Life Game In Other World
Chapter 1136: Peeking into the Situation (Seeking Monthly Votes at End of Month)

Chapter 1136: Chapter 1136: Peeking into the Situation (Seeking Monthly Votes at End of Month)

Shadows and light interwove, casting a pattern on He Ao’s serene cheeks.

He paused at the entrance of the corridor, quietly flipping through the report on his wristband.

In the entire report, the ’investigation’ concerning those wilderness attackers was only a small part.

The vast majority of the report’s content was collected by Eve, involving various ’transactions’ between the two major financial conglomerates in Minte City and the Cult of the Evil God.

In terms of transactions with the cult, the two financial conglomerates were very ’transparent’.

This information was stored in the database with hardly any disguise, only access permissions were set.

Of course, breaking into this database from the outside and directly extracting data from it was very difficult, both financial conglomerates designed their encryption systems and firewalls to be extremely robust.

And according to Eve’s feedback, the data seemed to be set with an auto-destroy function in case of a leak.

Solid ’defense’ and meticulous ’design’ indeed supported their ’confidence’ in storing data here.

Unfortunately, He Ao had no intention of a direct confrontation; he obtained the ’key’ to the data warehouse directly from the top echelons of the two financial conglomerates.

Naturally, with the authority Weiken and Lambert held, they could only retrieve data related to the two major financial conglomerates of Minte City.

The only data that Eve could copy was the content related to the Cult of the Evil God.

And the data Eve copied back mainly fell into two parts.

The first part was about the transactions between the two major financial conglomerates in Minte City and the Cult of the Evil God, such as hiring Chaotic Believers to assassinate certain congressmen and high-ranking officials opposing the conglomerate, cooperating with the Witch Church of Desire to ’sleep with’ certain competitors to extract classified intelligence, and so on.

The second part, however, came directly from the orders of the headquarters of the two financial conglomerates in Vitland, where the subsidiaries only needed to execute the orders.

Some orders gave reasons and others did not; usually, those involving the local situation in Minte City provided reasons.

For instance, the order to assassinate ’Suote’ came directly from Vitland.

Even the involvement of Chaotic Believers was pre-arranged by Vitland side, with Minte City’s subsidiary of the two financial conglomerates simply tasked to facilitate communication with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and control the progress of events, reporting back to the headquarters in a timely manner.

This was when the two major financial conglomerates in Minte City knew the full picture, knowing whom to kill and how to do it.

There were also cases where the Minte City financial conglomerates were kept in the dark, for example, certain ’missions’ required them to deliver certain resources to a predetermined location in the wilderness or the city at a specific time, and then there would be no further information.

In these tasks, the Minte City conglomerates were just running errands, and the involved events seemed unrelated to Minte City itself.

Of course, not all these missions necessarily related to followers of the Evil God; the headquarters of the financial conglomerates might simply be carrying out highly confidential tasks.

However, once Eve noticed that some of these might be related to the Evil God’s followers, she extracted all similar records and placed them into one category.

But these tasks and clues were very messy, so Eve just roughly summarized them and placed them at the end of the report.

He Ao was now just briefly browsing through this ’operational’ data from the headquarters of the two major financial conglomerates.

He had actually read through the entire report twice already.

The objectives of the cooperation between the two major financial conglomerates of Minte City and the Evil God’s followers were often quite clear, spelled out in the data, and even when not explicitly mentioned, could be roughly inferred from related clues.

All their dealings were local, with all conspiracies revolving around the market share of Minte City and the power struggle against the City Government forces represented by Lokte.

Having read it twice, He Ao had more or less clarified the web of relationships.

The conclusion He Ao could draw was that ’everything was normal’.

The overall situation in Minte City matched his earlier assessments with no significant deviations, and he could just follow his previous judgments to ’unravel’ the scenario.

In past Copy Worlds, that’s what he had always done.

But his intuition was telling him that things were probably not that simple.

There must be something wrong.

Putting down the wristband, He Ao took a deep breath and stepped into the adjacent bathroom.

——

Dawn City·Glorious Palace

"Christos, step down!"

"Christos, step down!"

······

The deafening shouts pierced through the somewhat melancholic night sky, gradually fading and diminishing in the cold air.

Christos stood in front of the window, quietly gazing at the crowded mass of people on the distant streets and square.

They were holding various banners and signboards with ’Reject the Anti-Corporation Bill’ and ’We Need Jobs’, shouting loudly in an organized fashion.

