Chapter 127: Ayda's confidence

"What did they do?"

Hearing the news, I felt a shudder travelling down my spine. Was this a coincidence? It was hard to believe in such a naive thought. But unless Sarate wanted to call dibs on some of the dungeons for a while already, there was hardly any other explanation besides putting the blame on Martha.

"It's not something that I fully confirmed yet, but it's the only logical explanation for their recent moves. From what I managed to gather, they bought a huge piece of land right beside several dungeons, one of them being the one where we sent our party before. The other thing…"

Clearly hesitating to speak up, Jeff swallowed a gulp of saliva that was stuck in his throat. Coughing up to buy himself some more time, he looked over the entire room before hanging his head low and finishing.

"Not only they already started moving some insane amounts of resources towards those lands that they bought, but they also started a huge recruitment campaign. At the current rate, at least half of the strong fighters in the city that we hoped to reel to our side is estimated to join them within the first week once the registration will open."

This was truly a disaster. As little hopes as I had for the exploration of the dungeons to turn out to be a profitable endeavour, I still had to make sure that at least one of them would be under the absolute control of my faction. Not for the sake of obtaining the resources from it per se, but to justify the appearance of a huge amount of magic stones in the vaults of my faction!

"Is that all there is to it? Any other huge news that we should take into consideration?"

Placing my hands down on the table, I forced my emotions to calm down. Whether the current breakdown of the stalemate regarding the dungeons was Martha's fault or not, it didn't matter anymore. That is unless this was just the first move of hers.

"Well, the matter of that damned family is the main reason why I called for this urgent meeting… But there is also the problem of some of the dungeons going rouge. While it's not yet fully confirmed, it seems that the ones that people are not cleaning on a regular basis… Tends to release the monsters to the surface."

Hearing Jeff's response, I could only tighten my jaws to stop my face from turning sour. Taking a few moments to calm my breath, I could feel how Ayda used her own witchcraft to help me with this endeavour.

"Thanks."

Turning my head to the girl, I smiled gently at her, only to see her own lips gently curving upwards. For as stoic and silent as she was until now, this momentary showcase of her humane side had to be a shock for everyone else in the room.

"Okay then, let's think about what we can do. First off, do we have any chances to compete for that southern dungeon? I mean, without stirring the trouble elsewhere."

Looking at my face, Jeff didn't speak up right away but moved his eyes on the rest of the officials in the room. After all, this council didn't consist of me, Ayda and him alone. 

"I don't think it would be wise to go against them alone. How about trying to find some backer to help us out? Or maybe we could count on a bit of help from the headquarters?"

This was a tricky question. In theory, everyone in the room should believe that there was some kind of huge organisation backing this faction. Or rather, this faction of mine was supposed to be just one of the branches of the religion that I promoted. 

Sadly, the truth was obviously different. While I used this false story to give Ayda an instant social position in the ring of the leaders of my faction, I forced myself to follow the previous narration by doing so. 

"Headquarters… It wouldn't be wise to rely on them. There is a reason why I appeared in this city completely by myself. If I'm not wrong, you came here because you failed to establish yourself in that place?"

Turning my head to the girl beside me, I smiled encouragingly. In the end, I couldn't have her silent throughout the entire meeting. As uncommon as it was, this situation was her social coming out, so I had to make sure she would leave a lasting impression on my coworkers.

"Failed? I failed? I wish to see you go there and do any better. I simply decided that pushing myself to the limits out there was not worth the potential results that I could achieve by doing so. Helping you out was what both I myself and the council decided."

Instead of just following along the line of my words, Ayda scoffed at me while pretending to get angry at the way in which I formed her backstory. In the end, she even managed to slip a bit more details, details that the officials in the room were bound to jump at like a band of hungry, wild dogs would at a fresh corpse of a sheep.

"Okay, okay, didn't mean to put any doubt in your abilities. From what I heart about that place… It would be a miracle if I survived there for as long as you did. But let's leave the past behind us, and focus on the topic at hand."

Something warm started spreading in my belly. Maybe it was the pride in how quickly Ayda managed to react to the unexpected change in her situation? Maybe it was happiness that she didn't seem to have any problems adapting to this new world for her? Or maybe it was nothing more but another bout of sexual arousal, this time caused by how capable she was?

Be it as it may, there was one thing that no one could ever deny. With just those few words of hers, Ayda proved that she had all the rights to stand by my side. 

And I was willing to support her with all my power in doing so!

"The headquarters… They won't make a single move." 

Suddenly changing my tone and twisting my expression, I uttered.

"If you can't deal with it yourself, then there is no worth in supporting your efforts in the first place."

Shaking my head as if in an attempt to push the foul aftertaste of impersonating those imaginary people, I coughed to clear my throat before raising my now normal face.

"That's how they are likely to respond if I would ever request their help. In other words, in terms of the Boruta's faith, we are basically on our own. But that doesn't mean we won't be able to get help from somewhere else."

There was one thing that absolutely couldn't happen. No other human besides me myself and maybe Ayda could ever get his or her hands on the tools from the apocalypse. As I experienced it myself, both the instant improvement of one's firepower but also his potential to grow was simply too big to spread such tools on the market.

But that didn't mean I was completely powerless in terms of rapidly increasing the strength of my faction. After all, just like Earth could bring the craftsmanship from Ayda's world to another level, just like Ayda could teach everyone in the room a lesson about using magic… There were many other worlds that I could freely explore to look for something that would give my faction a reasonably powerful edge over everyone else!

"So? Do you have anyone specific in mind?"

Most likely noticing that I was thinking about something with how he spoke up only when I was done analyzing my situation, Jeff attempted to place the burden of solving our current quandary on me.

"Guys, I think you are forgetting something."

Suddenly speaking out without my initiative to let her do it, Ayda not only managed to take me by a surprise, but it seemed that the rest of the room shared my reaction as well.

"We just need to deal with that Srate family or something, right?"

Leaning back on her chair to reinforce the image of how confident and relaxed she was, Ayda summed the situation up in a way no one expected her to do.

"Yeah, that's basically the case for now."

Given how she was completely right, I had no other choice but to admit it, even despite the bad premonition that quickly started clouding my judgement. 

"Then it's pretty simple. As long as you can arrange a meeting with their leader and let me take part in it, you could consider the task to be done. Making them give up on a single dungeon should be a walk in the part for me."

A confident smile on Ayda's face perfectly suited the tone of her words.

But for some reason, I couldn't help but get worried when seeing it."