Riyala waved goodbye to Jason and Gina with a smile before she quickly hurried to catch up to Hesabeth’s quick pace. The guards from Radagan, as well as Hesabeth’s guards from Minori, followed behind the two women as they made their way to one of the meeting rooms in the Stone Catacombs. Once they were gone, Jason let out a small breath, and he turned to Gina when she wrapped her hand around his own.

"Let’s go home, babe."

Gina said this in a wistful voice that showed just how much she wanted to get back, and Jason smiled and nodded. The two of them started making their way down the hallway, and Jason hummed as he suddenly remembered something!

"Where the hell did Stella go?"

Jason looked down at Gina as he asked her this, and Gina just chuckled slightly and answered in an amused voice.

"She said she needed to prepare for your homecoming."

Jason blinked in surprise.

"What?"

....

[Earth]

[Riverdale]

[A/N: It feels like ages since I wrote about this place lol]

The city of Riverdale had changed a lot in the past two months since Jason and Gina left on their journey across the Primordial Expanse! Before Jason left, Riverdale had already begun to change! Jason’s presence, as well as the fact that his guild had been established in Riverdale, meant that there were many large businesses that were coming into the city to establish headquarters so that they could benefit from the business that Jason’s guild would be bringing! And with the influx of these businesses, there were many superhumans that also moved into Riverdale from many other cities in America so that they could be close to the SMD headquarters, as well as the other businesses that would allow them to make more money!

The sudden rise in the number of superhumans in the city meant that the density of mana in the city also began to rise at an astronomical rate, and since the number of Gates that appear in an area is directly proportional to the mana density in that area, the number of Gates that began to appear in Riverdale also rose to even greater heights!

At first, it was about two to three Red Gates in a week! This number was already very high, and it meant that many guilds were getting jobs, but it wasn’t long before the number of Gates increased to at least five Red Gates a week, with one Orange Gate appearing occasionally! That number became one of the highest in America, and it drew in even more superhumans! And since the density of mana grew even stronger, the number of Gates increased once more, and now it wouldn’t be a surprise to see at least seven to eight Red Gates and two to three Orange Gates appearing in Riverdale every single week! Thankfully, there had only been one Yellow Gate that appeared in the past two months. The members of the Monarch Guild were able to respond to the Gate quickly enough, and they took it down with help from the enforcers.

If it had been any other city where something like this was happening, then there was obviously no way that they would be able to survive! It took a regular B-Class guild at least one full day to clear a Red Gate, and they needed two to three days to recover fully before they could go for another Gate raid! This meant that a B-Rank guild could only clear two to three Red Gates on a normal week! This number dropped even more when talking about C Rank and D Rank guilds, and there were some guilds that only cleared about one Gate every week since they were so weak! Most cities in America could only boast about having two to three B Rank guilds, and maybe one A Rank guild, and that number changed constantly since the guilds moved around to try and clear various gates across the country!

But the insane amount of Gates that began to open up in Riverdale due to the density of mana meant that the city needed to mobilize multiple B and A Rank guilds every single week in order to keep up with the number, and they also needed to have some S Rank guilds to take care of the occasional Orange or Yellow Gate that appears! Any city would have already been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work they needed to do if they had to take care of this number of Gates every single week! But Riverdale wasn’t overwhelmed at all! And it wasn’t only that they weren’t overwhelmed, they were fucking thriving! And the reason for this was simply because of one guild!

"IT’S MONARCH!"

A woman suddenly shouted in a loud voice, and hundreds of people who were all standing behind a police tape began to yell out happily as they saw a group appearing from within a large spinning Orange Gate! The group consisted of five people who were all wearing similar uniforms of black trousers and a black shirt that hugged the body perfectly to allow free movement. The clothes all had the signature M of the Monarch Guild engraved on their left breast, and they were made from magic-infused fabric so that they were strong enough to be regarded as S Rank defensive Artefacts. The group was led by a young man with short green hair and an extremely serious face. The young man had ten metallic bands on each of his hands and a utility bag around his waist! This man was Francis Ludd, and he was one of the Vice Captains as well as the current leader of the Alpha Squad!

"Oh my god, it’s Francis!"

"Francis, over here! I love you, Alpha Squad!"

"They’ve been taking down new gates every day! This is the tenth one this week!"

"Over here! Please smile for the camera!"

"Look at him, Francis! Oh god, look at that glare on his face! It makes me shiver!"

"Hey, look! The beasts are coming out!"

"The beasts are here!"

"They look so majestic! Are those real summons!"

"I heard they all belong to Jason Marc!"

"There’s no way one man can maintain all those beasts! It’s insane!"

Various beasts began appearing from within the Gate as well, and the moment the spectators laid eyes on the majestic beasts, they began to cheer ten times louder! The beasts that appeared from within the Gate were the Legion subordinates that Jason had given to Francis and all the other members of the Alpha Squad! After fighting beside the beasts for so long, the Alpha Squad had finally become perfectly in sync with their partners, and now there wasn’t a single person in America who didn’t recognize the ten strongest members of the Alpha Squad, who all had powerful summoned monsters fighting beside them!

When Jason had given the beasts to the Alpha Squad, all the beasts had only been as strong as A Ranks, but right now, Francis was sure that each of the beasts was at least an SS Ranks! Francis and the Alpha Squad had also grown exponentially over the past few months! Every single member of the Alpha Squad managed to raise their rank from S to SS, and Francis was already one step away from becoming an SSS Rank! The only other people in the world who were stronger than Francis now were Katarina, the strongest supporter in the world, and the strongest of the Rulers, Stragga.

Francis Ludd looked over the gathered crowd with his usual frown, and he ignored them with practiced ease. This was something that happened every single time Francis and his team went into a Gate, so they had gotten used to it by now! A large wolf that was taller than Francis walked forward and rubbed its fur against Francis’ side, and Francis smiled slightly as he pet the wolf!