Chapter 758 Value of a Monopoly
At a location near the coast of Angaria that was north of the Alliance, Daneel was standing in the air while looking with an extremely confused expression at a building that had clearly been erected quite recently.
There were almost no formations, and especially those that could have come from Big Four which he expected would be protecting this place were not present. If he had simply scanned the entire continent, which he might have resorted to if he hadn't seen any other option, he was have spotted this place anyway.
That was one of the reasons why he was so puzzled. From this building, he could feel the signs of powerful formations being deployed which were needed if one wished to cut Ether blocks.
Also, from the back, where there seemed to be some kind of warehouse, men were carrying out boxes that jingled almost exactly like the pouches that Daneel had just seen on his own mages to a spot where they were repeatedly being teleported away.
Obviously, these were the people who were setting out to distribute these counterfeit coins to the various places around the continent.
But… Why was it all so damn open?
Why wasn't it completely concealed? Why were there no advanced formations deployed, which should have made it impossible for anyone to find out just what was going on here?
It wasn't even that that hard to do it. If a simple Hero level formation that shouldn't be out of reach of a seed was used, Daneel would have had no option but to pull out his hair regarding just where the coins were coming from. True, he would have eventually found out with a lot of difficulties, or Jordan would have accomplished it anyway, but still, that would have felt alright.
This just didn't.
For the past one minute, he had constantly been standing there with the urge to just go and flatten everything he could see.
From the volume of the coins that were being carried out, it was obvious that this was the main base of operations on the Central Continent. The building was quite large and also had four floors, which looked like it could easily contain hundreds of people if it had been built for residential purposes. Instead, Daneel knew for a fact that most of the inside was probably empty, and the only reason he wasn't actively breaking through the weak formation to fulfill his desire was that he felt that he should be cautious.
However… This was when the dormant anger which had been present just before started to rise again.
Why… couldn't he just, for once, use his power to dominate these fools and that women who had taken on this endeavor of going against him?
In almost everything so far, and especially in the matters related to the Big Four and the continent, Daneel had had to struggle and scheme. However… What he was in possession of was the World Domination System, not the World Scheming System.
Yet, he had been doing more of the latter than the former, and even though this could be attributed to the circumstances which had needed him to be cautious, he now realized that he was really longing for the day when he could change that and live up to what the system wanted him to become.
From day one, it had been clear regarding that, but Daneel had had to do everything discreetly.
Well… The day that that would change wasn't far off, and right now, he started to seriously consider whether he should just do it in some small form here, too.
After all, this was happening so openly, so couldn't he just masquerade as a normal bandit group and decimate this place?
True, the resources that Jessica had at her disposal would allow her to make one more whenever she wished, but he could do the same there, too, until he had wrung her dry.
He didn't know how long that could take, but the problem was for all that time, her coins would keep proliferating in the market while not allowing him to maintain the monopoly that he wished for.
True, one way of thinking of it was that that was all right, as the people would at least become completely used to using these appliances every day. After that, if he could slowly somehow ensure his monopoly in the end, then he might be the final winner.
Yet… This where he realized that he was truly underestimating Jessica.
Her entire agenda seemed to be to bring him to ruin, and if that was the case, there was no way that she would allow him to do as he wished without planning something to trump his efforts.
There was definitely no way that she would allow him to do that, and besides, if she did figure out the formations, then Daneel might even have to kiss the dream of his monopoly goodbye.
Besides, she seemed to have seen the core of his business. His objective wasn't short-term profits, where his gadgets would be used anyway, and where he wouldn't mind whether his coins were being used or not.
No, his goal was to change the way that an entire generation thought, and in doing so, to create an industry that could last many lifetimes and create endless profits.
For this, of course, the example was both diamond scheme that Daneel had taken inspiration from initially, and also a very famous company with a bitten off fruit as its logo.
True, neither of those hadn't been able to achieve a monopoly, but here, Daneel had the opportunity to do so, and he knew that if he succeeded, he would be in possession of something which he could both do good with, and also develop in the right direction, as his motive wasn't to profit himself exclusively in the first place.
If he could control the only source of the Energy needed for the appliances, then he could control the price, and by doing so, he could probably control the entire continent. Even though this sounded very lofty, he would at least be in a position to try and achieve that. But if that wasn't the case… It wouldn't be a plan that needed his entire focus, like what he was putting in now.
Case in point was another very popular company on Earth, which dominated an entire segment that people used every day. It had started out with being a simple place for people to search for things, and had even been given permission by governments to act as an impartial platform, that had allowed it to reach its near-monopoly status. And with that status… It was unimaginable just the things that it could do. Because it was something that people used so much that it had become a word almost always used whenever anyone had any question that they needed an answer for, it could simply change what people saw in order to change the very way they thought. True, this didn't apply to Daneel's case, but it implied just how much power a monopoly could exert on a group of people. In fact, Daneel had been quite surprised when he was back on Earth to see that even when this topic had been revealed, many major news outlets which were supposed to report on it had stayed silent.
