A-Rank

April 2nd, 2034

New York, New York, Sol HQ

It had been a bit over a week since the initial preparations, but things had come along quite nicely. I walked through the laboratory, filled with diligent workers experimenting with various artifacts and miscellaneous magical trinkets.

We hadn't had any workplace accidents, which was quite good. Furthermore, no problematic wormholes had shown up in the last few weeks, allowing everyone time to recuperate. At the very least, I had been feeling nice and refreshed the last two days.

It was for that reason that I was about to go on a large-scale subspace exploration. It would serve me quite well—it would allow Maddy to prove her effectiveness as a leader to me, among other things. It would also, of course, level-up many of our hunters and ideally, produce some artifacts for further research.

"...And this is the mana-conversion machine, along with our current team assigned to it."

Before that, I was being given a tour of my own laboratory by the project supervisor, Gerrath. He was another one of the new hires and had defected from Britain due to Lucian "being a wanker."

"Ah yes, I remember this thing. It cost a few million, but I was assured it was necessary." I attempted to inspect the strange machine in front of us. To my untrained eye, it appeared to be an oversized microscope of some sort, albeit with a few more inscrutable accessories.

"Yes, Sir." One of the lab technicians spoke up. "This machine is critical to help understand the nature of mana and magic as a whole. It allows for the conversion of mana into other forms of mana and energy, as the name suggests. It also has the capabilities of deconstructing the magical properties of any given object, allowing us to further understand the enchantment placed upon it. This can help identify artifacts without a high-level inspection skill, as well as assisting us replicate the enchantment on another object." As she spoke, it seemed that saliva would start to drip down the side of her mouth at any moment.

"I see," I said exaggeratedly, trying to show my interest. "And what are the downsides?"

Gerrath decided to answer for the lab technician. "Well, it's quite expensive on a few accounts. Thankfully, your generously large coffers help to mitigate those issues. Namely, it requires a supercomputer on par with NASA's to drive the damn bugger properly. We also just need a lot of mana crystals to power it. Which, of course, can also be bought."

"Interesting. Can I have a demo?" I asked as I pulled out the clothes I had gotten in my last subspace exploration. "These allow you to dodge area-of-effect attacks 15% of the time. Can you do anything with them?"

They were yanked out of my hands by the same lab tech, who looked over them carefully. "Spatial magic," she muttered. "Very rare."

"This is Macy." Gerrath sighed. "I'm awfully sorry about her inconsideration. She gets rather excited about these things."

"No worries." I waved off his concerns. "Enthusiasm is good." I looked over at the rest of the team, who shifted awkwardly under my gaze. Shrugging, I turned back to Macy. "So, what can you do with those?"

"Quite a lot. It's up to you since they're yours and all that." Macy took a moment to ponder the possibilities. "I think the best options right now are to either allow the machine to process the enchantment—which might allow us to apply it to other things—or try to amplify the enchantment. Both of those options have a relatively high likelihood of destroying the item."

"It's not a good effect to have on a full set of clothes like this. It's why I felt fine even offering them up; they don't have any armor. Feel free to try to learn the enchantment." I turned back to Gerrath. "Well, I have a date with a wormhole in a few hours, so I'll be off. Thanks for showing me around. It's good to see your investments pay off." We laughed and I returned upstairs to see what was going on.

Maddy was awaiting me in the lobby. "Hey, boss. I got most of the guys organized. Other than a few things here and there, we're good to go."

"Nice. Let me pack my stuff and we'll be off, then. Where did you say you found this wormhole, again?"

"Just upstate." She smiled proudly. "It looks like it's been there for just a short time, but I didn't see any broker agents lurking around. Hopefully, if we get there within the hour, we'll be able to sneak on in."

"All right, perfect. Oh, and one last thing. I am going to officially appoint you as the leader of this operation as of now, with myself being the vice-leader. I'll listen to your orders until we get out of there."

As I finished talking, I felt a heavy weight get placed upon my back. I spun around and saw Christina standing next to me with an extended arm offering an energy drink. I accepted it and adjusted the large backpack she had placed on my back.

"I packed everything you might need: a helmet, 3 headlamps, a thermal undersuit, a waterproof coverall, hiking boots, 2 weeks' worth of food and water, a sleeping bag, a dozen health and mana potions, a watch, and a subspace auto-mapper." Christina nodded, seemingly pleased with herself.

I stared at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. "This seems a bit excessive," I finally got out.

"Nonsense!" Maddy interjected. "That is that standard I asked of all the people coming along. The wormhole is a large-scale A-ranked one. We don't know for sure, but the area it is located in has a reported tendency of involving the underground. I went through the documents provided online by 'Dungeonstats.org' and there's a 72% chance of this wormhole leading to a deep, dark abyss."

Seeing as Maddy was quite adamant about it, I shrugged and accepted my fate. I made sure to complain to her about the future chronic back issues this would give me, though.

With Christina running the company in my absence, we made our way to the armored truck we'd be taking to the location.

And yes, I made sure to officially promote her to "executive administrator," whatever that meant. At the very least it gave her a salary of $530k in the meantime until I could figure out what an actually reasonable salary was. Google had told me the average salary was down to under $20k, but that didn't seem right, so I overestimated.

Due to the nature of the monsters streaming out of the wormholes, humanity had mostly conglomerated into the bigger cities. The relative population density was at an all-time high, and that meant the rural areas of the world were quite dangerous to trek through. Various monsters from differing dimensions roamed the wilderness. Most of the time, the average sedan would do incredibly little to protect anyone from them.

Getting stuffed into the back with 17 other people wasn't much fun, but it couldn't be helped. I wasn't going to be of any assistance to the driver and thus this was my place. I looked around and the faces of my employees, seeing mostly calm, collected expressions on their faces. I supposed that they were more experienced delving into the subspaces than I was.

I didn't recognize all of them, but there was a familiar face sitting next to me.

"Hey, Tom. Long time no see. It's been a while since you blessed us with your 'divine' presence."

I chuckled. The man I was conversing with was an old acquaintance, Alton Brandt. He was a grizzled veteran of the era of hunters and had worked for me since before Sol was a company.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Administrator work and all of that jazz." I gave him a hearty hug. Thinking back on it, it had probably been over a year since the last time I saw him. "It's all good now, though. I think with the new direction I'm taking the company, we'll be seeing a lot more of each other."

"Working us to death, is it?" Despite his words, he had a lighthearted expression.

"Perhaps," I admitted. "I have big plans for the future. You'll find that I'll work myself to death long before any of you guys, though. The goal is to hit level 150 before the end of the year."

Alton laughed at my bravado and we spent the rest of the car ride making small talk. He introduced me to a few people and I had a good time chatting with the people with whom I'd be spending the next few days.

Once we arrived, I hopped out of the back and went over to Maddy, taking a casual look at the wormhole while I was at it. It was just as advertised—a large, approximately A-rank wormhole.

"I take it that the drive went smoothly for you?" I asked her.

"Smooth as can be expected." She shrugged nonchalantly. "I drove over a few stray mobs, but that's about it. Now, let's get in there."

We all spent a few minutes getting prepared for the dive, putting on clothes and armor, polishing weapons and stretching, and so on. Maddy also took a few moments to establish the baseline formation we'd take, placing me with the rest of the glass cannons in the middle.

With everything set up, we ventured into the wormhole.