Alfred...

That bastard!

I had asked him to solve the issue of not being able to summon Arthur at my will... so that the safety of my life could be guaranteed in some way.

And that guy had indeed created some solution, but—

He didn’t think it was important enough to inform me about it.

I had many things to look after which... had distracted me, and in the meantime, I had forgotten to ask Alfred about it.

But wasn’t it Alfred’s duty to inform me when the solution was devised?

Haa...

Such behaviour could no longer be ignored.

I had to do something—

But thinking about it carefully, there was nothing I could do about Alfred.

Sigh.

There were some things that were better left untouched.

A lot of time had already been consumed, yet it wasn’t like I could just ignore whatever thing Alfred had created.

In the end, it was me who needed it, not Alfred.

Haa...

For now, I had decided to first oversee the mobilization of all the required forces, then head to Ares, and have a nice little talk with Alfred—

No.

There was no need to talk with that lunatic.

I just had to grab whatever he had created for me, and leave that damn place.

My entire schedule had now been dismantled.

"See this."

Julien handed me a list of all the soldiers who were going to participate in the operation.

It took a while to go over the list, as it had many numbers in it.

Leaving aside those of Gold and higher ranks, the majority of the soldiers were made up of Silver and Bronze cores.

At present, a total of two thousand soldiers were selected for this mission.

"Should we reduce the numbers?"

Julien asked while standing beside me.

"Why?"

I had already explained the reason behind—

"I don’t think it’s a good idea to use numbers in the lower ranks."

"..."

"Most of them have recently joined us... haa... Alright, our organization had just begun its operation, and it hadn’t even been a few years. I feel like... it’s too soon to start an operation on this scale. Maybe a few elites would suffice—" 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"You had already agreed to it."

I reminded Julien.

Why was he being so cautious all of a sudden?

A last-minute anxiety?

"I know, but... Though someday we would have to make our presence known to the world, I don’t think it’s the best idea to do it now."

Hm?

Maybe Julien was right, but—

"We will proceed as per the plan."

We couldn’t delay things only because we weren’t strong enough to face the world.

Fear should only be used as a form of motivation... and once it reaches the state of no return, it should be discarded right away.

Going step by step wouldn’t be as beneficial as going all out in this operation.

The rival businesses had to be destabilized in order to build a foundation for the plans that would be executed in the future.

Julien nodded his head, though he still looked a little hesitant about following my instructions.

And I couldn’t really blame him.

Though he had been managing the organization for the last two years... everything that had happened in the meantime was on a smaller scale.

It was for the first time that such a massive number of troops were being used in any operation... coupled with the fact that it was going to be a worldwide mission and not centred around a specific area.

It was a given that Julien would feel overwhelmed as he had never commanded such a massive mobilization in his life.

Well... it was me who was going to command this operation, but Julien would be the one responsible for coordination between all the units.

"Let’s go."

It was time to meet my soldiers.

***

"Be quick!"

Orders were being shouted as men in black moved across the area, gathering at a single point in formations that were decided based on the hierarchy of the organization.

The top two hundred numbers stood before all, their uniforms a darker shade of black with several badges on them.

Each individual had his own number written on the back of the uniform, as they stood tall waiting for their leadership to address them.

Though most of them here were criminals... seeing the discipline among the troops, no one could say that this was a group of criminals.

With their uniforms on display, it looked more like an organized unit of an empire’s army.

As for the strength of the soldiers... well, the top two hundred numbers themselves showed the power of the organization that controlled these criminals.

At one end of the front rows stood a man with No. 200 written on his back.

The presence that he released was proof of him being in the Gold rank.

Well... to be specific, he was a Gold 4 ranker, who was close to evolving to the next core.

After getting a closer view, one could tell that he was the same man who had led reinforcements of three hundred men into the great forest of Azuna where the mining operations were underway.

Then just before him, in the fifth row on the right end, stood another man who was at Platinum 1... the same man who had led the soldiers in the raid on the auction house in the Levaith duchy—No. 190.

The other numbers were even stronger than the numbers on the lower side of the hierarchy.

Though the soldiers in the single digits, that is the top ten numbers, couldn’t be seen, as all of them had their own sectors to handle.

Though some among the top ranks would join the operation if the need for reinforcements arose.

However the probability of such a situation was very low, considering that the lower half of the top ten had Diamond rankers, leaving aside some who were in the ranks for skills other than being proficient in combat.

That included No. 8, who was also known as The Faceless.

He was the same guy who was responsible for the economic operations of Syma.