CHAPTER 415: MEETING WITH SECTION LEADER

There were no more accommodation changes made for the rest of their stay. Damien, Lane, and Ethan all stayed in the couple’s villa with only one bed and no couches.

Of course, that wasn’t because Damien wanted to make Ethan sleep on the floor even though there were beds available, nothing like that. Although he disliked the Guide (for obvious reasons), he knew how to separate his feelings from work (unless something directly concerned Lane, then he often couldn’t help but make exceptions), and normally would try to ensure his team members were all comfortable, if possible...

But he had already changed his accommodation once. How would it look if he did it again? He might come off as fussy, causing trouble for no good reason, just because of his personal preferences... And Damien didn’t want that. Maintaining his image was important, since he was a Team Leader representing the Association. He had to act appropriately for his position.

And honestly, Ethan had brought it upon himself, hadn’t he? Even Damien had to admit that he kind of deserved it. If he hadn’t been coming up with some weird schemes with the Allen Guild, would he have been forced to sleep on the floor?

No. He would have his own room with a bed in one of the family villas, just like all the other members of the team had. So, there was no need to pity him, as it was all just a result of his plans backfiring.

Ethan must have understood it as well, because he didn’t even try complaining or asking Damien to switch back to the other villa again. He just accepted his fate and quietly resigned to sleeping on the floor...

Or at least he appeared that way. Who knew what was actually going through his head? It was likely that he was coming up with new schemes, planning to get back at Lane (and Damien)!

At least for the rest of their mission, though, he didn’t do anything. Neither did the Allen Guild. With no further incidents, and no signs of a potential Gate reactivation (Lane knew what he was talking about. Since no Fertilizer had been planted for a long time, the dungeon was at no risk of expanding anytime soon, at least according to what Lane had heard from Ava and his scientists), they were able to finish their inspections right on schedule. They left the Eldenveil on Friday afternoon, completed the group training with all the A-rankers on Saturday, and on Sunday, they finally had their long-awaited day off!

...Or at least Lane had. Because Damien, as Damien usually did, still had to go to the office! He had a lot of paperwork to go through (as always), planning their inspections and trainings, and on top of that, Section Leader White wanted to see him for some reason...

Damien couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. Although he had never gotten in trouble since starting to work for the Association, not even once, and every time he had been summoned by his superiors had been for perfectly normal, organizational reasons, having a guilty conscience made people think about the worst possible reasons. And Damien had a guilty conscience, since he had been intimate with Lane while on a mission, which, in his book, was a transgression...

It had only been less than two days since they had returned, but that was more than enough time for Ethan to report him. Section Leader White’s reaction speed to this (potential) report was a little bit surprising, considering it was a relatively minor ’offense’, but still. Ethan Wagner had the Allen Guild backing him, so that would explain a lot of things.

However, contrary to Damien’s expectations, Section Leader White had no scoldings in store for him. After Damien walked in, he just gestured at the chair with a perfectly calm expression, "Please, take a seat."

Although it wasn’t enough to make Damien breathe out with relief just yet, he did as he was told. And, as he took a seat in front of the Section Leader’s desk, Section Leader White handed him a tablet.

"This is...?"

"Take a look at it first."

Damien lowered his eyes, quickly scanning the information displayed on the screen. It was a list of active dungeons within the Capital’s area. Or, to be precise, the active dungeons that had been left uncleared for an extended period of time, and were considered to be at risk of a dungeon break in the near future...

And there were quite a few of them.

This, on its own, wasn’t anything particularly new. There were always some Guilds that bought the rights to a dungeon, but then couldn’t handle it. It was mostly the small, struggling Guilds, with very limited resources and personnel. The dungeons were typically F or E-ranked, sometimes D, and in rare cases, C-ranked. Those Guilds were either starting out or hoping for a breakthrough, so they scraped by to purchase a more ’challenging’ dungeon for their standards, only to find out that they bit more than they could chew... They weren’t able to even maintain the dungeon within its ’safe’ limits, despite multiple raiding attempts, and in the end, they had to concede the Gate to the Association to clear.

Damien was already familiar with the process. He had led his team on those emergency raids before. However, what was unexpected was that aside from the usual F to C-ranked dungeons, there were also B and A-ranks listed this time, two of each...

Now that was... surprising, to say the least. The rights to those Gates were obtained through auctions, and the prices for them were astronomical. They weren’t Gates that any Guilds would randomly purchase, not unless they were certain that they would be able to handle clearing them. Otherwise, who would be willing to throw so much money into the mud...

...Ah.

Damien’s eyes widened slightly in realization, as it finally hit him.

His very own boyfriend would. In fact, Lane had mentioned before that he had made a few ’secret investments’ to go on raids with him, so that could be it. It had been quite a while since they had that conversation, and a lot had happened since then, so Damien pushed it aside, focusing on more urgent things...

But the main question now was: why was Section Leader White showing him this?