[DCI] Chapter 81 - The Inner Workings of an Organization (Patreon)

We didn’t need to be told twice. And grabbing something to eat would definitely get rid of some of the tension I could see in Aurora. She might be more familiar with the company and how it operated, but it was clear that this was far above her current pay grade. She still had to access the third floor, in the end, and here we are, having a chat on the fourth one.

Rose floated around as we reached for the various dishes she had brought us alongside her new friends. I wondered if she would be considered working illegally with them or if she had already scored some kind of a part-time deal with whoever managed these Pixies.

Honestly, if she would be allowed to help out without having to use our precious free time, I was all for her spending some time socializing with her peers.

As if sensing my thoughts revolving around her person, the bubbly ball of rosy energy rushed to my side and hung next to my cheek. I chuckled and patted Rose gently, enjoying the tingling buzzing tickling my skin during the contact.

“I see you growing fairly attached to your cute familiar,” Justitia commented.

I turned to her with some concern. “Is the guild alright with her?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” She raised a brow at me. “As you all know, the company has a kind of hands-off approach like many in the field. Which is also why incidents like the last one sometimes sneak past us.”

“The Betrayer,” Aisha said tensely. “Don’t you screen the Defenders placed into the Dungeons? It’s not completely random, is it?”

“It isn’t, but we don’t have the same level of control over those Assignments as we do with the emergency ones.” Our Supervisor shook her head. “The normal ones are like a public lobby. You can ask Lucas to explain this concept better, but in simple words, an alert about a new possible breach appears and the Defender-employing organizations can fill the available spots on a first-come first-serve basis.”

“You must have an entire department watching those like a hawk.” I snorted while imagining a bunch of people sitting in front of big monitors like those professional stock traders.

“We do, but it’s smaller than you would think,” she admitted. “No one wants to risk their precious resources blindly. It usually takes the longest for the first submission to appear, with all the following ones dropping in much quicker. Those who register Defenders to a Dungeon like to know what they are working with, matching the available Classes with the already submitted ones. At least our guys do.”

“I always thought there was no chance we ran into our Classes or a multiple of some other ones so rarely,” my drakan mate shared. “Maybe for the less common variants, sure, but a Berserker or even a simple Warrior? There has to be tons of them.”

“You aren’t wrong.” Justitia smiled knowingly. “Since we are in private, I guess I can let you know that there’s a kind of multi-realm association that evaluates the threat level of the growing Dungeon or similar dangers and releases their assessments to all the registered Defender guilds free of charge. It’s made up of some powerful people. Just don’t tell anyone you’ve learned this from me.”

“What’s in it for them?” Aurora asked with an intrigued look. “And the guilds too. You pay us so much that I don’t believe this is a possible non-profit endeavor.”

“I’ve been wondering too,” I joined in.

Our overseer chuckled lightly. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing evil behind this. Unfortunately, you’ll have to trust my word as I can’t give you more details on such matters. There is something besides fame, of course. And you should not forget that we do take a cut from all your transactions registered in our systems.”

“Sounds suspicious.” Aisha squinted at her. “But I guess that is a topic for the individuals running this shitshow and not the grunts sweeping the floor.”

“Mostly, yes. But there might come a time when you’ll be amongst those.” J gave us a somewhat proud and expectant smile. “Nevertheless, let’s get back to the important matter, which is the mentioned unfortunate incident. First, I wanted to apologize for this oversight from our side. We might be able to see only the Classes and names of the participants, but our team should have researched them much more thoroughly. They have been growing too placid recently. I can assure you that the management wasn’t happy and that we shouldn’t run into similar issues going forward.”

“We appreciate the kind words, but it is honestly inevitable,” Levia replied. “People like that man exist and will continue to exist. Some are bound to slip by the scrutiny.”

“I can’t imagine getting myself locked with a murderer.” Aurora shuddered. “You guys must be amazing to have handled it without a problem.”

“Oh, they certainly are.” Justitia didn’t try to hide what she thought of us. “I don’t know all the details since the data we receive isn’t omniscient, but I could tell they have turned the tables on that guy.”

“Not without casualties,” I pointed out sadly.

“Yes, but you shouldn’t look at it like that.” She reached out to brush my hand. “Instead of thinking that you failed to save someone, you need to focus on the lives you protected from that dark fate. Don’t let the burden settle in your heart.”

“Are you our counselor?” I smirked softly. “But thanks. I’ll give it my best so that my performance doesn’t drop.”

