"He can come back over here; I don't want to go over there," Bob said as he leaned back in his chair.

"He's the Secretary of Defence, Bob," Mike sighed, "it's just a meet and greet so that you can answer a few questions that I'm not really equipped to."

"So bring him back over here; you do know I'm working like eighteen hours a day to drive the Dungeon deeper, right?" Bob replied with a touch of frustration.

He didn't want to meet the man, but he wouldn't ignore him if he wanted to talk over a meal. Bob wasn't interested in going back to Earth for a meeting, let alone going back to Earth to the Pentagon.

"Look, I'm self-aware enough to realize that I have an instinctive distrust of authority figures," Bob began, "but as far as I'm concerned, I earned the right to feel that way. The fact that he's pushing for a meeting at the Pentagon does not fill me with warm, comfortable feelings."

"He's the one with the questions; he can come to me," Bob finished.

Mike shook his head. "I'll relay the message," he said dolefully.

"On a happier note, I see that you're all set for the wave," Bob offered.

"If there's anything Marines know how to do, it's establish a beachhead," Mike shrugged. "One of the things that I know is going to be brought up is the mana crystal situation," Mike began. "You need to put some people in charge of keeping track of them, the process of handing bags to you and updating your ledger isn't going to work for much longer, and at some point, you're going to need to let the people doing the delving keep some of the crystals."

"Do you want to deal with the King?" Bob asked bluntly. "Keep in mind, he's a fucking Dragon, and he wants his ten percent." He shook his head, "As it stands, I have a working relationship with the Noble house that's been assigned to collect the King's tax. "

"I'm sorry," Bob grumbled after a few moments of silence. "I know you're trying to help, and I'm not making it easy."

"You didn't ask for this, and you're doing the best you can with what you have," Mike replied diplomatically, "maybe have the Noble collect the crystals directly. I have to use a calculator to do the math, but once you finish this Dungeon, it'll be pumping out millions of mana crystals." Mike paused. "How many mana crystals are we pulling a day?"

"Almost three hundred thousand," Bob admitted, "now that the fourteenth floor is finished, we have some empty capacity on the first, second, third, and fourth floors."

"Out of curiosity, just how many mana crystals have been pulled out of the Dungeon so far?"

"Just over two and a half million," Bob shrugged, "but we're still technically running on a deficit. I'm only using about twenty thousand crystals a day to build the Dungeon, and food growth accounts for another five thousand or so but building that tower cost millions of crystals. I'll have to ask exactly how many, but I know the Endless opened their coffers to make it happen."

"Is it just me, or are those numbers..." Mike trailed off.

"It isn't just you; the numbers are insane. Depending on your needs, it takes an initial outlay of between two thousand and five thousand crystals to build a home here. After that, upkeep is about five crystals a day. Someone with an Affinity Crystal and a path that makes any use of it can pull about five hundred crystals in a forty-hour workweek. So after initial costs, you end up working about five weeks out of the year," Bob replied.

"Honestly, even without an affinity crystal, a team of Adventurers with complementary skills can delve safely as well, if not nearly as quickly. I've seen a team of four Adventurers take down monsters just as quickly as I could, so even with the split, they're still working less than half the year," Bob smiled slightly, remembering watching Karri's Krew slaughtering Lava-Bears.

He shook his head, "But that's what the people here on Thayland call Adventurer money. There are a lot of people who don't want to kill monsters. They'll do it if and when they have to, but they aren't interested in making a career out of it."

"Where do all the mana crystals go?" Mike asked. "From what you've described, Holmstead's Dungeon should be pumping out a stupid number of mana crystals every day as well, even if it isn't half as efficient as ours. Even accounting for personal expenditures for advancing in level, replacing equipment, daily expenses, it just doesn't add up."

"Rule Six," Bob's smile widened. "You really can't have enough. I was always scrambling for mana crystals when I was still focused on leveling. Hell," Bob chuckled, "when I start leveling, I'm going to be scrambling again; I need to update my armor."

