LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 29 (Patreon)

"So, this is a known exploit?" Mira asked, a few days later, as she helped assemble the last of the particle board freestanding closets.

"Oh, yes," Syrith replied. "The inventory system has a few loopholes that we can take advantage of and this is one of them. Anything you put inside here will count as one item once the doors are closed and latched. The only limitation is that the contents all need to be thematic such as clothing, in this instance. It will be the same for the bags you mentioned, except the System will name it something like a 'all-in-one survival kit.'"

She was seated on the ground next to Mira, holding two boards together while Mira used an allen wrench to screw them together.

Over the past few days, the world had slowly started functioning again. The dungeons had started to open. Only a few opened as uncontrolled dungeon breaks. Most of them opened when the new hunters inside escaped. The Triumvirate Volunteer Core had managed to get their people in place to cover the worst of the gates. There were a few that were being held down by human forces; namely cops, the army, the national guard, and a hastily assembled local militia in a few cases.

It became rapidly clear that the System hadn't chosen the first hunters at random. Those who were pulled involuntarily into the initial gates all turned out to either former military, current military, or people who were just preternaturally disposed to the job.

The humans were starting to get a handle on the Gates, at least in terms of understanding. The president had been forced to make an announcement about the Triumvirate when one too many people caught sight of a demon or an elf without their disguise on. There'd been some public upset, but it was tempered by the fact that the Trimvirate volunteers were keeping to the areas immediately surrounding the gates. One senator had done a really good job of comparing them to agencies like the Crimson Cross or Medicine Beyond Borders; volunteers who responded to natural disasters in areas that weren't equipped to handle them.

The Alleghanian public still wasn't totally at rest, but it would probably be decades before that happened. There'd probably be another outcry when the System announced that it would permit immigration to this world, but Mira wasn't going to borrow trouble for now.

Still, people were slowly returning to work. Stores were reopening and that meant that a few members of their party could sneak over to ILEA with a corporate card to buy some 'assemble it yourself' furniture. They were there in part to flesh out the party's new apartments, but Syrith had placed and order for several freestanding wardrobes and locking chests.

"There, done! We'll reinforce them with glue once Miss Newman has sufficiently leveled her apothecary skill," Syrith announced. "The goblins at the gate have started dropping better reagents and our people have been collecting them. Glue is an excellent utility recipe for power leveling an apothecary. We should have her qualified for intermediate potions around the time we start seeing the necessary ingredients. Morwen is translating field guides for the things she'll need to be looking out for. The System can be a bit vague about what is and is not useful unless you have Greater Inspection as a skill. It can't replace a real skill trainer."

"Sounds about right," Mira murmured as she poked the wardrobes to see if any of them had loose connections anywhere. "They're not usually meant to. How is Soneares' research coming along?"

Syrith scrunched her nose. "Slower than she would like. She has determined, though, that you should have had some level of external oversight from the court. In this world, conservators don't have total free reign over the protected person. There are periodic audits. Most of the protected person's assets are placed in a trust and the guardian receives a 'salary' from that fund, which is held by a neutral third party; usually a law firm or a bank officer—that neutral third party has been unilaterally replaced by the System, by the way."

Mira cocked an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Yes. This is the standard practice in any world where the System manifests. Your political leaders would have had to agree to this when they accepted System Protection, so it's not something that can be overridden for an individual citizen. It also now controls all funds that were held in escrow. It makes some things much easier since the System will tend to judge for itself when funds should be released. It can make things harder too, since it has strict requirements for what constitutes 'completed work.' It will also retract released funds if it finds evidence of past fraud—even fraud from before the Incursion. So, if your 'father' has been able to withdraw more funds from your trust than he was authorized to or could justify then the System might have clawed them back on your behalf."

"What if he's already spent it?" Mira asked, intrigued.

"In that case, you'd usually receive the thing he bought or a property of equal value if it's something that doesn't resell well," Syrith explained. "He might not even realize it's happened. Sometimes it just changes the names on deeds or titles of ownership. It might not notify you until you can actually control those assets. Things that you own, but that he controls won't make enough of a difference for the System to generate a notice. One of you would have to request an assessment of your net worth and he'd probably be the one who receives it. I would say it's not worth the risk if there's a chance that he hasn't noticed that the System had been balancing books between you."

"What if he doesn't have any assets of equal value?" Mira prodded. She knew this form of capitalism tended to favor people who created debt as an asset. Her current 'father' seemed like exactly the type of person to live in a house of cards and trust that it would never blow over. Helena's day to day expenses alone had to be substantial.

"That can't be the case or, believe me, we would have seen the consequences by now," Syrith said. "CUBE tried not to take seizure actions in a brand new society, but they will if matters get dire enough and they can do it all remotely. I hear they're already scrutinizing this country's national debt situation."

That sounded bad.

"Is there any circumstance where this bank could take control of a country?" Mira asked and turned to face Syrith.

"No, that goes against their charter, but they could make a request to the System for adjudication," Syrith explained. Her wings pulled in a little. "Individual nations aren't allowed to carry debt for more than five cycles under Triumvirate law. In this case, the System would probably allow a certain number of Alleghania's vassal states and nations to purchase their way into full independence. Alleghania would have no right of refusal. That's one of the common teething pains when a new world is absorbed by an omnipotent entity that forces them to obey their own laws—that and disarmament. The System doesn't ask permission before it confiscates weapons of mass destruction and it doesn't always tell anyone what it's done."

Mira cocked a brow, but thought about that for a moment before she realized she didn't need an explanation. As far as Samira's memories could tell her, this world hadn't actually experienced a Cold War or nuclear warfare so there might not be any hydrogen bombs or other nuclear weapons for the System to take away. This world seemed to have had a first World War, but was one of the rare settings of its kind to have not experienced a second.

That didn't mean nuclear weaponry hadn't been invented. It just hadn't been used yet and now they might never get the chance.

Anyway, Alleghania had just gotten magic. It wouldn't be long before they realized they could do far worse things with that.

Mira rubbed her temples and hoped that she wouldn't be around for that stage in this world's development.

Note:

Faux USA: Alleghania, Capitol - Union Point. The citizens are 'Alleghanians'

Crimson Cross - Red Cross

Medicine Beyond Borders - Doctors without Borders

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