Chương 152: Chapter 151: Global Laziness Syndrome

The Bifrost repair dispute did not get resolved. It got filed. Envoys, sealed depositions, an arbitration calendar stretching out past anything Lucian intended to still care about, and a stack of Divine Realm paperwork thick enough to stop a crossbow bolt. He signed what needed signing, refused to sign the rest, handed the whole file to counsel, and walked back through the gateway with Eleanor, Sylvia, Astra and Evelyn behind him. That was several months ago. He was still ten.

The arbitration calendar had not moved an inch. Earth had. In those months Vance Earth Holdings — the Earth-side company his Korean counsel had incorporated in his name under the Solaris parent, Vance Commerce, with a licensed adult representative signing everywhere a ten-year-old legally could not — had outgrown its original shape. It started as one supervised Rank-D extraction pilot in a basement dungeon.

It now held licensed service contracts on low-tier Gates across a growing list of jurisdictions, standing emergency-response support agreements with several national disaster agencies, and regulated energy supply deals that some ministry somewhere had gone through line by line before approving. Crystal Island came online in the same stretch: an offshore energy and research site in the Pacific, permitted, surveyed and inspected by four separate agencies before it was allowed to export a single watt.

The press had decided to call it Vance Island. The filings called it Crystal Island, which was its name. None of it made him sovereign. Governments still wrote the licenses. Guilds still refused his money on principle. The Hunter Associations still ran their own certifications and still told him no roughly twice a month. It only made him load-bearing. He would not understand why that was a problem for another eleven minutes. The glowing crystal sand of Crystal Island stretched along a clear Pacific shore.

A tropical sea breeze drifted through the magical palm trees, carrying the cool breath of the deep blue ocean. Lucian lounged on a beach chair under a large sun umbrella, a fresh coconut in one hand, straw in place, sipping the sweet water inside. Feet propped up on a jade stone table, he was leisurely flipping through the International Hunter Association's annual report, just dropped off on the table by a delivery drone. Click. Lucian opened to page three of the file.

His dark eyes scanned bar charts falling off a cliff, straight down: Global dungeon expedition applications: sharply down this quarter. Hunter academy enrollment: down across several major cities; several academies have announced closures or emergency reviews. Several governments are reviewing dungeon-response and magitech research budgets after Vance drones took on routine Gate clearing.

An attached defense-policy review warned that some agencies were already reallocating Hunter-response funds on the assumption that Vance drones would handle routine Gates. Lucian crushed the coconut in his hand, sending coconut water splashing across the crystal sand. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. He sat bolt upright on the lounge chair, glaring at the thick report.

"I optimized dungeon clearing so people could work SAFER, not so every Hunter sector on the planet would decide that effort is optional!" He swung a hand at the recession chart.

"If everyone turns into a couch potato, who's going to make my semiconductor components, grow my wheat, and manufacture the goods I profit off of?!" On the lounge chair beside him, Evelyn wore black sunglasses with gold frames, hands folded behind her head, sunbathing. Hearing him yell, she burst out laughing, slapping her thigh.

"Congrats, you capitalist! You just made Earth look way too much like your ideal lifestyle!" Ting! The dim black System panel opened in front of Lucian: [EARTH SECTOR OBSERVATION REPORT] International Hunter Association reports: expedition applications and academy training hours are declining in several major markets. System assessment: current data indicates increasing institutional dependency on Vance-operated emergency services. Recommendation: acquire more data before making a civilization-scale forecast.

Lucian let out a long sigh and slumped back against the chair. The press had started calling it Vance Dependency Syndrome — a catchy, alarming label for a trend Lucian had never seen coming. His safety systems had reduced one category of existential danger. They had not abolished disease, crime, ordinary labor, politics, or every Gate.

Still, in the Hunter sector, dungeon suppliers, and energy-heavy research groups, the warning signs were obvious: too many people were beginning to treat Vance coverage as a substitute for maintaining their own capacity. Rustle. Footsteps padded softly across the crystal sand. Eleanor wore an elegant black one-piece swimsuit, a thin white silk cover-up billowing in the sea breeze. Her golden hair was pinned up neatly.

She carried a silver tray of ripe mango slices and chilled pineapple, walking over to sit at the edge of Lucian's lounge chair. Eleanor speared a piece of mango on a silver fork and held it up to his mouth, tilting her head with a smile.

"In the Solaris Empire, if a king hands out too much free bread without requiring his subjects to work, the people forget how to hold a sickle to harvest grain, or a sword to defend the border." She gazed out at the distant sea of clouds, her voice calm and steady, carrying the weight of someone used to rule.

"A kingdom that lets one protector solve every hardship runs beautifully — right up until the day that protector is somewhere else. Then it finds out it has forgotten how to govern itself. You're playing the role of a 'Benevolent Tyrant' exactly right, classmate Vance." Lucian chewed the sweet mango and glanced at Evelyn's tablet, live-streaming a Seoul Hunter TV channel.

On screen, a famous A-Rank Hunter squad, dressed in expensive athletic gear, sat playing cards on the hood of their car outside a tiny Rank E Dungeon Gate. They refused to go in, explaining: "We're waiting for a Vance drone to clear it for us so we don't get our brand-new three-thousand-dollar shoes dirty." On international news broadcasts, politicians and TV hosts kept up their praise.

'Thanks to Lord Lucian Vance — the Savior who freed humanity from the chains of grueling labor and bloody war!' Clack. Clack. Sylvia came down from the island guesthouse, carrying a plain, rough brown-paper envelope, with no electronic postmark or satellite scan code. She stopped in front of Lucian's chair and held it out.

"Lucian. An ordinary courier just rowed a boat up to the edge of the island and delivered this handwritten letter directly, in traditional black ink." Lucian took the envelope and tore the edge open with a finger. Inside, no financial documents. No bank paperwork. Just a single sheet of pristine white paper, with one line written dead center in black Chinese ink, the strokes sharp and cold as a knife wound:'Thank you for saving us from the monsters. But who's going to save us from you?'