Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"That land you registered as the guild asset? Is it not barren?"

Eren chuckled before responding.

"It is. Otherwise, the house of Remus wouldn't have let it go."

"Then… how?" Agatha asked right afterwards.

Hehe, that land doesn't have any value by itself. But soon it will serve as an entrance to a place that will be rich in resources."

Eren said and rolled on his back. But not before pulling Agatha over him in one quick motion. He embraced her and caressed her hair before bringing her right ear closer to his mouth. He whispered the next words into her ears while stroking the back of her head.

"Minerva's Utopia!

You will soon be very busy, my love. Let's get rid of some of that pent up stress in your body before that happens."

***********************

In Eren's previous timeline, the house of Remus was one of the few organizations that had seen a sensational rise to success when the entrance to Minerva Midea's Utopia was found on the barren land they owned.

The house was already famous for its groundbreaking auction events. The land it had received from one of its patrons as collateral when they failed to repay the amount was seen as a dead asset by the house's high ranking scions. The family planned to get rid of it soon. But one day, a spatial tear appeared on the same land and the land's value changed from a dead asset to housing Remus' most precious possessions.

One of the most crucial things to note down about Minerva's separate dimension was that it was called Utopia and not Purgatory. That's because it didn't test the participants as harshly as something like Eliza's Purgatory would.

The participants were able to enter the utopia safely before getting tested for various skills. Minerva Midea was a known Sage ranker. Her field of study was potioning, specifically the external applications of potions instead of just consumption.

So it was natural that the utopia created by her was dedicated to the potioners. Participants would be tested more on their potion-making skills than on their combat skills.

This was not to imply that Minerva's Utopia did not welcome non-pioneers. But it was said that only a skilled potion-maker could find the true legacy of the place.

Andrium was the most common reward found in the separate dimension. It was discovered later that Minerva had created a unique process to create Andrium authentically using potions as the catalyst. Nobody could figure out how she did that. But that didn't prevent them from entering the Utopia as participants and getting their hands on the ores of Andrium rewarded to them.

There were other potion-related resources in the separate dimension too. One such resource was Mega Mandrakes. It was a plant-type monster that was unnecessarily huge and clumsy. Its body was made of roots and it had branches and stems of roots for its limbs.

The monster had poor eyesight. Its only inherent spell was the instant creation of dense vegetation around it with its overwhelmingly pure earth-element mana. And most of all, it wasn't aggressive.

Minerva's separate dimension hosted a near-endless army of these monsters ranging from F to C-Rank. The participants could take the monsters' bodies as rewards after battling with them. Due to this, the utopia became a highly sought-after destination for potioners.

Most of Mega Mandrake's body could be used to make potions. The monster's heart was its most precious ingredient because it had the properties of replenishing the lost or worn out life essence upon consumption. Its other body parts could also be used for different purposes.

Participants were also granted other rewards such as Extols, weapon strengthening potions, and other unique concoctions. So, even though the real inheritance of the separate dimension could not be found, the number of participants who visited the place only increased with time.

After some years, nobody was interested in finding the real inheritance. Everybody started treating Utopia as a place that could be farmed for resources while facing a minimal amount of danger.

House of Remus secured the spatial tear first before starting to construct an ever-growing city around it. It couldn't charge the participants for entering the Utopia because it could not claim its ownership. But it did the next logical thing. The organisation devoted all its resources to create a city around the entrance and began charging a huge entry fee to get into the city.

Soon, the city of Minerva became a place for rankers to earn quick bucks at the cost of paying a hefty entry fee. Moreover, the house of Remus would make deals with the participants and charge a fixed price based on what they won in the separate dimension. Even with so many taxes and cuts imposed by the family and the Edinburgh kingdom by proxy, the participants still found that they were making profits. And considerable profits at that.

As the number of participants increased, the wealth of the Remus family only grew further. It didn't take long for the family to recover its investment cost. The family did the sensible thing and invested a fixed share of its profits to grow the city of Minerva even further.

The city of Minerva later became a go-to spot for newbie and veteran rankers alike. The city birthed various businesses unique to its ecosystem. Once the house of Remus began accepting permanent residents for the city, the value of its real estate skyrocketed.

The spatial gate would occur once a week at a fixed place and time. Participants will be sent home four days after entering Utopia. Plus, it only allowed rankers from F to C Ranks to enter.

The city would have its own set of customs and rituals in future based on how the spatial tear operated. That meant the day of the entrance every week would be the busiest day for the city's business faculties. And four days after the participants' entrance were the days when the businesses saw another huge spike in their profits.

The city would see constant traffic of rankers from Novice to Master ranks. It became the reason for the house of Remus to rise to prominence in the years following the city's foundation.

Dianna didn't know that Eren had planned to screw her in more ways than one by snatching this place from her family's grasp.