The remains of the dismantled armour were buried. The tracking enchantment was gone and hiding it therefore became an option. So too would have been using it. While John was fundamentally opposed to the existence of Eternal Iron, it existed now. There was no way to somehow undo what had been done to the souls inside. They had been completely converted into energy. Created through immoral means, it was a powerful crafting material now. One he could at least use while he was still in the Kingdom.

Making a Creator Puppet out of it would have been an option, but one that would have taken several days. For the moment, John was content to rely on simple stone golems. It should not have a combat role anyway.

After that, they prepared to get to work immediately. John felt a certain itch in his brain, to delay and to enjoy his harem a bit more. ‘Yeah, that’s the lowkey sex addiction talking,’ he thought and shoved it down. Obviously, his lifestyle invited many temptations to become slave to his passions. As long as his will remained in control of when he indulged and when he did not, he was fine. Right now was a definitive ‘do not’ time.

He opened the Harem Comms and wrote a quick message.

John: Alright, enter now.

About thirty seconds later, Lorelei appeared alongside Ted. While the other volunteers had been guided elsewhere to get their special equipment, the general had been made to stay around. He was there now so they could properly prepare their tactics.

John may have had a plan, but he would have been a fool not to have them double-checked with the seer at hand. “Thanks for waiting,” he greeted them.

“I am grateful that I may be of use,” Lorelei bowed her head. Quietly, the general did the same.

Keeping things to the point, John quickly explained their group configuration and his reasoning. “I want you to divine the future of each member, so we might choose the best route,” he told the seer.

“May I give a word of caution first, beloved?” Lorelei asked. An urgent gesture demanded she continue. “Wars are a chaotic affair and even my divination is limited in its accuracy with all the moving parts. Take heed that you do not use my words as a crutch, but as advice.”

Strongly, the Gamer nodded. “I understand. I just want to root out the catastrophic ideas.”

“Then let me take your hands.” Happily, he raised both his arms. Their palms found one another, his larger hands resting in the hold of her soft, slender fingers. “A massive dome of unholy light spans over a fortress,” Lorelei whispered as the vision occurred to her. “The western people suffer, yet the ruler in the north is in reach.”

“Hm, guess we are rushing the northern Cardinal Bastion then,” John thought out loud. He held onto that possibility, waiting for any changes in what Lorelei foresaw. She voiced nothing, not even criticism. After a long time in the Order, she must have understood that saving the innocent could not always be prioritized. Only a fool would have tried to tend to a snakebite in the middle of a viper’s den. The goal of killing a monarch matched their next Quest as well.

Instead, Lorelei moved onto Aclysia. Divining Jack’s future would have done nothing, considering he was just an Extension of the Gamer. Both women bowed their heads slightly in respectful diligence as they put their hands together. The time that elapsed until Lorelei spoke was much longer this time. “There will be… a woman with red hair and red eyes. At the moment of greeting, she will act to your approval… and you shall aid her in her plans.”

“A woman for Master?” the weaponized maid asked, excited.

‘I was thinking more in terms of an insurrectionist, but who knows,’ John thought to himself. Finding a new potential haremette in this world would create difficulties in many ways. For the moment, he decided not to pay too much heed to it. Without a definitive answer to her question, Lorelei moved on to the last one to receive a prophecy.

“I… apologize, but I cannot see,” the seer revealed the unsurprising. “There are twisted shapes and… ow!” The seer stumbled several steps back, clutching her head. “Ow… I… the croaking, crowing cat is…”

“Don’t think about it!” John told her, feeling a hint of a headache rise when he recalled the merest hint of the Nevr’est. “Trying to comprehend it is what causes the hurt. Let it go.”

Lorelei’s jaw clenched. Visibly, she gulped. Hands clawed at the already somewhat messy braid, loosening several more hairs in the process. Then she let out a long breath. Her hands slowly relaxed. “I… must admit I would prefer not to try and divine your future again, sister,” the seer confessed, as she straightened up. “That was… unfamiliar.”

Nia took two steps forwards and hugged her fellow haremette. At first, Lorelei seemed disturbed by the contact. Perhaps because she knew Nia better than that already or perhaps because she trusted those who shared John’s love, she relaxed. “Don’t do what hurts you, Lorelei,” said the pariah, before kissing the seer on the lips and backing off. After a couple of steps, Nia vanished. Briefly she appeared about twenty metres away, then she was gone again. Her figure disappeared into the night.

The Gamer received a message on the Harem Coms, simply saying, ‘I’ll be in contact’. Shaking his head, he closed the window. “I wonder if she will find any cats in this world,” he joked.

“Prolly,” Rave stated. “Ya good for the last prophecy, Rel?”

