The Nerd Turned Conqueror: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Oscar Reeds

  “Whom you’ve defeated, easily so might I add,” he added mightily. “You also have enemies here on Earth, yet somehow, your circle of friends stays the same.”

  I looked at the door where Melissa took off. It felt rotten.

  “Yes, friends come and go, Conrad. My earliest best friend was a dude called Joe in my early elementary school days. We were inseparable for the first two years. Nowadays I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

  He then pointed to himself.

  “Same with marriage. Sure, some people stay together until one or both die, but a lot of them end in sheer separation. We both know how devastating that can get.”

  “This isn’t really helping my case with Melissa, dad,” I interrupted, but he shushed me.

  “Conrad, my point is – go on with your life. Take the good and the bad, learn from both, improvise, adapt, overcome.” Yup, he loved that show.

  “But what of the people I killed?” I asked.

  “Casualties of war, Conrad.”

  “Even if I specifically make them to end their life during an invasion?”

  David paused for a moment, but then shook his head. “If you created soldiers, then you did nothing improper. A soldier’s sole duty is to fight and die for his motherland. Those people you made knew damn well what they were getting into.”

  “Yet my underlings fear me,” I said.

  “Talk to them, appease them, make them feel welcome and keep it that way.”

  “My bully also said something about wanting me to get stronger…”

  “Then you convert the bully to an ally by means of discussion.”

  I was running out of talking points, but not tears.

  “I want to get our life back on track, dad!” I squealed, and he embraced me again.

  “Conrad… Son… Your life will be long and arduous,” he said, wiping my tears, which I hated considering how old I was. “Just go with the flow and don’t think TOO much about it. Some thinking is fine, though.”

  He grinned, which oddly didn’t bother me that much. After a moment of silence, he accepted my apology, and at long last, we were a proper family again.

  Chapter 11

  Five days from then, I was walking down the street and talking to somebody via my earphones. Norman was observing.

  “No, Teller, I’m telling you, the shipment with the emeralds should go by the Petersons’ estate! That’s where I ordered seventeen massive containers…don’t talk back to me, damn it! You know what I can do to you… Okay… Alright… Okay… Mhm… I told you already, Giraud is in charge of the logistics… I don’t give a shit about Steve from accounting! That prick is fired, for all I care... Mhm... Okay… That’s right… There you go. Very good. Talk to you in an hour.”

  I slammed the phone in my pocket. He was curious.

  “Want to know what that was about, Norman?” I asked. “Well, the shipments we made from Zoav—”

  “Kid, I already know,” he said, not impressed. “I was there. I am everywhere you are, remember?”

  I shrugged.

  “Eh, figured I could use the opportunity to talk to you.”

  “There’s really not that much to talk about. I’ve seen your successes, and I laughed at your failures.” I didn’t like the grin on his face when he said that. “And now I want to see how you’ll conquer Earth.”

  “Yeah, my conquest of Earth will be grand,” I said, and with a snap of my fingers, a few hundred thousand winged men who shared my sight and hearing went for the Middle East. “Mainly because I don’t intend to conquer it regularly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Norman, conquest by battle is, as you’ve seen yourself, merely one way to do it. With Earth, I plan on using finesse.”

  Another snap of my fingers, and most of my newly-made super-fast warriors ran to China. The rest I’ve sent to Singapore.

  “I’ll go region by region, house by house if necessary, and—”

  And that’s where I stopped talking. Right there, before me, I saw Melissa wearing possibly the most sensible outfit I saw her wear. Judging by the bags under her eyes, she didn’t really masturbate last night.

  “Oh hi, hon,” I said. She didn’t respond. “Erm, hon?” Still nothing. “Mel?” Not a word. “Melissa?”

  “Conrad, please don’t call me Mel anymore,” she concluded. I guess we were on a break now, Friends-style. Neither one of us particularly liked it, but it was what it was.

  “So what, we can’t even talk now?” I asked, a little angry. She scoffed at this. “What? What?!”

