Chapter 51

There was a momentary pause after Michael announced that he would think about the vision for his future company. During that time he thought he had somehow fucked up, and some of his insecurities came back. He tried to school his face under the hard gazes of the other two men in the room, and he thought he was doing a lousy job at that, at least until Travis beamed a smile at him.

“Good answer,” he said, “Had you tried to answer this question on the spot, I would have had to ask Old Dave to smack some sense into you.”

The man in question looked like he had been forced to swallow sour lemons for a moment, but then Dave smiled diplomatically. “I guess I would have had to impart a lesson, yeah.”

For some reason, he didn’t sound too convinced of that, even he had done exactly that in the past. Was there something else going on between him and Travis that he didn’t know about? He filed the information away for later, along with making a mental note that he should ask Travis exactly what sort of role he had in mind for himself in Michael’s new company. Dave had mentioned that Travis would be a consultant, but a consultant could be many things.

If Michael was to be the CEO, supposedly, and Old Dave the operative counterpart to that, managing the day-to-day business, what would Travis end up doing? He was already CEO of another company, and Michael supposed the board of directors of Petrolink Global wouldn’t be too happy if their CEO went around doing work for someone else.

Unless, he thought, I could find a way to power them up, make them dependent on me for coins. Then, I would have a whole megacorp doing my bidding.

It was scary to think that his mind could come up with these kind of thoughts, when barely days ago he was as malleable as a wet noodle. Perhaps the time spent on the second floor of the dungeon was transforming him into a person made of much stronger stuff. Even though, the thought also brought the unpleasant memory of how the last delve ended, and knowledge that he would have to solve the situation somehow.

“It might feel like we asked you noncommittally,” Old Dave said, “but your answer might well enough shape the future of the whole world. It all depends on what you want to do with your power.”

“Perhaps not the world,” Travis interjected, “but this nation? That’s almost a given now. It’s only a matter of time. Do you want to gather power, or do you want to do good? Do you want to weather the storm, or do you want to prepare the whole of humanity for what’s coming? Oh, don’t look at me like this. It doesn’t take a genius to know that things are going to change.”

“Did Old Dave tell you?” asked Michael.

Travis made a face as if he was not expecting the question. “He didn’t need to tell me anything. I’ve been telling you that things were going to change for long enough already. Unless… is there more to it? An impending threat?”

“There might be one…” he said, and proceeded to explain about the dungeon situation to him.

“I see. If hell is spewing mana into the air like you say, and monsters lurk there… it would weaken your monopoly on magic while at the same time exposing the population to new dangers.”

Right as Travis said that, Michael realized how big of a mistake he had just made. For a moment, the thought about monopolizing magic had left his mind, and now he had just given the CEO information that could theoretically put Michael in danger.

Travis was still speaking, oblivious of the dark thoughts gathering in Michael’s mind. “You know, it only makes what we are doing here all the more crucial to do right. Whether you like it or not, you are among the first pioneers of this new world that’s coming. That comes with responsibilities. Think about what you want to do with them. You don’t owe anything to anyone, but you do have the power to shape where the world will go once change starts to happen. And it will happen.”

Old Dave stopped the other man with a raised finger before Travis could go on a rant, as he looked very much ready to do. “It will be a company for now. But you know that shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later. What is a company now could be something else entirely, down the line. You need to have a solid base well before governments start going tits-up.”

“Will they, though?” Michael was not convinced.

“With shit like this going on? You think they will last long after the first monsters begin to attack people?”

“That’s assuming it happens at all,” Michael said, even though the excuse sounded weak even to his ears.

“What about shit like this, then?” Travis pointed at the laptop resting on the desk. The image was frozen, but Michael could tell that it was the trail cam he had set up closest to the dungeon.

He played the video. It was clear that the other two had already seen it, possibly many times, but Michael had not. This meant that, while he knew intellectually what he might see there, actually watching the footage fanned the flames of paranoia within him.

The cameras had recorded two people. One of them was a surveyor or something, a person they were sure they had actually paid off so that he would not go and actually survey the land. Apparently he had gone there anyway. He went in the dungeon, reemerged ten minutes later, and left.

“We need to find him, and fast.” Said Michael.

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“Already on it. Guess what?” Travis said, “he’s missing.”

“Shit.”

The other person the cameras recorded stalking the area was, surprisingly, Mustang. The footage clearly recoded him go up and down the path a few times. But he did not enter the cave.

“Mustang?” Old Dave spat, face red with rage. He was furious. It seemed that he had not seen this part of the recording, after all. “What is that fat piece of shit doing there? He’s already running my pawn shop to the ground as if it was his own. Why the fuck is he on the Trail? And how is his fatass not dead from a heart attack or something?”

“We might have made a mistake giving the stuff to sell to Mustang.” Michael said, voice full of murder.

“I’m no idiot,” Old Dave replied. “I barely gave him a couple of gems, not the whole sack of things. The rest have been distributed around, with Mr Tyrell’s help, untraceable. I think Mustang was already thinking about investigating this place himself. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

The video continued, but showed nothing of note. No movement, no strange monsters and certainly no people. A few hours later the cameras were destroyed by something they did not record.

