They spent all day down in the tunnels, expanding the existing system, shoring up weak walls, and trying to plan out more efficient routes. Josh received several more blueprints for braces and tunnels, though there was only so much he could do with his limited mana pool. Ruth promised she'd work on some mana-boosting items. If he got to the point that he could use his [Instant Crafting] to make a full tunnel, this would all go much faster.

Unfortunately, she was usually busy helping him dig. Mary and Darius tried, but were of minimal help. They didn't have the strength to pound through rock, and they didn't have the techniques or spells to make the process easier.

Still, all things considered, Josh felt good about their progress. From all his skills ranking up, new blueprints, and using the blueprints, he managed to reach level 33, while Ruth hit level 35. They had both been on the cusp. Mary and Darius were still level 34, but he thought they'd get some more experience tomorrow. There were monsters down here, and people did need to handle them.

Besides, they had a good haul of treasures from their digging. Still no bloodstones, but a handful of historical artifacts like street signs and discarded scraps of clothing. Sooner or later, they were going to find a body, and Josh dreaded that moment. Though if there really was a museum in town, they'd pay a fortune for it.

Near the end of the day, Mary and Darius decided to explore the pit. They didn't get any monster kills, or any experience at all as far as he could tell. They did, however, get a decent haul of magical herbs and fungi. As a man who had run a Healer for several years, Darius had learned what plants went into potions. They hadn't found anything particularly valuable, but they had netted themselves a profit for the day.

Once they returned to the surface and their lodgings, they found themselves swarmed by eager young children who had been stuck in school all day. They were all very interested in hearing stories about what was going on at the bottom of the pit. Josh protesting that nothing fun had happened did little to dissuade them.

Baara helped them get in touch with buyers for the stuff they found, so that got sorted out easily enough. Every village seemed to have a different market system, so it could be annoying sometimes. Bautista seemed to be pretty closely based on the City's scavenger markets, which was good for the future, if they ended up staying long.

The next day didn't go quite as smoothly.

“What do you mean we need a license?” Josh asked, trying not to grit his teeth.

The clerk who had arrived shortly after breakfast, before the kids had even left, seemed to shrink before him. Josh could tell that he was looming. It was a natural problem that occurred when you were as big as he was. Normally, he would step back and apologize. For some reason, he couldn't muster up the willpower this time.

“It's... standard procedure!” the little man whined. He looked around for support, but there was none. The adults were standing behind Josh, joining him in glaring at the man, and the children thought they were successfully hiding in various places where they could peek. “Out-of-towners need a license to sell anything! The fines aren't so bad, but selling anything from the pit is—”

“What fines?” Josh demanded. “No one told us about this.”

The man drew himself up, barely. Apparently he felt on firmer footing with this conversation. “Now, ignorance of the law is hardly an excuse. It is your own responsibility to learn the customs of—”

Josh interrupted him with a slash of his hand. “We didn't sneak into your village and plunder your riches. We had a meeting with your mayor yesterday where we explained our plans!” Well, Josh assumed that was what had happened at the meeting. Baara was conscientious like that. “He should have told us then.” Or, at the very least, reminded them to check themselves. Josh wasn't interested in giving even that small concession, though.

The little man shrank back down again. “O-oh. Well, I don't know anything about that.” He looked down at his clipboard, fiddling with the papers again. “I mean, technically it's not the mayor's job to—”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Josh drew himself up more. That alone was enough to make the little man shut up. Josh considered, for a moment, that this man almost certainly had a higher Strength score than him. Ability scores could be difficult to quantify beyond the direct, numerical advantages they gave, but the fact that people with a higher Strength were physically stronger was easy to prove. Josh, with his hilariously unbalanced stats, was already weaker than most of the children. Though this man was wearing a small mask to keep from being scanned, unless he was incredibly underleveled, he would be able to break Josh in half.

Still, the man clearly didn't realize that, so when a man twice his size loomed over him, he shut up.

“Why don't you tell us how much it costs to get a license,” Josh said in a low tone, “and we can move on from there.”

The little man said a number.

The household erupted into profuse swearing as every adult—and some of the older children—made their displeasure at that figure known.

Josh managed to keep his anger reigned in, though his eye did twitch. “I'm sorry,” he said, “I think you accidentally added a few zeroes to that number.”

The little man shook his head, though he was trembling so hard it was hard to tell. “N-no sir! That's the standard licensing fee!” He coughed. “I apologize, I should have been more clear, that's per organization, not per person. Now, there are some additional restrictions applied—can't have everyone in town claiming to belong to one licensed organization, after all!” He laughed weakly. No one else did. “But I assure you, that process is simple and free. I can do all the paperwork for you now!”

Josh wasn't even interested in what new trickery was going to be used in the paperwork. “There's no way everyone, or even every organization, can afford that.” He pointed in the direction of the pit. “I saw dozens of independent delvers yesterday.”

This time, the little man nodded more confidently. “Of course, village natives do not require a separate license. Their citizen identification is enough.”

Ah. There it was. This whole thing was just an excuse to crowd out people who hadn't been lucky enough to help found the village, or related to those people. No wonder this place wasn't expanding as fast as Josh would have expected. They weren't fully exploiting the pit because they didn't have the manpower, and they didn't have the manpower because they were keeping out competition with fees.

Give it another generation or two, and this village might be a rich resource center regardless. But they had only been here for a handful of years. They didn't have the strong base to get started so quickly.

Josh took a deep breath. “We would like a full list of all this village's... unique regulations.”

“Of course! I have a copy right here, actually. But what about the fines you've already accrued—”

Josh snatched the papers from the man's hand. “After we have reviewed them, we will decide whether we want to stay or go.”

The little man caught his meaning, and blanched. “You'd leave? Without paying your fines?”

His only answer was the door slamming in his face.

Baara took the papers from Josh's hand. She started skimming through them. “Oh dear,” she murmured. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

Mary stepped past to look up into Josh's eyes. “You know we can't leave,” she said. “Or at least, the kiddies can't.”

Josh grunted.

“There are other towns!” Ruth said, a little desperately. She looked between them. “Worst comes to worst, we can move down to the coast. That, uh, might be better in some ways.” Farther from the City, she meant.

Darius shook his head. “For us? Perhaps. But the children are having enough trouble already. Moving again so soon will simply make things worse for them.”

“It's a last resort,” Josh said firmly. He crossed his arms and looked at Baara. “How bad is it?”

Baara winced. “It's, um, not great?” She sounded like she was critiquing his choice of curtains for the dining room and didn't want to hurt his feelings. She looked down at the papers again. “These regulations could be reasonable, if we had been informed of them ahead of time...”

Mary snorted. “Yeah, and I can hit level a thousand if I wish really hard.”