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This group consisted of Reika, Meira, Scarlett, Irin, Bastilla, and Izil, though they sometimes also had others join who also suffered from their association with Jake being revealed. These meetings didn’t have any strict purpose… well, they had initially been a way to organize and get their stories straight with what information they could and couldn’t share about Jake, but after only three meetings, the group had turned into what was essentially just a support group for venting.

“My family has constantly been sending people asking me if I could get a meeting with the Chosen, and when I say he is in Nevermore, they began to question if I know which floor he was at, and one of my aunts even asked why I didn’t join the party,” Bastilla – the beastfolk roommate of Reika – complained. “I barely even know him… we did one dungeon together! Why the hell would he bring me, of all people?”

“Have you tried misdirecting them?” Izil, the elf from the Altmar Empire, offered advice. “I keep telling them that I switched strategies from directly trying to make a close connection with the Chosen to instead focus on the people around him who do have a close connection… which means they are actively supporting me going to these meetings now as they think I am networking. Which I guess I kind of am. But it also makes them back off, at least for a time.”

“That’s a good strategy,” Reika nodded. “I am lucky that I have no pressure from family anymore. Then again, that is mainly because the Patriarch is already close to Jake. Ah, by the way, as an update, the other alchemists from the clan have also backed off trying to get closer to Jake through me, and I warned them that trying to take advantage of the fact he brought them here may end badly. No, what I have had trouble with recently was this instructor who had a lesson I really wanted to take about ice-affinity flask brewing. The man is a total creeper who immediately refunded any Academy Credits I had spent on the lesson and then proceeded to offer private lessons. I thought he wanted… you know, but no, he just wanted intel on Jake.”

“Wait… isn’t that the same guy who taught cold-poison absorption and refinement?” Scarlett said in realization. “Big blue scalekin. Has a weird scale pattern on his chest that looks a bit like a cupcake?”

“That’s the one!” Reika confirmed. “Geez, he tried it with you too?”

“Yeah, he definitely isn’t subtle. I think he is from one of the Dragonflights or something, though I didn’t actually talk to him; I just took the refund and informed him I was forbidden from speaking about the Chosen. He still sent me a natural treasure even after I told him to screw off, so I just ate it and moved on,” Scarlett shrugged.

“Definitely nothing wrong with taking advantage of people like that; just be careful not to sow any debts,” Reika nodded with a smile. She then turned to look at Meira, who was sitting quietly as usual. “Anything new happened for you over the last two weeks? Still the same problem?”

“Yeah…” Meira said meekly. “I don’t even try to take normal lessons anymore, only if it is really necessary. I just work with Teacher.”

Meira had the problem that she wasn’t just the former slave and close associate of the Chosen. She was now also the first person that Duskleaf, the Grand Elder of the Order, had blessed in no one knew how long, making her a figure many were interested in. Coupled with her demeanor and general personality, that was not a good mix, as she was far from used to the pressure.

Scarlett did have a bit of the same problem, being blessed by the Malefic Viper herself, but it was far, far from as severe as it was for Meira. The six of them had all questioned why Jake was so insistent on staying anonymous, but now, after having experienced just the impact of his status second-hand, they got it. While there were many advantages, the sheer mental drain was exhausting.

You had to consider if every single person talking to you had some ulterior motive and didn’t actually want to talk with you as a person but were just using you to get to someone else. This was one of the reasons why these meetings kept happening: it was nice to talk to a group of people who didn’t only suffer from the same issue but also people you were relatively sure weren’t just there to try and get closer to Jake.

“Any positive stories?” Reika asked, trying to focus on the good stuff.

“I got one! My former supervisor, who just came back from an assignment a week ago, keeps inviting me out for drinks and asking to chat. This was the same girl who just a decade ago made fun of me for not landing any big fish in the net,” Irin said, shaking her head as she displayed a proud smile. “I still remember when she spent three full hours bragging about getting with this young scion from some big Beastfolk tribe while throwing in jabs asking me who I managed to snatch up recently. Not a single comment from her for the last week, and I even purposefully keep bumping into her.”

“Devilish,” Izil chuckled. “Speaking of devilish… you said you had a skill selection coming up. Did you… you know?”

“Get an option related to Jake? No,” Irin waved her off, smiling. “I got three total. Two for my race and one for my profession.”

“And?” Reika questioned.

“Only picked one of them.”

“Really?” Reika said with a deapan face.

“Best option by far, don’t blame me. It isn’t like I am the only one,” Irin said shamelessly.

“Still,” Reika sighed.

“Alright, change of subject. You know what I am gonna ask, right? What’s the tally for the last two weeks? I am at thirteen,” Irin said. “Down from last week. I think people are beginning to get the message.”

