While Others Cultivate, I Use My Multiverse System

Chapter 103: Cracked open

"I can take care of it. One of my sons was bugging me about letting him explore the dungeons with a group of people he was cultivating with. While he is still quite weak himself, I can send some of my mercenaries with him. The only problem is"

Speaking up, one of the officials of my faction clearly hesitated when it came to the troublesome part of his situation.

"Go on, my friend. Even if there is someone else willing to take this task on himself, we should know all the prerequisites for each of the possible plans."

Back on my seat, I encouraged the man with a lenient gesture of my hand. Bringing my lips to form a slight smile, I silently waited for the man to speak about the part that would potentially make it impossible or simply unprofitable to realise his idea.

"If you say so, your excellency, then I won't hold back with what should be considered bad news. As easy as it is to gather people for the quest of exploring the dungeons, as averagely hard it is to ensure their loyalty The main problem with any plan regarding those dungeons will always come back to the greatest hurdle. Its location."

Standing up from his seat, the man approached the laptop that was connected to the local projector before furiously tapping at its keyboard for a moment. As silly as it was, seeing the foul attempts to write something fast by this middle-aged man was nothing short of pitiable for a former gamer like me. If his fingers could move on the keyboard only as fast as they were moving right now, then his career in e-sports would be over before it would even begin.

But for the sake of changing the pictures on the presentation or looking for images on the web, it was way more than necessary. In just a few moments, the standard standby screen projected on the wall changed to the same picture that was brought up in the previous meeting, outlining the location of all the known dungeons in the proximity.

"For now, let's focus on the three closest dungeons that we know of. To simplify the references, I will call them south, north and west dungeons respectively. Even though the dungeon to our east doesn't seem to be that much further than the others, it's already well within the sphere of influence of the Sarate conglomerate and from what I heard, we are not really on good terms with them so let's ignore it for now."

Listening to the man who started explaining and analyzing the accessibility of all three dungeons that were close enough for my faction to invest in, I had no choice but to admit one thing. For some reason, I still cultivated a childish mindset where all the white-collar workers could only brew coffee, sign papers and otherwise just do nothing. From how prepared this man was for the topic, it was clear that he spent not only a lot of time to research it, but also invested a lot of his private funds to obtain even more information than what was publicly accessible.

"That's why I believe aiming for the west will be extremely risky. While we are closer to the dungeon that the city of Krak, I think we are all aware that with their population, we have no chance to compete with them for it. The fact that the dungeon appeared in what was known as Krak's sleeping district back before the apocalypse makes it even more likely for them to already obtain full control over them. For the northern one, I assumed that it would be a staging ground between Krak and Kiel cities, both way too big for us to tackle. And that leaves us with only the southern one."

Tracing his finger on the map, the official quickly brought his hand even further down, pointing it at the single big city that could potentially vie for the control of the dungeon area.

"Regarding New San, I don't think we should be too worried about their interference. Given how we would seek control of the area as a faction rather than the entire city, I believe it would be highly advantageous to us to actually cooperate with them, even with as weak as they appear to be. This way, we could make sure no other local faction would have access to the dungeon."

Only at this point did I realise a pretty depressing truth. What just a bit over a year ago used to be places where I would love to take the train with friends for an overnight party, now turned into political enemies of not only my faction but also the entire city as a whole. Taking the city of Krak for example, I had a lot of pleasant memories from the several trips that I made there. In fact, I was aiming to get to the university over there once my high-school time would conclude.

But now, even with the central government still at least attempting to keep the nation as a single entity, the entire world seemed to regress back to the city-states period. Even though the trains still operated, once someone entered the city, it was getting increasingly troublesome to actually leave it.

"So your plan is to send your son with a party of mercenaries to the southern dungeon, not only to assess the situation within this point of interest but also to potentially start up a diplomatic relationship with the delegates of the New San that are likely to appear there as well. Am I right?"

Rubbing my chin with my fingers, I took a long look at the map displayed on the wall of the room before turning my head towards the official. 

"Your excellency, according to your words, we don't really need the magical stones that can be obtained within the dungeon. I'm not here to judge whether that's true or not. What I want to point out, is how little we know about those dungeons. What if those magic stones are only the tip of the iceberg? What if"

I didn't really need that man to ask those question. Unless I was greatly underestimating the officials of my faction, I was the one who was most worried about what would the future bring to this world. Because from all my experiences so far, there was no world with magic, that would be free of the monsters. The only exception I could find to this rule would be the world of the apocalypse, where all life seemed to cease its course.

"I understand. As long as no one has any better ideas, I believe this could be a good, first step on our way to expand. Because as we all should know, not progressing means regressing."

Standing up from my chair after I summed the situation up, I paced around the conference chamber for a moment before suddenly coming to a stop.

"For this initiative, I'm willing to part ways with both of the barrier stones and the fireball stone. The magic distribution stone I will leave it in the hands of the dungeon party as well, but I hope it will return unused. Take it as insurance against any problems created by other humans. Anyone wants to add something?"

Given how the entire discussion about adventuring towards the dungeon was completely monopolised by me and that single official, I didn't forget about letting others voice out their initiatives as well.

"Sir, while it's not particularly about the topic"

Ring, ring

Out of nowhere, the annoying sound of the phone alarm disturbed the peace within the room. Locating the source of the sound, I actually looked towards Pavlo, only to see this young retainer and friend of mine blush heavily only to jump out from his seat, pull out his phone and dash towards the doors.

"Excuse me While my doubt is not about the proposed idea of exploring the dungeon per se, I don't think we should ignore the threat that the Sarate family poses to us. If the guess of my colleague  " the new speaker pointed his hand at the official that brought the proposal in the first place, " is right, then allowing them to freely explore and profit from the dungeon to our east Won't that give them an edge over everyone else in the town? So far, we managed to keep them away from the new local government because their only have a mansion in here, with all their interests located elsewhere But if they become too powerful, won't it be an obvious move for them to secure our city for themselves? Especially if we suddenly start growing rich from the trading of those artefacts?"

As annoying as it was, I had to admit that it was only this man's words that reminded me of the huge problem that Martha's family was. Not only because of how potentially dangerous they could be to my faction, but also because of the personal vendetta that I had against them. 

After all, even if Martha never intended to cause all hell to break loose over my house back then, there was no denying that she was still responsible for it. Even if she wasn't the one in the wrong, it was her actions that caused the death of my parents. And I wasn't willing to just let that slide.

Shaking the momentary hesitation from my head, I was about to announce what we would aim to be doing in the near future when the doors to the conference room opened up. Walking inside, Pavlo's steps were extremely stiff. His face deprived of its natural, reddish lush was now closing on the tones of white that I never expected anyone's face to ever achieve.

"Your e-excellency... "

Mumbling the words, Pavlo stood up in place to take a breath, before regaining his confidence, raising his head and looking straight into my eyes.

"There are two more dungeons in the proximity of our city. And one of them just cracked open, releasing a horde of monsters to the area."