, Copernicus appeared in her lap and demanded cuddles himself.

“To quickly answer the question: a farm is pretty vital so that you have food in case of a siege. Sorry, distractions happen a lot around m-“ There was a sudden thunderbolt that stretched across the clear sky when a bored Sylph just threw around her power. Enough power to immediately take out at least five of the gathered people. Which everyone realized and looked adequately intimidated.

If it had been John himself who had done that, they maybe would have been impressed. That it was one of his six elementals and he just stood there like it was an everyday occurrence seemingly gave them the reminder that the young guy in a suit was the Gamer and not some random renovator.

‘Well, that’s just fantastic,’ thought John, sure that everyone would now be keeping their mouths even more shut. He was surprised when he was instead met with someone raising their hand respectfully. “Yes?”

“You’re really strong, aren’t you, hairless man?”

Putting the odd choice of nickname aside, something he learned via a quick memory share was based on something Aclysia had said to the former leader and a lot of people had heard, John answered, “I would say so, yes.”

“And you would treat all of us well just because…?”

“Because I can, yes,” John waved off. “I don’t think strength is its own value. Strength is a tool to further goals in life. There are some people whose goals I don’t acknowledge as legitimate, but that’s a whole different issue. My personal goal is to make sure I leave a better world behind than I have entered.”

The people on the table nodded along until he arrived at that last point. “But why?” Melthy asked for everyone who didn’t already know John.

After a moment of thought, the Gamer decided to just be honest about it. With a broad smile and an open-armed shrug he said, “Sounds like the history books will write about me more fondly this way.”

His smile seemed to be infectious, the members of the Small Lake Pact could understand such want to eternalize themselves. It wasn’t their usual brand of expediency, but it absolutely was in line with their selfish values. “Alright, Master,” Melthy used that term only slightly teasingly, “how about we get an arena, if you want your future fights to be so much more honourable?”

“See, that’s a suggestion I can get behind,” John encouraged, and soon more began to roll in. Design of the arena to keep things fair for different fighting styles, particularly the trap based one of the region, training areas, what kind of foods should be grown on the farms, placement of the houses, a secondary tower at the south end, a designated forest area, and a whole lot of details for the garden. John only had to reserve a spot for a future teleporter. If this island was going to become some sort of centre for another member guild of Fusion, he best have a spot for easy access. He placed it very close to his planned mansion around here.

Soon the map reached completion, with a few empty spots here and there to expand into should their current space not be enough, then they got to work. They had two and a half more days to get that thing done, and now trusting that John’s intentions were genuine, everyone was motivated to lend their help. Sure, only because their own house waited for them at the end of the day, but that was good enough for John.

First, they knocked down everything, aside from the tower and the mana factory, and threw all the trash that was created in the process on a large pile. Then they ordered a massive amount of building materials on the Abyss Auction. The joke here was that John ordered all of it from himself, buying the materials that were put there by the harvests and mining operations in his own Guild Hall.

That made the Abyss Auction one very costly delivery operation.

Even the premium membership had its limit though, especially when asking for rather large quantities of heavy materials. Luckily for everyone around, even those materials were only supplements.

With Gnome around, they could create all foundations and walls out of raw stone. What they needed were things like planks, paint and insulation material. Also, John had to make a call back home so Magnus sent over a couple of Fateweavers to help with the expansion of the sewage and electricity system.

By the end of the first day, they had no completed houses, but a bunch of semi-erected buildings. Much more got done on the second day, an actual full day, with John using the Combination of Gnome and Undine, an elemental called Nadine, to control the plants. Farms sprung out of the seeds he scattered across the ground, years of caring for growing trees and bushes immediately done with. One mana intensive task followed another as he next put walkways into effect everywhere.

As requested, a southern tower was erected from stone. Hours after that was done, John went north to combine Nadine again and grow his own garden. In the meantime, everyone was outfitting his mansion. Under the guidance of Aclysia, who had won a lot of experience in the ways of construction work in her time waiting on the lake’s main island, people put together a pretty charming house over the course of a single day.

Sure, some tiles were crooked, some doors didn’t close as well as they were supposed to, the carpet didn’t always fit perfectly and they had to use different lamps for some rooms because they ran out of the one series seventy percent through the effort, but it all worked at large. They all slept in that mansion that day, although in different rooms.

The third day was hastier. They had gotten behind schedule. While the building efforts for all the houses was progressing very swiftly, thanks mostly to Gnome and second to Undine, John had vastly underestimated the time it took to outfit all of them. From the bed to the washing machine, he wanted everyone to have the basic luxuries of the western world. While not particularly costly, they could only start with this in the southern houses once the Fateweavers arrived, as they had to install new parts of the electricity grid.

On John’s request, all of the resources on the island, power and water most of all, should also be hooked up to the mana factory. That building had to be changed in some ways as well. Decorated so it looked less menacing and with all of the frankly torturous mana chargers redesigned without damaging the core mechanics.

The requested arena was built, the harbour much extended. Once the whole ship-building thing at home got into swing, John would have a few boats sent up here. Conveniently, there was a channel that connected this lake all the way to the Hudson River. Not big enough for a mega yacht, by his estimation, but a moderately sized vessel should make its way up there easily.

Although they made quite a lot of progress, with a bunch of houses completed, John was forced to admit that they would indeed need the fourth day. It wasn’t a major thing by any description, it just slightly delayed him in his plans.

Day four therefore saw all of the detail work getting done. Walls were painted, furniture moved in and assembled. Splitting themselves in teams of six, they got all of it done in a timeframe that would have made the Amish envious. Superhuman strength sure helped a lot when moving a dishwasher up some stairs.

Towards the evening of that day, they put the last screw in the last ceiling to get the last blinds to sit neatly behind the last window. Although John had just wanted to pump up the infrastructure, it had also been a remarkable team building exercise, not in small part thanks to everyone sharing meals prepared by Aclysia, and the Gamer felt like he had learned a bunch about construction work. That was an experience that could only come in handy in the future. He also made some major improvements in the contact lens department, as he did as much work as he could while training.

Then they had to actually invest a fifth day to fix all of the faulty stuff they had built. Turned out not having an actual experienced construction crew led to a bunch of small mistakes. Nothing was fundamentally wrong, Gnome knew what she did, free time artist that she was, but there were a bunch of kinks that needed ironing out.

Annoying about that wasn’t that the work itself was difficult. No, John just had to double check everything because his paranoia was triggered after a couple initial incidents. Doing that took way more time than enacting the, often quite easy, fixes.

Then, however, they had finally done it.