CHAPTER 418: BUSY

Meanwhile, back at home, the main culprit behind the high-ranking dungeons being on the verge of overpopulation was no less busy than Damien. His concerns, however, were mostly directed elsewhere...

It wasn’t that he didn’t know about the dungeons. He had logged into his ’Boss of the secret organization’ account shortly after Damien had left for work, and from then on, it hadn’t taken him long to realize what was going on. A quick scan through his inbox, and he had noticed the emails from the Guilds under his control, which he had used to purchase the rights to those dungeons... Which had been a great plan and all (as far as Lane was concerned), but...

Due to his negligence, things had gotten complicated. With four high-ranking dungeons getting confiscated around the same time, what were the odds that they would all go to Damien’s team?

Pretty low. It was almost impossible, especially since the Association had other teams that could also handle raiding those dungeons, even if only barely. At least the B-rank Gates were likely to be given to other teams...

Of course, it could still be fixed. Lane could send some people to reduce the monster population in some of the dungeons, or even go do it himself... But after giving it some thought, Lane just shrugged it off.

So what if those dungeons were given to someone else? It was a loss, yes, but not a loss that he couldn’t afford. He would just buy more Gate rights later. And plan it better next time. Perhaps that would teach him to stop procrastinating about going through his inbox so much. He was still the Boss of the secret organization, after all, no matter how conflicted he currently felt about it all, and ignoring the problem wouldn’t solve anything...

And he had more important things on his mind than losing a few dungeons.

One of which was, naturally, Nyla. Or, to be precise, the fact that he had reconciled with her could be exposed...

His ’negotiations’ with Ethan had never been completed. Not that the results could have been trusted even if they had. Lane highly doubted that he had convinced the Guide that he and Nyla had absolutely no contact and that he didn’t care about her either. Which meant that Ethan was likely to report that there was something going on.

If he hadn’t done that already, that is.

There wasn’t much that Lane could do about it at the moment. He couldn’t mobilize the secret organization to attack the Allens, not at the moment, not without revealing his identity... And not without progressing with their plans to Manaform the whole Capital, turning it into the biggest Forbidden Zone. So, that idea had to be scrapped as soon as it popped up in Lane’s head. He could maybe assassinate Ethan... But that would also cause some problems (even if nowhere as much as attacking the Allens directly), and would end up being pointless if Ethan had already submitted his newest report. It could even further suggest to the Allens that Lane had something to hide, as he would undoubtedly become a suspect in the Guide’s death, no matter how discreetly he executed the plan.

The only thing he could do for now was to be more careful, and to warn Nyla to do the same.

...But that was also difficult to accomplish. If the Allens had already received the report, then they surely were keeping a close eye on Nyla. Whether Lane tried to call or text her, or contact her in any other way, there was a risk that they might notice it. Perhaps sending one of the spies that Lane had in the Allen Guild could work... But all of those spies were from the secret organization. If Lane ended up choosing someone loyal to Blanc by mistake, it could lead to Blanc figuring out his identity... And that would be problematic, considering their current situation. Blanc could try to use it against Lane to force him to move on with their goals, and that was naturally something that Lane didn’t want to happen. He was the Boss, he wouldn’t allow anyone to threaten him!

Thus, the only viable option was to contact Nyla through the ManaTech... However, that was also easier said than done. The ManaTech often collaborated with the Allen Guild, with the Allen Guild giving the ManaTech access to their dungeons for the sake of their research, while the ManaTech produced a lot of high-quality equipment for them (for an appropriate price, of course. Business was business)... And as the heiress, Nyla had a lot of personalized equipment made by the ManaTech, created from scratch specially for her.

That didn’t mean that Lane could contact Nyla through the ManaTech so easily, though. He had already asked Ava, but Nyla didn’t have any weapons or equipment that was in development or repair at the moment. They could reach out, of course, since they had her contact information, but... Without any legitimate reason, that would arise only a little less suspicion than Lane contacting his sister directly.

The Allens knew that Lane’s best friend was one of the ManaTech’s top scientists, after all. They weren’t so dumb as to ignore that connection.

With all of this in mind, it was best to just lie low, as any attempts to warn Nyla could only result in confirming the suspicions that they had made up. Hopefully, Nyla would find out about it soon on her own, since she was secretly reading Ethan’s reports, and she would react appropriately by keeping her distance from Lane... Even more than they already were.

It wasn’t the only thing that was keeping Lane busy, though. There was a multitude of reports that he had to at least skim through, whether he liked it or not. Most of them detailed the situation in the Capital and the ways they could use it to progress with their goals - those were all promptly ignored, even though Lane had read them in full. Then there were new discoveries made by the lab - all forwarded to Ava, as Lane didn’t understand half of the things written in them, too much scientific jargon. Luckily, there was still nothing about the International Awakened Summit - the information about the location seemed to have still not reached the secret organization...

There was one thing that piqued Lane’s interest. A report including a link to ViTube, an online streaming service...