Chapter 1198 – Continued Conquest


    Artificial Spirits only slept when they wanted to. Claire eventually passed out due to mental exhaustion. At first, neither Aclysia nor the Gamer noticed it as she continued to sob in the initial stages of her sleep. When they eventually checked on her face again, they noticed her eyes were closed and her breathing something approximating regular.


    “I’ll need a different word for what Ironborn are,” the Gamer said quietly, after he had moved Claire into the most comfortable chair he could find. “I don’t want to use it for people I like.”


    “In contrast to my own kind, perhaps Natural Spirits would be appropriate?” Aclysia suggested.


    Jack nodded, that was a good and simple way to call them. Gently he caressed the side of Claire’s sleeping face, still wet with tears. Stepping up, the weaponized maid retrieved a towel from her inventory and carefully cleaned the vampire. While she did that, the Gamer reconsidered what exactly he wanted to do with Claire.


    Was his primary goal to have her with him or to have her deal with her aggregated trauma? Obviously, it should be the latter, but his selfish, possessive side reminded him that there was a risk that she, once mentally mended as much as their time together allowed, would choose to remain after all. He chased that thought away. Most important of all things was that he did what was best for her. If that ended with him not getting everything he wanted, then he would be unhappy, but he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Manipulating Claire into seeing her only salvation in coming with him, that would gnaw on his soul forever. Especially if that woman he tricked was in his life every single day.


    Stress of that variety was a burden best left untouched.


    ‘She knows that it’s an option, that’ll have to be enough in that regard,’ he thought and rolled his shoulders. Cuddling with her as she slept felt a bit too much, so he resorted to being around when she woke up. A plan made easier due to the room they were in. Surrounded by the archives of past traitors to the Iron Domain, the Gamer had plenty to read.


    A nai?ve thought. As he flicked through the pages of the records, reading foreign letters as if they were the symbols of his mother tongue, disappointment crept up in his mind. What he found was not a detailed recollection of how or why, not even of when, just of who and what their shortcomings were. The listings provided were neither a proper use of space per page nor a historical archive. Each letter was written with ritualistic purpose, the lines made by many hands in many different styles.


    This was an archive of who had betrayed the Iron Domain only on the second layer. Primarily, the Gamer guessed, this was part of a denunciation ritual. All who had turned against Arkeidos must have had contacts and friends among the Ironborn and those would have their loyalty tested. It was a popular tool among tyrants, particularly the smarter ones, to have someone defamed by those around them. During life, it made it harder for a coalition to build. After the death of an individual, it was a show of loyalty to the central authority.


    ‘Should I just burn this place to the ground?’ Jack asked himself, reading up on the heinous accusations made against one ‘Jarlen the Dull’. It was a title that was likely just as earned as the statement that he loved to gargle liquified grass to remember the smell of his home. The truth of these matters rested entirely in the minds of those who had written them. ‘The names written down here belong to the only people in the Iron Domain who tried to do the right thing. Doesn’t feel right to leave them to be slandered forever.’ The Gamer sighed and tilted his head back. ‘But it’s still a historical document and it might serve to demonstrate to the people why slander is bad.’


    He resolved to keep them around for the moment. After about two hours of flipping through various records, he heard the little ‘hm’ and ‘ngh’s of a person waking up. Placing the book back on the shelf, he and Aclysia returned to where they had left Claire.


    The vampiric Natural Spirit was blinking her way back to consciousness, to find John kneeling in front of her. “Hey there,” he said softly, waiting for her to do anything.


    Awkward silence hung in the room while the crimson-haired woman continued to open and close her eyes. Her first action was to rub her eyes, freeing them from what had remained of her dried tears. Then she slapped her thighs, creating a rather satisfying sound, and got on her feet. “That was easily the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, let’s forget all about it!” she declared and headed straight for the exit.