"How long have they been here?"

A man with a silver ponytail walked over, standing next to Christos.

"They’ve been here since this morning, all day long."

Christos continued.

"I heard the corporations hired them to march, paying quite a good wage, 100 federal coins a day, and an additional 50 if they shout slogans,"

the silver-ponytailed man said softly, "If they accept interviews with journalists, based on their performance, they can even receive an ’extra bonus’ ranging from 100 to 200 federal coins. Many housewives from Crown District who have nothing to do at home took on this job."

Christos just listened silently, without responding.

"The City Council votes on the amendment tomorrow,"

the silver-ponytailed man did not delve further on this topic, but heaved a sigh instead, "The chances are still high that it won’t pass."

He looked towards Christos, with a wry smile, "Almost half a year now, the bill has been modified again and again, but the number of council members against us has only grown."

"As long as we’re not willing to change the core ’anti-monopoly’ part, the number of ’opponents’ will always increase. It’s unavoidable. If this road were easy, it would not be our turn to walk it."

Christos gazed out of the window, his gaze lifting upward, "But likewise, there have always been people standing with us."

On the outskirts of the parade crowd holding ’Christos, step down’ signs were even more people, carrying ’Corporations Get Lost’ banners.

They surrounded the inner group of marchers, shouting even more angrily and loudly, with the overwhelming noise drowning out everything else.

——

Minte City·City Defense Army Command Center

"It’s snowing, huh."

Owai held a glass of wine, sitting by the window, gazing at the drifting snowflakes outside.

Factories loomed like silhouettes in the night blanketed by snow, casting the entire city in a dim and profound light.

"General."

An officer entered the office, looked at Owai, and saluted, saying in a calm voice, "Outside the South Gate, Note Intelligence’s Mercenary Corps has started up their machinery, it seems there’s unusual movement, after so many years of operation by the two major corporations in Minte City..."

"When the snow stirs the wind, what can we, those in the snow, do?"

Owai shook his head before the officer could finish, picked up the wine bottle next to him, poured another glass, and offered it to the officer, "Come, have a drink."

——

Federal Bureau of Investigation Building

Whoosh—

The rush of running water poured out from the opened faucet, He Ao cupped some water, splashed it on his face, scrubbing off the bloodstains on his cheeks.

He raised his head, looking at the man in the mirror.

The icy water made his body momentarily alert from the stimulation.

Countless thoughts swirled through his mind.

He looked at his own cheeks in the mirror and was suddenly startled.

He suddenly realized that he seemed to have fallen into a cognitive trap.

In previous Copy Worlds, Copy World characters were often locals or had strong local networks, and the events they were involved in were also entangled through those local networks.

But ’Suote’ was not a person from Minte City.

’Suote’ himself had no historical conflicts with the two major financial conglomerates of Minte City, at most some minor friction after his arrival in Minte City.

And the ’strong driving force’ that prompted the local two major conglomerates to deal with Suote was not the conflict between them and Suote, but an ’order’ from the upper levels of the conglomerates’ headquarters.

So, are the headquarters and the Minte City branch offices of the two major financial conglomerates one and the same?

Probably not.

The headquarters have their own interests to pursue; branch offices have their own. Sometimes for its own benefit, the headquarters would even sacrifice the interests of a branch office.

They are not one entity.

Especially since the two major financial conglomerates’ branch offices in Minte City are located in the eastern part of the Federation, far from the headquarters on the West Coast, they possess a higher degree of autonomy.

The chaotic thoughts in He Ao’s mind crystallized, gradually forming continuous and orderly lines.

The ones who truly wanted to deal with ’Suote’, who truly mobilized the Mercenary Corps, who truly had a strong connection with the Order Church, were not the Minte City branch offices of the two conglomerates, but their headquarters far away on the West Coast of the Federation.

An invisible chessboard seemed to appear before He Ao, and numerous vague figures stood across it, one of the shadows slowly taking shape.

Do the headquarters of the two conglomerates really trust their branch offices completely? Not necessarily.

Do the two conglomerates have only their branch offices as pawns in Minte City? Not necessarily.

The sense of dissonance that had always hovered in He Ao’s mind finally began to dissipate.

He finally understood the source of this dissonance.

It’s too quiet.

It’s too quiet.

As if by capturing a bunch of senior executives from their branch offices, he had cut off the limbs of these two giant conglomerates spanning the Federation, leaving them at his mercy.

