Side: Yuki
"—And that's basically the situation. Luna dumped it on us."
I stood in front of a whiteboard, giving the rundown on the new continent based on the information Luna provided.
My audience was the exact group slated to launch an incursion onto this unfamiliar soil.
Though "explaining" might be an overstatement. In the end, it all boiled down to: [Solve the mana depletion problem].
"Mana depletion, huh... I see. So that's why we got called in."
"Yeah. Even if Yuki and the others are going, the roster is almost entirely women."
"That's true. We can split up if necessary, and even as support we'd still be a decent fighting force."
Today's briefing featured a rather unusual crowd. For once, there were faces in the room who weren't my wives or official chief executives.
On top of that, they were guys.
"Man, we couldn't do a single damn thing during that whole Hero and Demon King fiasco. My knuckles are practically itching for some action."
"Yeah. Active adventurers have zero business stickin' their noses into national politics. Even if we tried, it'd only invite a massive headache down the line."
"Agreed. But a new continent, you say... This has the makings of a grand adventure unlike anything we've experienced before."
Sitting there was the nostalgic trio of middle-aged veterans: Mobu, Raiya, and Kurse.
Given that they were seasoned adventurers, their raw numerical levels were technically the lowest among our expedition group, but their sheer depth of practical experience was overwhelmingly superior.
Personally, I was heavily relying on them.
I mean, we seriously lacked men on this expedition.
"Ah, come to think of it, I have a quick question if you don't mind, Yuki-san?"
"Hmm? What's on your mind, Tori?"
In a rare turn of events, it wasn't Riel, but the dog-eared—or rather, wolf-eared—Tori who raised her hand to speak.
Tori used to be an active adventurer herself, and though I'd never say it within Riel's earshot, I trusted her competence completely.
Because Riel had a tendency to charge ahead without thinking. She'd been like that during the Rithea incident, and apparently she'd been the same during her adventuring days with Tori... Tori must've had it rough.
Anyway, better listen to Tori's question.
"Um, instead of utilizing the dungeon provided by Luna-sama to travel there, wouldn't it be far more efficient if you expanded your dungeon territory westward across the seabed, allowing us to survey the new continent from its coastline?"
Oh, that was an incredibly sharp question.
Under normal circumstances, that would absolutely be the ideal strategy.
However, due to a variety of underlying issues, that option was completely off the table.
"It'd be perfect if we could pull that off, but in reality, it's completely impossible."
"Why is that?"
"Weed is situated directly in the geographic center of our continent. This means expanding our dungeon territory westward would require us to surreptitiously carve out dungeon paths beneath the sovereign territory of multiple foreign nations without their consent."
"Ah."
Exactly. That was an absolute recipe for disaster.
If we messed up and got caught, Weed's geopolitical standing would be utterly ruined.
"But couldn't you just manifest the dungeon paths temporarily and dissolve them immediately afterward? Since it'd be deep underground, I doubt anyone would notice."
"I considered that. But if we push our dungeon territory further west, there's a high probability that other nearby dungeons might sense our presence. In the worst-case scenario, it could spark a territorial war with an unknown Dungeon Master."
"I-I see... Yeah, that would be incredibly bad."
That was the primary reason I refused to expand the dungeon westward. I had absolutely zero desire to trigger another dungeon needlessly.
As Tori realized, if we got locked into a conflict with a foreign Dungeon Master, our investigation of the new continent would be severely delayed, and our current continent would likely be thrown into massive public panic all over again. And that's right after we finally managed to put the Demon King crisis to bed.
"Furthermore, we don't know the exact physical boundaries of the magical depletion. If the ocean floor falls within the affected zone, there's a distinct possibility that the connected paths would aggressively siphon away Weed's DP reserves. On top of that, we have no idea what kind of side effects flooding a depleted landmass with a sudden influx of magic would trigger. The most likely outcome is that the monsters born from environmental magic—which are supposedly rare over there—would suddenly spike in number. We could be talking about spawning an entire continent-wide plague of dragons out of nowhere."
"Uwah... If something like that happened, wouldn't the new continent just collapse entirely?"
Riel's face turned noticeably pale at the mention of a dragon plague.
Though, with her current capabilities, she could easily hunt a dragon down solo anyway.
"So that's why we're connecting to an existing dungeon on the new continent through a gate. As long as it's only a gate connection, Weed's mana won't be drained. Though maintaining that dungeon will still cost us mana."
"Oh right, wasn't it twenty times more expensive?"
"Exactly."
"Then we definitely can't go around expanding dungeons recklessly. Actually, with the whole mana depletion issue, we probably shouldn't be expanding them at all."
Mobu pointed it out and seamlessly answered his own concern. And he was entirely correct.
In fact, I had already explicitly instructed Luna to completely halt the dungeon's automatic environmental mana redistribution to the new continent. As I mentioned before, there was no telling what kind of chaotic side effects it could inflict on the ecosystem, and it would almost certainly interfere with our search for the root cause.
