Lumon's even voice echoed in his head:
"A dome-shaped spatial suppression structure detected. The object is designed to block unauthorized spatial shifts and prevent external teleportation into the inner perimeter."
Iron narrowed his eyes slightly, examining the intersecting nodes of the glowing threads:
"Does that mean similar barriers were set up in Nellis and Versailles as well?"
"Confirmed," Lumon replied without a pause. "Similar low-frequency jammers of the spatial spectrum were recorded in the telemetry data of Nellis and Versailles. However, the current object is operating at maximum design capacity."
"Got it," Iron gave a short nod.
He mentally dismissed the command, and the scanner instantly vanished.
Iron walked toward Nill's main gates at a calm pace. Standard-issue guards were on duty at the entrance. Iron silently presented his traveler's card; a guard briefly inspected it, stepped aside, and gestured for him to pass.
Taking a step past the massive archway of the gates, Iron stopped.
Before him stretched a vast, perfectly straight thoroughfare leading deep into the capital. Identical houses lined both sides of the road. Their facades, windows, and even the shapes of their roofs perfectly mirrored one another.
Walking along the asphalt pavement, Iron spoke mentally:
"Lumon. From now on, the aerial view mode will be designated as 'Heavens'. Activate it."
The even voice immediately chimed in his head:
"Request registered. 'Heavens' projection activated."
A dual image instantly unfolded before Iron's perception. As he continued walking confidently step by step down the street, he could simultaneously see the city from several hundred meters above.
Unlike the chaotic layout of Nellis or the picturesque but tangled alleys of Versailles, the streets of Nill intersected at strict right angles, forming crisp, square city blocks. A vast amount of open space and wide passages remained between the buildings.
Scanning the area, Iron locked onto two details. The first was a massive stone square, where a statue of a warrior holding a spear towered over the surroundings.
The second object was much farther away. Behind the massive silhouette of the royal castle, right at the base of the giant wall, a straight, rectangular passage gaped black in the ground, leading deep below.
Walking through the perfectly aligned rows of buildings, Iron fell into thought:
"Edriac is the King of Avers. Olgerd is the King of Kront. Valdes is the King of Eridan... Avers is relatively close to Dornheim, and Dornheim itself is located on Kront's territory. But where does Valdes fit in? Eridan is on the opposite end of the continent. Either Andres lied about them, or Valdes temporarily moved in with that unknown guy."
"Deactivate," Iron commanded.
The "Heavens" projection instantly faded, and his vision returned to normal. Iron was already standing at the foot of the central square, right in front of Nill's massive castle gates. The local guards' armor looked far more austere and functional than the ostentatious plate mail of Versailles.
Iron approached the two guards:
"Good afternoon. May I enter? I have arrived as a classified guest with an important proposal regarding your economy..."
"No clearance. Access denied," one of the guards interrupted dryly.
"Is your ruler truly not interested in developing his lands?" Iron tried to test the waters.
"I repeat: no clearance," the second said strictly.
Realizing this conversation was pointless, Iron changed tactics and asked directly:
"Alright. In that case, tell me: do you know anything about the ores of Dornheim?"
"No," the first said harshly. "Any further persistence will be regarded as a direct provocation."
"Alright, got it," Iron replied calmly.
He turned left and walked through a narrow gap between two houses, stepping out onto a wide, parallel street.
The noise of market stalls echoed around him, loudly laughing children ran past, and a bit further down, a heated argument was flaring up between a merchant and a customer at one of the stands.
Iron strolled unhurriedly through the crowd. As he walked, he raised his right hand in front of him, clenched his fingers into a fist, and slowly unfurled them, staring at his palm.
"Three months... I need exactly three months," flashed through his mind.
About fifteen minutes later, Iron reached the very edge of the capital, where a dark, deep passage sat flush against the giant wall. It had no hatch and no railings—just a rectangular hole plunging into pitch-black darkness.
Slowing his pace, Iron turned to a local resident passing by:
"Excuse me, could you tell me what this place is?"
The townsman stopped, glanced at the passage, and readily explained:
"Oh, this? It's an old defensive complex. Back in the day, they used to fight off monster raids from here. It hasn't been operational for a long time, but the government hasn't removed it—it's a memorial of sorts, and it helped the kingdom a lot in its time."
"I see. Thank you," Iron nodded.
Waiting until the passerby disappeared around the corner, Iron stepped up to the very edge of the drop and walked right off.
