Time-Line 5th April 2007
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Change of POV: Morgan Le Fay
In plain old basement of the Le Fay residence, both Morgan and 'Reiji Sugimoto' are together.
"Current plans have been postponed, our resources have been directed toward 'Food' Project and towards finding 'Holy Sword Project' Base of Operation." Stated Reiji Sugimoto as he listed my previous instructions.
Reiji Sugimoto is another young man, in his mid 20s at 'worst', with deep brown hair styled in 'Bob-Cut', brown yet sharp eyes filled with countless years of untold experience. Rather pale skin tone, and 'powerful' aura of a business man has been surrounding him.
Reiji Sugimoto was my first 'Chosen S-Rank Hunter' after Lennart Niermann. Reiji Sugimoto is Mid-Ultimate Class, so Average S-Rank strength. He is fighter-type too.
But that's not where his true strength lies.
I brought him because Goto-San was bi##hing about 'too much management and he would have liked if Reiji-San was there to help him out'. And it turns he was right, Goto-San was capable of many things. From leading Hunters, strategies and fighting untold battles and possible wars, but business and management of our resources was not one of them.
Sadly, that is.
Reiji Sugimoto improved our financial situation by large margin. It's unbelievable.
Goto and his group do not hunt Devils or other Supernatural creatures for Bounties Anymore as they did in the past, they still do but not every week or every day like back then. And when they hunt, they only go for High-Class and Ultimate-Class.
Otherwise, small fishes would be wasting their 'precious time'.
And how did Reiji Sugimoto-San improve our financial situation? He turned millions of Dollars into dozens of millions in first year by investing into 'Alternate Industries' that were very similar to those from Solo Leveling World but were not yet developed.
A certainly good investment, especially since he ALMOST memorized EVERY big corporation in the previous world, and located corporations with SIMILAR 'industries' to those and implanted his knowledge into his favor, and our.
And it worked, he turned 10,000,000$ into 100,000,000$ by the end of first year. More or less that is. A 10x increase was something I certainly did not expect, but he certainly paid off that '1,200,000 Gold Price' at the end of the first year.
Then proceeded to open many, many small fast food restaurants in USA and Germany. And it paid off, our current financial situation is incredible.
Currently, there are future projects on potential Hotels, Motels and similar buildings. Main attraction of course would either be Germany or Japan.
Plans for these restaurants are to eventually by occupied by our forces all around the world, but for now due to our lack of manpower we will have to wait on that part. Since summoning thousands of people from Solo Leveling will require thousands jobs for them in 'free time' or for them to 'hide in society'.
So, why not simple create our own chain of commands from the first step?
And if you guessed, 'Restaurants' go to Reiji Sugimoto's name, at least most of them. But in case someone does manage to brainwash Sugimoto-San, restaurants are separated to go to all. Lennart Niermann, Goto Ryuji and Reiji Sugimoto.
Goto Ryuji = Japan Restaurants.
Reiji Sugimoto = USA Restaurants.
Lennart Niermann= Germany Restaurants.
Now, our zone of influence is Japan now only, but in mean time it would increase of course.
Next zone would be Germany due to Lennart's presence there right now along with amount of restaurants created and currently being constructed there.
" Jeremy's Squad has been successfully dispatched to Germany." Recited Reiji-San as he read his tablet, continuing to list current goals and current 'operations' being took right now.
If you are asking, we are currently in our secret base.
My basement~~!
It's a decent hiding place anyway.
"So when would they arrive in Germany HQ?" I asked him as I sat on my chair while he stood above me, reading his tablet.
He shifted his attention from his tablet back to me. His sharp eyes 'beaming' with light under the basement's light, as he continued tapping on the tablet.
"They should arrive in less than three days if they go directly by pre-determined route." He replied before once again looking at his tablet. " But may I inquire something, why waste so much of our resources for some children?" His tone was blunt, yet striking directly to the point.
Why, why really?
Was it pure 'help' and 'kindness'?
~Snort!
Of course not.
I nodded, I expected a question like that. Just logical response anyway.
"It's because of a quest." I replied causing his eyebrows to narrows, but I continued. " Reward is 1,000,000 Gold and Instance Dungeon." I replied to him, I'm not lying, this is the real reason for this operation honestly.
I silently opened the [Quest-Tab] and searched the quests before clicking Expand.
[Quest: Stop 'Holy Sword Project'!]
[Description: Send forced to rescue poor children from 'Devils' hiding in Church!]
