We all sat back in our seats once Claire left. She had told us that it would take some time to get her brother and his things moved over, and apparently, she was quite paranoid about her enemies exploiting that relationship and had hidden his whereabouts thoroughly. That meant that we had time to discuss the other important part of today’s meeting: Jae-Hyun’s plans for the future now that we’ve established complete and total control of Pandora.

  “Before I begin,” our leader said with a rare smile of appreciation on his face, “I would like to thank everyone here for their work in the last few weeks. We have come a long way since we first stepped foot into this city, and we wouldn’t be here without the help and support of all of you.”

  Jae-Hyun stepped away from his seat and gave us all a low, formal bow. “I would not be here without the support of everyone present, so thank you. I mean it.”

  “Yeesh,” Noel whispered, nudging my side, “It’s weird seeing the boss so formal and stuff. I don’t like it.”

  "No kidding" I whispered back.

  “And uh, no need for that, Jae-Hyun,” I added, raising a hand to the Regressor, “It’s not like we’d be here without you either, and all that formal stuff doesn’t suit this guild.”

  “Yeah,” Vadeem grumbled, “We have to act professionally outside, and let me be the first to say that it’s tiring! We’re all friends here, even if we’re in charge.”

  The Regressor chuckled and nodded. “Fair enough. Anyway, now that we have the entirety of the city-state at our disposal, I think it best to discuss how we will shape Pandora going forward.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Vadeem said, “How much have we grown since the merge? I know a thing or two about organizations, and we need the logistics before we can figure out where to go from there.”

  The Regressor smiled as he fiddled with a controller. The lights in the meeting room dimmed and an unseen projector started to hum to life in the background.

  “As you can see,” Jae-Hyun said, pointing to the presentation, “I have everything ready, courtesy of Father Marcus and Yoona.”

  Huh, of course, the Regressor would have things all organized and ready to go, although I had the sneaking suspicion that the colorful, floral background was a choice that his sister added. The infographics, expertly made graphs, and other information, however, were definitely the work of Jae-Hyun.

  “Our numbers,” he continued, pointing to one of the various charts. It read that we were up to 11,183 Aspirants, only a slight decrease from the roughly 11,800 that we had at the start of the merge. “Have grown to manageable levels after the reinforcements. We are still behind the other top city-states, but, as I said, it is manageable.

  “The problem, however, is the quality of the new recruits.” He flipped to a new slide, this one displaying the rough estimates of the overall level of the Aspirants. “On average, I estimate that they are close to 40 levels below our own or about 15 below what the overall average should be.”

  He nodded at Father Marcus to continue. The creepy Father went up to the projector and smiled. “Additionally, the overall combat capabilities from the sample of new Aspirants that I’ve personally tested are low. Frighteningly so, although that should come as no surprise if they were deemed among the worst of the worst. There are, of course, a few diamonds in the rough among the souls I have surveyed, but they are few and far between. I believe Walter has already done the groundwork for their integration.”

  Marcus gestured for the Regressor to turn to the next slide. “However, while I am sure that the deficiency in levels can be easily patched up with time and resources, but the same cannot be said for their overall combat effectiveness. They are used to losing, and it shows.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” I asked, genuinely confused. “They didn’t seem that bad when we were out supervising their excursions.”

  Instead of answering me directly, Jae-Hyun simply flipped to the next slide. This time, it was a video compilation of the various hunting parties. Normally, they would have a few of Pandora’s native Aspirants guiding them, but the video our boss decided to play was devoid of their normal help. The result… was, well, I could see the problem.

  These various parties of about 3-5 individuals were hopeless. There was no coordination, they were stumbling around each other and there was no synergy to speak of between the abilities that each person possessed. It was like watching a bunch of kindergartners playfighting if it wasn’t for the inhuman feats they were doing. There was no skill or finesse at all, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the Aspirants I was shown were clearly terrified to fight even the weakest of the beasts roaming around Pandora’s fringes. How these Aspirants survived was a mystery - wait, never mind that, I knew exactly how they survived till now, it was because of us. These guys should have already died by this point, and it was little wonder why.

  Father Marcus looked on with sadness in his eyes before finally sighing. “Our next Trial requires us to act as a unit, as a collective whole, against overwhelming odds, and if the core of our combatants breaks before the fight even starts, then we are doomed for failure. The task ahead of us, as their shepherds and spiritual guides, will be a tough one, but what task isn't without its trials and tribulations?”

  “Yeah…” Vadeem muttered, “Our next fight’s on Earth against those alien things, right?”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Jae-Hyun nodded.

  “And I don’t think we can organize them into a proper army in the few weeks we have until then, either.”

  “We do not,” Marcus answered.

  “So what can we do?” Vadeem asked, “I ain’t an expert in siege warfare, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll need to have a proper command structure set up at the least, and those guys don’t look like they can follow orders well, if at all.”

  “Not to mention they’ll just run away if they see danger,” Noel chimed in, “We’re screwed if that’s what we got to work with. There goes our perfect streak!”

  “It is not completely hopeless,” Jae-Hyun said, “But the next part of what we have to do will not be without difficulty.” He nodded toward his sister. “Yoona, show them what we’ve collected.”

  The high schooler went up and took out several large chests from her inventory and opened them up for us. Inside each of them were mountains of cores, all of varying shapes and colors.