“It was a tax on my pain tolerance, not my abilities,” Lorelei stated and stepped towards Ted. Like with the other three before, she held hands with the general. A little pang of jealousy made John feel slightly silly. Like his lust, his possessiveness certainly came with its unwanted manifestations. The might of his will suppressed the rise with the ease of stepping on a cockroach. An unpleasant sensation, yet an easy action. What she said distracted him quickly from his internal complications. “Between scraps of iron, you shall find a peer.”

“Interesting,” Ted remarked.

“So, one of the volunteers has the potential to be a general?” John asked. As he understood the line, ‘scraps of iron’ would describe the current conflict and Ted’s peer would be someone of equal rank. They desperately needed someone worthy of the promotion. “If someone among the volunteers has the magical talent to match the strength of their principles, that’ll definitely be worthwhile.”

“I will watch them closely,” the general assured.

The prophecies had been useful, to varying degrees. It gave the main group a better direction and the secondary group something to look forward to. The Gamer placed a rewarding kiss on Lorelei’s forehead. “I’ll contact you again when I need your guidance,” he told her. With the way the updated entrance system worked, it was much better for Lorelei to wait outside. Not only was she safe, but she would always manifest at John’s current position.

“As you desire, you may summon me for whatever purpose you wish,” Lorelei whispered, blushing softly. He chuckled at the lewd implications, before stepping away from her.

“If there is the time and place,” he promised her. “Ted, head back out with her. You have twelve hours to get the volunteers in order. Gnome and Undine will create safe spots with underground shelter and edible plants in the area. We’ll have a map of them ready when you return.”

“Understood.” Ted gave a firm nod and left together with Lorelei.

Addressing his haremettes, the Gamer continued, “We’re moving southeast now. There’s a small mountain range on the map that’ll do well for Ted’s base of operations. We separate after we've made it to the mainland. We’ll rush to the northern Cardinal Bastion, Aclysia and Jack will take the southern route to the eastern Kingdom of Trials. One last order: do not destroy Mettle plants we come in contact with. Horrid as it is, we need them to feed the people while we take care of the Ironborn.”

“What a fucked-up situation,” Rave hissed.

“It’ll stay a mess the longer we wait,” Momo added and hovered upwards. “Let’s go.”

­­_______________________________________________________________________________

They met no resistance. In fact, they met nobody at all.

Spurred by the need to confirm his suspicion, John had Sylph scout past the area he had originally aimed to reach. All Mettle plants in the area had been disassembled, the cities emptied. Broad paths, visible underneath the sun that finally made its way over the horizon, betrayed a mass migration of people. Arkeidos had prepared in his own way the past three days and ordered the evacuation of the Ironborn and all available resources.

Hoping that Arkeidos would be either too arrogant or too short-sighted, the Gamer had prayed that this was not the action the Emperor would take. It had also been one whose practice demonstrated just how effective a tyranny this was. The crowd moved must have been over ten thousand. Yet, the only corpses littering the way were those that had collapsed from exhaustion, not those murdered for disobedience.

A crowd like that would move slowly and John now realized that Lorelei’s prophesy likely meant that these were the western people that suffered. “Change of plans,” the Gamer reacted immediately. “Aclysia, follow the tracks. Even with their three-day head start, you should be able to catch up to them.”

“Affirmative.” The weaponized maid nodded and dashed off, the Mandala Sphere closely behind her.

A shambling caravan of ten-thousand malnourished drug addicts was quite possibly one of the slowest ways for any group of humanoids to migrate. When chased by a tireless Artificial Spirit with the speed of a highway car, chances were high that Aclysia could catch them before they reached a sheltered destination.

Regardless, it would take several hours until they could say so with certainty. Her starting position was on the western outskirts of the mountain range, where they were currently manipulating abandoned mineshafts to serve as the volunteer’s base. Mushrooms were probably not the preferred diet of the soldiers, but they could be hidden well in these dark caves. The greatest worry when it came to the food supply was that the Ironborn discovered it. In a world without agriculture, farms stood out from the plains like a graphics card in a poker game.

John could do nothing but sit around and watch the developments on the chase and the cave. He tried to relax enough to do something enjoyable in the meantime. Beyond talking and playing mundane games with his haremettes, he could not muster the necessary ease to have fun. Most of them shared those emotions. He did not hold it against the few that didn’t care and enjoyed sexual activity. Best to find release and joy where they could in this horridly depressing Kingdom.

Burning mana, the Mandala Sphere kept up with the weaponized maid, as the two of them stormed towards the city on the western shore of the strait. Aclysia was one of the slower combat haremettes, which was advantageous at the moment. What energy had to be expended to match her pace was less than half of John’s excess regeneration.