[Progress: 10/0]
[Rewards: 1,000,000 Gold, [Instance Dungeon: Goblin Lair] [E-Rank]
[Failure: Isaiah becomes 'Yuuto Kiba']
I glanced at the quest in question before closing it for the mean-time.
Yes indeed, once they rescue them, we will send those children back to HQ in Germany where they would be trained and eventually became our members. After all, it would be a waste to just throw away Sacred Gear users..
Anyway, that's my logic.
And besides, I would finally able to go to my own Adventure, and my first Dungeon. Right now, I'm even weaker than Average Adult Human so I don't plan to go into it the same moment I acquire it.
I mean, I'm even in Child's body, it's not there much I can do. It's my own health after all. But i'm certainly excited for my first Dungeon.
But, there are some ways to 'fix up' my 'stats' temporary.
No, I plan to buy op Sword for 100,000 Gold that sends some type of Magic Attack and then I would go into Dungeon to hunt Goblins from afar. I mean, I hardly think that I, a child is stronger than E-Rank Hunter like Sung Jin-Woo who struggled with mere Goblins?
Smart, isn't it?
Anyway, back to topic at hand.
"I see, with that amount of Gold, Morgan-Sama would be able to summon 10 A-Ranks or one S-Rank." He rubbed his chin in though. It certainly a worthy 'gamble' to take and save children for.
And compared with risks, it certainly seems worthy.
Yeah, I nodded.
It's literally win on every side.
Such a waste to not abuse my future knowledge in some-way.
But it's not like I did not plan on 'rescuing' 'Isaiah' even without the quest, it would be a shame letting Rias get a Sword-Birth when he could join us, and we experiment with his 'abilities'.
It would be a shame, certainly.
"But did our spies in Italy manage to uncover anything?" I asked him patiently as I crossed my arms over my chest.
Reiji-San shock his head in disappointment at my question.
"They have been searching for days already, for even one single hope of informations, there has been no improvement till now. " He sighed, shrugging his shoulders in slight disappointment." And we already used some of our connections that Goto-San managed to acquire till now.." Sad.
I shock my head in disagreement.
This is golden opportunity, I can't... No, we cannot let it pass.
I scratched my head slightly, I knew that Yuuto had important friend back then.
Yuuto had a female friend, she had unique name. Her name was similar to a province in Italy. Or had similar 'ring' to it. Even such small trail would have been better than nothing to look after honestly.
What was her name..
I rubbed my forehead.
What was her name?!
It was something beginning with T I think. I'm now regretting not writing her name back then!
It has passed over six years since I reincarnated into this world, and my memory of me watching High School DXD is blurry, and this was a character I read from wiki. Can't really blame me for this one, she was not important at all.
It would even be a divine blessing if even manage to somehow remember it..
What was her name..
Then it struck me, like a thunder. And my eyes opened.
My eyes widened in realization.
"Tosca! Her name is Tosca, order our spies to search Tuscany! I have feeling she is there!" It was a gamble, and we are fighting against time, and any possible source of information is worthy!
Reiji-San looked flabbergasted for a moment before he started typing on his tablet, his expression stiff and serious, he typed orders and sending them to corresponding spies in Italy.
With secure web of connections of course.
D-Rank Hunter Teams were spread out through the Italy right now as we are speaking, each one led by C-Rank Hunter. They are doing their best to cover as much land as they can.
And moving fast with quit footsteps to not attract attention of other factions working in the Italy.
This is very bad tactical move, one wrong move and we could potentially start a war with Church, a war we cannot win if Heaven intervenes which they will undoubtedly.
We are walking on eggshells in other words.
"I see, I shall forward further instructions to spies." He paused before typing again. " How much time do you think we have, Morgan-Sama?" His gaze moved towards me, as we looked into each others eyes.
I shock my head.
" I don't know, we might have months, years or even days. All I know is that I received this quest exactly four days ago, it might be soon, it might happen in hours.." I replied, my voice laced with uncertainty. "Hell, it might even be today!" I threw my hands in air at exhaustion from all this.
It might be getting to me, who knows.
Reiji-San simply nodded.
Time-Line: 6th April 2007
Next day, I entered to [Quest-Tab] and checked available Quests.
I looked through my [Quest-Tab] Function.
[Quest: Stop 'Holy Sword Project' ] [Expand]
[Quest: 1,000 Hunters] [Expand]
[Quest: Contact 'East Youkai Faction' ] [Expand]
[Quest: Contact 'West Youkai Faction'] [Expand]
These four quests are current Quests I have gotten from System in last week. Each one of them has appropriate reward and each one is fairly easy to achieve with correct steps.
