"Mr. Whitman! Mr. Whitman!"
Bob blinked and shook his head as he looked up from the man he'd just finished reincarnating.
He wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been at it, but day had turned to night, and at some point the sun had risen again. Not for the first time he considered adding a clock to his interface.
There was a well dressed woman with a microphone and a camera crew standing in front of him where he would have expected his next patient to be. He stood up and looked over them, something which was easily accomplished due to his height in his tier eight form. There wasn't anyone lined up behind them.
"What?" Bob asked curtly. He was tired down to his bones, and he had a headache.
"I'm Amanda Vasquez with ABC 7 news," she said, "We've been waiting for everyone to be helped so we could ask you a few questions." She smiled winningly up at him.
Bob closed his eyes for a moment and rolled his head. His first instinct was drop through a portal into his inventory. He was tired, and dirty, and his capacity for human interaction was so far in the red that he knew he'd need a few days with minimal contact to recover.
The reporter had waited, though. That was the sort of behavior you wanted to reward.
He opened his eyes. "Let's make it very few questions," Bob said. "As you can imagine, I'm exhausted and in desperate need of sleep. To be perfectly frank, the only reason I'm giving you that much is because you waited until the work was done."
"I'll be as brief as possible," Amanda promised, moving alongside him and nodding to her cameraman, who had to take a few steps back, presumably to fit Bob into the shot.
"This is Amanda Vasquez with ABC 7 news, here today with Robert Whitman, the man credited by many with having saved humanity from being wiped out by monsters. He hasn't been seen since before the integration, but reappeared yesterday at LAD7, where he met a young woman and her brother who asked him to help carry their grandparents home. Their story can be found on our website, and will be aired again after this segment." She turned to Bob. "Mr. Whitman, I understand you were incognito and only stopping by Earth for a vacation," she delivered a brilliant smile at the camera. "What made you decide to break your cover?"
"I hadn't realized that the situation was this bad," Bob replied. "I knew that there wouldn't be enough capacity in the Dungeons for everyone to delve, but the reality was so much worse than I had expected," Bob shook his head. "It's been over a year, why are you all still here?" He demanded, gesturing broadly.
Amanda opened her mouth, but Bob kept going. "There are ten million people here. In an area served by ten Dungeons. Realistically, if you didn't have to rebuild the entire city and you only needed to concern yourself with the maintenance costs of living, the absolute maximum number of people ten Dungeons could support is one point two five million, and that's assuming the average for your delvers was tier five, level fifteen. There is no way that someone hasn't done the math, and realized that ninety percent of the people here in LA need to get the fuck out."
"There have been initiatives by the federal government to relocate people to more rural areas, but people are reluctant to leave their homes for an uncertain future," Amanda replied.
"The uncertain future is here," Bob said, pointing to the ground. "I don't believe for a moment that all of the people here want to stay. Not with what I've heard from some of them who tried to leave and were forcibly returned by the police."
"Could you tell us a little bit about the offer from the Dragon King of Greenwold?" Amanda said, trying to reclaim control of the conversation.
"He's the King of Thayland now," Bob said. "He owns the entire planet. It might be a bit pedantic, but he is a Dragon so it's in everyone's best interest to be precise when it comes to his property." Bob gave the camera a crooked grin. "The King has a simple offer. Come to Thayland and delve to your heart's content. He has more Dungeons than he needs, so he's generously allowing Earth to fill them. In return, he's claiming fifty percent of the crystals carried out of his Dungeons. He has stated that the maximum tax that other governments can collect is twenty-five percent, meaning that at worst, you're keeping twenty-five percent of the crystals you pull out."
"How will people even get to Thayland?" Amanda asked, shaking her head.
Bob blinked as the delicate scent of vanilla drifted up to him. He shook his head to clear it. "At the moment I'll be opening portals to move people over," he replied. "I've heard that Earth is working on leveling Dimensionalists as quickly as they can, but it takes time."
"Going back to what you said about the taxes, is keeping twenty-five percent enough? There have been protests and demonstrations regarding the twenty-percent tax imposed federally, and the thirty percent tax imposed locally," she looked up at him.
