"Yes, while crude, Ingmar has a good point here," said Jordan, shaking his head. "We have no allies here, and we all know that these corrupted creatures are worth quite a bit of money. When this amount of money is involved, people are willing to go to incredible lengths to get their hands on it, even if doing so means going against Gaia's orders."
Jordan could not help but feel somewhat relieved that he had grown up in the family he had. Every family that had existed for as long as the Trade Families had understood that wealth could become dangerous when people stopped being satisfied with what they already possessed. Because of that, they did their utmost to educate their children about how the world actually worked rather than simply teaching them how to make money. There were many lessons that were repeated throughout their childhood, but one of the most important was always the same: be satisfied with what you have.
It was a simple lesson, but one that Jordan now realized was probably one of the reasons the Trade Families had survived for so long. If everyone in the room had been obsessed with obtaining more money, then there was no way their current alliance would survive. Every family would eventually start calculating how much they could gain by betraying the others. The moment everyone began thinking that way, cooperation would disappear, and their combined strength would collapse.
Of course, that did not mean that every member of the families followed the lesson perfectly. There were always black sheep who became obsessed with money, power, or some other form of greed. Every family had produced people like that throughout its history. The difference was that such people rarely survived for very long, because the families understood that one person's greed could put everyone else at risk. Their traditions existed for a reason, and those who refused to follow them were eventually dealt with.
"So, any ideas on how we should deal with US people if we encounter them?" asked Jordan.
The question immediately changed the atmosphere in the room. Everyone understood that they were not discussing an unlikely possibility. They were operating inside the United States, around secret realms that the American military and other organizations were supposed to be defending. Eventually, they were going to encounter soldiers or civilians who had some connection to the area. The only question was how those encounters would go.
"I vote that we just kill them all," said Valentina.
There was absolutely no jest in her voice.
To Jordan's dismay, the majority of the room seemed to agree with her. Several representatives nodded as though she had just suggested the simplest and most practical solution available. From their perspective, eliminating potential witnesses, enemies, and complications was certainly efficient. It was also an answer that made Jordan's forehead begin to throb.
"Right, I am going to have to stop you there, you bunch of murder hobos," said Jordan. "It would not look good if we started killing innocent civilians."
He listened as several other solutions were offered, only to discover that most of them were not significantly better than Valentina's proposal. Some involved intimidating people, others involved simply getting rid of them, and a few sounded suspiciously like variations of killing anyone who became inconvenient. Jordan stared at the representatives around the table and briefly wondered how he had ended up in a room filled with people who considered murder a perfectly reasonable administrative solution.
Then he remembered exactly who he was dealing with.
He was still a doctor.
That fact had not changed simply because the world had been transformed by mana, the System, secret realms, and corrupted creatures. Even if the Hippocratic Oath followed by his family was somewhat different from the normal version, the fundamental principle remained. He was supposed to save lives whenever possible, not casually take them because doing so happened to be convenient.
Killing innocent people was a step too far for him.
Unfortunately, Jordan had to work with the Trade Families, and the Trade Families had their own way of looking at the world. Their crafts were not simply occupations that they happened to be good at. Their trades were obsessions that had been carefully cultivated from childhood. Children were taught from a young age to devote themselves to their family profession, understand every aspect of it, and constantly seek ways to improve it.
That obsession had allowed the families to survive for centuries.
It also meant that many of them did not spend much time thinking about things that had nothing to do with their particular interests. If something did not help them further their craft, then it often received very little attention. Jordan understood why they were like that, but it did not make dealing with them any easier when the subject involved something as important as innocent lives.
"Does anyone have a better idea instead of killing all the people who venture near the secret realm?" asked Jordan with exasperation.
There was a brief pause.
"No, but Jordan, what do you expect us to do?" said Arin. "Let those people go and report back to the authorities nearby?"
Arin's voice contained clear disdain for the suggestion.
"It is not like anyone here is innocent," he continued before Jordan could interrupt. "I mean, just revolt already."
Jordan looked at him, but Arin continued speaking.
"I could accept that they did not want to do so before because of the incredible difference in technology. That could have made a revolt practically impossible. But now? It is just man against man. Why have they not revolted already?"
Arin's exhaustion had clearly done nothing to improve his opinion of the United States. If anything, being forced into the meeting when he desperately wanted to sleep had made him even less interested in being diplomatic. He had never had a particularly positive opinion of the country, and everything he had seen during this operation had only reinforced that feeling.
