"Yes, and the best part is that we earned that amount of money every fifteen minutes!" Bennie exclaimed, his grin growing wider as he continued explaining the numbers to Karl. "If we multiply that amount by ninety-six, we get 182,400 silver coins per day, of which we take home half, leaving us with 91,200 silver coins daily. And that is only the income generated by our own secret realm in a single day, so if we multiply it by the thirty days we spent fighting there, our total comes to 2,736,000 silver coins!" He looked as though he could hardly contain his excitement, and Karl was not doing much better himself.
The figures were almost unbelievable, especially when Karl considered all the things he could purchase for the family with such a substantial sum. They had spent the past month committing thousands of people to dangerous operations, placing considerable pressure on their resources and forcing several profitable activities to stop. Nevertheless, the deployment had not only protected their territory but had also generated enough income to compensate for many of the inconveniences they had suffered. For Karl, who was responsible for ensuring the Sonnenbergs remained prosperous and prepared for the challenges ahead, this was excellent news.
"Do you have any idea why the difference between the money we earned this time and what we earned last time is so enormous?" Karl asked, his curiosity overcoming his initial excitement. He remembered that during the previous occasion, the family had earned approximately 300,000 silver coins from the entire ordeal, an amount that had already seemed impressive at the time. Compared with the figures Bennie had just presented, however, that earlier income seemed almost insignificant. Karl wanted to understand what had changed, especially since the difference was too large to dismiss as a simple improvement in their efficiency.
"The difference mainly comes from the fact that far more creatures are emerging from the portal, and they keep coming for much longer," Bennie explained, his expression becoming more businesslike as he answered the question. "There are also numerous creatures at higher stages, and they are worth considerably more than the rabble we encountered during the first wave of secret realm openings." He leaned back slightly, satisfied that the explanation was straightforward enough for Karl to understand without requiring him to examine every individual calculation. "So, just be happy that we have earned the extra money, because we need it."
Karl nodded as he considered the explanation, recognizing that the changing circumstances had created an opportunity that the family could not afford to waste. The first wave of secret realm openings had been different, and the rewards available then had not reflected the full potential of these dangerous places. Now that more powerful creatures were emerging in greater numbers, the rewards had increased accordingly, making the effort required to defend the portals far more profitable. Although the family still had to consider the risks and expenses involved, the financial benefits were becoming impossible to ignore.
"Right, and how much did we earn from the members who were sent to the other secret realms?" Karl asked, his interest returning as he realised that Bennie's previous calculations had covered only part of their deployment. The Sonnenbergs had sent people to several other secret realms, and those teams had spent the same month fighting alongside representatives of other factions. If their operations had generated even a fraction of the income earned at home, the combined total could be considerably larger than Karl had initially expected. He settled into his chair again, ready to hear the next set of figures.
"That calculation is a little trickier, but we can simplify things by assuming that our people only killed the stage-one flying creatures," Bennie replied. "The other rabble is not worth very much, so including every single creature would complicate the calculation without significantly improving our estimate." He explained that the teams deployed to the other secret realms had each killed between thirteen and seventeen flying creatures every fifteen minutes. For the sake of simplicity, he proposed using fifteen kills per interval as the average for every team.
With that estimate established, Bennie could calculate the rewards without having to account for every variation between the different teams. Each group killed approximately fifteen stage-one flying creatures every fifteen minutes, and each of those creatures was worth ten silver coins. Using the same calculation method as before, the total rewards for one team over the entire month amounted to 432,000 silver coins. Since the family had ten teams deployed across the other secret realms, their combined earnings reached 4,320,000 silver coins before the money was divided.
"As before, we only take half of that amount, which leaves us with 2,160,000 silver coins from the other secret realms," Bennie continued, laying out the final figures for Karl. "When we add that to the 2,736,000 silver coins earned from our own secret realm, we arrive at a grand total of 4,896,000 silver coins over the course of a single month." He paused briefly to let the number sink in, his expression becoming more serious as he considered what it meant for the family. "That is more than we earned in total last year."
Karl's excitement did not disappear, but the enormous sum prompted him to think beyond the immediate benefits. Earning nearly five million silver coins in a month was an extraordinary achievement, especially when compared with the family's previous annual income. It demonstrated that secret realms were not merely dangerous locations that required large numbers of people to guard them; they were also assets capable of generating enormous wealth. Even a faction that controlled only one particularly profitable secret realm could earn more than two million silver coins in a month, and that was an amount few organisations could afford to ignore.
"I see why you have such a serious look on your face," Karl said, his expression matching Bennie's as he considered the wider implications. "With that amount of money involved, there is not a faction on Earth that would willingly sell a secret realm once it understood its real value." He paused, allowing the implications of the situation to settle in his mind. "And that is going to make people desperate."
The problem was not simply that secret realms were valuable, but that their value had now become clear to people who might previously have underestimated them. The first wave of openings had not produced the results many people had expected, and some factions might have regarded their newly acquired assets as expensive responsibilities rather than profitable investments. The current wave had changed that perception, revealing just how much money could be made by controlling a portal and organising an effective defence. As more people understood the scale of the profits, competition for ownership would inevitably become more intense.
