Chapter 984: The Deal Made

[A Few Days Later]

The Hunter Association was bustling with activity, as usual.

Everyone was going about doing their thing, and I could sense pretty much everything that was occuring around me.

'I can tell that they're working extra hard.' I grinned, finally forcing myself to return my focus to the room I was standing in.

I, Kuzon, and Aloe all sat before the Chairman, with Director Baek and the other Directors of other states showing up.

I saw a couple of new faces, and while it would have been interesting to know a couple of them, it was already too late.

The meeting mostly comprised of thanks and gratitude to our little group for helping them. They showed us footages and numbers of what we had done, ensuring we were properly aware of the hood we had done.

... It was frankly a little boring.

'The Zenith has been disbanded, so every nation has decided to band together as a cooperative unit, with no central authority figure at their center...'

They would develop something similar to a union, where they could simply share ideas and make agreements.

Whether a country chose to follow it or not would be up to them; though there would be certain things that every member would have to agree on before joining.

So far the arrangement was going well. There were bound to be hiccups on the way, but I had trust in this new system.

"... And finally, I want to say that your request has been fulfilled, Jared." Chairman Sung's words returned the sparkles in my eyes.

The only reason I had endured all the cheesy contents of this meeting was because I was waiting for him to say that.

The deal for my help with the Zenith and everything else was for a certain request of mine to be fulfilled.

I had made good of the promise on my end. It was finally their turn.

"As you said; you want all the information this world has about Gates, Dungeons, Dimensional Breaches, Technological Blueprints, Science and Technology, etc."

That's right! This world intrigued me so much, and their application of technology especially made me very curious.

If I applied it to my current knowledge and Magic prowess, I expected significant growth. How could I let go of such an opportunity?

'Also, I can recreate video games and television later on. Smartphones and laptops will also come in handy. Just saying...'

In the end, it was a whole new world!

"Everything you asked for is contained in an automated hard disk, with Yottabites of data to sort through. We added all the information we could find about our world that could be useful to your ends there. It's a lot, but you requested this."

"Thank you." I could only grin to express my gratitude as the Chairman brought out something that looked like a briefcase.

That was the automated hard disk, no doubt.

'Usually, you'd need to plug hard disks to a computer to access the files. However, this hard disk is the computer. It shows its contents in holographic form without the need for a computer.'

It was a brilliant parting gift.

"Usually, thus would have taken a long time to complete, but thanks to your Time Magic, we were able to speed up the process." The Chairman, and Al the Directors lowered their heads in thanks once more.

"Truly, thank you all. Heroes from another world."

I smiled softly, and I noticed Aloe was getting a little emotional in the room. The only one who didn't really seem affected by their kind gestures was Kuzon.

I could tell he wasn't particularly displeased with us helping them. However, he never really seemed invested in this place, so I could understand his reluctance to accept gratitude.

'It's fine. We'll soon be leaving, anyway.' I shrugged.

"You are welcome. We also had a good time here. Besides, we had a deal, so I can only call this fair."

If I hadn't helped them take down the Zenith, a whole chunk of the information they collected for me would be missing, considering the Zenith was hiding a lot of information and schematics from the rest of the world.

That was why I had to take them down first.

'And even with my Time Magic, it still took three days. It's crazy when I think about it.'

I wondered just how many things I would have to sort through.

"How is your investigation on the Zenith and Shadows of Light going?" I asked casually.

At this point in time, there was no need to keep secrets or hide anything from each other.

Chairman Sung and Director Baek were well aware of that, though the other Directors fidgeted a little.

"We've found a lot from the investigation. It seems the fear that people were gaining powers outside the Hunter Association isn't unfounded, after all."

"Oh?" My smile grew broader.

"It seems Chad had the special ability to awaken others. He used that to build his army and also distribute power among Brokers to cause the Hunter Associations more trouble and weaken our control."

It made sense, since it would cause even more chaos if even Brokers had Awakened humans among their ranks.

"We're still investigating how the Shadows of Light were able to make Gates spontaneously appear and break, though. We know they're responsible for a lot of the Dungeon Breaks, and now we know that they're able to make Gates too. We just want to know how they're able to do that."

Even though I wasn't particularly well-read in this world's history and the models in place for their Dimensional Theories, even I could tell that their Dimensional fabric was thinning out.

'Chad and his minions most likely weakened the fabrics of their space-time dimensional layer, thus exposing it to another world.'

The process would be random—spawning different kinds of Gates—with every try. However, I had a theory that the more energy they expended, the higher the Dimensional Spike, and thus the higher the difficulty of the Dungeon that would appear within the Gate.

This was all just my speculative analysis, though.

'I mean... what do I know?'