The city was of visibly higher quality than the one they had arrived in. Properly laid out streets confined the blocks of houses into a grid structure. The architecture resembled simple blocks of grey on the outer layer, mildly decorated in the in-between, and extremely luxurious towers in the centre. The three were cleanly separated by extra broad roads. ‘Creatures’ on the outside, servants in the middle, and Ironborn at the centre, a clear reflection of the Iron Domain’s hierarchy.

They passed Sylph, who was returning to the party, and ran towards their first obstacle: the destroyed bridge. It was a marvellous feat of engineering, spanning across a strait about as wide as the English Channel. Intact, it must have looked incredible. Now it was reduced to pillars, all the stretches between them having been destroyed by magical force. Many shattered chunks stuck out near the shore.

Aclysia accelerated as much as her body allowed. If there was any drawback to having a metallic body, then it was that her output was consistent no matter how much she may have strained for a burst in power. The Mandala Sphere flew ahead, a burst of mana allowing it to build up quite the distance between them.

The goal was to reach the halfway point between the first two pillars. Once there, the Mandala Sphere stopped. Aclysia stormed down the central road of the forsaken city and built up all the speed she could. Then she leapt. Even a superhuman like her could not have hoped to make it across the gap. Her arc curved into a descent.

The Mandala Sphere dashed forwards, building up speed to provide enough counter momentum that it could function as proper footing. In perfect coordination, Aclysia landed on the metal with both feet and launched off with as much momentum as she had. Pushed backwards, the Mandala Sphere had to immediately be sent more fuel so it could dash ahead again.

Aclysia hit the ground running. The top of the pillar was about twenty metres long. Enough for Aclysia to rebuild some speed, but not to let her get to full if she slowed down. With mana fuelling it, the Mandala Sphere managed to overtake her again, serving as her footing for the second jump as well. This repeated for over two dozen times, before the weaponized maid landed on the eastern shore.

Their first steps on the mainland of the Iron Domain. Steps that immediately broke out into a renewed sprint, as the two mechanical entities resumed their chase, following the marks the forcefully migrating city left behind.

While that went on, the Gamer received a window. The volunteers were ready to enter and he had no reason to push them back any longer. With a tap of a button, he let them in.

Previously uniform soldiers entered armed individually with various fantastic pieces of equipment that almost neutralized the sobriety of a military outfit. Weapons were the primary feature difference from the standard Fusion soldier issued equipment. Other dungeon drops replaced things here and there, like boots, the glove on one hand, or even whole parts of the uniform.

“Well, you look the part of the adventurers now,” John told them drily, sitting on a stone table Gnome had fashioned. Into its surface was etched a layout of the area and the various bases the earth and water spirit had scattered throughout the area over the past twelve hours. “Each of you, take a photo with your smartphone. Then we destroy this map.”

Thanks to the Iron Domain’s lack of technology, a smartphone’s basic password was a more powerful encryption than any magical seal. Even if they weren’t destroyed, the enemy would not know what to do with them. Each of the soldiers made a photo – as did Medelnick. The Gamer grabbed the rotund Apothecary by the arm.

“You do not operate outside of Ted’s or my orders,” the Gamer warned him. “I will not have your presence give away any location, understood?”

“Understood,” the Apothecary responded, sounding surprisingly reasonable. Plainly, he was pleased he had gotten this far.

John let go; as long as that was understood, there was nothing more he could do. Little as he liked his personal, asexual doctor being here, Medelnick’s medical expertise was undeniable and may come in clutch when it came to keeping these people alive.

Next, the Gamer looked over the volunteers. “Timothy, Elervain,” he addressed two of the soldiers, who were still at attention. “You two have powers that can spur on plant growth, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Timothy responded immediately.

“Sort of, sir.” Elervain looked at his president and clarified when John made a questioning gesture, “My Innate Ability allows me to increase vitality, sir. It makes plants healthy; it does not spur on their growth.”

“I see. Then your job will be to try and replenish the soil, more so than making the crops grow.” The Gamer stood up. “The Creator Puppet will give the rest of the briefing.” He gestured at the golem of rock, filled with his own mind. “It’s a lesser extension of mine. You can somewhat rely on it in case of an Ironborn ambush, but besides physical power it offers nothing.”

“As I said,” the Creator Puppet spoke, using John’s voice. It felt a bit weird, still, because this one only had his likeness insofar as the form of the features went. It continued to speak, while John and the harem left the base. “I want all of you to remember that your mission here is primarily to create a suitable living environment. I don’t know how much time we will have here after Arkeidos is taken care of. We have to provide the crops necessary for a Mettle-free existence.”

“I brought the seeds,” Ted confirmed.