1,000 Hunters, I just need to summon 1,000 Hunters and it's fairly easy. I could do it right away and summon E-Rank Hunters, but I will not, it's a simply a waste of resources, I will gradually complete this quest. What would I do with 1,000 E-Rank Hunters anyway, we don't have enough of constructed Hotels and Motels to allow them space.
Reward is 1,000,000 Gold once again per completion of this quest specifically.
And about Contacting respective Youkai Factions is also easy, even with our strength right now, we shouldn't have problem even if they wage war against us. Considering how these Factions are weak, and we got two Satan-Class fighters while they got none.
After all, Youkai Factions don't even have Satan-Class being, their strongest is Ultimate-Class fighter respectively . But that can easily be changed once Shinto Faction jumps in.
So once again, we would wait before we get at least one 'Super Devil-Class Hunter' before anything. So about three years hopefully before we 'introduce ourselves to Supernatural side of the world'.
"And respective rewards for each contact would be 2,000,000 Gold. Enough for two S-Rank Hunters. But yet,even if we contact them now, we don't really have a reason to do so. It's a bit too early for our introduction, since we can still wait and 'farm' more Hunters before joining." I muttered to myself as I continued eating my lunch.
I'm currently eating potato and sausage for lunch, Ikari-San made it with all her heart after all.
Anyway, back to our main problem.
We lack people and manpower.
Money will never be a problem anymore, if Sugimoto doesn't fire himself, that is.
But we also caught attention of Supernatural Factions, when I say 'we' I meant Goto-San and his group of Bounty Hunters.
There have been too many, and when I mean too many, I mean hundreds of attempts to get Goto-San to join factions.
And most of them came from Devils Faction, just as expected.
Those ugly bastards are annoying, from their pesky attempt to even their behaviors. No wonder Tiamat hates them back in her Forest of Familiars.
Poor her though, but poor Goto-San too.
Countless High-Class Devils, those born into Pillar Houses and those who rose to such rank from Reincarnated Devils approached him with 'hopes' of recruiting him into their respective peerages.
It's needless to say that they didn't take his rejections very well.
Some of those bastards even tried to kill him and then forcibly reincarnate him.
Please, how can you explain such though, how could a High-Class Devil at BEST, attempt it? IMAGINE ATTACKING SATAN-CLASS WITH HIGH-CLASS DEVILS's strength.
It's incredible mindset, that is.
Even though they 'only knew he was Ultimate-Class'.
Officially, that is.
Once again, needless to say that he killed dozen of nobles already, but most of them are 'fake nobles', those that ascended to have 'right for peerage' after being reincarnated Devil, after so many attempts they simply stopped trying to recruit him by force or into peerage.
Instead, they shifted to bribing him, which also didn't work.
But after all, Devils are beings of Sins, and Greed was one of them. So they never stop their attempts nor I think they ever will.
It's in their nature, just as sevens sins are: Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth and Wrath.
A Devil is not a Devil if they don't have one such sin in their very soul.
I'm pretty sure if they learned that Goto-San has family, they would have undoubtedly used them against him. But thankfully it was only he who was summoned.
"Is it good~?" Ikari-San questioned as he sat down beside me with her own plate.
I gulped the last remaining piece of meat in my mouth before responding.
Table manners first!
"You know that potato is my favorite vegetable!"
"~Ara,Ara! It doesn't matter, I still like to hear that response from you no matter how many times." She teased me, I couldn't help pouting at her words before I remembered something in last second.
"What about you and Mizu-Kun~ When are you gonna marry him?~" I teased her this time, poking her arm with that lazy smirk on my face.
Ikari-San and Mizu-San certainly got close over the two years, maybe too close?
Who knows, they certainly could be called 'L~O~V~E~R~S~' now.
"Ah, eh! Well, you see..." Her face flushed as she turned away in embarrassment.
"Did you do it with him, did you~?!" I poked her once more, still with that annoying smirk.
But I waited with bated breath.
But her silence was enough of an answer me to poke her once more before I giggled at he embarrassment.
I took a glass of Coke nearby to drink.
And I took a sip.
"W-what! What is so funny, once you are adult you will also be curious about your body and experiment with your own man too!" Was her defence as she turned to look at me with her flushed face.
Despite her teasing tone and how she likes to present herself, she is for lack of better words... Behaving like teenager.
But for my defence, I spat out the coke I was drinking at last part of her sentence the 'Your own man' part.
"Ah!" I looked at her with my shocked face face, "What the hell are you thinking! You old hag!"
Chapter Word Count: 2,673
Chapter before edit- 1,710
Chapter after edit - 2,673