  “You can talk, but I doubt you’ll say anything that will fix any of this.”

  It was only then that I noticed the suitcase.

  “Mel, where…where are you going?”

  “Don’t call me Mel, damn it!” she huffed. “I’m going to Norway.”

  “Why Norway?”

  “Because I have a cousin there and I can get a job and earn a living.”

  “I didn’t know you spoke Norwegian.”

  “There are plenty of things you don’t know about me, Conrad,” she said, slowly moving forward. “One of those is that I cannot forgive easily.”

  I grabbed her hand. She still stood her ground, and even turned to me, a little angry.

  “And now what, Conrad? Are you going to brainwash me into staying with you?”

  I said nothing, which shocked Norman for some reason.

  “I thought so. Now leave me alone and goodbye.”

  If anyone had told me that my first ever girlfriend and I would end our relationship like this, I wouldn’t have believed them. Janine then came out from behind a corner. She was eavesdropping, so it’s no wonder she blushed out of embarrassment when I confronted her about that.

  “Look, Conrad,” she said, wiping the sweat of her forehead, “you ought to let her go. She just won’t relent.” She then hugged me, the kind of hug the same Janine who used to bully and tease me would never perform. “You need yourself proper company.”

  She was right, of course. So I used my powerful new teleporters, courtesy of Girodian and Valah technology mixed with Cotahi materials, and summoned the one woman who connected with me on that level without me having to use powers on her, my fair empress Endolande.

  She was a little shocked, but still pleased and even a little flirty. We teleported to my room, with nobody home. Well, other than Yukio, but she was in her room earning camming cash.

  “What took you so long, my emperor?” she asked, smirking.

  “It’s…” and right there, she frowned – I could tell she was not about to like me moping.

  “It’s Melissa, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “It is…well, it isn’t.”

  She was confused.

  “I mean, we’re not a thing anymore.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  “Needy.”

  She didn’t speak. One motion of her hand and she was already undressing me. It didn’t take long for me to be as hard as a rock, and soon enough she was on her hands and knees. The first penetration was a bit painful for her. She had evidently forgotten how anal felt, but she didn’t complain. No pun intended, she took it like a champ.

  But it wasn’t just painful, rough sex. Seconds later, we were making out, and no sooner did that end that I was in her embrace, still sulking.

  “My emperor,” she said, but then shifted gears. “Conrad, darling, you have to move past this.”

  “But how can I? She was the first to show affection to me…”

  “You have my affection, don’t you?”

  I waved her off.

  “No, I mean she was the first to propose a friendship. She was the first to speak to me while I was still looking like a fat, unappealing slob! How can I just let her go after that?!”

  She shushed me.

  “You just have to, Conrad…” she whispered.

  ***

  Gi
rodians set up tons of monitors around Knee Dahcologne, as well as recording devices. Considering the crowd size after my return, they had to keep track of everything that was going on down there. The massive and easily switchable monitor in my room made it easy for me to pay attention to the transport.

  “Sir, we’re ready to move the rocks and the sand,” an Ehre merchant said, which I approved with my finger and switched the channel to the Cotahi who were packaging more collapsed star fragments.

  “Progress report?” I asked, emotionless, though Endolande in my arms and under the covers really didn’t make it seem so.

  “Three more rounds and we’re done with this quadrant, sir,” the Cotahi in charge reported. Now it was time to observe my family.

  “Iana, what news do we have from Cybornia and Girodia about my children?”

  “I got some now, sir,” she said, busier than ever. “One litter sadly died upon extraction due to the poor conditions of the pods. That storm we had wasn’t too kind on our instruments.”

  I sighed.

  “Give them a proper burial and start on a new batch of the Valahs instead. How old are the ones that made it?”

  “All approximate sixteen years of age, and can therefore serve you either in battle or physical labor, sir.” Her eyes never left her sizable folder.

  “Very good. Connect me to Zoav, I have trouble reaching them.”