“Only forty-three,” Reika said with a smile. “All of them in-person too, with half during a single lesson.”

“A hundred and two,” Bastilla sighed. “Most from back home… I don’t think they get that I don’t actually know the Chosen, like, at all.”

“Just eight; I think the fact I have a fiance back home got around,” Izil smiled. “I don’t have one, but it worked.”

“A hundred and seventy-nine,” Scarlett said quite proudly. “I rejected all of them… especially this super weird one.”

All eyes turned to the final girl in the room as she looked embarrassed.

“Meira?”

“I don’t…”

“Come on,” Izil said. “It can’t be that many, right?”

“… nine-hundred and five…”

The others stared at her for a moment before Irin began giggling to herself.

“That’s on me,” Izil raised her hands in defeat. “I accidentally let a bit too much slip to the Empire… so…”

“It’s okay,” Meira smiled. “I just ignore them…”

As for what they were counting?

Unprompted invitations. Invitations varied, with most of them proposals or people asking them out, along with factions that wanted meetings to establish a connection, naturally with the goal of recruiting them. Oh, and the odd ones, like this weird guy who just wanted Scarlett to bite him.

Life as a survivor of knowing Jake was truly challenging.

In a meeting room back on Earth, other associates of Jake were also working hard at dealing with everything Jake’s identity as the Chosen of the Malefic Viper had brought with it.

“Any problems on your end, Arthur?” Miranda asked the man sitting across the large table. “I heard a demonstration recently got a bit out of control in… what was it called again?”

“Seawind Village, though we should probably update the name to Seawind City with its expansion over the last year. There was a recent influx of immigrant beastfolk who preferred to live closer to the ocean, and the locals didn’t exactly take to this kindly. Especially not when the housing prices rose exponentially for all residences that were seaside, pricing out anyone who wasn’t at least solidly in D-grade,” Arthur explained, shaking his head. “While we managed to quell some of the anger by assuring that those who already owned housing there would be grandfathered into the new real-estate law without having to pay increased taxes for at least the next five years, many who wanted to move there in the future are still far from happy, and as you say, there was one protest recently that got out of hand. A few injured, but no deaths.”

“I take it you have the situation handled, or do you need more assistance?” Miranda questioned.

“No, I believe that after an adaption period, things will calm down. We are also working on some high-rise construction that will provide more affordable accommodations that will still offer a view of the sea, even if they are not close to it. Many of the Beastkin want quick access to the sea itself due to their variant races, while the humans only really care about the view.”

Miranda nodded, happy that things seemed to be working out but more than a little tired of dealing with issues like this all the time. Even before the mass influx of slaves appeared – an influx that was still ongoing, mind you - they had been working on reforming many of the laws and institutions present on Earth to make what would effectively be a proper government.

Ever since the integration, it had become the norm for every City Lord to effectively be the local warlord who made their own rules and laws. While the United City Alliance and other factions did integrate many cities, they didn’t include even close to every single city. Especially not the rural ones.

Since the establishment of the council, they had actively made an effort to unite the planet. With the influx of slaves, this only became even more of a priority to make sure fringe factions that opposed this immigration wouldn’t appear without their knowledge. Recently, arrivals from the United Tribes to help assist Miranda had also begun coming, and while they were a great help in expanding the influence of the council, they were also ultimately newcomers, which many native earthlings weren’t big fans of. Lots of xenophobia all around, that was for sure.

“Speaking of beastkin and beast, did you look into the appearance of the C-grade beast?” Miranda asked another guy in the room. It was the former leader of the fort, now, after the Myriad Paths event, a reformed fist-fighting magic brawler, Phillip.

Phillip had given up entirely on being a leader of any kind, even after his second wind from having to deal with Haven during the entire Ell’Hakan debacle. He was now thoroughly retired… if by retired one meant having taken up the job of working for the government as an investigator of sorts. Ah, but he was not a leader with any employee responsibility. That was his big requirement for taking the job.

He had recently gone to investigate what was suspected to be the first appearance of a C-grade beast within human territory since Sylphie. C-grades were still pretty rare on Earth, so this had caused some ruckus, especially as the beast had appeared in a rural village with no other C-grades anywhere nearby. All other C-grades Jake – or now Miranda, having been given the authority – had to approve to enter protected human lands. The one exception was those who had grown up within these lands and evolved there, like Sylphie. And now this beast.

“Yes, I looked into it, and I don’t think there will be any problems even if we leave him alone,” Phillip shook his head and smiled. “In fact, this beast has apparently been protecting the locals in the area for quite a while and is a bit of a local hero. Plus, he was really nice… though he did seem to have the same thing as Sylphie where he refuses to properly communicate, even if by all accounts he should be able to.”