"Also, mana crystals have a shelf life," Bob added. "Not something that really comes up that often, although I was starting to wonder if I should mention it to Amber, as she'd been saving up for months. They don't last forever. I should probably make sure that whoever decides to start a bank is aware of that," he muttered.

"That was equal parts exhilarating, terrifying, gratifying, and gross," Jessica said, running a brush through her still-damp hair.

"I wish we could have gotten Bob to take you down for your first time," Dave lamented, "it's like you've missed the quintessential experience of delving for the first time."

"He's building the fifteenth floor," Amanda chimed in, "I asked, and he's been knocking out eighteen-hour days, just building floor after floor."

Jessica looked at her two friends. They'd talked up this Bob bloke quite a bit, but despite it all, he remained a bit of a mystery.

"So, this bloke gets blown into another dimension because some proper cunts are getting crook with his work, yeah?" She asked.

Amanda nodded.

"He finds people, and works himself like a loon to save his cat, then yanks the cunt that blew him up over here," she paused to consider the story she'd been told, "but not for revenge?"

"Well, maybe a little bit of it was revenge motivated," Dave admitted, "apparently when Bob got blown over here, like half his body was just vaporized. The System saved him, but it didn't have a full template to work with, so Bob was sort of fucked up."

"He couldn't even cast spells right because of the damage; they cost more mana than they should have," Amanda added, "and he couldn't take a class," she shook her head.

"He needed to bring someone else over here so that the System would have a template for a human from Earth, and he thought that if he was going to wreck someone's life, it might as well be hers," Dave explained.

"Right, I'm not disagreeing with his choice or anything," Jessica said, "but what I'm trying to wrap my head around is how summoning his cat, and then this shiela isn't what kicks off the apocalypse."

"Oh, I know this one," Amanda grinned, "Bob explained it to me. So summoning a specific person is sort of like setting up a vacuum - the magic is sucking things in from the other universe, it isn't interjecting any activated mana into the universe it's summoning from, which is sort of fucked up, but it's a little bit like a black hole."

"According to Bob, when he was blown over here, the System stole a copy of his memories, and someone, somewhere, was popping around universes that the System had cataloged because there are a bunch of them, and stopped by ours. When they entered it and used their mana, it started the System integration that is going to kick off the apocalypse."

Jessica tucked her brush away and sat down at the table across from her friends. "I can't be the only one who thinks this system is a bit dodgy?"

Dave hesitated for a moment before Amanda kicked him lightly in the shin. He feigned a very injured look for a moment before sighing. "Keep this to yourself?"

Jessica nodded.

"Bob knows way more about the system than he should," Dave said, "he hasn't said why, and I haven't pressed him on it, but it's pretty clear that he's got some sort of access that the rest of the people here, including us, don't."

"He figures out the secret of Affinity Crystals and comes up with paths that require them in like, two months?" Dave asked rhetorically, "The Nobles here have been successfully suppressing that knowledge for millennia, and along comes Bob, who just figures it out?" He shook his head.

"Bob's not dumb, but he isn't a genius. I had classes with him for four years, and his grades weren't a reflection of a prodigious mind; they were a result of his insane work ethic," Dave went on, "he just outworked everyone else, spending double or more the hours of anyone else on the material."

"And the people here aren't stupid either," Amanda added, "it's easy to fall into the mental trap that because they haven't advanced technologically, that they're a bit slow, but the truth is they're more knowledgable than we are about the System."

"So, Bob has an edge," Dave finished, "I haven't pressed him on it, but some of the things he's let slip have led me to believe that he has read access to the System at an admin level."

"What my honey-bunny is trying to get around to," Amanda smiled at Dave, "is that the System is completely alien. As in, created by an alien life form."

"To prevent the heat death of the universe, turning its constant expansion back in on itself, cycling that energy through the universe in the form of activated Dark Matter," Dave shrugged, "or so Bob says."

Jessica popped a coldie and took a long swallow. She'd been surprised to see United States Marines here in this other world. Her grandfather had fought alongside them and instilled in his children and grandchildren a deep and abiding respect for them, which occasionally put her at odds with classmates, and later colleagues, who regarded the U.S. with contempt.