    Jack grabbed her by the wrist in passing. “Look at me,” he requested, and Claire robotically obliged. “There was nothing embarrassing about that and I meant everything I said.” With that, he let go of her. There was nothing more to be established. If she wanted to work this out on her own time, that was fine.


    “Right...” she said slowly, almost sarcastically, and then kept heading towards the exit. Jack and Aclysia followed, since there was nothing left to be learned from here. They quietly made it out of the fortress, where Claire then stopped. “Where are we going?”


    “That depends,” the Gamer told her. “Know of any more Ironborn concentrations around here?”


    “No, that was the final one.”


    “Then we’re going back to me.”


    The vampire faced Jack again, the motion again visibly forced. Eye contact was entirely avoided. Her Relationship Score was stuck at 99. It was obvious, even without the number confirming it, that she was either not sure if she allowed herself to fall in love properly or that she did not know what this new emotion really was.


    “Don’t worry about that.”


    “That doesn’t sound like me.”


    “Ja, it doesn’t, but ya still shouldn’t.” Rave reached over her shoulder and tapped his nose. “I know ya like to say I’m callous and all that...”


    “You are callous. Typical Abyssal levels of callous.”


    “...but...” Rave continued, rolling the tip of his nose with her index finger, “...let’s be real here, this world is absolutely fucked, right? I mean, no matter what we do, people will die. They’ll wage war with each other, some Ironborn might escape us and try to carve out new dominions, everyone will go cray-cray and we won’t be here for the... dunno, fifty years that’ll take to settle.”


    John sighed. “Fifty years is pretty optimistic... the last direct descendant of Genghis Khan was deposed by the Soviet Union. Deposing a hegemonic empire in a matter of weeks will have disastrous ripple effects. Deposing a world ruling empire, I imagine that’ll be even more complicated. Especially once the next generation arrives. People that don’t have their brain rotted away by Mettle.”


    “So, we agree this is gonna be awful no matter what happens.” From his nose, Rave moved to run her hand through his hair. As a man, he didn’t pay as much attention to these things, but even he noticed that the lack of modern cleansing utensils had left his short hair in a less desirable state. She brushed through it all the same. “It’s okay to be a bit selfish and wait for Claire to get here.”


    “I’m risking a lot of lives here.”


    “Alrighty, lemme be even more blunt about: the people that die don’t matter.”


    “You’re not sexy when you say that.”


    “We both know I’m right, though.” A frustrated sigh escaped her. He loved her for the fact that she was getting frustrated due to his concerns. “Don’t let like 10 percent of the people die, obviously. You’re allowed to do what ya want though, you’re saving these people. If ya don’t do that perfectly ‘cause there’s someone specifically you want to protect, that’s totally fine as far as I’m concerned.” She smirked over her shoulder. “And my opinion is the only one that matters, tiger.”


    She was wrong on principle. Reality was on her side though. There was no human who had ever acted only in the interest of the people they proclaimed to fight for. When close ones were threatened, even the greatest world leaders bent the rules to make sure to get them out of a war zone. Those actions were usually frowned upon. They meddled with ideals and fairness. They were also utterly predictable.


    In a way, it was even more moral to save a friend by letting ten unknown people die. Who would ever claim that one should care for a stranger the same way as a loved one? Only people with a lack of connections or an abundance of an agenda. “Just another balancing act of life,” John sighed.


    Rave turned around on his lap and kissed his cheek. “You’re good at those,” she complimented him. “So, we staying here?”


    “We are staying here,” he answered and offered a slight grammatical correction. “Until there is movement. Ted is relocating further north, so that’d give us extra time to react if push comes to shove. We’ll just have to wait and see.”


    “Your least favourite strategy.”


    “Depends on what I’m watching,” he said with a wink. Rave laughed and they kissed – mouth to mouth this time.


    “Now, gimme my Claire update!” the feline Lightbearer demanded. Since they had barely any ways to entertain themselves beside talking, sex and phone games, they did a lot of all of those three and the vampire continued to be the talk of the harem.


    “Well, right now...” John started reporting on what was happening.