This was, again, because of the monopoly and power that this company had achieved which allowed it to stifle them and make it so that it would not be profitable at all for them to even do the job the people trusted them to do.
That damn bi*ch had somehow identified what he was going for, or she had simply gotten lucky, but whatever the case, she needed to be stopped, and hopefully even stomped.
Without any further ado, Daneel decided what his first step was, and he prepared to directly go forward and attack.
His plan was to simply deploy a multitude of spells that were typically used by bandits whenever they were running a high-stakes operation, and he had quite a lot of experience in this because of the time when he had needed to act as a bandit boss.
Just before he did this, Daneel took one last look at the place, and that was when he noticed something that he hadn't seen before because he hadn't actually been looking for it.
There was one common feature in almost all the workers that could be seen from the outside, and it was a trinket shaped like a silver coin that was strung around their necks.
Curious, Daneel asked the system to scan it, but to his surprise, he got the answer that it wasn't possible remotely because it was quite a complex trinket.
Huh? Weren't there supposed to be no countermeasures, at all?
Surprised and also alarmed, Daneel decided on a way to obtain one of the trinkets.
However, after thinking for a bit, he scrapped that plan, as it was probably not smart to target it without knowing what it was. All he needed was to touch it, so Daneel made a simple plan for that.
He followed one of the men who were carrying the box of coins to the teleportation bay while hiding himself, and after that, using the system, he found out where that man was headed to.
It looked like they were storing the coins somewhere to launch them soon instead of doing it right away, and as Daneel reached the warehouse where the box was transported to which was in a small village outside the Alliance, he saw that he had gotten a stroke of luck.
Even in this place, the warehouse was out in the open, with no formations protecting it. It was under the name of a famous trading family, though, so there were regular guards. Daneel could see everything, and after the man deposited the box, he mumbled something about a break and started walking to a small bar nearby.
Taking the chance, Daneel simply disguised himself as a passerby and bumped into the man who was on his way to grab a beer.
He apologized and went on his way, but of course, he had touched the trinket without the man noticing it.
However… After walking for a few steps, he couldn't help but stop because he was quite surprised due to the message he was being sent by the system.
[Trinket has been identified to be one that will send a message to a discreet location if the owner is injured, or if the trinket is separated from the owner. It has no defensive properties. It can also identify and send the message if Mind Control is used on the one it is bound to.]
"…"
At this point, it became clear that Jessica was practically goading him to attack so that she could do something, and once again, Daneel found himself very, very irritated that his time was being wasted by this woman who should be training to defend the continent.
Wait…wasn't she supposed to be doing exactly that?
As soon as this thought appeared to him, Daneel contacted the Head after flying into the air, and the man appeared in front of him not even a few seconds later.
He looked like he wanted to say something, but without giving him a chance to do so, Daneel spoke first.
"Jessica is wasting the resources given by the Big Four to meddle in matters in the Central Continent. Shouldn't she be using them to train, and shouldn't she be spending her time to become stronger, even if she is imprisoned?"
The Head got a surprised look on his face as he heard this.
Without answering, he closed his eyes, which made it clear that he was contacting someone.
After a second, though, he got quite a frustrated expression on his face, and the answer he gave to Daneel was in a tone of vexation.
"She has been given leave to do what she wishes for a year. It is due to her mentor, who, for some reason, still vouches for her, and he is someone who has quite the sway in the High Council. He has said that she has contacted him saying that she has mental demons which she will be destroying in this year, and for that, she has been given leave to use whatever resources are needed. She was only commanded not to meddle directly in the Central Continent using force. The Big Four cannot help you in this matter, King, and if any of us do, we will have to answer to the High Council. They see it as a petty matter. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you regarding something, but for the first time in hundreds of years, I found myself hesitating. Well, I'll just say it. Bartholomew was acting on my orders to enter the Church to become a spy for Angaria. He was not supposed to allow you to come to that much harm. So, in a way…I am responsible for what has happened. If you had died…I would have never been able to forgive myself. You trusted me, and I trusted him, but that happened. I find that I cannot even train without thinking of this, so I decided to just come out to you. I am not a man who uses puny excuses to cover my faults. I made a mistake and almost had you killed. I…apologise, and I am at your bidding to carry out anything that you might wish for. Resources, techniques, training partners, whatever you need, I am ready to provide out of my own pocket. So, choose wisely, King, for opportunities like these are rare, and must not be wasted."