The puddle rippled as three children and one Mary Poppins emerged… Before John Doe coughed up a LOT of bright blue sea water.

Jane jumped back. "John! Are you alright!?"

The practically perfect woman sighed. "One must remember: If you fill your lungs with liquid when under water, you must do the reverse when returning to land."

John bounced up, looking embarrassed, and expressed his acknowledgement. "Blup."

Well, he tried anyway…

Water and a tiny fish popped out of his mouth.

While the other two kids had that strange 'I can talk and breathe and sing underwater without getting wet or drowning' thing going on down there, he had just sort of shrugged his shoulders and gave up breathing for a while.

After all, his body was mostly just support equipment for his Soul at this point.

Still, this was annoying.

[[Pocket: Swap.]]

With a MUCH less stressful gulp of fresh air, John absently Collected all the random things he had vomited up when trying to breathe earlier. "Sorry, Miss Poppins."

She gave a firm nod. "Just be careful next time."

He didn't sass back (This time), and to be fair: She had a point. But he was improving!

After all, THIS time he hadn't just Collected all the stuff in his lungs to 'empty' them, so they hadn't collapsed! That was WAY better than earlier, right?

True, he probably should have had System automatically Swap his Lung air for water BEFORE when going underwater. Especially since breathing was pretty much an optional thing for him to begin with, and that would have been far more pleasant instead of having his chest cave in and several bones crack, but accidents happen.

Live and learn, and all that.

Anyway, now he could breathe and talk again! "I honestly didn't expect fish to be able to carry a tune like that. That fluke was really talented!" Said fish had EARNED his title 'The Duke of Soul', no question about it.

Jane and Michael nodded as the other boy spoke up. "I didn't know slugs could dance!"

…Well, to be fair? While it was an impressive effort from the shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc, it was more a 'shimmy-shake' kind of attempt than a boogie-down or breakdance production. Still, yeah: It was pretty impressive.

Oh, wait! Was it this late already!? "Guys, I gotta head home early today." Jessica had this whole thing planned, where all the kids would get to have a bit of a break… Even if it was mostly an excuse for her to spend time with her little brother without missing any of her new responsibilities.

And she had a LOT of new responsibilities by this point. Construction crews, demolition teams, property managers, shipping companies, multiple farms, clothing production teams, food cleaning/processing/packaging/selling groups… And all the exotic goods that were being sold to cover the extravagant spending going on.

Slight side note: Even when John packaged Saffron in those tiny containers to try and avoid suspicion, the bank had not been prepared for Jessica providing shipments totaling 200 tons of the stuff (If one didn't include packaging weight.)

Which… Was fair, since John realized that in the future the largest exporters of the stuff would only be able to ship out around 400 tons or so. Per year.

Oops.

So uh. The markets freaked out a tiny bit.

Also the quality of both the powder and the threads produced by the System was… nearly disturbingly beyond perfect to the inspectors and evaluators. Not quite to the point of producing magical or esoteric effects or anything but uh… Apparently despite the massive volume that now flooded the markets?

Well, 'Doe Saffron' as a brand was making an impact. Basically being collected by some groups like others would collect bottles of wine.

Anyway, point is: The Doe accounts had whole teams of bankers working on their portfolio now. Teams that were busy, VERY busy, and even with the passed on obligations and paperwork being stripped down?

Well, Jessica had been forced to be busy in turn.

So being able to just sit down and spend time with her felt like a treat for him now.

Waving at his friends (And the magical/eldritch whatever-she-is Nanny), he ran off and absently continued cleaning the streets and walls and air and stuff on the way via Collection.

Compared to the massive amounts of stuff he gathered from the dumps and the demolition teams his sister employed, this stuff was nothing. All together, less than a drop in the proverbial bucket, but for the local area? A huge improvement!

After all, clearing up filth far away didn't affect many people… Cleaning the air they breathed and the pipes delivering water and the places they worked and played?

Yeah, it was fairly noticeable. Hell, the air even smelt a little bit better near here… At least, near places that John routinely passed by on his adventures. Not like it would stay that way, not with people keeping the same habits that turned all this into such a mess in the first place.

As far as the smell went, one also had to mention how clean the sewer systems were around here now too… Although that was mostly done to mitigate the smell, not to mention John could collect that 'stuff' remotely without inconveniencing himself.

After all: Cleaning the surroundings for comfort and profit? Fun!

Cleaning the sewers personally? Yeah… No thank you.

His mind continued to rumble and ramble as he wandered his way back to the 'home' that was more akin to a mansion/headquarters/center of growing commerce for his older sister's budding financial empire.

If she was too busy when he got there, he could waste some time hanging out with the kids from the workhouse.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica focused on the paperwork and the plan. Always on the plan.

Because this mess was BIG, convoluted, and easily distracting.

In the end? The only thing keeping her on track was her 'directional goals' for the 'Doe Foundation' that was sort of spawning out of nowhere:

First requirement: The Doe Foundation must remain solvent. If it falls apart or whatever, any other goal or plan would become pointless.