  Fawkes answered, and as always, he was lazing about.

  “Hey there, Con,” he said. To this day I swear he sounds Texan when he speaks.

  “Hello, Fawkes. How are the mines doing?”

  “We just got some news from the Clovier sector. They plan on placing sanctions on our products.”

  Bastards. But I didn’t have time to rage about that.

  “And what of manufacturing?”

  “Still steady. The weaponry the Valahs modified really does the trick. Not to mention that those Gidorian fluids that regrow resources are just stunning – we’ve made a bigger turnout during this week alone than we did for seventeen years back!”

  “Awesome, Fawkes. Keep it up.”

  “Will do, bro.”

  It felt nice to have a close friend like Fawkes out there, in space. But I also had to concentrate on friends here.

  “Dad, how are we doing with the shipping?”

  Dad was discussing some matters with Tohrumi, two businessmen and two Ehre. He was a bit stunned when I called.

  “Oh, oh, Conrad, we’re a bit behind schedule. We don’t have a whole lot of manpower to move this fast enough.”

  A snap of my fingers and a hit of my teleporter, and roughly twenty workers, each with the strength and speed of twenty times twenty Dahrmites, began to perform the arduous tasks of physical transport. Dad gave me the OK, and I turned my screen off for a second. I called Janine on the phone.

  “Hey, Jan,” I muttered, “ok-ing” a message from Gene who was overseeing repairs of busted ships. “How are we looking?”

  “Hey, Conrad. We’re not quite there yet. The paperwork between our local governor, the president of Singapore, and the Clovier 5 diplomats seems to contain several…issues.”

  “Anything I should know about?”

  “I will fax them to you in a minute or so. Get that Ehre lawyer to help you go through with it.”

  “You mean Pete Docket Samson?”

  “The same.”

  “Will do. Over and out, Jan.”

  “Talk to you later, sweety.”

  John’s following unread message could wait, as could Petra’s constant invites to see Dwyer. I have no idea why it was so important to see him now, considering he didn’t bother to appear earlier, when others did. Whatever his “business” was, apparently it took up a lot of time.

  Norman looked disappointed, sighing.

  “What’s wrong, Norman?” I asked, trying to care.

  “You’re a waste.”

  I didn’t really understand this short sentence, but it made me angry nonetheless.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you’re a waste, kid,” he was now hovering over the floor, as if he were walking about the room. “A complete and utter disappointment.”

  “Those are some heavy words there, Norman. Care to tell me why you’ve decided to shower me with insults now?”

  He shook his head.

  “You do realize that half of the powers you conjured up are worthless to you now, right?”

  I was confused.

  “Is there a limit?”

  “No, there isn’t a limit, and that’s how I know you’re wasteful. Tell me, why are you hauling so many resources?”

  “For money.”

  “Yet you can create money already.”

  He was right. I was able to craft any currency, and any quantity of it.

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Not to mention that you already had enough powers to either yank the money from others or to simply use them to EARN money.”

  Of course he had a point, but I wasn’t about to let him win the argument.

  “Yeah, but this is just…it’s a testament of what I’m capable of!”

  “Kid, you could have won any of those planets by just overwhelming them with billions of other creatures,” he concluded. “No weapons, no teleportation, not even your telekinesis. Just overwhelming force.”

  “What’s it to you, though?”

  “Not a damn thing,” he said, coldly. “It’s just a bit disappointing to watch.”

  I really wanted to punch him.

  “You are a nuisance, do you know that?”

  “Indeed. And how would you have won a few of those key planets without my prior knowledge?”

  “Yeah, mind sharing some of that, though?” I was both sarcastic and pissed off. “I’m not exactly a mind-reader, and I know you cannot really make me into one. So how can I know what to do and what not to do? I didn’t exactly have a list of powers with me.” Then I stood up defiantly and wagged my finger at him. “And besides, you barely told me anything about you, anyway! How can a human like you know so much about all of those planets? How old even are you?!”

