The Gamer Chapter 1148 – The Iron Domain (Patreon)

The Baroness was of a similar aesthetic as Ramun. Her body resembled that of an undead eternalized through metal, rather than bones, and a pair of breasts served to prove that she was female. There were a couple of other aesthetic choices she dared to make, elevating her above the Lord, such as streaks of gold inlaid into her cast iron form and a pair of almost human eyes. She moved without the artificial stiffness Ramun imposed on himself. When it came to power differential, she was level 76, 26 levels higher. Still nothing to be alarmed about.

The Mandala Sphere hovered above the outside of the large, spherical entrance gate. Between the metal aesthetics and the smog, it could easily be mistaken as a design element. Through it, John could confirm that Kalmira had come on her own. An incredibly trusting act, pointing towards a long streak without rebellions.

“What… odd creatures you have brought along,” Baroness Kalmira remarked, after she had greeted Metra. She and Ramun sat down at a large, bronze conference table in the centre of the floor. The First of Wrath was already seated there. “They show none of the appropriate respect. They do not even face their betters.”

The remark was aimed at John, who was looking out of the window and at two outlines in the fog. One was a guard; the Gamer had watched them advance forwards. The other could have been anything. A confused, drugged peasant. A sick passer-by. A desperate mother, going to the richer areas of the city to plead for scraps. It didn’t really matter what variety of horrible it was.

‘Just follow the script for now,’ the Gamer mentally instructed Metra.

“Ignore them, I just like to keep them around for entertainment,” the ancient weapon said, foregoing the odd voice this time around.

“We all elevate some creatures beyond their mettle.” Kalmira nodded understandingly. “I would ask that you at least request permission before bringing such badly disciplined beings into our homes. They must understand their place.” Hesitating, as if this was something unreasonable to request, she then asked, “May I ask for your rank, at least, esteemed visitor?”

“Duchess,” Metra responded and got nods from both of them.

‘Lucky for us,’ John thought. The noble ranks mirrored those of medieval Europe and a duke was next up above a baron. It had, however, been a pure guess whether this actually applied.

“Duchess…?” Kalmira kept asking. “I am terribly sorry to pressure you, I would like to know.”

“Duchess Metra,” the First of Wrath responded. “I come from a distant province. I wanted to explore the seas, but a storm caused us to get lost and we ended up here.”

“A… storm…?” Kalmira asked, doubt ringing in her voice.

“Yeah, a storm,” Metra insisted. “Anyway, it’d be nice if you could show me a map so I can orient myself.”

“…Certainly, but the realm is vast, we need to know what duchy you’re home in to point you to it,” Kalmira stated.

It was obvious, even without Observe, that she had caught on that something was off. That it had even taken this long was valuable information in and of itself. Obviously this current system was stable and the honour code between nobles strictly adhered by, to the point that lies between them were so uncommon that the party could make it this far with sloppy excuses. Now that the jig was up, John felt no remorse about dropping the act.

“Do tell me, do you care for us ‘creatures’?” he asked. “About the misery outside?”

Kalmira stared at his back, while he continued to stare out of the window. “Have you been raised in isolation?” she asked, obviously confused. “All know: misery is the womb of the Ironborn.”

“I see.” John had his hands in his pockets and pondered. Was there a way to extract the information he wanted without hostilities? Did he even care to implement it? As the guard outside returned with a bloody sword in hand, his answer was made certain. He turned around and walked to the table. He sat down.

“Insolent…!” Ramun had obviously had it by now and shot up out of his seat. A lightning bolt flew at John. Whether lethal or punitive didn’t matter, the spell was neutralized effortlessly by Particle Skin. “Wha-“ the Ironborn started.

“Sever his lower body, Aclysia,” John instructed calmly.

The maid was already eager to jump into action. Eclys cut effortlessly through the cast iron waist of the Ironborn. Without time to react, Ramun screamed in confusion, when his lower half landed with a loud ‘BANG’ on the metal floor. Everything up from the severed midriff was held by the clawing grip Aclysia had on the male’s skull. All of it had happened before he or the Baroness could react.

“Don’t even try to run,” John told her. “You wouldn’t get out of the chair.”