The golden-haired lady definitely rolled her hidden eyes at my company-themed joke to lighten the mood.

“In fact, that is one of my functions,” she replied, tapping the clipboard with her pen. “Would you mind answering a few simple questions for me?”

“Are we going to receive psych evaluations regularly now?” Aisha crossed her strong arms over her chest.

“Not really. This is a special case. I still can’t get too much in touch with you. Yet.” Our Supervisor-Slash-Counselor offered her a mysterious smile. “So?”

I didn’t have anything against it, and really, she was just doing her job. It wasn’t necessary to make J’s life harder for no reason. She had been looking out for us a lot so the least we could do was assist her as much as possible. Many interactions we had shared were supposedly behind the backs of her superiors.

Therefore, we went through the list she had brought with her. Aurora listened attentively to the interview, not taking part in it for obvious reasons. While most of the questions were rather common, they had snuck some more customized ones, showing that it wasn’t completely soulless paperwork. Our amazing Supervisor expanded them now and then, conducting a true interview that made it clear that she cared.

By the time we were done, the food had almost run out. Justitia noticed it and offered another round. Well, it wasn’t like she was paying for it since we were on our personal ticket, but the gesture was appreciated. She produced a few menus for us and asked for any details on things that might not be listed there.

We already had a taste of each other’s cuisine so we went with some popular dishes available on the spot. According to her words, the ranking was constantly changing according to the number of orders placed by our Defenders. The current one favored exotic dishes with a sprinkle of spicy. Aisha was all in on that, of course.

Our next meal arrived in a flash, again brought by the floating servers. We dug in while J finalized her reports in front of us, showing her trust in our characters.

Well, to be technical, we already held a few things over her if we wanted to blackmail the poor goddess, starting with her involvement in our work. This was just another piece in the ever-growing box of potentially damning material. But, it wasn’t like any of us wished to ever double-cross the woman.

“Alright. With that out of the way, let’s move on to the next topic,” our interviewer announced. “Congratulations on your first successful clear of an Emergency Assignment. You’ve proven that I wasn’t wrong endorsing you. Not that it would be your fault if you did poorly, but you didn’t, so it’s pointless to wonder. You finished it both quickly and efficiently. Though I have to admit, your ability to prepare ahead in a short time continues to impress me.”

“It helps to have clever and knowledgeable allies I can rely on,” I responded, offering Aisha and Levia a warm smile. “Plus, we were up on one additional member who contributed just as much even though they are fresh out of proverbial bed.”

Shuri acknowledged my mention with a grateful nod. She had been staying relatively silent so far, chiming in now and then, but that wasn’t so shocking. As I had said, she was very new to the team and our dynamic, definitely not feeling like a proper part of it yet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long for her to grow accustomed to how we handled things and warm up to us.

“How come I have never received personal congratulations after clearing an Emergency Assignment?” Aurora tilted her feline head.

“Well, how should I say it without making assumptions about your Supervisor…” Justitia tapped her chin with the pen. “You see, this whole thing here is taking place because I pushed for it rather strongly. It’s not a common practice if you recall the talk on what we should and shouldn’t do. You can view this meeting as my personal initiative, kind of stepping out of the line. It’s not something that will happen regularly. It might even be the only time we meet like this.”

“Basically, the person checking her work doesn’t bother to involve themselves past what is expected of Supervisors,” Shuri summed it up. “They don’t care enough.”

“Ouch.” Our furry friend touched her chest with a wry smirk.

I patted her on the shoulder. “We’ve all been here. That’s how big corporations operate, unfortunately. Maybe we could pull some strings and have Aurora reassigned after her good performance in the last job?”

The question was directed at the only person with real bureaucratic power in this room and they acknowledged it with a light sigh. “I can’t rule out that possibility, but that wouldn’t change much in the long run. It’s not like we have been that much in touch until today, no?”

While the girls exchanged knowing glances, I was sure she meant the period between her final illegal message to the moment of our meeting in the diner below.

“The best advice I could give you, both of you, is to raise your rank. The more important to the company you become, the more you can demand from it in return,” she continued. “But, I’ll see what I can do. It might be useful in the future. You guys make a decent, reliable team for the emergencies.”

“You mentioned limited data you can work with coming from the Dungeons. Are you able to bring up what that entails in any possible manner? How much can you understand from it or how it works?” Levia posed a question all of us must have been wondering about, skilfully changing the course of the conversation away from the uncomfortable topics.

