Might as Well

They spent some time just playing around with the new familiars after a small break. The people with the newly acquired pets needed to know how the new skills worked, how the familiars behaved, and altogether how the new additions affected their fighting style.

The least affected was Lara, who was not a fighting class. For her, it was more important that the creatively named Chomper was able to manipulate earth finely. She had the boulder-like wyvern build sandcastles from the fresh earth of the clearing. Then after the wyvern proved himself capable of that Lara’s eyes began to gleam with greed. Even the taciturn wyvern was taken aback by that look.

Then the group watched as Lara instantly transformed into a demanding taskmaster, directing poor Chomper to do ever increasingly complicated tasks with his earth manipulation. After half an hour, the poor beast was lying on his belly, tongue out and panting from exhaustion with an assortment of shapes and constructs behind him that Lara was examining with a critical eye.

The rest of the familiars watched the exhausted wyvern with pity, but none of them wanted to chance going to help him. Except for Lucky. Who simply trotted up to the panting familiar and simply began to lick its face.

Sadly, they couldn’t really spend more time with the newly ‘hatched’ pets. Lara had to head back to supervise the construction of the new town, and Adam was presiding over the cleanup efforts as well as directing the guild members. Tim had to go back to the headquarters to do his thing. Technically Clarissa, Katie, Isabella, and Dan didn’t have any tasks, but the first three decided to go with Adam to help with the cleanup effort – or in Katie and Isabella’s case they were going for the chance to kill any interlopers – while Dan was escorting Lara.

Sam made sure to thank everyone for their efforts, as soloing the titan would have been impossible. He still could barely believe that he managed to find one (even if it was a setup by one of his enemies) and defeated it.

Based on the other Sam’s memories, these titans always seemed so mysterious and powerful that he couldn’t even have imagined going at it with his fledgling guild and some good ol’ elbow grease.

He couldn’t really imagine what the original owner of the body would think about all that he accomplished. Sam wanted to think that the other Sam would be happy and proud…

After returning from the clearing, they separated into the pre-arranged groups and everybody went to do their own thing.

Sam left them to it as he had his own tasks.

Technically, after killing the titan – and at least several other guilds – they owned the corpse of the aforementioned titan, but holding onto it was another story entirely.

For one, there were all those opportunists who wanted a slice of the pie. These ranged from greedy solo players to dark guilds. Then there were the angry people. The people they trapped under the monster and then immolated with their alchemical creation (Sam heard that the alchemist who worked on it received a considerable amount of experience points after it was used for the first time) were certainly planning on returning and trying to get some payment for their suffering.

Technically, Sam, with the help of his highly competent team, could put together a defense for the corpse until it was processed, creating an almost endless siege situation. But that would lock him and almost the entire guild down in one location, leaving the opportunity for their enemies and anybody who wanted to move into the places they couldn’t protect. Plus, he wouldn’t be able to make use of his knowledge, as the defense would be impossible without him. Though, on the upside, the experience point gain would be insane…

Realistically, however, that was not something that anybody wanted. And their enemies knew that.

Thus, he only had a few real options.

He could give up a portion of the corpse to appease the guilds nipping at their heels, but he was loath to empower them.

Or… he could pass the baton to somebody who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what those guilds wanted.

Sam made sure to explain his plan to Lucy, who after some frowning, hemming and hawing, and doing some math that made no sense to Sam, agreed to the plan and began to make moves.

Then he took a quick trip to the capital – already dreaming of the ease of travel when the gates were finally developed – to have a nice and delicate discussion with the people at Nowhere. Thanks to that, several things happened. One, his quest went up by one by reporting the presence of the demonic entity. Two, somebody would be having some really bad days. And three, Nowhere agreed to support the deal with the government representative for the guild. They would take their cut, but Sam felt it was worth it.

He even took time to inquire about the possibility of the rest of the team joining the group, or at least access to the library. Sadly, he didn’t receive a concrete answer, but they said they would look into them.

Knowing that with his reputation he wouldn’t get anything more, he simply thanked them and then jumped on Lucky to rush back to Ironwood to help Lucy with the negotiations.

After arriving back in Ironwood, he spent some time with the maids at the headquarters as they dressed him up in some higher-quality clothing, arranged his hair and face, and made sure that Lucky’s fur was silky smooth. He didn’t know why, as he didn’t really plan to have the shadow wolf participate in the talks.

But they seemed to enjoy playing with the giant wolf and Lucky had a blissful face as three different people used combs to untangle his fur, so Sam said nothing.

The meeting room was one of the biggest they had at the headquarters and was filled with all sorts of people.

On their side, Lucy was sitting next to Sam, while her secretary and Claire were standing behind them, ready to assist with a cart full of documents. Near the wall, next to a table laden with all sorts of excellent-quality snacks and drinks, was Tim, dressed as a butler with a white kitchen towel in his hand, waiting patiently to serve people.

Sam politely ignored how Claire glanced over at Tim and bit her lips every so often.

On the other side of the table were the representatives of the government. Half a dozen people with a variety of severe looks on their faces. Behind them stood several stone-faced people, wearing armor and hands on their weapons, always ready to draw them. There were a few secretary-slash-servant type people, performing the same function as Claire and Lucy’s secretary.

