Chapter 258: Scanning the Kingdom

Iron and Liana sat across from each other in a cozy corner of the restaurant, settling into the soft, deep booths.

​Iron took the last sip of water from his clear glass and set it on the table. Shifting his gaze to Liana, he asked calmly:

​"So, when can I meet your mom?"

​"Tomorrow, sometime in the morning," Liana replied with a slight shrug. "She'll be at the store."

​"Got it..." Iron nodded.

​He pushed the empty glass aside a bit, mentally grumbling: Why don't they just bring us a pitcher? So we don't have to ask for a new glass every single time...

​Liana looked at him closely, tilting her head slightly to the side:

​"Listen... I'm really curious. This kingdom of yours... are you actually planning to build it?"

​Iron grabbed the rim of his glass, slowly twirling it on the table and examining the small, cloudy smudges on the glass.

​"Yeah," he replied. "Not just planning to—I'm already doing it while I'm here."

​Liana opened her mouth in surprise, about to ask how exactly that was happening, but Iron cut her off, continuing to reason aloud:

​"I've got Eliza, Elyria, and the others there... You could say we don't really have a single leader per se, but everyone says it's me."

​Liana giggled quietly, covering her mouth with her hand:

​"I think I know why."

​"And why is that?"

​"Well, you're very attentive, kind, and funny," Liana smiled. "You help people."

​Iron froze for a second, a baffled question flashing through his mind: I help people...?

​"And besides," Liana continued, looking him in the eyes, "I feel safe with you. I think everyone else realizes that too, and that's why they want you to be the one in charge."

​Iron let a short pause hang in the air, let out a chuckle, and gave a casual shake of his head:

​"Well... maybe you're right."

​At that moment, a waiter leisurely approached their table. He was holding a wide tray, from which he carefully placed a large, steaming plate in the center of the table.

​The crispy, golden-baked potato wedges were drizzled with a thick sauce, and fresh chopped greens were neatly sprinkled around the edges of the plate.

​"Your order. Enjoy your meal," the waiter said politely, giving a slight bow before stepping away.

​"Thank you!" Liana smiled.

​She grabbed her fork, carefully pierced a potato wedge, blew on it a little so she wouldn't burn herself, and popped it into her mouth.

"Mmm, so good!" she exclaimed with genuine delight, covering her lips with her hand. "The sauce is amazing, a little creamy and tangy."

​Iron also picked up his silverware and tried the potatoes.

​It's decent, he noted mentally, tossing a second forkful into his mouth while occasionally taking a slow look around the restaurant.

​Townspeople conversed quietly at the neighboring tables, glasses and dishes clinked somewhere in the back of the establishment, and the background noise of soft music and hushed voices created a sense of calm. Iron mentally noted the small details: the spacing between the tables, the lighting, the staff's workflow. Everything was done right.

​They ate in unhurried silence, enjoying the hot meal after a long day.

​About twenty minutes later, the plate was empty. Iron rested his silverware on the edge, leaned back against the soft booth, and raised his hand to call the waiter.

​"Check, please."

​The waiter quickly came over, placed a small leather folder with the receipt on the table, and stated the total. Iron pulled a single gold coin from his pocket and laid it on the check.

​The waiter carefully took the coin and headed to the register. A minute later, he returned with a small pouch of change, the coins clinking dully inside.

​"Your change, sir. Twenty silver here. Thank you for visiting us!"

​Iron swept the pouch of coins into his pocket, got up from the booth, and gestured for Liana to head for the exit.

​They stepped out onto the cool evening street.

​Iron stopped, turned to Liana, and said:

​"I need to go run a few errands right now. Let's meet tomorrow outside the hotel with the bunny sign."

​Liana listened to him carefully, smiled, and nodded gratefully:

​"Yeah, sounds good! And... thank you so much for today."

​"Anytime," Iron replied calmly, turning around and taking a leisurely stroll down the evening street.

​Iron stepped onto a wide avenue, and a few minutes later, the royal castle appeared before him. The facade was white and gold, and the architectural complex itself stretched for hundreds of meters.

​This castle is wider than any other I've seen before... Iron noted mentally.

​He didn't approach the main gates, where the guards were stationed, but immediately turned right, circling the perimeter of the grounds. Stepping into the deep shadow of the outer wall, Iron stopped by the massive stonework.

​He reached out, placed his palm against the stone, and initiated a deep structural scan.

​Lumon, the dome's signal is coming from the castle itself, right? Iron asked mentally.

​"Confirmed," the even voice echoed in his head. "The source of the spatial fluctuations is located inside the central complex."