“Most of it is based on spiritual signatures and their readings.” J crossed her legs, her gaze wandering over the ceiling as she looked for the correct words. “It’s not live, we receive a complex chronographic, which is then deeply analyzed by the great minds of our experts to produce a more user-friendly report of what was happening in the Dungeon over the course of the attempt.”

She leaned forward and glanced at her clipboard, taking a peek at her pen next, perhaps pondering if she should show us. That wouldn’t happen yet as our already generous Supervisor sighed heavily and let the writing utensil down.

“Those spiritual nerds as your current human generation might like to call them, can figure out if and what skill was used at the specific moment a spike or change in mana was registered. They aren’t infallible, but usually, there isn’t so much activity around that it would make it extremely challenging,” Justitia added. “Then it’s just a matter of dumbing it down for the less mana-savvy of us to interpret easily. Think of any MOBA and imagine this as the server logs. Instead of going through that mountain of text-only lines, I look at a filtered and formatted action list with all those icons and colors that players can see in the corner of their screens, just much less strict and not limited only to a kill feed.”

It wasn’t the first time I caught the ancient Goddess of Justice using gamer lingo, and perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised considering the fact that she had scouted me through a perfectly-tailored game fitting my tastes, but it still felt kind of crazy to think about. I wondered if they operated on magitech computers up there or something, allowing her to dive into a quick session during a break or maybe even not.

Wouldn’t it be insane to play a random PvP game and have no idea the one completely owning your ass was a Roman goddess?

In any way, not everyone found the comparison as easy to digest so I glanced at my companions. “I’ll show you what she means later.”

Aurora met my eyes and I cocked my head back in realization.

“Ah. Hey, J, are we allowed to visit each other or do the passages in the hallways not work that way?” I asked our friendly Supervisor.

“You are. Just keep in mind that the visiting person’s Time Off doesn’t stop going down until they are back in their own Personal Dimension,” she warned us, waving a finger. “Also, the company offers no protection past this place and the moment you willingly enter through someone’s door or let a stranger in, it’s all on you.”

“That means we can’t be forced to comply?” Shuri asked.

“It does. We have systems in place for that, monitoring everyone’s mental state while they stay here. You need to display evident consent and willful decisiveness or the barrier similar to what stops the uninitiated from getting into your PD back in your home realm will come into play,” Justitia explained thoroughly.

“That sounds dangerously close to an invasion of privacy,” Aisha pointed out with a snicker.

“And like things as such do actually tend to happen, needing these preventive measures to be in place,” I threw in my own two cents.

“Unfortunately, any guild spreading its roots to multiple worlds has to deal with that. Many races handle emotions differently. Do badly on your Assignment and the first person that slights you either accidentally or not while you come here to relax gets a knuckle sandwich for dinner. Or belong to a fairly fair side of your race and some socially starved adventurer comes rather strongly onto you. Naturally, there are rules in this place, but those don’t mean much to people who are riled up.” Our overseer and certainly also our protector shook her head gloomily.

“I, for one, appreciate our vigilant overlords for watching over our safety,” Levia said, inclining her head in gratitude towards the blond woman.

That line would trigger so many people on Earth.

“It’s not our safety that they have to be watching over.” The fierce redhead snickered under her breath. “Let anyone try to lay a hand on one of us and this Overlord will shove that torn hand down the bastard’s throat. Am I right?”

Receiving an amused and slightly feral grin, I could only smirk back at her. “As if this place wouldn’t end up wreathed in hellfire with the situation revolving around my person instead.”

She let out a hearty laugh. “You bet!”

“I’ll have to politely ask you to refrain from going too far,” Justitia interrupted our little moment with a somewhat pleading expression. “I understand where you are coming from, but try to understand my position too. If anything happens, I’ll be right there to remedy it before things escalate. Just try to give me a minute to react. I’m always watching, I promise.”

“That just sounds like we have a hopeless stalker,” Shuri murmured to herself.

J’s gorgeous lips curled up in quite an ominous smile. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Her words brought a chuckle out of me.

“That reminds me, I’ve always wondered what happens to our PDs and all the stuff in it after our deaths. Does it get locked up? Is it just gone?” Aurora’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“Hmmm.” Our Supervisor mulled the question over for a few seconds. “I really shouldn’t be going into too much detail about such things at the current point in time, but I guess this might answer some of your doubts about the company staying afloat. Just to be clear, though, no one intentionally aims for any harm to come to their Defenders.”