Though Sam was pretty sure that one of the people standing behind the representatives was from Nowhere based on the feeling he was giving off.

It was Lucy who broke the silence with a perfect plastic smile, no doubt enhanced by some manner of skill, while Sam tried to pretend he wasn’t here to be the muscle.

“Welcome, everyone, to this meeting. We appreciate your timely arrival at this momentous occasion,” she said in a happy tone.

The people opposite them bowed their heads a little in greeting but only one of them talked back.

“And the Kingdom appreciates your loyalty. To offer a find of this magnitude to the Crown instead of profiting from it, shows your dedication to the wellbeing of all,” came the totally honest answer from the smarmy guy. It would have been more believable if Sam couldn’t see the naked greed in his eyes. He did not doubt that the only well-being that guy thought about was his own. And maybe his family's.

“And our company appreciates the prompt response and effective support from the Crown,” replied Lucy with a bow of her own head.

The man’s smile widened a little, as if enjoying this little dance, then spoke up.

“Now, I am sure that this is a somewhat… time-sensitive operation, thus I propose we focus on achieving a solution that would satisfy all parties.”

“Indeed,” Lucy agreed with the man and took a slip of paper from the stack in front of her. “Now I’m sure that most of our esteemed guests know what is at stake so I shan’t reiterate the minutiae of the details. The more important part is the handling and ownership of the materials.” She paused for a moment then continued. “As you know, the corpse of the titan-class monster that was defeated by our guild has been found to contain two important materials.” At that mention, several of the so-far silent people on the opposite end of the table shuffled around a little. “The first one, the exoskeleton of the monster, is a stone-like substance that is extremely receptive to mana and is very easy to transform in any shape. The second is the red crystalline substance making up the inside of the monster. While lightning-attributed mana crystal is not the rarest, or most sought after, the fact that it doesn’t need to be mined from a location with extreme weather or wild beasts makes it extremely valuable.”

The man nodded, making sure to check his own document. “Yes. And the request was for the Crown to take over the handling, dismantling, and transportation of the materials for a modest sum as the finder’s fee.”

“We would prefer to take our fee in lightning-attributed mana crystals,” came the rebuke from Lucy, all the while smiling as if she had just mentioned how lovely the weather was. “I’m sure our contribution to the safety of the country and its many citizens is worth at least that much…”

The man’s face tightened a little at that but then relaxed as he continued to smile. “Indeed, it was an admirable effort, though I can’t help but notice that the titan-class monster surfaced exactly where your… quaint little outfit was operating.”

Sam saw as Lucy was about to open her mouth to once again rebuke the man when he felt an almost imperceptible pulse of mana. Directed at the man.

Glancing around, tense, he saw that he was the only one who sensed it, aside from the recipient, but when he made eye contact with the man he suspected was from Nowhere, the man winked. Sam let out a small breath and relaxed. It seemed they were really here to help.

The man instead froze for a fraction of a second then raised his hand awkwardly, coughed into his fist, gathering some confused glances from his still-silent allies.

“B-but I’m sure, that your organization has observed all pertaining safety regulations.”

Lucy, once again proving that Sam made the right decision approaching her, took only a blink of an eye to notice that something happened and pounced on it.

“Indeed. If you would like to go over the details, we have provided the investigators of the Crown with the appropriate documentation.” She raised her hand to signal to her secretary, but before she could finish the motion, the man raised his hand in a placating manner.

“There is no need for that. If the highly esteemed investigators have not raised objection over the provided information, then I shall not either.” His smile became a fraction more brittle. “Now, what kind of remuneration was your organization thinking?”

Lucy perked up, seemingly in synchrony with the allies of the representative of the Crown. Apparently, the talk of money garnered everybody’s interest.

“Well, after calculating our losses – you understand, we have to compensate our people – we have come up with a few figures that I’m sure would please the Crown,” she explained in a saccharine tone.

Sam saw those grossly inflated figures. If the Crown accepted them, then they would be able to compensate the guild members who died during the fight thrice over.

However, their opponent wasn’t an amateur.

“Indeed, it was a very thorough report, my respect to the author, but the Crown has some questions and concerns.”

Lucy moved around a few documents, then nodded. “I shall do my very best to satisfy the Crown’s inquiries.”

The man grinned – it wasn’t a very friendly grin – and then continued.

“How about we start with the third item on this list? The summation of the lost artifacts?”

Sam watched as Lucy began answering question after question. In some cases, conceding to the other person, and in other cases clinging to their interpretation of the fact like a koala to a tree.

Meanwhile, Sam did his best not to look utterly bored with the proceedings, as others in the room did their jobs. Servants and secretaries made notes, wrote minutes, and fetched documents while Claire and Tim, in his guise of a buttler, served them tea and other drinks with a few bite-sized snacks.

He was forever glad that he could trust Lucy to handle these kinds of political meetings. He never had the patience or social skills to navigate them successfully. Probably why he was never promoted in his last life.

Now he only needed to survive and see how much Lucy would be able to take from the nobles who ‘represented’ the interests of the country, and then he was free to focus on his next task.

That is, reaching Level 101.