[Chapter 136. Not Enough Food]

Iris boarded the drone without a word, her movements possessing the effortless grace of a predator. The machine hummed to life, its internal capacitors whining as it lifted off, ascending silently through the thick, clinging fog of the Rotting Swamp. Searanox watched the glow of the thrusters grow dimmer and dimmer as the drone sped toward the heart of the dungeon, where the boss awaited its inevitable end.

He stood there for a moment, listening to the squelch of the swamp and the distant, rhythmic chirping of unseen insects. Once the drone had vanished entirely into the grey haze, he turned on his heel and began the short walk back toward the dungeon entrance. As he crossed the threshold of the portal, the oppressive humidity of the swamp vanished, replaced instantly by the crisp, dry air of the outside world.

The sudden transition to midday sunlight was jarring. The glare reflecting off the surrounding ruins forced him to raise a gauntleted hand to shield his eyes. With a practiced thought, he retrieved a pair of dark shades from his storage ring and slid them on. The world snapped into high-contrast clarity.

Minutes stretched into a quiet vigil. He leaned against the remains of a rusted car frame, watching the blue portal shimmer and ripple like the surface of a disturbed pond. Finally, the energy surged, and Iris stepped through. Her arms were laden with a variety of loot, and her expression was one of cold, professional satisfaction.

"Searanox." She gave him a short nod as she approached, her silver eyes scanning their surroundings. "I received the full reward distribution. Your theory regarding the solo clear bonus appears to be correct." She paused, glancing down at her boots, which were caked in a thick, foul-smelling layer of black muck and decomposed vegetation. "Could you store these for a moment?" She nudged one boot against the other with a look of mild distaste. "And perhaps return them... without the swamp residue?"

He reached out and accepted the boots. Even through his gauntlets, the surface felt slimy and repulsive. He tucked them into his inventory ring; a second later, he pulled them back out. The system’s storage logic functioned as a perfect reset—the boots were now spotless, dry, and smelling faintly of the original leather.

"Thanks," she said, pulling them back on with efficient movements. "The experience gain was substantial as well. I have officially reached Level eighteen."

Searanox waited until she had finished securing her gear before he started walking down the center of the debris-strewn street. "Good. You’re getting closer to the threshold, I have set for stage two."

He held out his hand for the items she had recovered. The rewards were standard for a high-ranked clear of a Level 15 zone: a heavy pouch of silver coins, two glowing skill stones, and a pair of metallic gauntlets that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic blue light.

Searanox held the Storm-Weaver's Gauntlets out toward her. "These are yours, Iris. They’re a significant upgrade over your current set."

She accepted them, the cool, enchanted metal humming softly against her palms. As she secured them to her forearms, the interlocking plates shifted and settled with a series of precise clicks, fitting perfectly against her fur.

"They should serve you well," he noted, watching as she flexed her hands, testing the articulation of the finger joints.

"I am grateful, Searanox," Iris replied. Her silver eyes met his briefly, a flicker of genuine appreciation present before she dropped her gaze to examine the faint, glowing patterns now etched into the surface of the metal.

Ten minutes of walking brought them back to the hotel square. Even from a distance, Searanox could tell something was wrong. The mountain of meat he had dropped off earlier still dominated the center of the square, and the long wooden table was still groaning under the weight of the bull’s haunches. However, the crowd had swelled significantly. Far too many people had gathered, their faces gaunt and their eyes following every movement of the butchers with a desperate, animalistic hunger.

"Rayan." Searanox’s voice cut through the low, anxious murmurs of the crowd. He didn't shout, but his tone was pitched just loud enough to reach the two people overseeing the chaotic food distribution. "A word. Now."

Rayan looked up, giving a quick, tired nod. After a brief, whispered exchange with Samantha, he detached himself from the table and approached Searanox. Searanox didn't wait for him to arrive; he simply motioned toward the grand entrance of the hotel behind them.

"Inside. It's too loud out here."

Rayan led the way into the dim lobby. Searanox scanned the room, his eyes lingering on the wide, empty ballroom. He dismissed it as too exposed and instead settled on the area behind the front desk. He reached into his storage ring and retrieved his foldable chair, setting it down with a sharp clack for Rayan.

Searanox glanced at Iris, an amused, dry huff escaping him. "Iris, you really should consider getting a chair for yourself. Standing all day is a purely aesthetic choice at this point."

Her ears twitched slightly in a sign of mild annoyance. "My function is not impeded by standing, Searanox. I prefer to remain ready."

