Kill the Sun

Two hours later, Nick finally knew how many Extractors Dark Dream had in total.

One Peak John, which was him.

One Mid John, which was Jenny.

Three Early Johns, who were Constanze, Marvila, and Larry. The three of them had been the first recruits Nick had received from Ghosty's Lab.

Two Initial Johns.

Five Peak Newbies.

Two Late Newbies.

Two Early Newbies.

That was it.

Seven Johns and Nine Newbies.

Dark Dream used to have 24 Extractors, but now, they only had 16.

Nick decided to send the three Early Johns to work with the Fog.

In order to accommodate Jenny's increased workload as the only team leader for now, Nick only assigned her to the Bleeding Lady, which barely took 15 minutes out of her day.

After talking with the two Initial Johns, Kerry agreed to work with the Lover from now on.

While working with the Lover was definitely the worst job inside Dark Dream, it had many benefits.

It didn't take long.

It paid very well.

It gave a lot of security.

It made the Extractor important.

The last John was assigned to work with the Glasses every four days while also getting a round with the Fog every four days.

Obviously, that was more work than almost all other Extractors did since working with these two Specters was divided into 24-hour shifts.

But that was because the last Initial John specifically requested this.

His name was Taren, and he was the recruit that Nick used to test which ability the Fog gave new Extractors.

Taren asked for more work for a couple of reasons, and he was very honest and direct about these reasons when talking to Nick.

Taren had lost his girlfriend when the Crimson Sea broke out, and he now aimlessly walked through life.

He wanted something to do that could distract him and give him a new purpose.

He even jokingly said that he used to have conflicts with his girlfriend since he wanted to work more while she didn't want him to.

Taren kept saying that he wanted to put his everything to work and that Nick should consider him for the next position as team leader.

After hearing all of this, Nick felt for Taren since Nick himself felt similarly.

Wasn't he also just searching for distractions?

For now, Nick decided to give him more work.

Taren had been with the company for over two years now, and Nick hadn't had any problems with him.

Nick decided to talk to Wyntor and Jenny about this.

The Newbies were also sent to work with all the different Specters.

After another day, the food deliveries for the Dung Heap had also resumed.

The delivery of corpses for the Screaming Coffin also resumed.

The credits for the Money Sink had never been an issue.

One day after everyone had resumed working, everything inside Dark Dream was going smoothly again.

The only bad part was that Nick needed many more Johns now.

Dark Dream only had seven Johns, while they had nine Adolescents.

Luckily, two of them were Possession Specters, and one of them basically counted as one.

Nevertheless, Dark Dream needed more people.

Especially after another issue raised its head.

The undercity work.

Every John working for Dark Dream had to work six hours below the city every two weeks.

Wyntor and Nick talked about the issue of lacking manpower, but in the end, they decided to speed up the growth of their people instead of buying Extractors from outside.

The three guys from Gemini should become Johns within the month, which would alleviate a lot of pressure.

After talking to Jenny, they decided that she would be the sole team leader for now.

They decided against making Taren a team leader for now since they weren't certain yet if he was ready.

If his motivation remained after half a year, Nick would teach him how to be a team leader and then make him one.

But for now, they wanted to see if Taren really wanted to devote himself to Dark Dream or if this was just a momentary fancy due to his girlfriend's death.

Another day later, Wyntor told Nick that the official investigation into the Spartans had been concluded.

Nobody even knew that Nick had been in the Spartans' building or that Dark Dream was connected to the Crimson Sea's escape.

"By the way, we also found out how the Spartans originally obtained the Crimson Sea," Wyntor said. "Everyone wanted to know because the entire city failed in containing it, while a couple of Veterans apparently managed to do the impossible."

Nick was very interested in hearing that.

"Turns out…"

"They never needed to suppress it."

"They got some info about some kind of rogue Extractor that kept kidnapping and sacrificing people."

"One of the founders killed the Extractor and found a hidden room in their houses."

"In there, he found a red pool, and it was a Late Hatchling."

"They simply carved the pool out of the building and moved it into a Containment Unit."

"Originally, they believed it was a Possession Specter since it wasn't doing much and worked normally with it."

"But when it became an Adolescent, it suddenly started expanding by quite a bit."

"Luckily for them, as a new Adolescent, it wasn't very powerful."

"The three founders were used to suppressing wild Specters, and they managed to quickly move it into a free Containment Unit for Force Specters."

"From what we heard, they actually killed a level two Extractor and used their body to get the Crimson Sea to move."

"They kind of used the body like a sponge."

"The John was a couple of levels higher than the Crimson Sea, and the Crimson Sea needed all its power to absorb the body."

"From what the witnesses said, the Crimson Sea gathered around the corpse like it was a sponge."

"Lastly, they just threw the body into the Containment Unit, and the Crimson Sea was contained."

"Over the next couple of years, the Crimson Sea advanced to become a Peak Adolescent, and that's when it broke out."