​Iron instantly read the physical density and chemical composition of the wall, logging the data into the scanner's memory. Then he adjusted the visual spectrum settings in his interface, calibrating his perception's phase shift to match the material's structure.

​Iron opened his eyes. The massive, multi-meter-thick stone became transparent in his vision, revealing a view of the courtyard.

​Taking a couple of steps back to completely hide from any potential observers, Iron adjusted the spectrum phasing for the second, inner wall of the castle in the exact same way.

​Iron cranked up the scanner's power even more, intercepting and isolating hidden frequencies. Layer by layer, his perception penetrated the depths of the castle until the sensors hit a solid, incredibly thick reinforced concrete wall.

​"Damn it..." Iron muttered through his teeth.

​He quickly assessed the density and composition of the shielding layer. Within a couple of seconds, the engineer calculated the microscopic loopholes in the material and bypassed the barrier.

​Behind the shielded wall, inside an underground bunker, among the on-duty engineers and guards, the scanner clearly pinpointed the source of the field itself.

​It was a massive spherical core mounted on a heavy, stepped circular pedestal that emitted a bright turquoise glow from below. The sphere's armored casing consisted of black geometric segments marked with yellow triangular warning signs. Long, cone-shaped emitters with metal orbs on their ends radiated outward from the central core in all directions. Turquoise veins of light pulsed along the entire device and the thick cables connected to it, while a needle-like antenna with a small ball on the tip stood tall at the very top of the sphere.

​Iron peered intently at the structure through his interface, instantly reverse-engineering the device's operational schematic.

​A dome that doesn't block teleportation, but specifically blocks physical border crossings... he muttered mentally.

​He continued reading the internal energy flows and shook his head:

​So, there are two circuits. The first is internal, which protects the generator itself from any external interference. And the outer one—a specialized system that forms and sustains the dome's field.

​Iron immediately grasped the main catch: if he tried to trigger a resonance right from here, on the outside, it would simply get bogged down in the internal defensive circuit and never even reach the core.

​And why do I absolutely have to stick my hands out to create a resonance? Iron thought with frustration. I need to learn how to generate it instantly at any target point...

​Iron shook his head, driving away the unnecessary thoughts, and shot sharply upward. In the very next second, he was hovering at a massive altitude right over the center of the kingdom.

​Immediately, through pinpoint manipulation of light wave refraction, phase shifting, and completely dampening sound vibrations, he rendered himself entirely invisible and silent to any outside observers.

​Hovering in the air, Iron cranked the scanner to max power. He began instantly logging and committing to memory all the key specs of the spatial barrier: its configuration, phase, amplitudes, and so on.

​Lumon, give me the field's frequency, Iron mentally instructed, carefully watching the scrolling rows of metrics.

​"Calculating the exact frequency characteristics will take time."

​"Fine," Iron replied shortly, locking in the data he already had.

​Dropping his cloaking, he released the containment field and plummeted downward in a fraction of a second. Just above the ground, Iron softly neutralized his falling momentum and landed on his feet without making a single sound.

​He turned around, cast a brief glance at the castle towering in the distance, and strode off down the night street.

​I should pull the exact same specs from Nellis, Versailles, and Nill... Iron noted mentally, running the recorded data array through his head.

​About three hours later, Iron reached the familiar hotel with the rabbit sign. He pushed open the wooden door, stepped into the cool lobby, and headed for the reception desk.

​The girl behind the desk looked up and, recognizing him, froze in surprise:

​"Hello th-there... Mister Iron?!"

​"Hey," he replied calmly.

"Hello! Are you... are you staying with us again?!" she asked, suddenly bustling around.

​"Yeah, can I get a room?"

​"Yes, of course! Here you go!" the girl quickly grabbed a key off the board and handed it to him.

​Iron took the key, his gaze sliding over the engraved number "5," and thought to himself:

​Oh, so you're available.

​"Thanks," he nodded and started walking toward the room.

​The girl watched him go, and the moment the door closed behind him, she pressed her palms to her cheeks in frustration:

​Crap... I should have offered him a better room! Why did I get so nervous?!

​Stepping into room number five, Iron closed the door behind him and immediately collapsed onto the bed, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

​At that moment, Lumon's voice echoed deep within his consciousness:

​"Frequency analysis complete."

​"Let's have it," Iron replied.

​Cascades of digital graphs, 3D sine waves, and spectral diagrams instantly flared across his retinas. Iron carefully cross-referenced the data, instantly calculating the physical properties of the field.

​"A low-frequency jammer..." he muttered in a low voice. "Or, to rephrase you, Lumon: a spatial channel that's sensitive to a specific range of low-frequency vibrations... You know, interference, all that good stuff..."

