As the woman left, the side door opened. The years of service had long taught him not to step into the room during such a meeting. Of course his master, and he suspected the unannounced guest, knew that he was there. As he poured out the high class tea, the dragonkin gave him the short version of the events.

[Drosum] We’re going to what? That’s unheard of!

[Lasarim] Now now Drosum. Isn’t it an interesting idea? We’ll have quite an excuse to take control of the guilds.

[Drosum] Sir! Are you truly going to have guilds rule the city?

[Lasarim] And we control the guilds. Simple.

[Drosum] But the guilds have quite the power and funds.

[Lasarim] Exactly. We’ll use that against them. As we allow them to take control of those in the city, and we can hold them responsible. All who wish to do activities controlled by the adventurer’s guild must apply to the adventurers guild. If there are any who don’t, we don’t need to bother searching for them. We just punish the guild. Anyone does any forbidden behavior in the dungeon? Punish the guild. In order to prevent losing money, and god forbid their power, they will have to do the hard work themselves. The same applies to every guild we allow in or create. Of course we’ll make them conform to our rules and our regulations.

[Drosum] I suppose. That could be quite troubling down the line though. We will have to carefully control the elites of each guild. To think that girl would have such unusual ideas.

[Lasarim] Ha. That’s not even the worst of it. She’s even suggested a thieves guild.

[Drosum] What? A thieves guild? And allow those vermin to boast of their deeds in broad daylight?

[Lasarim] Crazy isn’t it? But perhaps just crazy enough to work. A thieves guild would, as she proposed, pay a fairly large tax and hunt down unassociated thieves. We would give them a monetary limit that they may steal a year. Following that, all we would have to do is ensure citizens know to report any lost items and we would repay them. Of course any discrepancies will be thoroughly investigated and punishments will be severe. We will end up losing money through repaying the citizens though.

[Drosum] Aren’t we just paying off the thieves at that point? That can’t stand.

[Lasarim] Yes. It would be if it was left as such. However there’s some very simple things we can do. For example, it’s still a crime to steal while self defense is not. Whenever any of them are caught, well that’s another bargaining chip for us. Of course deaths will happen too and whittle down their numbers. By the time they realize things are hardly profitable, the thieves will no longer be in the business of stealing, but in the business of running a guild. Perhaps they will even ask for a small protection fee and give up stealing all together. The ones who have risen to the top by that point absolutely will keep the system running and the weak will have no choice but to be associated with the guild or be hunted by their fellow thieves.

[Drosum] Won’t the thieves just rebel once they realize they aren’t earning money?

[Lasarim] They can of course earn money through their protection fee, by working as a scout in the dungeon, or by subjugating known and unaffiliated thieves and bandits. But as long as the middle of the pack is getting by and the top few are earning money and power, there is no way for them to escape unless they quit being thieves; which is beneficial for us too. The system will keep itself going. That’s simply how society works.

[Drosum] That is.... Still what would the other nobles say?

[Lasarim] Don’t worry about them. They will talk sure, but success speaks louder. It’s not as if this is any different from the royal family controlling the underworld.

[Drosum] If you are going so far then I suppose I have not much more to say. Still, I wonder how she came up with such a thing.

[Eita] Hmm? Oh that? Yeah I read it in some story.

Night had fallen, yet the girl they were talking about was still up. She was recapping the day’s adventures to her small and somewhat plain companion, yet she never looked over. She sat cross legged in the middle of the grass and kept her eyes shut. Perhaps it was thanks to her ability to multitask that she could still hold such a casual conversation while focused on something else.

[Saeri] Um. Like a textbook?

[Eita] Nah. Just a regular old story some guy made up. It seemed like a fun and chaotic little government setup to try out. I mean, if you run it right the system should work. It does rely heavily on having a competent person in charge though.

[Saeri] I can’t believe you decided the future of the city based on a storybook.

[Eita] Hm. Yeah. Don’t worry too much. We can always have the people topple the leaders if we need to. More importantly, I think I’ve got it this time.

As she finally opens her eyes, both girls look up at the stony ceiling. Runic carvings etch themselves into the rock once again. They've been at it for quite a while now. This time however, mana swirled up to meet the intricate runes. Then in the next moment, the ceiling seems to disintegrate. In its place, the black expanse of the night sky, dotted with numerous stars.

[Saeri] Wow…

She could only gasp. Not at the sight of course, that she saw almost every day, but at the magic. Saeri might have been a poor village girl, but she devoured books and was, in her opinion, pretty good at magic for her age. At least, magic theory anyways. For a poor village girl at least. Despite quickly losing confidence in her own abilities, there was one thing she knew for sure. The runic enchantment placed on the ceiling now was very very high quality stuff. The clarity, the size, the sounds, and, she suspected, the fact that this was all in real time. Combined with the gentle breezes caused by altering the dungeon temperature in places, and it was hard to tell that they weren’t outside.

[Saeri] How did you even do that? How come you can do THAT but you still can’t pull mana outside of your body?

[Eita] Oh come on. I’ve been getting better. I can at least move mana around inside my body pretty well now. Besides when they built all that stuff in my territory, I learned quite a few new things.

[Saeri] What do you mean new things?

[Eita] Well, I got a lot of materials first of all. Glasses, metals, sand, tools. But more importantly They enchanted things with runic magic. I suspect for such a big fancy building, they didn’t spare any costs in hiring the best. This ceiling here? Just like the “window” in Lasarim’s office. I had to do a few experiments to figure out how to make it bigger, but otherwise it’s pretty much the same. Turns out runic magic is pretty easy if you can copy the physical and magical structures exactly. Now I don’t know enough about runic magic to make my own things, I’m only capable of copying what I can see or absorb. But just reproducing it ? I suspect there’s noone better at it than a dungeon. After that I just have to pump mana into it and it turns on. Well, I don’t know how much the fact that I know exactly what happens when it turns on matters. I haven’t tried it with an enchantment that I don’t know anything about yet.

[Saeri] Hah. Runic enchantments are pretty stable and don’t really care about your image of the effects. Rather, the runes themselves would be different depending on who creates them and what effect they imagine them to have. Just like how two different people casting a fireball will have two different mana patterns, two different enchanters will create two different runic patterns for the same thing. The mana efficiency goes down when other people use them, but not by a large amount. Most enchantments with mana efficiency problems just uses a manastone to power it to get around the issue.

[Eita] I see. Well. No real problems for me. I got plenty of mana from all the workers and their magical tools, not to mention the amount I naturally get. I can keep these things on all the time.

Eita thought for a moment and patted the grass next to her.

[Eita] Why don’t we sleep here tonight? We can enjoy this view tonight. Maybe we’ll get a few bunnies to keep us cozy and warm.

[Saeri] H-here? Um. It’s a little…. It feels too much like we’re outside.

Saeri seems to shrink and get even smaller, as her mind tried to wrap around the affection Eita usually give her being done in such a ... open setting.

[Eita] Oh ho. And why are you getting all shy on me. Not that I’d mind pampering you outside. Maybe we should go camping soon…

[Saeri] Eh. No! I mean. Here is fine. Lets um go to sleep ok? I’ll - I’ll go find some bunnies.

She continued to mutter and seemed to have trouble finding any of the bunnies, despite being the one who took care of them the most. In the end, she had to return empty handed and resign herself to keeping each other warm with just body heat. It was only after an hour of teasing and cuddling did she get any time to rest.

[Saeri] Hey. Wait. Can’t you just heat up the air here a bunch? Hey! Don’t pretend you’re asleep!