That day the Martial Squire guards of the chairman’s office of the Bradt Distribution Services’ main branch experienced something that they had never encountered before.
It was the Guildmaster raising his voice.
“WHAT?!”
The Martial Squires rushed to his office in shock and alarm. They, who had witnessed the good guildmaster and chairman being nothing short of cool as a cucumber in extremely dire circumstances, could not imagine what could cause their target of protection to exclaim in such a manner.
“Sir! Are you Ok?!”
In just a matter of milliseconds, they had already formed a defensive blockade. While his most trusted chief of the security detail made sure that the guildmaster was not afflicted by any external influence.
“Sir?” She asked with concern. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Fine. I appreciate your alertness and diligence but return to your positions,” He quickly dismissed them before turning back to the letter with widened eyes.
(‘A fully detailed and accurate map?’) He couldn’t help but be incredulous at such a claim.
As the largest gargantuan in the distribution and communication sector of not just the Shionel Confederation, but also the local international markets, he knew the importance of accurate and precise mapping more than anyone else within ten thousand kilometers.
It was absolutely paramount.
In a world where the internet, satellites, satellite world mapping, and GPS tracking did not exist, hand-drawn maps with high accuracy and precision were no different from a strategic resource! Information was power, and maps most certainly fell into this category.
He even prided himself in being one of the few elite entities in the world that possessed an updated, complete highly accurate, and detailed Panama Continent map, including the five inland oceans and the seven inland seas.
The only exception to this was the depths of the Beast Domain, but he did not give two hoots about the depths of the Beast Domain since there was no human civilization inside the Beast Domain that he could sell his distribution services to.
This was a map that only the most powerful countries across the nation had the power to acquire or create. In the eastside section of the Panama Continent, he estimated that the only entities that possessed this information were the four powerhouse sage-level nations, and himself.
This intelligence was part of the cornerstone and the foundation of his distribution empire that he had painstakingly built over thirty years. It took a considerable amount of skilled labor in the form of his cartography department, funds, and resources to not only obtain a highly accurate and precise map of the entire continent that stretched for many, many dozens of thousands of kilometers in any direction but also maintaining it as time passed.
Much of the continent was very much in chaos and flux, outside of the most powerful and stable nations.
Huge oceans of people migrated, villages, settlements, and towns appeared and disappeared over time, and topography was constantly changing at varied paces due to the natural elements that afflicted the continent. The larger a map, the more frequently it needed to be updated before it become inaccurate and irrelevant.
Yet it was worth it despite all of this difficulty.
The profits, influence, and political capital that he made and gained were directly proportional to the size of the market that his Bradt Distribution Service had access to. In turn, the size of the market that he had access to was limited by the size of accurate and precise maps that he was using.
His company was only as big as his maps!
That was why Guildmaster Patrick visibly shook when the author of the letter offered a detailed complete map of the internal layout and structure of the Shionel Dungeon with high accuracy and precision.
(‘Just how many of my attempts to accurately map even the most surface-level parts of the dungeon have failed or proved to be too taxing?’) he wondered. He had lost count by now. Human cartographers could not enter the dungeon, and there was no such thing as a Martial cartographer, even if they were somehow given the necessary training, the commonly used instruments were completely useless in the environment of the Shionel Dungeon. Even the most powerful and accurate of compasses were helpless against the jamming effects of the Shionel Dungeon.
That left extremely primitive analog methods such as literally measuring distances, directions, and dimensions using many kilometers of rope!
Such a primitive method of mapping would take decades to complete given that the Shionel Dungeon had a diameter and depth of sixty kilometers, effectively having the volume of a country inside of it.
𝐎𝓋xt.𝓒𝗈𝐦
Thus he had all but resigned, with grave regrets and pains, in trying to map the Shionel Dungeon. When he saw the author of the letter casually throwing in this offer, he could not help but lose his composure.
The person on the other side of the letter had dangled one of his greatest desires and deepest regrets in front of him after making such a titanic demand from him like passing a bill that affected the entire country and the hottest economy on the East side of the Panama Continent.
(‘There’s no way a single Martial Squire can possibly map the entirety of the Shionel Dungeon,’) His rationality kicked in.
The difficulty was so ridiculously high that singlehandedly soloing the dungeon was easier than mapping it!
How could he possibly take such a statement, no, a declaration, at face value? This had to be a scam!
[I understand that you no doubt strongly suspect this to be a scam. I understand that at the moment that you are reading this, you have no evidence of any sort to suggest that my words are the truth. I can provide you with proof, as long as we iron out the intent to cooperate under the many conditions the two of us no doubt have. However, this cannot be done with remote communication. Thus, I’d like to set up a meeting between you and me, face-to-face.]