“Who are you?” Kalmira asked, her eyes darting between the Gamer, Aclysia, and Metra. “Why are you aiding him? An unascended…”

“He’s my king,” Metra responded and rose from the table to point the tip of Rex Magnar at the Baroness. “And I’m pretty sick of the disrespect you show him.”

Somehow, that statement seemed to slightly relax the Baroness. “King? Excuse me, I did not recognize you under that skinsuit. Which of the four do I have the honour of meeting?”

“None,” John stated. He didn’t feel like repeating futile attempts at covert tactics. “Beatrice, please make sure the maids downstairs stay uninterested in whatever happens up here.”

“As you wish, Master.” She obeyed with a bow and headed for the stairs.

“Then who are you?” Kalmira wanted to know again.

“I don’t answer your questions,” the Gamer made clear. The Baroness hissed. Pressure in the room began to swell, pressing on John’s eardrums. Before it got uncomfortable, it suddenly vanished again. In its place, Nia’s alien presence dominated the room.

“What is she?!” Ramun screeched in sudden panic. Magical beings always reacted with additional panic to pariahs, and if they hadn’t met one before, even this much would cause them immense distress.

“You’ll tell me everything I want to know,” John asserted.

“Why would I?” Kalmira returned, her metallic voice sounding as if she clenched her teeth. “I’m Ironborn, loyal to the Emperor and his Iron Domain, there is no torture you can inflict on my body.” Ramun, still dangling from Aclysia’s grip, echoed the announcement. Half his body was gone, but he felt no pain.

“Traditional torture would indeed not work on you, but I have my ways,” John remarked and pointed at Nia. The fingers of his other hand drummed on the tabletop. ‘Am I really doing this?’ he asked himself. Generally, torture went against his principles. A sadistic part of him very much looked forward to punishing such obvious evil. There was still a chance that he was missing some wider context that made all of this a morally grey situation. He decided to go with threats before he went all out on inflicting torment. “Alright, let’s slow this down. You must understand, I’m not from here. I come from beyond the ‘Iron Domain’, as you called it.”

“Impossible,” Kalmira declared.

John made a long gesture at himself. “Yet here I am. You can just tell me the things everyone should know about your world and my Nia won’t have to keep up the anti-magic.” To underline his words, Nia upped her pressure on this part of the Kingdom. The bronze all around them gradually turned greyish, as colour was drained by the blank’s presence.

“You must… answer some of my questions… in return…” Kalmira demanded.

“Alright,” John relented, to make this whole thing smoother. The anti-magic field vanished suddenly and the two Ironborn gasped with relief. “I’ll start: what is the Iron Domain? Do you have a map of it?”

“No, I will start, creature!” the Baroness declared and then screamed when a sword was rammed through the back of her seat and her chest. A mixture of green and purple mana played around the tip of Eclys’ silver-white blade, after it emerged. The scream of the Baroness continued for longer than was appropriate for surprise and energy flickered uncontrolled past the gaps in her ribcage.

“Aclysia!” John admonished his weaponized maid. “You hit her core!”

The hateful glare of the servant turned sorry upon hearing that. Not because she had harmed Kalmira, that had been the goal anyhow, but because she had almost murdered their informant. “I apologize, Master,” she said and mildly lowered her head as she withdrew her katana.

‘Guess physical torture is on the table after all,’ the Gamer thought to himself, listening to the screech Kalmira let out while the weapon left her.

“I ask first,” John asserted again.

“Alright,” the Baroness responded, meeker now. The reminder of her mortality must have made her willing to play along.

“So, a map?” he picked up where he had been interrupted.

“Ramun, do you possess a map?” Kalmira asked.

“Baroness, I advise against answering this cre- his questions,” the Lord said.

“He’ll see the respect we are owed upon laying eyes on the Iron Domain,” she told her subordinate. “Whether he learns it from us here or later makes no difference.”

‘Finally, some common sense,’ John thought.

Ramun responded in an unwilling tone, “I have a map upstairs.” Retrieving it was a short affair. Using the halved Ironborn as her guide, Aclysia fetched the paper from above. Once she was back, she placed Ramun in one of the seats and sprawled the map out on the conference table.

“Read the names of the places to me,” John demanded.


‘So that’s the word for ‘kingdom’… seven letters, so is it only the shape that is different?’ John pondered the names for a little bit. ‘The first and second O in ‘Oppression’ look slightly different. Do they capitalize by adding these little hooks?’