"You can always delve more often," Bob said slowly. "That's the whole point of going somewhere with enough Dungeon capacity. If you need more crystals, and if you're following the rules, you always need more crystals, then you just keep delving."
"So you're suggesting that people risk their lives more often?" Amanda asked incredulously.
Bob shook his head and sighed. "Amanda," he said gently, using her name for the first time as he laid a hand gently on her shoulder. "I'm not suggesting that people risk their lives," he patted her shoulder. "I'm outright telling you, that if you want to make it in this world, you're going to have to PUT IN THE WORK!" The last was said with a bellow as he dropped his hand from her shoulder.
"The days when you could wander through life without ever experiencing violence are over." Bob said sternly. "Every day that the people of Los Angeles sit around, patiently waiting for their turn in the Dungeon is one day closer to the next wave, and worse, the next tide. Dungeon Delving should be treated like a job. There are hazards, but they aren't insurmountable."
"Perhaps not to you," Amanda said, "but you have quite a few advantages that not everyone will get, will they? You discovered and used those Affinity Crystals, as well as the paths that complimented them. I've done my homework, Mr. Whitman, and it's easy to say that fighting monsters isn't that hard when you have every advantage, isn't it?"
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Bob smiled grimly. "When the explosion at Fermilab blasted me into another universe, not all of me made it," he said. "The System had to rebuild over half of my body to keep me alive, which it only did because it had started to record my memories, and didn't want me dying on it while it was still doing so. Of course, the System didn't have Earth Humans in it's databases, did it? So it had to go off the half of me that was left, which was also damaged, and layer a Thayland human over that to fill in the gaps. The result was that my matrix, which is what we use to channel the energies awakened by the system, were terribly damaged. I couldn't even take a path at level five. My spells cost three times the mana to cast."
He leaned down slightly, causing her to flinch back.
"It was harder for me, than it will be for you," Bob said firmly. "I was able to become what I am through hard work, plain and simple. I delve eighty hours a week. I've told everyone how to find the Affinity Crystals I use, and the System provides optimal paths now. How much simpler does it have to fucking be?"
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"I bet they regret going live with that one," Mike grinned.
"If she'd really done her homework, she would have known better than to suggest that Bob didn't put in the work," Dave agreed.
"At least he'll finally get some sleep," Bailli shook her head. "Do we have everything in place to keep the initiative rolling?"
"Yep," Mike nodded. "The Old Guard will cover the US, while the Endless are setting up globally. They have an international presence."
"Not to be that girl, but how long do you think this will take?" Jessica asked. "I mean, I want to help, but I'm one person, and honestly, given our comparative power levels, we'd be of more use grinding out crystals to fuel the rituals, which we are ostensibly taking a break from, yeah?"
"You know how he is," Amanda said. "He won't walk away if there's something he can do to help."
"I do know," Jessica agreed with a sigh. "It's equal parts infuriating and sexy."
"Keeping in mind that the source is the governments themselves, so a grain of salt there, the countries who have it the worst are all first world nations," Dave began. "France is in the lead, at least with reported elderly in dire straits, followed by Spain and then Portugal. Italy and Germany are bringing up the rear, with Greece reporting low numbers, but that's one of the reports that seems rather suspicious."
"What about Australia?" Jessica asked.
"Australia is solid, as is the United Kingdom, likely a legacy of their having had that huge head start before the governments took over," Dave reported.
"Going off what I've been told, and again, salt, apparently a lot of countries that either didn't have the greatest infrastructure in the first place, or who suffer from geographical issues, or who relied on other countries for their medical equipment and medicine had it the worst. They lost their most vulnerable almost immediately."
Amanda wrapped her arm around his shoulders and squeezed. "We couldn't have done anything," she said quietly.
"Actually we could have," Bob's voice surprised them as he stepped into the cabin. His shoulders were slumped and he sounded exhausted. "We'd already spent how many mana crystals putting everyone in stasis? We could have hit everyone who needed it with a ritual regeneration on their way out. It would have cost a pittance compared to what we'd already spent, and it would have required less work than it does now, with the reduction in quest rewards. I just didn't think things all the way through," he finished, shaking his head. "I've got to get some rest. You guys hammer out a plan, and I'll see if I have anything useful to add in the morning."
