"Astra, stop," I interrupt, and my glare causes her to step back.
"Tch… Fine,"
Astra storms off next to Nell, who elbowed her in the stomach, basically screaming for her to shut up next time.
"What is the punishment?" I ask.
"Normally, for entering such a high-level dungeon without a pass would be up to 5 years in jail… as it's not really about doing something bad, but putting yourself in danger. But, as you all cleared it, we should be able to just let her off with just a fine,"
"And how much would that fine be?"
"Half a million US Dollars… Ummmm… But judging from your accents, you're probably from somewhere in the northern part of Europe, so... you'll have to do the math for that,"
"Oh, we're from the US. It's just that we studied Norwegian for a while," I respond before Sophia pulls out her phone and gets ready to send the money.
"Oh, the email will come soon. Just remember that you have to send the money within a few days of the email being sent; otherwise, you will be arrested once again and probably go to jail this time,"
"Sure," Sophia responds before we are escorted out of the police station and towards the main guild center, where you can sign up for a dungeon runner license.
"Huh? You're forcing us to get a license, and we have to pay for it?!" Nuala shouts in protest, scaring the fragile older man who was sent to take care of us.
We were currently in a private room where VIP guests were greeted and we were using this room to discuss the conditions and responsibilities of having a license.
"Y-yes. I hope you can forgive us, but this is a rule made by the guild ȧssociation. If I go against it, not only will you girls be detained, but I'll be fired,"
"Ugh!" Nuala groans out loud.
"How much is it?" I ask.
"About two grand,"
"Oh, not that bad," Nuala suddenly switches up her attitude in an instant.
This girl…
"Okay, we'll gladly accept your offer,"
"S-sure. Anyway, the license will be sent digitally through email, and you will receive your physical license in two to three days' time," The old man responded before we left to get a bit of dinner as everybody was starving.
Two to three days? That's really short… Isn't it usually 2 to 3 weeks… Or maybe this is because we're S-rank dungeon runners.
And since he didn't say anything specifically to Sophia, I'm guessing they'll also make her license faster since she's with us.
"Hey, why were you on your phone so much?" Mia asks as we enter a pizza place and get a table for thirteen.
"Nothing," I respond.
The wait was about half an hour, so we decided to go sightseeing around the city… and Mia kept bugging me about my constant usage of my phone.
"Uh, fine. Tolf has grown by quite a lot, and Charlotte is asking for funds to build bases around the world where they serve as a company on the outside, but is actually Tolf on the inside,"
"Oh, that's quite interesting? Why didn't you consult with us, though?"
"Cause she's asking for such an unreasonable amount of money. Like if you're going to just use our money to create a few businesses, you might as well make some money first, so you know your ideas won't fail- wait…"
I walked next to Ethel, completely ignoring Mia, who decided to spoil Sophia a bit as she felt down from her results.
"Hey, want to make your clothing company worldwide?" I ask Ethel while showing her the string of texts I had with Charlotte.
She smiled uncontrollably just as we entered a clothing store to go eye shopping.
"I see… This is perfect," She mutters before grabbing the phone out of my hand and telling Charlotte to contact her.
I smiled upon seeing her this excited.
Running away from her past will eventually cause her to face it abruptly… but for now… I guess it's okay.
"Oh, I just got the email," I say as we start to finish up our five pizzas.
Electra was stuffing her face with her own personal large pizza, completely ignoring our conversation.
"Oh yeah, same. So with this, we can enter dungeons without having to sneak in… handy," Celestine says.
"I mean, we were supposed to have it anyway," Clio says, opening up the file which presented all the documents and the contract we had to sign.
"Also, did you girls see the news?" Amanda asks, and we all shook our heads side to side.
"What happened?" Electra asks, speaking for the first time ever since we got our food.
"Apparently we were on the news because we're the youngest S-ranks to ever exist. Also, the youngest from before was pretty mad about it,"
We all chuckled to ourselves before Mia brought up a serious topic… well, kind of.
"Are you girls going to join a guild?" She asks.
Joining guilds is somewhat of a disrespectful thing to do as it's equivalent to betraying your family for another family and money.
But, there are also other benefits, so even though most children of larger families don't join guilds, weak families always send their children to guilds in the hope of them making it big.
They also are betting that they don't become corrupted by power and forget them entirely.
"So, you gonna just sit there quietly or respond to my question?"
"Ummmm… I was actually planning on joining a guild owned by our family in Egypt," Clio says, and Celestine nods in agreement.
"But, that was before all this change… Now, we feel more comfortable around you girls, so we'll put that aside for now," Celestine finishes her sentence.
Everybody went around the table, and all said that they weren't going to join a guild making Mia secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
But, we all could all hear her after our senses increased so much after evolving.
"Also, I have a little present for all of you. But first, did you girls get that Blood Kin tab on your system?"
We were in a private room, and Sophia altered the security cameras and small microphones so we could talk about what we wanted with no risk of exposing ourselves.
Everybody nodded their heads in agreement while Electra continued to shove pizza down her throat as if this was the last meal she was ever going to have.
"We can't afford any of that stuff, though," Aria says.
"No need because I bought one of them," I say before reaching into my inventory and pulling out the same jar from before.
"Eek!" Sophia squealed upon seeing it.
"What does it do?" Ethel asks.
"I don't know. I tried to inspect it like how I inspect my skills, but only question marks and a few glitches on the screen showed up,"
It was strange…, especially the glitches which I had never seen before while using the system.
"And you want us to drink that mystery liquid?"
"Yep," I say with a smile.
I split it amongst everybody, including Sophia, who was slightly hesitant with it but ended up drinking it anyway.
[System has been strengthened]
[Holes have been identified]
[Holes have been filled]
[Your Hivemind has fully evolved into its last stage]
[You have unlocked the: Hivemind tab]
As soon as I finished reading the panels, Sophia dropped unconscious, right onto the table in front of us.