She turned very serious and we all nodded in understanding.

“When one of our recruits perishes, their case is moved to a specialized department, the same one that makes all those magical updates happen to your Personal Domain. The whole thing is their creation, and while you stay in a room perfectly resembling the one you lived in before signing up, it’s been replaced with what we call a spatial cubicle,” she began the story, pulling us all into the intriguing tale. “So, to answer your first question, after the contract ends by any means, that cubicle returns to us, replaced back by the original room, chamber, building, or whatever it was. Another department handles the paperwork and formalities behind reintroducing it into the world, including memory alteration if necessary.”

“I have to say, I was shocked the first time I walked into a space that supposedly appeared inside my neighbor’s apartment if we were to go by the logical units of measurement.” I smiled reminiscently.

“Now, for your stuff,” Justitia continued. “As cold and cruel as it might sound, you and everything you own are the property of the company. You literally sign your soul off to us during the contract formalization, which we let go of after processing your departure, allowing it to join the pool of candidates waiting to be called for once more.”

She paused and glanced at us to see if we had any comments to add, but I was fairly sure all of us had been aware of this slavery-like aspect so there wasn’t much we could argue about.

“All the loot from the Dungeons, all the equipment and gear purchased both from our systems and actual places in your world, everything you have amassed save for the already converted local currency is sent back to us. The last one often goes to the relatives or close friends, also depending on if they were in the know or not, but they always get something,” J explained with a slightly sorrowful smile, certainly experiencing this process before. “After that, it should be obvious. There are auctions, some things end up redistributed, some are stored for later use. But, generally speaking, the assets get liquefied, and in most cases, it turns into a profit.”

“That does sound a little scary.” Our scarlet-skinned princess grimaced. “We have to trust that the people assigning us to a Dungeon don’t have bad intentions.”

“I can’t speak for all the guilds, but here, all the employees are thoroughly evaluated and constantly observed. That’s why there are supervisors of supervisors. Your work rating goes down every time something unfortunate happens. No one wants to suffer the repercussions or get fired. Or worse. Much worse.” Our own Supervisor rubbed her arm.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the highest degree of punishment would be death. It’s not like Earth laws and norms are a thing here.

“That’s at least somewhat reassuring.” I tried to smile warmly at her. “And having you as our administrator makes it much easier to digest. Thank you for everything you have done and couldn’t have done for us.”

She let out a delicate chuckle at my clear insinuation of our secret cooperation. “Like many in our company, I believe in the cause. I also believe in your potential. I think I’ve already shown that I’ll do whatever I can to support it and aid its development.”

We shared a deeper glance of camaraderie, even if our eyes didn’t meet directly, and she took a peek at the watch hidden under her sleeve.

“Alright. I’ve wasted enough of your precious Time Off. You should get back to whatever you have been doing, but don’t forget to kick back and relax. You’ve earned it. I brought you three days to rest this time due to your back-to-back Assignments.” Justitia sent her work stuff away with a snap. “Ah. I almost forgot. One more thing. Here, take this too.”

Reaching into the inner pocket of her suit jacket, she pulled out what looked like a sleek black pendrive with a cap. It obviously had an emerald logo of DCI engraved in its casing.

“A flash drive?” I examined the little guy curiously, the girls peering over my sides too.

“Give this to your friend.” J smirked knowingly.

I made the connection in a blink, chuckling nervously. “Of course, you knew. There was no way you wouldn’t notice. Is this a backdoor? Magitech GPS locator? Because if so, I’m sorry but I can’t do my boy like that. It’s all on me. Don’t drag him into this, please.”

She laughed mirthfully. “No, no, no. You misunderstand. We don’t want to punish either of you or break this partnership. I give you my word that it’s nothing that would bring harm to your friend. Just give it to him. He will understand.”

I was still slightly suspicious, but so far, Justitia was nothing but trustworthy and straightforward with us, even going as far as to skirt around some rules to aid us.

“Fine.” I pocketed the drive. “But know that this is asking a lot. You can take many liberties with me, but the moment something happens to my close ones, it’s the end. And we both don’t want to see how bad that ending is.”

“Spoken like a true Overlord.” She grinned impishly.

“Fuck...” I shivered. “It’s slowly getting to me…”

Aisha and even Levia laughed, the drakan female slamming her palm into my back repeatedly. I just sighed heavily, trying not to think about it. I had enough on my plate to worry about becoming evil.

And our next steps were already decided.