Bob dropped through his portal into his inventory.
"He's not wrong," Mike broke the silence.
"He's not, but the blame doesn't land on him," Jessica countered. "None of us thought of it, and more importantly, neither did any of our governments. It's shitty, and I'm going to beat myself up over it a bit, but we need to make it clear that this isn't his fault. He carries enough shit around with him, he doesn't need this."
"We know, Jessi," Amanda agreed, pulling the Aussie into a three way hug with Dave on the other side.
"This was supposed to be a vacation, a chance for the bloke to relax, yeah?" Jessica said.
"We'll still have it," Bailli promised. "We'll probably lose a month or so helping clean up this mess, but we can add an hour a day for a couple of months to make up the time."
Mike let out a bark of laughter. "Never thought I'd hear you of all people advocating for more time spent in the Dungeon."
"We can spend a little more time, the trick is keeping Bob from doing the same, he delves too much as it is," Bailli replied.
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"I'm going to reach out to him personally," Yorrick said.
"You have the Church's full support," Cascadia replied. "Although it would probably be for the best if we didn't send our clergy who have already tasted death."
"Yes, that would needlessly complicate what should be a purely humanitarian effort," Yorrick agreed. "If we delay building out Angola, we can use those funds, which according to last weeks financials was a bit over two billion crystals."
"We can also make an announcement, letting our citizens know what we're doing and soliciting donations," Cascadia suggested.
"We'll also need to leak the information that we have had a program in place to reincarnate our elderly from the very beginning," Yorrick sighed, shaking his head. "I honestly thought the other nations had matters in hand."
"That's precisely the tone you should be taking," Cascadia said approvingly.
"Never work on a lie when the truth will do it for you," Yorrick replied. "We can also use this opportunity to offer positions in our own Dungeons. While there are some people crossing the northern border of Angola into a Dungeon there, we have twenty-eight Dungeons that are being kept from overflowing by the efforts of the Warlocks Guild, the Church, and the Bulwark. If we're leasing those slots out to tier fives, they can easily accommodate fifteen thousand people each, more when they are low level."
"We'll need to provide some emergency infrastructure, at least for water and waste," Cascadia said.
"We'll tax them the same as our own citizens, twenty percent, and we'll allow their own governments to tax them up to ten percent," Yorrick said. "That should demonstrate the fairness and equality of the Terran Confederation while also ensuring we fill our Dungeons immediately."
He paused for a moment. Things had been progressing nicely as far as the Terran Confederation was concerned. Africa, despite being the largest landmass, had only contained twenty percent of the world's population. Of course, one point five billion people was nothing to sneeze at, as the addition of the Karcerian Empire hadn't been enough to move the meter by a percentage point. Still, the continent was under utilized, something that Yorrick was determined to change.
Although he didn't necessarily want that change to happen until after the Terran Confederation held dominion over the entire continent.
Sadly, there were still nations who looked at the former Karcerian Empire with distrust.
"This is an opportunity to generate a lot of good will, and further establish ourselves on the global stage as not just a player, but a leader," Yorrick mused. "I doubt the United States will need our help, despite Bob's insistence that he doesn't hold any obligations to Earth, it's the place he is most familiar with, and remains where he has the most connections. Our neighbors lost all of their most vulnerable straight away, so we can afford to reach out beyond the continent to offer aid to India, the Philippines, and Indonesia. We won't look good, not being aware of what was happening to our neighbors, but as all the other governments of the world were equally blind, we won't look any worse. It remains paramount that any aid we offer them is tied to annexation."
"Will you open a portal for the Church once you've spoken to Bob and made our offer to the world?" Cascadia asked.
"It'll end up being on Bob's timetable, but I'm guessing it'll be mid afternoon our time, tomorrow," Yorrick said. "Which gives us tonight and tomorrow morning to prepare."