She'd seen the 1st of the 1st patch on several men, the southern cross standing proudly. Dave had explained that all these Marines were disabled before Bob healed them and brought them over to kick start the project to save the world, so they were a mixed lot from one division or another.

Her grandfather had been close to a lot of men during the war, but his best mate ended up a yank, and she'd heard all of his stories about "Hairy Gary" dozens of times. If grandpa were to be believed, the man had to shave twice a day and didn't need a coat in the winter, as he had a natural one of his own. Gary had been a maths teacher before the war, and he'd spent his evenings teaching anyone who wanted to learn. Her grandpa, who hadn't made it past the seventh grade before having to work on the ranch, had learned quite a lot from him and often said Gary was one of the smartest men he'd ever known. Gary had died in combat after leading a charge against a fortified emplacement that had caught their company by surprise, killing half of them before they even knew it was there. Her grandpa had caught a round to the shoulder and another to the thigh, and he'd watched from the ground as Gary had rallied the men and charged the emplacement, staggering as a round had taken him in the stomach, but continuing on.

Her grandpa had been the one to show her the old film reel, the 1st of the 1st parading through Melbourne, singing Waltzing Matilda. He'd been furious that the school hadn't shown it on Remembrance Day, cursing up a storm to her mother's embarrassment. He'd insisted that she watch it that very moment.

Jessica knew that despite their willingness to charge into machinegun fire, Marines weren't stupid.

"The Marines have to suspect as well, yeah?" She asked.

Dave and Amanda exchanged looks.

"Mike, who was sort of loosely in charge before they brought a retired Lt. Colonel over, was a detective after he got out, and he's been the go-between for Bob and the Marines," Dave replied.

"He knows that Bob knows more than Bob should know, but he hasn't told Bob that he knows that Bob knows what he knows," Amanda said with a grin.

Dave squinted. "I think," he said slowly, "that you left out a 'knows' in there somewhere."

"Bob's been leading the charge for saving the world," Amanda explained, "working himself to the bone, leveraging his relationships with Holmstead and the Endless, getting people started, teaching them about the system, growing back limbs, curing cancer, the list just goes on."

"I'm pretty sure there's a tacit understanding amongst the Marines that they don't talk about how Bob knows what he knows," Dave explained, "as bad with people as Bob is, he's earned an absolute fuckload of goodwill."

Jessica finished her beer. "You know my grandpa passed a couple of years ago," she said.

Dave and Amanda both nodded. They'd been there for her when she'd gotten the call and been supportive while she worked through her grief.

"He used to ride me around in his sidecar, which my mum hated, and we'd stop at every pub in Melbourne," she shook her head.

"I've met a lot of veterans," she grinned, "and I don't think any of them will tell you to piss off if you're offering to grow back a leg."

"You said you can only open a portal to someplace you've been," Jessica popped open another cold one from the chest on the table. "How long do you think it'll take to me get leveled up to where I can cast one?"

Nora looked at the bag Bob had just handed her.

"How many?" she asked slowly.

"Two hundred fifty-eight thousand, five hundred and twelve," Bob replied, directing her attention to the sheet of paper he'd included with the bag. "Five percent of the crystals delved out of Glacier Valley for his tax, and another five percent for his indulgence to build in his kingdom."

"From now on, I'm just going to have the tithe delivered to you daily," Bob said, "I'm stretching myself too thin to keep up with it myself."

Nora shook her head. "I'm pretty sure this is more than my family paid in taxes for the last year," she muttered.

"That should make the King happy, right?" Bob asked with a touch of anxiety.

"I've never met the King, but I imagine it will," Nora replied.

"Good," Bob sighed, "I'm hoping that if we just stay productive and honest, that the King will leave us alone. But I'm back to the Dungeon, finishing the fifteenth floor today." He smiled and ducked back into the tavern.

Nora placed the sheet in the bag and slowly walked over to Pavillions that the Endless had erected as a sort of unofficial embassy slash Portal service.

There was no sense in delaying the inevitable.

She harbored a deep, sinking suspicion that the King was going to take more of an interest in Glacier Valley than anyone here wanted, herself included.