Second goal: The people of the Foundation had to be cared for. Not just being paid livable wages, but fully fed and kept healthy. Most importantly: Educated. These were the future people of England and the ones that would be running the Foundation in the future: math skills, literacy, and management skills were a necessity.

Third priority: Investment and reserves. Not simply saving a portion of funds away for future rough patches and crises, but establishing and growing profit generating side options to hopefully ensure continuous improvement in the Foundation's funds. And aside from investing in foreign opportunities and local options, a huge part of this was SELF investment.

Every improvement to facilities, land, and the people of the Foundation was a long term gain to be had… And that was to be recognized.

Far, far below all that was the priority for profit or expansion. After all, John would be leaving with her and make any massive bank account full of numbers pointless to the traveling duo. Far more logical to have all the excess funds shoved back into keeping all the people involved happy and fed and clothed and all that.

On one hand? It did NOT mesh perfectly with standard societal norms.

On the OTHER hand, having such clear guidelines drastically simplified a bunch of the more complicated decisions needed to run such a place. Should they cut corners? Nah. Why bother? No one would be earning the money saved. What about lowering quality? Again, no benefit.

Try to take over an industry? Only if that industry is failing to provide things the Foundation members needed at a reasonable cost… And if the newly established group turns out to not be profitable in the short term? So what! We needed them to provide the kids shirts, or to transport food, or to move timber beams, or whatever.

It was stimulating the local economy like mad though, since excess food and stuff was being sold on the cheap to the poor communities most of the workers came from. Not in an attempt to undercut the local businesses or anything, but simply to ensure it didn't go to waste.

Was a bunch of steps skipped or short cut by Jessica having John Collect some stuff and do some Pocket Processing on initially gathered raw materials? Yep. Was she cheating like an asshole by abusing all the access to the gathered Pocket information and her history of living in a different variant of Earth? Oh yeah.

But the results were turning out pretty great overall… And honestly, she was going to get John to yeet both of them out of dodge before anyone super important began poking their noses into this entire mess.

Maybe even a bit before that… And NEXT time they would just cash in a bunch of materials for some local currency and call it a day instead of pulling this pseudo-empire-within-a-empire construction bullshit.

Speaking of which, they still had to organize all those warehouses that were stuffed with Johns stupid 'jewlery alternative' options. After all, those 400 tons of Saffron that was portioned out in 0.018 oz bottles (Over 711 million of them) ended up weighing 0.57 grams each. THAT ended up weighing 890,000 pounds if you didn't count the containers HOLDING those bottles and…

Sigh. That was ONLY considering the Saffron. Not the other eight products John attempted to provide for 'quick cash', all of which required the Doe Foundation to practically buy out several warehouse districts and… God, what a headache.

All that mess was his attempt to REDUCE her stress, so she didn't even get to enjoy being mad about it!

Not to mention she was pretty sure he only made so much stuff for this project because converting material from one substance to another was a very inefficient process and he was using this excuse to empty out a chunk of Pocket space as an excuse to use the freed resources to increase his security mess protecting that pinecone.

Oh, and a popped balloon now. Named Poppy, the new little lady who 'put up' with Spike the Pinecone's antiestablishmentarianism. Because apparently John treated his Pocket pals like other children would treat action figures or dolls.

Speaking of which, that taco toy had been quietly abandoned at some point and she STILL didn't know why… All John would say was 'He knows what he did' and start glaring ominous into the distance until distracted by something else.

Point is, she was pretty sure her brother was using this massive mess she had accidentally started as an excuse to frantically spend away stored material in the Pocket… But in the end, it WAS his personal space and he could do what he wanted with it.

The amount allocated to her hadn't been touched and it was already incredibly generous that he was willing to share such incredible power with anyone else in the first place, honestly… So she wouldn't make a big deal if he decided to 'donate' a bunch of stuff towards a (mostly) charitable organization like this one was turning out to be.

She groaned as she pushed the papers away.

All she had wanted was to grab a place to stay while stuck here, waiting for John to 'find the best path' for the next step in the journey. A short trip to the bank for local currency, then a quick rental of a hotel room or property or whatever. Simple, quick, and easy.

She glanced at the remaining piles of paperwork that actively made life better for hundreds of children lost without direction like she had been once long ago. The complex legal jargon that would ensure a new generation of children being fed, taught, trained, and eventually raised to one day help the NEXT generation escape THEIR horrific situations.

The mountains of documentation that was actively shifting life in a more positive direction for a good chunk of the local London area, that had already provided aid and comfort to so many.

Sigh.

She could probably get a few more pages done before John came back from playing today. This time she wouldn't get lost in the work and miss their time together…

Jessica tapped the table.

No, she had to pace herself. Getting lost in the heavy burden of trying to fix things would only run her ragged and cause her to make mistakes and possibly delay the entire mess, NOT improve the situation.

Besides, it was close to the time that her brother would be coming home soon… Let's go find the head of the kitchen staff and see if there were some cookies for a bit of a late spot of tea.

She blinked and grunted. Damn it, England! MILK! Cookies and MILK! Although a cuppa did sound awfully tempting…

Fine, whatever. Tea it is then, she could use some Darjeeling around now anyway.