“See what I meant earlier?” Travis said, working himself up more than Michael had ever seen the admittedly excitable man do. “With you, me, the surveyor guy and whoever Carmela’s goon is, this makes four powered people already. All from a single entrance to hell. And all evidence points to this not being the only one, nor the oldest.”

“The advantage,” Old Dave added, “is that there don’t seem to be major players throwing magic around just yet.”

“Not even secret organizations?” Michael blurted out despite himself.

“Please,” Travis said, trying not to laugh, “there’s no truly secret organization in the world. All the conspiracy theories, they are a bunch of lunatics. Can you imagine a government keeping something that big a secret for more than a few hours?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t buy it.”

“Trust me,” Travis said with conviction. Not the conviction of a liar who was trying to muddy the waters, but of someone who thought they knew.

Michael was not convinced, though. What if there was some sort of mind magic that could force people to keep the secret? He looked at the man in the eye, speaking in an even voice. “I call in one of the favors you owe me. I want you to look into the existence of other entrances, other powered people and possible organizations with every resource you have.”

Travis said nothing for a long moment. “Alright.”

The other thing, however, was still heavy on Michael’s mind. His hand went to grip the orange stone in his pocket as if it held the secret to overcoming his struggles, while his mind spun in circles.

Now that Travis knows about the expanding mana around the dungeon, he might ditch me.

“Still,” Dave said, trying to bring the conversation back on topic, “there is no evident sign of any of this. It gives us at least time to prepare. But if your fears turn out to be true, then you need to consider the possibility that you might be outclassed and outgunned, both in terms of magic and mundane power.”

“That’s why we need to move quickly,” Travis concluded, having found his vigor once again. There seemed to be respect in the way he looked at Michael now, as if the young man had won points with him with his request. “Go and think about what you want to do with this company we’ll set up for you. Think about it not as an actual company, but as an extension of your will, of your designs for the yourself and the world, whatever they might be. Think about this shit long-term. And come up with a name for it.”

He talks big game, that’s for sure. But it might all be a ruse to butter me up, to make me lower my guard by feeding me dreams of grandeur.

“What if you don’t like what I decide to do with it? Will you leave?” Michael felt the orange skill stone still in his pocket burn as if sensing his unstable mood.

Travis sighed. He was just a kid, the sight seemed to say, a kid who had looked mature when he had called in the favor, but who still had insecurities. Fear of abandonment, it seemed.

“Will you let me leave?” said Travis in a challenging tone, and Michael’s grip tightened around the skill stone.

“I want to say yes, but…”

“But the reality is different, isn’t it? You’re already thinking about what to do with the missing surveyor guy. What if Carmela got him first? What if he becomes a threat? What if I become a threat? If I walked away now, I know I’d be a thorn in your side, forcing you to constantly think about what I could do. You know you fucked up when you told me about the mana cloud. You’d have to—”

“Kill you.” Michael said, and his voice was stone. “And trust me when I say that even with your silver card, I can kill you.”

Travis did not miss a beat, not even when Michael subconsciously let some [Presence] put some pressure on the man without even noticing. “Do you want to kill the surveyor? Do you want to kill everyone who gets access to magic that you can’t control?”

Michael’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Travis laughed, dispelling the tension. “You know, I think I should thank Carmela for what she did to you. It doesn’t matter whether she actually betrayed you or not. Without the threat of her, you’d still be the foolish boy I met at the hospital. I don’t know where you got this new personality from, but I can’t say I don’t like it. You need to feed it, let it grow. There’s no place for a weak native and insecure boy in this world anymore, I fear. I would not be telling you this if I still was just the CEO of Petrolink, but you know that stopped being the case the moment you took me helldiving. Makes me wonder if this was all your master plan. Smart, but I doubt it. You’re not there yet. You will, Old Dave and I will make sure of that. I won’t leave. I made peace with my choice the moment I realized the implications of what you could really do. I’m fully committed.”

Michael relaxed, and turned to Old Dave.

“What? Don’t you know me by now? Who do you think I am, boy?”

“Someone I met less than a month ago?” Michael said, somehow keeping a straight face. There was less pressure on him now compared to when he had faced Travis, but it was also different. More subtle. As if his subconscious mind somehow saw Old Dave as someone he should implicitly trust.

He crushed that feeling. Perhaps it had taken Drullkrin’s death, the death of someone important but not too meaningful, to make him change. Drullkrin had been dependable, loyal and fallible. Predictable, in the little world of the dungeon. Michael had not trusted him implicitly, though, instead making the goblin work for the trust he had enjoyed in his last moments.

Then he had died. It took taking away the figure Michael could trust to make him see just how little he knew everyone else. How little he could trust them. How easy it would be for them to betray him. Old Dave held control over everything Michael possessed. Travis could crush him like an ant.

So far, both Old Dave and Travis had been worthy of his trust, but he felt paranoid. He could not blame himself for it either. After all, did the trail cam footage he had just watched not reveal to him just how badly he had fucked up when he had chosen to trust Carmela?

Might have fucked up. We still don’t know for sure.

Even to him his excuse rang hollow.

As Michael left to go home, his mind went back to his own teachings. More precisely, to what he had taught a certain goblin general about. He thought about contingencies.

Too bad he got himself killed, the asshole, Michael thought, and he felt his chest constrict a little bit.