  “It’s the cores that we’ve been collecting for the last few months,” Yoona explained, “This much is enough to run the Omen Machine for a long time, at least on the easier settings.”

  “So we just throw the lot of them in there?” my big friend said, raising an eyebrow. “How many people can fit in there at once anyway?”

  Jae-Hyun picked up one of the smooth cores and inspected it as if he could see something that the rest of us couldn’t. “As many as we need, Vadeem, so long as we have the resources. The limiting factor isn’t physical space, but rather, on fuel. I would still limit it to a few hundred at once, for the logistics of it all. Inside, the new Aspirants can experience the reality of the Trials without the fear of death." The Regressor's eyes turned cold. "Or, more accurately, they become accustomed to death, for they will die many, many times in there. I had wanted us to use it first, but we have to adapt to what we have.”

  “And they’ll just willingly go?” I asked, “Experiencing death many, many times over, as you just said, sounds like an awful time to me. Those guys don’t look like they would agree, or at least not after the first time in there.”

  “It is not a pleasant experience,” the Regressor chuckled, his eyes becoming cold. “But it is not as if they have a choice. I am in charge of Pandora now and they will do as I say, as they will soon see. They do not have a choice.”

  “Ooo…” Noel whispered to me, “Dictator Jae-Hyun’s kind of hot!”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Which brings me to the last of my concerns,” our new dictator continued, “Once we begin, the image of our guild will not recover to what it was before, and although I have absolute control over Pandora’s citizens in theory, I cannot control their actions in private. The native inhabitants of Pandora will be fine, they have survived worse, but what we must do will breed ill contempt with the new residents.”

  “I call dibs as the head of the gulag!” Noel said immediately, “Now I need to buy a cool new uniform! I think Nel’s got a few of those last time I checked.”

  “Aren't you Polish? Why would you want that position?” Vadeem grumbled, shaking his head.

  "Hey, that's racist! I'm like, minimally caucasian, Vadeem," Noel said with a pout, "My family's so mixed that I'm sure that I have a bit of-"

  And there they went blabbering on again. Yoona gave Vadeem and Noel a pensive look, but whatever innocence the once naive girl had before was starting to erode fast. The girl glanced and the twins by Vadeem’s side, then at her brother, before nodding her head slowly to herself. She understood that it wasn’t just her own survival at stake here, it was the lives of everyone she cared about, and protecting those you love tends to jade you toward the harsher aspects of life. Noel might say things in less than stellar ways, but Yoona couldn’t deny the truth in her words.

  “We will distribute roles later,” Jae-Hyun said, stopping things before it got too rowdy. “Privately. I know your individual strengths, and I trust that you will maintain the peace regardless of what happens in the future. With the addition of Claire among our ranks, the task ahead might even be easier than what I originally anticipated.”

  “So what’s the immediate plan?” I asked, “Throw them all in the creepy machine?”

  Jae-Hyun nodded. “Only the Aspirants like the ones on the video at least. I have other plans for the competent ones.”

  Noel’s eyes brightened as she raised her hand. “Oh oh! Are you getting them to join the secret police under me?”

  “No, but we will need trustworthy leaders among their number.”

  Vadeem frowned. “Why not just have the ones already loyal to us in charge?”

  “A number of reasons,” Jae-Hyun explained, “Although we will build discontent among the new members in the beginning, we cannot foster a hostile relationship with them forever. The resources needed to quell rebellion would be too high. Thus, seeing members of their own faction with positions of power will dispel some of the worst resentments among the populace, or at least from the Aspirants who pose a serious threat to our rule.”

  “Huh, so fatten up the ones with promise and ease them to our side and screw over the rest,” Vadeem murmured, “A tactic as old as time, but one that works.”

  “Um,” Yoona whispered, hesitating to voice her concerns at the moment. “What should I do in all of this? I… I don’t think I can do the…” She hesitated again, this time looking over to Noel, Vadeem, and I. Ah, it seems that she’s clued into what our extra roles were in the Abyss guild.

  Her brother quickly shook his head. “No, and I would never allow you to do so, not if you don’t want to.”

  The high schooler nodded slowly.

  “What I need you to do is the same thing that you’ve been doing so far. Like it or not, Yoona, you’ve become the face of the guild for the common people. No matter what happens in the future, they will still need someone to trust who will look out for them. Father Marcus will assist you in that department, but sadly, I cannot retain my current image.”

  Yoona winced, but she understood what her brother meant. As the man who’s making all of the hard decisions, resentment, and hatred would naturally pile up his way. Having Yoona remain an upstanding figure would definitely help stabilize some of the squeaky-clean images I’ve helped foster, even if the core of the problems remained.

  Jae-Hyun was about to continue when one of the staff came over and whispered something in his ears. He nodded slowly and spoke. “It appears that Walter’s guest is here.”

  I nodded and started to get packed up.

  “Everyone else, please stay for a moment while we iron out the details. Once we start with the training, we’ll all be on high alert. I don’t want anything going wrong from here on out, and I can’t rely on just my own experience and knowledge going forth.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “I’ll fill you in once you’re done. I need you to continue to ensure that we have Claire’s full cooperation.”

  I gave him a thumbs-up and headed out.

  Want to read ahead? Check out my Patreon!

  27 chapters ahead!