Rayan watched the exchange with wide eyes, the strange, domestic power dynamics between the armored man and the wolf-woman clearly unsettling him. He eventually sat, his gaze dropping to the debris-strewn tile floor. "You wanted to speak with me about the distribution?"

Searanox leaned against the front desk, his dark eyes fixed on Rayan. "The numbers don't add up, Rayan. I did the math on the way back. Even accounting for waste, spoilage, and the inherent inefficiency of campfire cooking, that storage room Thomas was guarding wouldn't have fed the crowd out there for more than twenty-four hours."

Rayan swallowed hard, the sound audible in the heavy stillness of the lobby. "You're right. The bulk of the food we had—especially the high-calorie canned goods and the dry grains—was gone within the first few days of the integration. Thomas and his men treated the warehouse like a personal buffet. They held massive feasts while the rest of us were given a handful of crackers and told to be grateful."

Searanox listened, his expression hidden though his posture remained unreadable. "So he essentially ran the city's entire emergency reserve into the ground before I even arrived."

"He did," Rayan confirmed, a flicker of cold, sharp resentment lighting up his eyes. "By the fourth day, we were already on 'emergency' rationing. By the sixth... people were starting to collapse in the streets from hunger. He wasn't leading us; he was presiding over a slow-motion funeral."

The information clicked into place for Searanox. The desperation. The way the people had followed his every order without a single word of protest. He wasn't just their new leader or their savior; in their eyes, he was their next meal ticket. If he stopped providing, they would starve within the week.

"Then my arrival was... fortuitous, to say the least," Searanox remarked dryly.

He held up a hand as Rayan opened his mouth to offer further explanations. "Enough. I want a list. I want a complete register of every living person in this city. I need a family headcount, former occupations, names, ages, and a self-assessment of what skills they believe they can provide to the community. If someone was an engineer before the world ended, I need to know."

His boots hit the wood of the desk as he leaned forward, closing the distance between them. "Now, tell me about the dungeon clear you performed on your own while I was away."

Rayan swallowed again, his jaw tightening. "It... it was chaos, honestly. We killed more than you demanded because everyone was desperate for the experience. We managed it, barely, through sheer numbers. But the boss... it was a nightmare."

"And the reward?" Searanox pressed, his voice dropping an octave.

"That's the strange thing," Rayan said, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. "It was barely anything at all. A small pouch of silver coins, no armor, no weapons... nothing like the legendary stories I'd heard about dungeon diving."

"Did you suffer any losses? How many did you actually take inside?" Searanox asked as he stood up, largely ignoring Rayan's complaints about the pathetic loot.

"Twenty people, just as you ordered. Non of them died but many got injured."

"Good." Searanox’s gaze drifted toward the lobby doors, watching the dust motes dance in the light filtering through the shattered glass. "Keep doing exactly that. If you find you can manage the mobs with five established Awakened instead of ten, then do so. Take fifteen un-Awakened per clear. We need to maximize the level spread."

He stepped behind Rayan, his gauntleted hand landing heavily on the man’s shoulder. The sudden contact made Rayan flinch, his muscles tensing involuntarily, but he forced himself to hold his ground.

"I've decided against leveling five of you straight to Level 10 in a single day," Searanox said, his fingers digging into Rayan's shoulder slightly before releasing. "It creates too much of a power gap within your own ranks. Instead, tonight, I'll take a group of you into the Level 15 swamp. That single clear should bring the core team to Level 7 or 8."

"Understood. We'll organize the roster immediately," Rayan said, his voice tight but focused.

As Searanox stepped past him toward the door, he spoke without turning back. "And Rayan? Before you leave. The rewards are always that pitiful. That is the reality of the System. That is why I clear twenty dungeons a day. Quantity is the only way to overcome the house edge."

Rayan stood up and left the lobby without another word, his footsteps echoing against the hollow walls.

The sound of glass cracking beneath Rayan’s receding steps was the only noise for a long moment. Searanox waved a hand, and his chair vanished back into his ring with a sharp blue flash.

"Iris," he said, turning to where she stood silently in the shadows. "What would your estimate be? How many people are actually left in this city? Thirty thousand? Fifty? More?"

"It is difficult to say with certainty, Searanox," Iris replied. her silver eyes swept the lobby, calculating the scale of the ruin as if reading the patterns in the dust. "But given the density of the numbers we saw in the square, and assuming that represents only a small fraction of the residential blocks... thirty thousand seems like a conservative estimate. This city’s infrastructure, even in its ruined state, was built to house far more."