Chapter 1195 – Liberation Campaign Finale – Consolidating the Gains
‘Weirdly enough, I like that she’s damaged,’ John thought as he walked through the desert. ‘She felt suspiciously unblemished for someone who went through this.’ He stopped atop a dune and looked down at a sandstone valley. ‘Or maybe my taste in women has been thoroughly warped to be attracted to crazies.’
Tattered cloth from tents and flags fluttered in the gust that rolled over the dunes. Sand sprayed onto the ruins of what must have been a campsite not too long ago, but now consisted only of wrecked items and half-buried bodies. What John saw was only the surface of it and he did not feel the need to dig up the shrivelled husks that had once been people. A quarter of his mind distracted himself with the conversation he had a world over with this new and fascinating woman.
“All I’m saying is that I have no understanding of fashion whatsoever. I just saw that ‘maid outfit’ and it clicked. Glad you like how I look in it.” He heard all of that through Jack and answered suavely that her fashion sense could not have been that rotten if she picked up on the superiority of the black and white uniform. Their back and forth continued from there.
Five percent of his mind observed what was going on with the volunteer force. There wasn’t much to follow over there. Nothing unusual had happened and Ted was coordinating the efforts properly. The Creator Puppet was primarily a permanent lookout and occasional lifter of heavy stuff.
The remaining seventy percent of his mind were dedicated to keeping up with what his harem he could be in contact with. Interesting as Claire was, attracted as he was to her, his love for his current women was undiminished. Even between them, the optimistic vampire was the talk of the town. A pleasurable distraction from the misery that was so omnipresent everyone was dull to it by now.
‘Seriously though, my perverted Master, why are you chasing after a woman during a mission to save a woman that you can then salivate after?’ Momo wanted to know.
‘Well, you know how it is, fate takes strange turns,’ John responded to her. ‘Plus, I’m not chasing her right now. That was a genuine offer to give her a road into the future.’
‘Uhm, stupid question... but what would she do if she stayed here?’ Gnome asked. ‘I didn’t follow that bit.’
‘If I read her correctly, after she burned this whole empire to the ground, she would kill herself,’ John presented what he had gleaned of her motivation. ‘She’s basically living out the mantra of ‘if everything is doomed, why worry about it?’ at the moment.’
Salamander hummed into the mental connection. ‘How immoral would it be if I bet she crashed into being an entirely different personality after she gets the fuck out of here?’
‘Very immoral,’ Momo responded.
‘C-can we not bet on the emotional wellbeing of people?’ the season elemental added.
‘What are we wagering?’ Siena asked.
‘Typical shit, loser has to do one thing the winner demands.’
‘Then I will wager that she will retain her outwardly cheerful attitude.’
‘Girls! Could you not?’ Gnome tried to reign in the rebellious elements with a rare surge of assertiveness. ‘She deserves... she deserves cuddles! Growing up in this place must be near Eliana levels of suffering and you are over here betting on how she would react being in a safe environment the first time in her life! That’s so m-mean!’
‘You do have a point,’ Salamander responded. ‘But first off, we are not doing it to her face, and second off, we are fucking bored.''
‘...This is getting way too fucking abstract for me,’ Metra confessed, sounding unconvinced.
John couldn’t blame her, neither for the tone nor the statement. Property and fairness were concepts laden with subjective projections. ‘Let’s just say that it is useful to consider that some things cannot be ironclad laws,’ he told her. ‘And that there is beauty to find that no one can deny you. No matter how horrible the world is, there is always a way for you to find something good. Even if that doesn’t appear to be true, it’s best to assume it is, because what are you going to do otherwise?’ The Gamer walked around a lone woman lying in the sand, raw Mettle dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. She was alone, sedated, and entirely at the whims of the environment and people around her.
‘That works for me,’ Metra budged on that point. It wasn’t the first time they had a conversation like this and it wouldn’t be the last. There were some fundamental worldview differences between the two of them that could not be equalized. Creating bridges between them was interesting and productive, however. She benefited from the reminder that higher ideals enabled progress and he benefited from the reminder that base violence was necessary for authority.
A balance of views was always appropriate.
He turned his mental attention to Jack and Claire again. Aclysia had returned and the three of them were talking about the leisurely topic of food. The vampiric Ironborn had a lot of interest in it because she didn’t understand it. The only tastes she knew were that of Mettle, blood, and iron. The concept of ‘sweet’ was alien to her.
With the minor depression that revelation caused, John stepped into the last fortress of the north. The current Adventure Quest completed that instant. All three provinces of the Kingdom of War had fallen to him in the span of six days, counting from his initial assault on the Cardinal Bastion. In total, it had been eighteen days since he first set foot into the Iron Domain.
‘Seems like we are getting closer,’ John thought. In terms of combat, fulfilling this Quest would mean he was done with this world. Standard quest design would usually send him to the three other Kingdoms first, but games had the advantage that enemies stayed put and could be designed to be a gradual increase in difficulty. Neither was true for the Iron Domain. It was all about Arkeidos.
John made his way inside the fortress and ran into an Ironborn. Of the two, the monstrous humanoid was more surprised. With superior speed, the Gamer secured a grip on the Duke’s skull and severed it from the body with a quick Arcana Ray. Tossing aside metal, John charged up the Arc Lance destined to pierce the now headlessly stumbling Ironborn’s heart.
The person who had driven the Ironborn right into John’s hands appeared around the corridor. Dismissing his spell, John just watched as his girlfriend stormed towards the target. The horrible screeching of violently reshaping and scratching metal dominated the corridor. A flare of heat warmed John’s chest before the hard light claws that had emerged from the Duke’s chest cooled down and then were dismissed entirely.
Rave pulled her arm back. Like a kid probing a domino, she gave the upright corpse a little tap and then watched as it fell over. Rattling, the metal remains came to a rest on the floor, allowing the feline Lightbearer to take half a step forward. “Missed you, tiger,” she greeted her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I missed you too,” he responded and smiled at her adorable face. They hadn’t seen each other in five days. Although she was covered in dirt and dust from the travels, her hair looked as perfectly messy as ever. Not even the neon pink colour was compromised, harmonizing nicely with her self-cleaning bodysuit. Her eyes changed from copper to blue, as Copernicus separated from her and, without any word, tapped to somewhere else in the fortress.
Gently, he took hold of her chin. His heart beat faster when she closed her eyes and tilted her head in invitation. Dirty as her pink lips may have been, John still bowed forwards and kissed them without hesitation. The minty taste typical to her was greatly diminished. It had been a, thoroughly deliberate, manifestation of her daily routines – almost all of which were upended by their current task.
Invigorated by true love, the Gamer felt his soul rise from the muck of the past week. The misery of the world. The thoughts of punishment running through his head. The terrible tales Claire reported with the tone of a common occurrence. All of those burdens he carried with him, made easy to lift by the spirit she supported. Her hand found the collar of his shirt and held on demandingly. Their lips stayed in contact. Their breathing synchronized. Discordant and ever pondering thoughts were quiet.
He was where he was supposed to be.
When it felt right, when both of them quietly agreed, they pulled back. He rested his forehead on hers. She whispered, “Let’s go take a bath. I need someone to wash my back.”
“We can do that,” he agreed.
They could discuss what to do next in comfort.