​He reviewed the residual fluctuations, checked them against his existing database, and shook his head:

​"You were right, Lumon. Nill really does have the strongest dome of them all, and this frequency is direct proof of that."

​Dismissing the scanner's projection, Iron settled more comfortably on the pillow and rolled onto his side, getting ready for sleep.

​Well, I've gathered all the specs, crunched all the numbers, Iron summarized mentally. All that's left is to create an anti-phase interference, and... that's it. But still... will I even need it anytime soon...? Hard to say.

​The next morning, Iron got out of bed, leisurely left his room, and headed for the reception. The same girl was still behind the desk.

​Iron walked up, set down his key, and reached into his pocket for a coin.

​The girl behind the desk immediately threw up her hands, waving them frantically in front of her:

​"No, no, please, you don't need to pay!"

​Iron stopped his hand for a second and looked at her in surprise:

​"Why not?"

​"You severely overpaid yesterday anyway," the girl smiled. "So this night is completely on the house!"

​"Well, whatever you say," Iron replied calmly.

​Saying his goodbyes, he stepped out into the crisp morning air.

​Barely had he taken a few steps off the porch when Liana appeared right in front of him. The girl was shifting from foot to foot, wrapping herself in a light cloak, anxiously scanning the street. Spotting him, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief and ran over.

​"Yo, you're early," Iron noted as he saw her.

​"Yeah..." Liana looked a bit embarrassed. "I was just so worried about showing up at the wrong time, so I decided to get here as early as possible."

​"Ah, sorry I didn't give you an exact time yesterday," Iron smiled slightly.

​"It's totally fine, no need to apologize!" the girl waved it off.

​They turned and took a leisurely walk through the waking streets toward the "Shemis" store. After about a dozen meters, Liana shot him a sidelong glance and asked quietly:

​"So... what exactly are you going to say to her?"

​Iron's mouth twitched up into a half-smile as he replied:

​"You'll find out soon enough."

​About ten minutes later, they stopped in front of the familiar light-colored facade. Iron grabbed the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. Liana slipped in right behind him.

​Iron cast a glance over the empty rows of shelves:

​"Wow, no one's here."

​"The store just hasn't opened yet," Liana said quietly, walking a bit ahead. "The hours are written right on the sign by the entrance."

​"Seriously?" Iron chuckled, having paid absolutely no attention to it, and followed her deeper inside.

​At that moment, a noise came from behind the checkout counter, and the staff room door opened. A middle-aged woman walked out carrying a large box. She carefully set it down on the counter, stretched to work out her stiff back, and suddenly froze as she looked up.

​"Lianochka!" the woman cried out, throwing her hands up. "What are you doing here?"

​She rushed out from behind the register, ran up to her daughter, and wrapped her in a tight hug.

​"Mom, come on...!" Liana coughed in embarrassment, trying to wriggle free from the crushing embrace.

​Following right behind her, Elizaveta emerged from the same staff door. She was lugging an identical heavy box. Dropping it onto the checkout counter, Elizaveta leaned heavily on it with both hands to catch her breath, then looked up and noticed their guests.

​"What are you doing here?" Elizaveta asked in surprise.

​Liana's mother immediately pulled back from her daughter, her face adopting a strict, stern expression:

​"Yes, Liana, what are you doing here? I thought I told you yesterday—that was only for one day."

​Liana shrank instantly, dropping her shoulders and staring at the floor.

​Iron, who had been watching this closely, draped an arm over Liana's shoulders with a confident motion and smoothly pulled her against him.

​Elizaveta, noticing the gesture, raised her eyebrows in surprise, a spark of interest flashing in her eyes:

​"Ah... so you're the customer from yesterday."

​Liana literally froze on the spot at this, not knowing what to do with her hands or where to hide her bewildered gaze.

Liana's mother lost the ability to speak for a second.

​"Who the hell are you?!" she barked, stepping forward and already winding up to smack his hand off her daughter's shoulder. "And why are you handling my daughter like that?!"

Iron looked the woman straight in the eye and said with absolute calm:

"I'm her boyfriend."

Liana's mother froze with her hand still raised, too shocked to say a word. Elizaveta snorted quietly into her fist behind the register, watching the scene unfold with immense curiosity.

​Liana, still not understanding what was happening, turned her head slightly and whispered in panic right beside his neck:

​"What... what are you doing?!"

​Iron dipped his head toward her ear ever so slightly and replied just as quietly and calmly:

"Don't worry. Everything is going exactly according to plan."