Unsealing Emptiness

The following days passed with ease for him. He only had to relax and watch Haley, Irvin, and Oliver do all the work. The task wasn’t so difficult right now since the neighboring countries all had a Rank-8 Mage governing them at best.

So Ozul was not required to deal with anything right now.

“It finally paid off...” he could not help but mutter in satisfaction. He had been pretty active lately, but now he could just make the men under him do all the work while he lazed around.

He had done all that work to gather competent people under him. And those days had come where he did not need to do all the work.

There were a few times when Irvin wanted to ask for his help, but Haley’s motherly instincts while watching the sleeping face of Ozul wouldn’t let her husband disturb him.

Days started to pass and their organization grew to new heights every day.

.....

But with expansion arose new problems. It was getting hard for even Haley to sigh out loud in defeat because of all the work.

This time, Oliver was a big help as he knew many people who would love to work for something so big. Only, Irvin had to give them the invitation personally.

The few kingdoms or the big cities were not a problem at all. But the group had to take things easy with another kingdom that had a Rank-9 Monarch leading them.

It was those days that Ozul finally decided to give a helping hand once in a while. Even then, he wasn’t required to do much. They were just expanding an information-gathering organization, not starting a war with the whole world. So he did not have to fight with the Rank-9 Mage. He only helped in giving a small scare to the group of Rank-8 men.

Sending people to every place wasn’t so much of a big problem.

The real predicament was to build a safe and fast connection between everyone. And that required a number of funds that Haley did not dare to ask from the Ashin family. These funds were necessary to buy the enchanted items that made long-range communication possible.

That was the only thing slowing their progress. So Oliver had no choice but to speed up his work and start working on his side of the work.

It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that he was best in the dealings. So Oliver managed the trading part of their organization. Selling information was all up to him.

He did not disappoint Ozul either. 1 year was all it required for him to get the hang of it as Gold Coins came rushing into the organization’s treasury. It made work easier for Haley and Irvin.

Meanwhile, Dibly was given just the simple duty of being Haley’s assistant. He wasn’t good at anything, so she would occasionally give him insignificant tasks like bringing the documents from one place to another, or informing someone of her orders.

Although others would have thought that Dibly wouldn’t be happy with his work, but that simple-minded fellow was happy as long as he did not have to risk his life and still earn enough to eat to his fill.

Besides, Haley never mistreated him, not to mention that he was someone who Ozul had personally told her to take care of. On the whole, he was living a good life.

———

– 3 years and 7 months later –

Ozul was there in the office together with Irvin, Haley, and Oliver in the room. There were a couple of other people as well that Irvin had come to put his trust in.

Many things had changed over these years, or rather, improved.

Not only had Oliver managed to break through, but even Irvin had leaped past one small stage, becoming an End-Stage Rank-8 Mage.

They had gathered here today to discuss the next step of their plan which was the most crucial one.

Ozul sat on the couch while hearing the detailed reports from each individual present in the room. As he looked out of the window, he appeared to be disinterested in whatever they were describing, but he was actually listening to everything.

“... Everything is done on my part.”

“... So, the business part is firm as well.”

“... In short, every loose end is tightened.”

...

In these more than 3 and a half years, the organization had finally covered their whole area of the Mainland!

So these men present inside the room each were assigned to their own roles. One by one, they explained everything and then summarized it by declaring that they had completed everything on their part of the job.

After the last man had finished, Ozul finally moved his gaze back from the window to the people in the room.

“So it’s finally done?” he asked and everyone present there answered by nodding their heads.

That day, Ozul had told Irvin that he wanted things done in 3 years, and Irvin and the rest of the group had really managed to pull through.

However, everyone persuaded him not to immediately start the next part of the plan. Irvin and Haley would have never even dared to question his decisions, but Oliver always had a way with his words.

Not only was he not afraid of Ozul as much as others were because of their past interactions, Oliver was also in the strong opinion of not rushing to complete everything in 10 years.

Although they were not able to convince Ozul to stop rushing, he did relent and gave them a few more months that extended till today.

Even when the Three-Eyed Strangers had covered all of their part of the Mainland, things were not so stable because of the rapid development.

Haley and Oliver had quickly noticed many problems arising from people chickening out to some bases not providing any actual intel at all. And this all happened only because they hadn’t clearly told everyone what they were really signing up for.

So they used these 7 months to tie up every loose end.

Even if it wasn’t perfect, they had solidified it to the point where it wouldn’t start crumbling after only a second of not overseeing everything.

So now after a total of 3 and 7 months later the Three-Eyed Strangers had grown to the point where even the high Nobles would occasionally require their services.

“Only two other parts remain. But before that, we will be shifting the main base or headquarters as you would call it, to the Neutral Lands,” Ozul said as everyone nodded their heads.

However, there were always some people slow in the head, “Why do we have to move there? Wouldn’t it be safer if it was someplace else?”

“The Neutral Lands are considered so precious because of the single fact that it connects all 4 parts on the Mainland of Egon. That is also the reason that we will have to move there if we need to have our hold everywhere.” It was Oliver that explained it to the person.

“Where exactly in the Neutral Lands though? Do we make it in Neutral City?” Irvin asked. The Neutral Lands as a whole was a very wide area.

“No. Not there, if we create it there then the other powers would take it as we are also vying for the control of the Lands.” Oliver refuted that idea.

“Why? We will only be setting up our headquarters, it is not like we actually plan to do anything like that,” another person spoke.

“That is the truth, but this is how politics work. Each action taken by an organization as big as ours would be thought of as an action considering the identity and the reputation of that organization. Everyone would rather think of us as our enemies than someone who had only randomly decided to create their headquarters in the Neutral City,” Oliver again had to give a long explanation.

“Just do it anywhere near the Neutral City, at a safe distance from it,” Ozul ended their debate with a single sentence. He did not care wherever it was built as long as they would remain in the Neutral Lands.

“After building the main base in the Neutral Lands, it will be time to expand in the rest of the areas. As for how to go on about that? Decide it among yourselves. I give you 3 years each for them,” Ozul stated making everyone nervous.

Since the organization had already grown to the point where there were a number of Rank-7 Mages, it would be much easier to expand in newer areas, so Ozul had given them only 3 years time to spread to each part.

Even when Ozul had said it, he himself knew that these people would need more than that. First of all, each part of the Mainland had a slight difference in their culture because of the separation of the areas.

The second was that one of those areas had the Leonhard Dynasty as the rulers while the area had those sects secluded everywhere. It would be a great pain in the a$$ for these guys to get their informants even in those places.

“So when do we start?” Haley asked.

“Start,” Ozul said before walking out of the room. It was time that they hurry things up a little. These people were becoming a little lax these past months. He wanted things slowly getting faster, not slowly getting slower.