“Lovely place names they have in this world,” Rave remarked, while her boyfriend figured out the language. “What?” she asked when he gave her a dead, mildly disappointed stare.

“This world?” Kalmira asked, letting Rave know where she had screwed up.

“Whoops,” was all the Lightbearer had to say for herself. She made big eyes at her boyfriend. “Ya can’t be mad at me, I’m cute.”

He let out a resigned sigh. “The thing is: you’re right.” Facing Kalmira, he continued, “I said we’re not from around. I just didn’t say how far away we are from.”

“Then you truly know nothing of the Iron Domain,” she responded. “Hear then, foreign being, that you are in the realm of the Revenant-Emperor, he who unified the world and he who forges from weak flesh the Ironborn, his servants in eternity.”

“Right… so this is the entirety of this world?” John asked, unimpressed by the spiel.

“That is correct, our Emperor unified us all.”

“And it is by his will that the people live in these conditions?”

“Creatures deserve no better and misery is the womb of the Ironborn.”

“And you support this system?”

“I rose from the muck and achieved immortality in his service.”

“And that service entails what? Fighting off invaders from other worlds?”

“Whatever the Emperor demands.”

John rubbed his forehead. “Let me reformulate: is there anything dangerous you protect the people from? Is there any reason, outside of keeping them in misery, to keep them in these conditions?”

“What other reason would be required?” Kalmira asked. “The Emperor searches for the worthy among the creatures. No other pursuit matters.”

‘Right, no moral grey here then,’ John realized. ‘That makes things easier.’ “Alright, what about…?”

John drilled further on whatever topics came to mind. Most important were details about the power structure. Apparently it had been in place for almost a thousand years, imposed by the same Emperor who still ruled and who held the secret to turning regular souls into the kind of crystal cores used to create Artificial Spirits (or, since these were not artificial at all, Ironborn).

Directly underneath the Emperor served four Kings or Queens, each governing over a kingdom covering one of the four cardinal directions. The compass John had held earlier always pointed towards the Eternal Fortress, where the Emperor resided.

Each kingdom was further subdivided into three archduchies. After that, there was no exact number anymore. Kalmira said there were about five Dukes serving each Archduke, and three Barons per Duke, who had about ten Lords under them. Positions of power were only held by Ironborn, with their exact position in the hierarchy being decided by duels and, if he took an interest, the Emperor.

‘Powers in the Abyss generally move along a Pareto distribution, with differences maximizing towards the extreme,’ John thought. ‘Assuming this is true here too and that the millennia has served them well enough with sorting the structure out according to power, I guess I can assume that each rank has a power difference double that to the previous rank. That means we’re dealing with roughly 1800 level 50 Lords, 180 level 75 Barons, 60 level 125 Dukes, 12 level 225 Archdukes, 4 level 425 Kings and 1 level 825 Emperor… that would be an issue.’

If John’s math was correct, the Iron Domain was a power that could count among the Divided Gates, had it been back on Earth. For a realm unified for a thousand years and with access to universal immortality, it had produced a remarkably low number of capable fighters though. One had to wonder how much potential was actually wasted in the toxic smog or the various rebellions that had doubtlessly popped up over the centuries.

The final question he got answered was in regards to Mettle. Apparently, it was a drug that simultaneously provided sustenance and did permanent damage to the user. There were no fields, because everyone was permanently roided up from a young age. At least here, the western archduchy.


“Do you understand now, king of another world?” Kalmira asked. “Our emperor is the true liberator and even if you can dominate us lesser Ironborn, we are mere cogs in a glorious machine.”

“How about you tell me more about the greater cogs in this machine then?” John asked. “The Kings, their names, their abilities, and all of that?”

“No,” Kalmira responded. “I’ve told you what all know. That must be enough for you. Leave the way you came or offer peace to the Emperor.”

John considered torturing out of her what else she could tell him, but decided against it. She was truthful when she said she was a fairly minor part in the machine, so the secrets she was privy to were likely small. At the same time, she was a willing part of this system and John saw only one path towards cleaning this mess of a world up. “Kill them,” he ordered.

Aclysia and Metra ended the two Ironborn with swift strikes.