“Alright, good to know. Keep an eye out still; better safe than sorry,” Miranda nodded as they prepared to move on. In all honesty, she wasn’t that surprised. From the reports, the beast was friendly and had been living with humans ever since they returned from the Tutorial, all without any incidents of note.

It did make sense. Golden retrievers tended to be good boys and girls, so it would have been very surprising if it had turned into a bad dog.

Miranda smiled a bit at the thought as she turned to one of the estate developers who had been allowed to attend the meeting. “Moving on. Could you give me an update on clearing the buffer zone around Haven? Did you relocate all the illegal settlements as planned?”

Quite a while ago, it had been decided that a buffer zone of around ten kilometers would be made around the entrance to the forest Haven was placed in. This was to continue respecting Jake’s wish of having Haven be a quant little forest town, with the hope he would actually bother still visiting there from time to time.

Without this buffer zone, Haven would rapidly turn into a metropolis as every new arrival wanted to be as close to the Chosen of the Malefic Viper as possible. Why wouldn’t they? Their primary reason for coming had been to form a better relationship with the Order of the Malefic Viper, after all.

Despite having set up the buffer zone, some people still chose to settle there. It was a constant struggle having to clear them out, and Miranda was honestly considering just placing a hex on the entire zone to give anyone who spent too long there horrible waking nightmares. Maybe diarrhea too.

“Yes, Mistress, they have all been moved to the primary city, and better signage has been posted to clarify settling within the buffer zone is not allowed,” the female developer explained. “However, Mistress, if I may, we are beginning to run out of raw materials… the supply simply cannot meet the demand. We are especially in need of metals for reinforcing the structures.”

“Hm, try to talk with the merchant alliance about obtaining more,” Miranda said after thinking for a bit. “Lillian can update your budget, but I will need an itemized report of what you spend these funds on. We don’t want a repeat of Ricardo, do we?”

“No… no, of course not. I will make sure not a single Credit is out of place,” the woman nodded nervously.

Yeah, Ricardo had been… well, foolhardy was perhaps the right word? Actually, stupidly greedy was probably more accurate. He had thought he could skim off the top without anyone noticing just because the budding government was still young and disorganized. Little did the guy know that the leader of the merchant alliance on Earth was Sultan, and when Lillian noticed discrepancies, the guy was fucked. Sultan was shrewd, but he at least knew how to take advantage of Miranda and Jake in a way that wouldn’t annoy them too much.

This did introduce another issue: what to do with criminals? Luckily, the people from the United Tribes had some solutions there. While capital punishment was considered normal in the multiverse, it did feel like a bit much to execute anyone who committed any crimes, no matter how small. Others also had this issue, including the United Tribes, who also used this solution to keep certain beasts with low intelligence penned.

That’s right, Earth had constructed its first proper jail. It couldn’t hold C-grades or too powerful D-grades, but that luckily hadn’t been necessary yet, either. They had achieved this by having high-level crafters make cells that were too durable for even the average high-level D-grade to leave a dent and further improved the place with a formation that weakened and drained resources from all those within. Finally, every single prisoner was magically marked to make them easier to track. With that, even if someone should escape, a C-grade guard would quite easily be able to hunt them down.

Miranda was about to move on when Lillian tapped her on the shoulder and sent a telepathic message. “I was just informed that a warrior found an interesting item after slaying a quite powerful C-grade.”

Having a good idea of what she was talking about, Miranda asked to have the hunter come.

A few minutes later, a familiar figure entered the room. A lot of slaves had come to Earth, with few standing out. This man was among the outstanding individuals who, after getting freed, had willingly taken up a leadership position and become a great support for the council.

“Holstred, I hear you have been hunting?” Miranda said as she smiled at the former Knight Commander-turned-slave-turned-freed.

“Yes, Mistress,” he bowed, overly polite as ever. “I believe it would be of interest to the council to be aware that items such as these seem to have begun appearing across the planet.”

Holstred held up a black token depicting a large black pit with a dragon within. Miranda did indeed already know what it was as she Identified it.

[Greater Nevermore Admittance Token (Unique)] – a special token that allows the user to teleport themselves and up to 99 others with them directly to Nevermore City to enter the World Wonder known as Nevermore. Nevermore consists of a number of sequential dungeons with increasing difficulty. Time is warped within Nevermore, making time pass slower outside than inside. One can only spend a total of 50 years within Nevermore. This token can be reused to return the same number of people back to where they originally teleported from.

Requirements: C-grade

Miranda looked at the item and smiled slightly. If those tokens had begun to drop… it appeared another influx of newcomers to Nevermore was inbound.