"And that's the core reason we're leveraging the existing dungeon on the new continent, Tori."
"Understood. That makes perfect sense. So this truly is the safest operational route available to us right now."
"Though it's easily the most hazardous route for those of us actually doing the boots-on-the-ground exploring."
"Wait, are we not utilizing our doppelgangers?"
"No, I fully intend to use them. But in the rare event that the doppelganger system fails to function properly over there, we will have to venture out into the field in our actual, physical bodies."
We couldn't exactly accomplish our objective by outsourcing the work to random locals anyway, and it's not like anyone over there is stronger than us. Either way, we had to go personally.
...Please, let the doppelganger system work flawlessly over there!!
"Alright, I completely comprehend our reasoning for heading straight into the new continent's dungeon. That being said, what is our overarching objective once we actually make landfall over there?"
Seraria, who had been listening in absolute silence up until now, finally cut into the conversation.
"Right. For the immediate future, we'll establish a base of operations around the dungeon perimeter to conduct field surveys. I'll be bringing Zargis along to analyze the environmental magic and run a few controlled experiments."
"Experiments?"
"We need to verify if the fundamental laws of magic function differently on the new continent. In the worst-case scenario, the severe lack of environmental magic might actively suppress or downscale our own output."
"Ah, come to think of it, there was that bizarre theory floating around that a person's level rises because their body naturally absorbs and processes environmental magic."
"Whether that theory holds water or not remains to be seen, but verifying our variables beforehand is a critical first step. Once we confirm our actual combat output, we'll launch the official investigation of the continent."
Having finished my piece, I turned my eyes to survey the room.
"Are there any other questions—"
"Rather than conducting investigations, I propose founding a nation."
Just as I was wrapping things up, Seraria casually dropped a bombshell.
"The continent is divided among countless competing powers. Even traveling from one country to another for investigations would take an enormous amount of time. If we establish our own nation, we can thoroughly investigate territory under our control. And as a nation ourselves, negotiating with other countries would become much easier."
Everything Seraria said was perfectly reasonable.
For the investigation alone.
The problem was—
"Seraria. Suppose we actually go ahead and build a nation over there—how far do you intend to take responsibility for it?"
Exactly.
As far as I was concerned, the absolute best-case scenario was to conduct our research and then abandon the place entirely once we were done.
The moment you establish a formal nation, you assume an absolute obligation to protect its citizens. We hadn't even fully secured the peace and stability of our own continent yet; trying to stretch our hands out to manage an entire foreign country was completely unrealistic.
"We can just manage the administration perfectly well ourselves. We can implement a democratic system modeled after Weed to keep things moving."
"Listen to me. The only reason Weed is capable of functioning under a pseudo-democratic model is because we possess the absolute, impregnable defensive capabilities of a dungeon. A democratic government takes an astronomical amount of time to mobilize a military force. You know this, don't you? Under a monarchy, a mobilization order requires nothing more than a single word from the sovereign—an army can move purely on royal whim. A democracy, however, requires endless deliberation and consensus among numerous representatives before a single soldier can march. In the middle of a chaotic, warring era, that level of sluggish mobilization is an absolute death sentence."
"My, we can just worry about stabilizing the nation after we finish unifying the continent. Until then, we can simply install a convenient puppet king to sit on the throne while we quietly hold the actual reins of state power from behind the scenes."
...Are you a devil or something?
The poor figurehead king would be miserable...
"For the time being, I officially propose that we launch our investigation, identify a vulnerable local nation, and simply usurp its government. The stay-behind pregnant group can easily handle the backend administrative paperwork from here anyway."
"She is entirely correct. We have already informed our subordinates that we will be stepping back from our daily roles. Sitting around the house doing absolutely nothing all day would weigh quite heavily on our consciences."
Following Seraria's lead, Ratz and the rest of the pregnant wives began nodding along in thorough agreement. At this rate, even if I refuse, they'll probably just go ahead and create a country on their own...
Lately, my wives have become quite pushy, haven't they...? Should I be the one to follow their lead?
"In the first place, this world belongs to us—the people who live here. It is entirely unacceptable for us to constantly rely on you, someone who came from an entirely different world, to solve all of our crises. Please look at this as our first proactive step toward saving our own world, okay?"
The moment Seraria delivered her closing argument, every single eye in the room locked squarely onto me.
"You all fully realize that our entire operational strategy relies almost entirely on my capabilities, right?"
"But wouldn't it be far worse if we simply chose not to think for ourselves at all? Or perhaps... do you prefer women who blindly submit to every single word you say, Dear?"
Seraria flashed a thoroughly mischievous smile.
Sigh... I really did marry some absolutely formidable women.
Well then—to the unknown kings, vassals, and armies currently tearing each other apart for scraps of land on the new continent:
I suggest you brace yourselves. An absolute storm of utter absurdity is heading your way.
