299 Consequences
It had been 17 hours since the last calamities were defeated, but none of the SSS Rank Hunters came out and gave any sort of assuring statement to the public.
The World Association and Elite Families gave their own statements about how the situation was now under control.
These announcements made the public calm down, and people were able to go back to their cities like before.
But in Belvoria, the cities were destroyed as buildings fell, and it was extremely hard to handle the reactions of the citizens of Belvoria.
Even the Executives and other higher-ups of the World Association wanted the SSS Rank Hunters to come out and give some words and direction on what they were planning to take in the future.
If the strongest people said something to the public, it would be much easier to shift public opinion in the direction they wanted.
But this was not the only problem they were facing.
Apart from the destroyed cities, the economy of Belvoria was going to be affected, as the Mana Waves and the Monster hordes had affected key areas responsible for producing various resources.
Just the cost to rebuild the whole city and the cost of deploying the highest-ranking hunters with various artifacts and technologies was immense.
And this much was calculated excluding the casualties that had occurred in the past month.
This was not an SSS Rank Dungeon that they had cleared, which would have given them resources from the monsters inside it.
The Calamities, which were the SSS Rank Monsters that had hidden themselves, were spared in the first place because going out to kill them wasn't worth it.
If given enough time, those monsters would sleep eternally, and even if one awakened for some reason, they could deal with it.
But this time, it was done intentionally, and the loss that all the Associations and the Elite families needed to pay was quite high.
And there was a loophole in this system: the Elite Families from Somaria and Halcyon were spared from giving or spending any money to restore their continent, as it was not affected at all.
But the Associations didn't have that leverage.
The High Council made such rules so that if somebody tried to overthrow an Elite Family, the cost they needed to pay would be too high.
Even the High Council majorly didn't like having changes, as it introduced new variables and alliances within the High Council.
Also, the reason why the economic sector of each continent was independent of other Elite Families.
This meant that although the Greville were rich, they didn't have control over the economy of Desmar, Hargrave, etc.
At the Mage Association Tower,
At the highest floor, within a room that Silvus built for himself as his personal training space, he could practice his spells and rebuild them without breaking the whole place. But even then, he needed to control his strength while doing so.
There were no facilities where the SSS Rank Hunters could use their powers without worrying about destroying everything around them.
This was one of the reasons Nathan kept going into the dungeons; it was the only place where he could go all out without worrying about his surroundings.
"Can you feel your hand at all?" Silvus asked Farnus.
"Not really," Farnus replied as he tried to summon more of his lightning aura.
But even with that, all he could feel in his left hand were very faint sensations.
"It wasn't like you to get distracted like that," Silvus said as he used mana from his fingertip.
Slowly he took his finger across his shoulder to his forearm, where he had made a small cut, and he removed the black energy that was present in his body.
The other SSS Rank Hunters were also doing something similar as they needed to remove the wild mana from their bodies to increase their healing speeds.
"What happened that made you like that?" Silvus asked.
Both of them were old friends, and Farnus also had trust in Silvus, but this was something that he hadn't told anyone about.
"Maybe I have gotten too old," Farnus replied as he looked above and saw the clear transparent glass roof.
Silvus disliked close spaces, so he made his training room in such a way that he didn't feel too restricted by his surroundings.
"The Farnus Calmort I knew would have answered it differently," Silvus said, his face remaining calm.
"Well, I should return to the World Academy," Farnus said as he stood up instead of answering Silvus.
"This will not get any better anyway," Farnus said, looking at his left arm.
Silvus had tried to remove the Black energy inside his arm, but doing so would damage his mana meridians a lot.
Farnus had no choice but to live like that until he could counter this mana with his own mana.
But for Farnus, it was impossible to do so.
He had hit his limit and was aware of that fact, but even knowing that, Farnus had no reaction to his hand's current condition.
Silvus glanced at Farnus, who was walking towards the edge of the room near the massive glass that oversaw the entire flying Island.
'What is he thinking that is more important than that?' Silvus thought.
He knew that the way Farnus fought was not even similar to the way he had remembered him.
The calmest man among all SSS Rank Hunters, and also known as the wisest, making such mistakes as getting distracted, wasn't something that Silvus would envision Farnus doing.
He knew something was up, but ultimately he didn't push Farnus for any answers.
Both of them had their own priorities, and as long as his views didn't clash with Farnus, Silvus didn't mind whatever Farnus was doing.
Farnus, on the other hand, looked at his hand as he tried to clench it slowly. The response was slow, as the black energy was interfering with his nerves, and just trying to move his hand was enough to produce pain due to the mana clashing with each other.
"It might be good if you appear and give a speech to settle down the distress around the World," Silvus suggested.
Both of them knew that other than them, all the 5 SSS Rank Hunters wouldn't appear too soon, and their presence was needed to keep the calm around the world.
Various rumors that even went as far as to say a few SSS Rank Hunters had died started appearing out of nowhere.
At the World Academy,
Asher was sitting in his room while a hologram was present in front of him.
Right now, Tom was contacting Asher directly to discuss a few things, because now that Osbert was back, there were many things Tom needed to keep his eye on.
As most of the people connected to Osbert were already destroyed, their companies and businesses were being absorbed by other people.
"But wouldn't the economy go back to normal, as the World Association has declared they will interfere directly, with other Associations also backing them?" Tom asked.
With Asher's plans for the future, there were chances that even with the contracts they had signed, a few of those people might try to betray them.
"Don't worry, they would have no time to focus their attention on our activities," Asher replied.
But Tom's face was filled with confusion.
Now that the calamities were defeated and the search for Zephyr had increased a lot, what Asher was saying didn't make sense to him.
"What do you think will happen when you remove weights from one side of a balanced scale?" Asher asked.
"One side will go up," Tom replied.
"That's why they will have no time," Asher replied.
As he had seen the effect of killing those SSS Rank Monsters in the future, Asher knew what was going to happen next.
"Multiple Dungeons will appear much more actively near those Continents," Asher replied.
As theories of the connection between Mana and Dungeons were made, one of the most discussed things was the relation between the density of mana present in the world and the appearance of dungeons.
As the number of dungeons had increased over the course of time and became stagnant at a certain point, new dungeons were appearing frequently but at a controllable rate.
"Ah, are you sure?" Tom asked nervously.
It was simply a prediction from Asher, and Tom didn't know whether they could go on with such predictions.
"Just do what I have told you, and report any sort of unknown variables that appear," Asher said.
Tom nodded immediately as he disconnected the call.
"Well, I can only follow the Boss's orders," Tom shrugged his shoulders as he continued with his work.
He knew that Asher had much more knowledge than them, and whatever he had told them had always been correct.
So even this time, Tom believed what Asher told him without thinking too hard about it.
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