  “Trust me, those are questions you don’t want answered,” he maintained his cool, which enraged me all the more.

  “Well that’s just great! It’s like talking to a fucking brick wall!”

  “Then you’re at an advantage. Since I am here talking to a child.”

  I hurled a chair at him, and it bounced off of the nearby wall. He got under my skin, and I didn’t like it.

  “Norman, I swear to God, I…” then I saw my onscreen beeper go off. “Ugh, it’s the Pentagon again.”

  I got up to the screen and pressed one button. Spot on, before me stood about twenty generals, at least. None of them was under fifty.

  “Are you Emperor Conrad, the so-called Conqueror of Seven Worlds?” one of them asked, and judging by the Girodian identification software, he was called General Peter Stark.

  “Oh, I have a few more titles than that, General Stark,” I said impudently. His surprise was something I would never forget. However, he quickly regained composure and continued talking.

  “I’ll be brief, young man. Your propositions in terms of economy and future integration into the greater universe…” and instantly I hated those words; that was the terminology they used in Washington and Brussels, the whole “future integration into the greater universe” shit. I merely called it opening up to the cosmos. The rest of his rambling went something along the lines of “you’re bad, we’re good, you’re a tyrant, we’re liberators,” etc.

  “Hey, I can’t help it if my ideas are a little ahead of yours,” I grinned. “I mean, you’re young, you’ll understand soon enough.”

  God, I loved pissing off officials, especially military personnel. A different general spoke, one called Don Hatfeld.

  “So-called Emperor Conrad—” he began, and didn’t like my following i
nterruption.

  “I AM an emperor, general Hatfeld. Keep that in mind, for your own good.”

  He hated me at that moment.

  “Whatever. Look here, we’re not ready to give ourselves up to your demands, especially since we have the power and the freedom to fight back. Your tyranny will never bring anything good to the world!”

  I opened up a screen behind me that had a massive world map on it.

  “The Middle East is now under my supervision. None of the warring groups wants to fight any of the others. I did the same in the Balkans, in Spain, in India, in Latin America, in the vast majority of Africa, and even at Hawaii.”

  “What happened at Hawaii?”

  “They were lazy.”

  The screen was showing scenes of peace, of people working together with the aliens to build better tech and advance the human condition. Already major rivers such as the Indus and the Yangtze were rid of pollution, and several extinct species of wildlife were reclaiming the virgin lands of the planet’s national parks. I was getting this planet results, but they weren’t having it.

  “I even provided resources for everyone, so we can work together on reinforcing our planet, my dear generals,” I concluded, but they refused to listen.

  “Boy,” a particularly enraged general Croxe Fexenxarxandhxx, a man with far too many X’s in his name, hissed at the screen “you best remove your troops from the continental US, or we shall be forced to open fire.”

  I was laughing out loud so much my new chiseled midriff ached.

  “You really dare challenge the man who conquered eight planets in less than a week or so? You guys are not very bright!”

  But they weren’t bright. Nor were they kidding. Immediately after my threat, one of the generals yelled out a command, and a massive explosion took place around one of the main portals distributing lapis lazuli to Knee Dahcologne. I was shocked – no wonder Dahrmites considered humanity among the bottom races in the known universe.

  Yet, before I went anywhere, I had a few surges to take from Norman.

  “Care to do a little homebrew bloodshed, Norman?” I asked.

  Naturally, all I needed was to see that grin of his, and I knew he was on board.

  The US army spared no expense. Powerful fighter jets were shelling most of my facilities, though to no avail. Naturally, the shields the Girodians made were absolutely spectacular and allowed for no bullets or explosions to penetrate them. Most of my factories and transport stations had thus remained untouched. However, the constant shelling made trade impossible, not to mention that they also issued sanctions on every country which began trading with us. The US president himself called me, openly stating that he did not authorize this move and that the military acted upon their own accord. That little council of generals was effectively in power now.