"But I am worried about the government deciding to take back the secret realms on the grounds of national security," Bennie admitted, his earlier excitement giving way to concern. He understood that a resource capable of generating millions of silver coins could attract the attention of governments, especially if officials believed that allowing private factions to control it posed a threat to national interests. The fact that the Sonnenbergs had acquired their secret realm through the existing arrangements did not necessarily mean that every politician would respect those arrangements indefinitely. If the government attempted to reclaim the portals, the family could find itself facing a problem far more complicated than fighting corrupted creatures.
"They would not dare," Karl replied firmly, his expression becoming serious as he considered the possibility. "The backlash would be far too great, so do not worry about it." He reminded Bennie that every major player had already purchased a secret realm, meaning that an attempt to confiscate those assets would not affect the Sonnenbergs alone. Such a decision would threaten numerous powerful factions simultaneously, many of which possessed enough influence and resources to make the government regret its actions. "If someone tries to take them, it would be the same as killing those factions, and you can be certain that someone else would take care of the problem before it went that far."
Karl was confident that the government would recognise the danger of provoking so many influential organisations at once. The profits were too substantial, and the number of interested parties too large, for the matter to remain a simple dispute between officials and a handful of private owners. Any attempt to seize the secret realms would create consequences that extended far beyond the immediate question of who controlled the portals. Although Karl did not believe the family could afford to become complacent, he considered the collective interests of the major factions a strong deterrent against such a move.
"Still, please prepare a report outlining what our family needs to invest in over the next five years," Karl instructed as he rose from his chair. "We will set aside the money required for those investments first, and then we can examine what we can purchase from the System marketplace to make our faction function more efficiently." He wanted the family to use its new wealth to strengthen its foundations rather than spend it carelessly simply because the profits had exceeded expectations. With that final instruction, Karl left Bennie's office and returned to the paperwork waiting for him.
Well, that went rather well, Gaia thought as she reflected on the chaos that had engulfed Earth during the past month. Although her plans had not unfolded perfectly in every respect, they had achieved several important objectives that made the trouble worthwhile. Most importantly, the upheaval had forced some of the hidden figures responsible for the world's problems to expose themselves. A few rats had finally been dragged out of their hiding places, and some of them had turned out to be considerably larger and more influential than she had anticipated.
The revelations had also given the human population a clearer understanding of the dangers that had been developing behind the scenes. Gaia had never doubted that humanity could handle the corrupted creatures emerging from the secret realms, provided people worked together and prepared properly for the challenges ahead. Unfortunately, corrupted humans had complicated matters considerably by creating problems that did not need to exist. Their actions had forced Gaia to spend time and resources dealing with human interference when she would rather have concentrated on the larger task of helping Earth recover.
Even so, the planet's economy had received a substantial boost from the events of the past month. The secret realms were functioning as filters through which the universe could absorb considerable quantities of void energy, while Gaia was responsible for cleaning and managing the process. By allowing the humans to fight the creatures emerging from those realms, she was effectively making use of their capabilities to deal with a problem that would otherwise have required more direct intervention. The rewards they received for their efforts also helped stimulate economic activity, creating benefits that extended beyond the immediate business of defending the portals.
The arrangement had not been entirely free of complications, however, and Gaia still had obligations to fulfil. She had promised to compensate the Trade Families for the problems caused by the recent events, even though the families themselves did not appear particularly concerned about the inconvenience. Gaia wanted to keep those relationships friendly, since she expected to rely on the Trade Families again in the future. She also intended to employ the assassin family on several occasions, as their particular abilities made them ideally suited for some of the tasks she had in mind.
As she considered what would make suitable compensation, Gaia continued monitoring the condition of Earth's economy through one of her subconscious routines. For once, the figures were not showing a free fall, which was a welcome change from the situation she had been dealing with previously. During the earlier period, almost everyone had been borrowing money from her, and the arrangement had only remained possible because they were purchasing goods directly from her. Those transactions had returned the cultural energy associated with the coins to her, allowing her to continue producing money without exhausting the energy required to sustain the system.
The coins rewarded to humans for killing corrupted creatures were different, however, because Gaia had prepared for that expense in advance. During the trial that humanity had undertaken, she had used the available time to set aside a substantial reserve of coins specifically for this purpose. She had also established a rule preventing herself from touching that reserved pile, ensuring that the money would remain available for the rewards the humans earned through their efforts. From Gaia's perspective, those coins represented funds that could enter the human economy without being immediately reclaimed through her usual marketplace transactions.
Consequently, the rewards from killing corrupted creatures were not simply another way for Gaia to recycle money through her own business. They introduced a reserved supply of coins into the economy, giving people additional funds to spend and allowing more economic activity to take place. The distinction mattered because the cultural energy that made the coins valuable was not unlimited, and maintaining their production required Gaia to manage that resource carefully. With the rewards already set aside and the secret realms helping the universe absorb void energy, she could finally observe a period in which Earth's economy was improving rather than continuously deteriorating.