He plummeted in total darkness for about four seconds, feeling the cool air whistle in his ears, before landing softly and confidently on both feet.
The engineer extended his index finger. A tiny yellow spark flared to life right at the tip. It instantly began expanding into a steady, glowing orb. Iron lowered his hand, and the sphere of light hovered near his shoulder, following him.
There was nothing ahead, but when Iron turned around, the light swept over mounds of scattered equipment, shattered glass, and twisted metal hidden in the dark.
Iron took a step forward and vaulted over a low counter that had once supported a massive panoramic glass partition, now reduced to fine, sharp shards littering the floor.
Walking a bit further, Iron squatted down, picking up a few scraps of wire from the floor. They featured multicolored polymer insulation. Wiping the carbon buildup off the copper strands with his fingertips, he carefully examined the cross-section and structure of the material.
Dropping the wires, Iron walked deeper down the corridor and stopped in front of a half-rotted, slanted door. He nudged it lightly with his foot—the hinges cracked with a screech, and the heavy door crashed onto the dusty floor with a dull thud.
Inside the room, dozens of cracks marred the walls, cables dangled from the ceiling, and a thick layer of yellowed, decaying papers coated the floor.
"Yeah, absolutely perfect spot for local kids exploring abandoned places," Iron muttered.
He approached a broken desk in the center of the room. Amidst the debris on the crumbling tabletop lay a rectangular black casing dotted with dozens of white keys with symbols printed on them.
"I take it this is a keyboard," Iron said quietly, voicing his thoughts.
Deep within his consciousness, Lumon responded with a soft hum, confirming his guess.
Iron noticed an old office chair with casters nearby. He sat in it and, giving a light push with his foot, rolled across the room, inspecting the walls and sagging cables from a new angle.
"Where the hell did all this come from...?"
Rolling back to the desk, Iron swept away the layers of trash and rotted documents with his hand. Built right into the desk was a round metal button. Iron pressed down on it, but the mechanism didn't give.
Pulling a thin scraper from his pocket, the engineer pried off the top protective casing of the button. Inside lay scorched contacts, a broken return spring, and a completely oxidized copper trace with a burnt-out resistor.
Iron picked up a couple of copper strands from the floor, scraped off their insulation with his fingernail, and twisted them into a thin grounding bridge.
He manually scraped the char off the button's main contacts, then wedged the twisted copper bridge directly into the contacts, bypassing the fried resistor to close the circuit.
To supply a starting impulse, Iron discharged a minimal jolt of static electricity from his finger and channeled it straight into the exposed wire.
Finishing the splice, he pressed down hard on the bare contact once more. The button responded with a brief, barely perceptible prick of current to his fingertip, but the circuit connected. Something clicked loudly deep inside the desk.
With a grinding scrape and a soft hum, the top of the desk parted, revealing a hidden internal alcove. Inside sat a massive rectangular unit. Bright green characters flared to life on a small, matte display, forming a clear word: "WELCOME".
Flexible wires and thin metal tubes extended from the block in all directions. They filled the entire interior of the tabletop and ran in thick bundles down the desk legs, disappearing right under the stone floor slabs.
"Lumon, trace it," Iron commanded.
"Request acknowledged."
An illuminated layer materialized in Iron's perception: Lumon tracked the impulses and superimposed glowing lines onto reality, mapping the path of the cables beneath the floor. Iron followed the pulsing route until the lines dead-ended at a blank wall without a single seam or hint of a doorway.
Iron stopped in front of the smooth, dark surface.
"Holy shit..." he scoffed mentally, seeing what was hidden behind the wall.
Placing his palm closer to the wall, Iron pressed his fingers against the cold block and unleashed a resonance pulse.
But the wave hit an impenetrable barrier, compressed, and snapped back with mirrored recoil, slamming straight into Iron.
A sharp ringing erupted in his head, his vision blurred for a second, and the ground slipped out from under his feet. Iron exhaled, lost his balance, and dropped to one knee, bracing his fist against the dusty floor.
"Reverse resonance feedback detected," Lumon reported. "Overload compensated. No organic tissue damage."
Iron slowly pulled himself up, shook his head to clear the mild nausea, and looked up at the wall again.
"Lumon, what kind of wall is this?"
"The wall is composed of a specialized absorption alloy that redirects and completely neutralizes any vibrations—from kinetic impacts and magical impulses to resonance."
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