Polymath Redux

Chapter 31: You are the Picture of Perfection so Act like it

A week had passed since the conclusion of PROJECT: Hellgate and the city slipped into a period of mourning and rebuilding. Despite the massive destructive capabilities of the [Hellgate] skill, it was not reflected as such in the aftermath. Casualties and collateral damage was unexpectedly a lot lower than it ought to have been with skill of that caliber. Only a mere 5% of the ten million inhabitants were killed with most of the casualties being soldiers and high ranking officials. On the collateral damage front, 20% of the infrastructures were damaged beyond repair and a further 15% was repairable.

Most of the key infrastructures were left nearly unharmed, those of which included the Adventurer's Guild main building and the Royal Palace of Xagontetia.

While those figures were arguably high when it came to flat numbers it wasn't an amount that couldn't be fixed with a bit of time. It was especially during such somber times of mourning and deep contemplation that Mordred could easily hijack and take advantage of the populace's emotions. That was, after all, the entire purpose of this attack to begin with; to let the inhabitants understand their own powerlessness and that they needed someone to help guide them.

That being said, if too much of the city was destroyed the people would simply fall into a great depression and morale will be down too much, thus a lot of the buildings were left undisturbed. Most of the damage and casualties were simply for theatrics and to play up the tragedy. The new Daltress estate that was bought by Mordred was one of the areas that were virtually untouched. It wasn't that the monsters avoided it but that they were simply unable to get past all of the automated defense systems.

"It really is a horrible sight... what happened to the capital, I mean."

Rena spoke up as she peered out to the city filled with debris and rubble. She was currently at Morgana's study room to bring her some tea and struck up small talk to distract herself from the state of the city. Oblivious to the truth of the incident she merely felt a bit of sympathy towards the capital of the sun country; to be quite honest she wasn't too fond of the place that had treated her so badly over the years but she couldn't deny that it was still part of her home.

"Really, compared to the city this place doesn't have so much as a scratch thanks to all those siege golems and sentry cannons patrolling around. Seriously, how deep are that man's pockets to afford defenses of this scale?"

Yda came into the room carrying a small envelope in hand. She, Grimal and Rena were all inside the Daltress manor during the course of the capital's destruction thus they weren't even able to see the magnitude of what actually went on. The only thing they witnessed were a few straggling monsters that were trying to break into the manor but were instantly annihilated by the automated defense systems.

"Good morning miss Yda."

Rena greeted and they exchanged a hearty nod.

"Good morning Yda, do you have something for me?"

Casually trying to avoid the topic of Mordred's seemingly bottomless pockets Morgana greeted Yda as she took a small sip of her tea. She was currently working on the finances of the estate and other related formalities in relation to their new home. It wasn't especially necessary for her to do so but since economy was a fairly fragile construct in this world it wasn't possible for her to spend money nearly as freely as she wanted to. This was necessary only to regulate the amount of gold that went through this mansion so as to not raise any suspicions on their transactions.

"Good morning mistress. Yes, I found this in the mail in the mailbox this morning. I'm not really sure who sent it and I'm not familiar with the seal but it has mistress' name as the recipient."