"It has been what, almost four years now since we returned from the Trial?" Arin continued. "In my opinion, they have had plenty of time to stand up for themselves."
He shook his head, visibly annoyed.
"But just because they get treated like humans again, everyone is satisfied. They do not realize that the reason they are being treated like humans is because the people in power are scared. Otherwise, they would have assassinated that president already, not to mention exploited the people far more than they are currently doing."
Arin's words were harsh, but they reflected how strange the situation appeared to him. Humanity had already gone through the Trial, and everyone had witnessed just how fragile civilization could become when confronted with overwhelming power. Yet, despite the changes brought by mana and the System, large portions of American society had apparently accepted the existing order instead of tearing it apart.
"You know, I must admit that Arin is right," said Ingmar.
He sounded genuinely thoughtful as he considered the situation. Even he found the entire thing strange. There were certainly explanations for why a population might remain passive under oppressive circumstances, but from the perspective of people who had experienced the Trial and the changes that came afterward, the situation still looked bizarre.
"Well, yes," Jordan admitted. "I must admit that they have had their society in a mess for the last seventy-five years, but that is still not an excuse for you to kill everyone who comes into contact with the camp."
He rubbed his forehead before continuing.
"As for that revolt, it should hopefully come after the massive number of corrupted humans appear in their government."
Jordan had no idea exactly how many corrupted humans had infiltrated the American government before Gaia decided that people from another country were necessary to help save the country. However, he was fairly certain that the number was not small.
And it was not a particularly comforting number.
Jordan had recently been asked by the Assassin Family to make some poison powder for them to use. That alone had given him a much better idea of the scale of the problem. The fact that the Assassin Family wanted poison specifically for dealing with corrupted humans suggested that they had already identified a significant number of targets.
Jordan's original estimate had been on the high side, but now.
He thought the number should probably be doubled, bringing it to at least twenty thousand corrupted humans.
Twenty thousand.
The number was frankly absurd.
Twenty thousand people had apparently accepted that horrible power in exchange for what amounted to a little more power. Whatever the corrupted humans had been promised, it had been enough to convince an enormous number of people to sacrifice themselves for it. Jordan could not understand the mentality behind such a decision, but he did understand what needed to be done about them.
That was why he had no problem making the poison for the Assassin Family.
The Bingen family were excellent doctors, after all, and their knowledge of poisons was arguably even greater than that of the Assassin Family. A doctor needed to know how poisons worked if they wanted to understand how to cure people who had been poisoned. Some poisons were even used in carefully controlled amounts as part of certain treatments.
As a result, Jordan effectively had an entire library of deadly poisons inside his head.
He simply knew how they worked.
He also knew how to make them act quickly.
In this particular situation, he had no intention of making the poison unnecessarily painful. In fact, Jordan believed that the corrupted humans were already suffering enough. He had fought the corrupted creatures himself, just as members of his family had, and he still remembered the first time he had seen them emerge from a secret realm.
He had nearly vomited.
And that was despite having seen some truly nasty things during his training as a doctor.
There was simply something fundamentally wrong with the creatures.
It was not only their appearance. The energy they gave off felt wrong in a way that Jordan found difficult to describe. His instincts rejected it before his mind could even process what he was seeing. Every part of him seemed to recognize that whatever those creatures were, they were not supposed to exist.
"But seeing as no one has a better idea, my proposal is that we simply capture them and lock them away for the time being until we are done here," said Jordan.
He looked around the room to make sure everyone was listening.
"And before you go on about the need for guards, the reserve shift can look after them. We already have people who are not actively fighting during certain periods, so we can assign them to guarding the prisoners. I will also concoct some drugs that will make them sleepy and more agreeable."
The proposal was considerably less violent than what had initially been suggested, but it still solved the immediate problem. They did not have to kill potentially innocent people, and they did not have to allow those people to return to nearby authorities and reveal their presence. They could simply capture them, keep them contained, and deal with them properly once their work around the secret realm was finished.
Everyone agreed that it could work.
With that, Jordan was left to handle the unpleasant responsibility of dealing with anyone who came near their camp while the others could focus on the secret realm and the corrupted creatures. The matter was settled without anyone having to draw a weapon, which Jordan considered a considerable improvement over the first suggestion.
And so the meeting broke apart.
The people who wanted to sleep immediately sprinted out of the room.