The two conglomerates made no response; they did not even consider sending someone to assassinate him. They were like fish on a chopping board, motionless, as if allowing him to slice at will.

If those captured executives were truly the absolute core of the two conglomerates, and their capture caused the conglomerates to grind to a halt, this situation might be understandable.

But they were just leaders of two branch offices in Minte City. On the scale of the entire Federation, they couldn’t even influence the decisions of the conglomerates’ board of directors.

This silence can only explain one thing.

The two conglomerates simply do not care about the life and death of these ’executives’; their capture cannot affect their movements, and the entire situation is still within their control.

The state of affairs in the branch offices of the two financial conglomerates had been largely clarified by He Ao; it was unlikely that there were any other ’back-up plans’.

If that’s the case, then the ’pieces’ that the two conglomerates are still moving are most likely not within the two branch offices in Minte City.

In that moment, the contents of the report summarized by Eve flashed through He Ao’s mind.

Where one has passed, one must leave traces.

No matter how the headquarters of the two conglomerates bypass the branch offices to make their moves, there will always be times when they have to utilize the resources of the branch offices. It is impossible for them to build a new organization from scratch that would only take orders from the headquarters and specifically handle arrangements.

The cost would be too great, which doesn’t align with the temperament of the conglomerates.

Amidst contemplation, He Ao raised his wristband, sending a message and quickly walked out of the bathroom.

——

Minte City · North Gate

Bright lights spread over the slender corridor, where soldiers with rigid bodies stood beneath the lights, seemingly on duty.

Bang bang bang—

Accompanied by crisp footsteps, an officer walked from a distance and stopped before the corridor.

"Good day, the control hub for the city gates is ahead, please present your pass."

One soldier at the mouth of the corridor stepped forward and saluted the officer, then quickly spoke.

"I’m not going in,"

The officer glanced at the depths of the corridor and then shook his head, "I just happened to stroll up to here."

With that, he pulled out a cigarette and offered it to the soldier on duty.

The soldier waved his hand, refusing the cigarette offered.

The officer wasn’t bothered, he just took the cigarette back, put it in his mouth, and turned to walk back the way he came.

The soldier at the entrance of the corridor calmly watched the officer’s retreating figure, then returned to his post.

——

Federal Bureau of Investigation Building Rooftop

Hel stepped out of the helicopter marked with the medical symbol, raised his head, and saw the door to the rooftop open, He Ao coming out from behind it.

"Mr. Suote, do we really need to use the helicopter?"

He hurried over, speaking with concern, "Out there, there are electromagnetic cannons from the two big security companies, and the helicopter is an easy target in the air, it’s safer to take the secret passages."

"No problem."

He Ao gently shook his head, his figure moving through the curtain of falling snow, walking swiftly over to the helicopter.

This was the helicopter he had flown back from the City Defense Army command center.

Watching his movements, Hel quickly handed the key card to He Ao.

"Did you fill up the fuel cell?"

He Ao took the key card, watching the tightly closed helicopter door slowly open, asking casually.

"Yes, it’s all topped up, and the trash inside has been cleaned up too."

Hel hurriedly replied.

"Thank you for your efforts."

He Ao nodded, climbed directly onto the helicopter.

Then he looked at Hel, who was following him and attempting to climb in, waved his hand, stopping Hel, "No need, I’ll go by myself, you guard the building well, I will contact you if there are any problems."

In the middle of speaking, He Ao had already started the helicopter.

Roar—

Amidst the intense noise, the howling rotor blades began slicing through the falling snowflakes, whipping up a fierce wind.

"Yes!"

Hel’s hair was blown by the wild wind, he watched He Ao inside the helicopter, hesitated, and then shouted out loud, "Mr. Suote, the area is covered by electromagnetic cannons and flying machines from the two big conglomerates, maybe we should—"

But before he could finish, the entire helicopter had already lifted off, soaring into the sky.

Immediately, several drones and helicopters, even Dragon Cavalry Fighters, rose from the ground, while cannon muzzles stationed in various open and hidden locations swiftly turned, aiming at the helicopter in the sky.

The falling snowflakes passed by both sides of the helicopter’s rotor blades, sprinkling from the sky, landing upon the unmanned drones and electromagnetic cannons below, forming a picture that seemed to be frozen in time.

In the end, these machines did not have the courage to spout the first flame, they merely watched as the helicopter lifted off the ground, escorting it until it climbed into the high sky, until it went far away.