The Martial Unity

Rui didn't immediately head to the dungeon, he had something important to do. He immediately whipped out a letter before writing down some instructions about banning certain third parties from transacting with Esosale Suppliers.

He painstakingly wrote down all the names that he memorized from the document that Commissioner Reze provided, regretting that he didn't ask for a copy. He considered Guildmaster Bradt's perspective on the matter. He knew that the man would definitely have thoughts on the new directive that Rui provided.

There was no way he wouldn't notice that the restricted companies were from the Kandrian Empire. This would instantly tell him that Rui at the very least had something to do with the Kandrian Empire.

He would, of course, immediately consider that Rui was from the Kandrian Empire. He would be foolish not to, this was the one of the possibilities with the greatest probability of being true. Though he would also consider that the Voider had been caught by the Kandrian Empire who, rather than selling him out to the alliance, made a deal with him.

Neither of these was exactly untrue.

Regardless, he would most likely not be pleased with the new directive. Unfortunately, Esosale Suppliers was not his company, it was Rui's, and Rui made sure that he retained full decision-making power over his company during their agreement, he would stop the supply of esoteric resources at any time if Guildmaster Bradt failed to comply.

Furthermore, Rui was not worried about this being bad for business. The demand for the esoteric substance was greater than the supply, and he was not afraid of running out of business by isolating even as many customers and clientele as he was.

"Post this the same way as usual, and then we'll head to the Shionel Dungeon immediately," Rui told Kane, handing him an envelope.

"Sure thing," Kane nodded.

The method by which they delivered letters to Guildmaster Bradt without being detected was simply inserting them into the stockpile of a delivery man about to be dispatched. Although this did involve not paying for the service, Rui prioritized being covert in this instance. He did make anonymous donations to the delivery service separately.

It wasn't long before Kane returned and the two of them quickly prepped up, ready to head to the dungeon.

"Our biggest advantage is that Chairman Deacon is searching radially outwards," Rui mentioned. "This requires more manpower as time goes on since the radius will keep increasing further the further you go out. That makes his life much harder than it does for us due to the way in which he searches."

By the time the two of them reached the inner ring of the Adventurer Ring town, the two of them widened their eyes at the sheer population of Martial Squires coming in and out of the Shionel Dungeon.

It was multiple times the size that it used to be. Rui recalled that it was much scanter and shallower when he first arrived at the Shionel Confederation.

"Let's go,"

The two of them quickly entered the dungeon.

"Alright, which path today?" Kane asked.

"We'll check out a different section of the Shionel Dungeon than before," Rui informed him.

The two of them still had Void Step active since there were simply far too many Martial Squires in the vicinity. He did not want to be spotted by any of them. The sheer number of people on the first floor made him want to avoid it entirely. Though he needed to verify whether Guildmaster Bradt had left any messages for him.

('I should probably give Guildmaster Bradt a new location to bury anything to deliver to me,') Rui sighed as he scanned the entire floor with Riemannian Echo, making sure he didn't miss anything.

He observed a larger amount of infrastructure on the first floor, a lot of facilities, mostly storage while there were some shops run by Martial Squires on behalf of other companies, selling potions and other things of the sort.

('Looks like Guildmaster Bradt has already begun putting the parts of the map I gave him to good use,') Rui noted with interest.

He had always figured that the Shionel Dungeon would be used for its space, by him, even if it was unlikely to ever be turned into a residential area due to the sensory jamming aspects of it, though that too would reduce once all of the accessible esoteric ore deposits were mined and harvested.

From what Rui could see, Guildmaster Bradt would probably intend to turn the entire dungeon into a gigantic inventory or processing space that could be rented out or bought by companies to use. As the sole person who possessed a map, Guildmaster Bradt would dominate as the one and only distribution service in the entire dungeon.

Rui shook his head. Guildmaster Bradt's plans were irrelevant to him. He would long be gone from the nation by the time that time arrived.

Rui and Kane ventured deep into the dungeon encountering fewer and fewer Martial Squires as time passed by. Yet Rui never let his guard down even once. It wasn't the Martial Squires he was afraid of. He was most afraid of whatever apex predator it was that brutalized the Earthen basilisk that the extracted scales.

That was something he did not want to run into. It made him more sensitive to any monster he came across. He did not want to grow too overconfident and go out of his way to fight a monster that turned out to be quasi-Senior level or something.

The two of them carefully traveled the dungeon for quite a long time, exploring new sections of the dungeon that they hadn't explored before until finally, Rui's sense found what they were looking for.

"New floor!" Rui announced triumphantly.

"Nice," Kane nodded. "About damn time. Walking around these tunnels is nauseating. Which direction is it in? What's it like? What kind of monsters are in there?"

"It's definitely weird," Rui frowned as he began walking closer towards it to get a better view of it with Riemannian Echo.

"As for the monsters…" Rui murmured before his eyes widened. "Are these… ants?!"