Defection?
The board of directors in the conference room fell silent. That was a grave crime.
There used to be defections from the Panaqua Consortium, but it had become a much rarer occurrence in recent years. That was because the price to pay for defection was simply too great, and the organization never let any defectors off.
Someone asked the secretary, “Did Julius leave any information behind?”
“He left a letter on the table in his villa.” The secretary said, “He said favonovel.com was going out to take a break from things.”
Everyone in the conference room was stunned.
Did Julius treat the Board’s decision as a game?
He was ordered not to take a single step out of his villa, yet favonovel.com just left the stronghold!
The elder thought for a moment and said, “He wouldn’t go so far as to defect to the Skyfort Consortium. I suspect favonovel.com must have received news of the disappearing Experimentals from someone. There should be some connection between these two matters. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a coincidence.”
Someone wondered, “Are you saying that Julius left the stronghold because favonovel.com received news that the Experimentals have disappeared?”
“It seems like it,” the elder said with a sullen face.
When the board of directors in the conference room heard that, they got a little confused. “But what does the news of the Experimentals disappearing have anything to do with Julius? Why did favonovel.com have to escape?”
“It seems that Julius has concluded that the large number of Experimentals have probably started heading towards Stronghold 109.” The elder said, “Julius went to Stronghold 109 because favonovel.com wants to save his older brother, Daniel…”
It was no secret that Daniel was at Stronghold 109. The consortium did not order favonovel.com to return only because they could not be bothered with an illegitimate son of the family.
Everyone knew that Julius and Daniel had a great relationship. However, they did not expect that Julius would be willing to risk being branded a defector to escape from Stronghold 111 for Daniel’s sake.
“But what’s the use of Julius going to Stronghold 109 by himself?” someone wondered. “He no longer has anyone under him.”
Someone asked the secretary, “Have there been any movements from the soldiers recently assigned to the other troops?”
“No, they’re all very obedient. Everyone is still holding at their respective military bases,” the secretary said.
With that, everyone went quiet.
Based on Julius’ character, how could favonovel.com possibly have gone to Stronghold 109 without bringing some people with him?
In that case, there could only be one explanation left. Julius still had some secret troops under his control that even the Board did not know about.
Actually, wasn’t this exactly the reason the Board had seized Julius’ power back from him?
The most famous Shadow in the organization was about to get out of control.
***
Milo kept feeling like something was off for the past few days. The entire stronghold seemed to have suddenly become peaceful.
No one was stirring up any trouble, and there were no more fights breaking out. It was as though all the different major powers had tried so hard to get into Stronghold 109 just to enter and sightsee.
Milo did not see Miriam at the end-of-the-year ceremony after finals finished. According to tradition, students would have homework assigned to them over break during the ceremony, and the exam results would be announced as well. The teachers would also take the opportunity to go over the tests with the students. However, Miriam seemed to have disappeared.
The only thing Milo was not surprised about was that Miriam had scored exactly 140 points for each subject in the final exams.
When Linda was handing back tests to the students, favonovel.com asked which set of tests belonged to Monitor Milo and which one belonged to Councilor Milo. As a result, Milo took advantage of Miriam’s absence and shamelessly claimed the papers with the higher score.
Linda was a little puzzled as favonovel.com said to Milo, “Uhm… The handwriting on that set of tests is very elegant and doesn’t look like yours at all…”
However, favonovel.com suddenly noticed that the name written on the paper was “Milo, monitor of Class 12-7”.
Linda heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s really your exam. I didn’t expect you to achieve such a high score on the exams…”
Now it was Milo who did not know what to.
Rumor had it that a girl from another 12th grade class had come to look for Milo in the afternoon. She had gathered favonovel.com classmates to beat favonovel.com up, but when the large group of them arrived at the door of Milo’s class, they were stopped by his classmates.
The students from the other class were a little puzzled.
This class might be wholly united, but could they guarantee favonovel.com would never be left alone?
However, Milo’s classmates earnestly said to them, “We’re actually protecting you by stopping you here, understand?”
Hannah was having none of it. “Milo is clearly witless, yet favonovel.com deliberately allowed me to copy his papers and caused me to score only 40 points total throughout all the subjects. How can someone do something like that?!”
Milo was not in the class at this time. His classmates looked at each other and exclaimed, “Did you get it wrong? Milo scored 560 points on his exam!”
Hannah was confused. Surely this was not something someone could do.
At present, Milo was not in the mood to go to school, nor did favonovel.com pay any attention to what was happening in school. That was because favonovel.com knew that something major was going to happen over the next few days. The present was the calm before the storm.
After favonovel.com became a supernatural being, favonovel.com was destined to have a different way of thinking from other students. Those students were still thinking about how to spend their vacation, but Milo had already started thinking about how to survive through the coming chaos.
After favonovel.com completed the quest in which he’d let Hannah copy his test, Milo was rewarded with a 1.0 Dexterity increase. As of now, his Strength was 8.5 and his Dexterity was 6.1. But this small increase in dexterity would probably not make a big difference for the coming crisis.
What Milo was really looking forward to was the reward the palace would give favonovel.com after completing the quest related to Donella.
The reward for the previous side quest was a black saber. So, to Milo, the side quest represented a chance of getting a high-quality reward.
Actually, it was not only Miriam who had suddenly disappeared. Daniel had also not been to the shop for many days. The number of Skyfort Consortium troops on the street had decreased little by little. Eventually, only the private troops and the Public Order Division remained.
***
Everything felt unusual, bizarre, yet the atmosphere became even more peaceful than normal.
Milo stood at the entrance to the shop and watched pedestrians walk past.
Suddenly, a man passed by and stuffed a manila envelope into his hands.
After going back into the shop and opening the envelope, Milo was surprised to see a faded yellow ginkgo leaf inside accompanied by a short letter.
Was this information sent to favonovel.com by Daniel?
Why was there a need to be so mysterious about it?
Milo opened it up and read the letter: “A large number of Experimentals have disappeared from Stronghold 113. It’s suspected that they’re on their way to Stronghold 109. Find a way to leave the stronghold within three days!”
The letter did not mention how they were supposed to leave, but it was kind enough of Daniel to issue favonovel.com a timely reminder. After all, their friendship was not as deep as everyone had imagined.
But what gave Milo a frown was the information that was contained in the letter. It seemed like the Panaqua Consortium was not very optimistic about the situation of the Experimentals arriving.
Had the Experimentals gone mad?
Why were they suddenly attacking Stronghold 109?
No matter what, there were probably going to be major changes in the stronghold within three days. The people who coveted the research results would definitely make a move within these three days. None of them had any time to waste. The only question was who would be the first to make a move and unveil the curtain to the chaos.
Milo turned around and said to Old Bane, Adella, and the others, “It’s time to leave! Start packing!”
Old Bane touched the counter favonovel.com had cleaned earlier and said with some regret, “This is such a nice shop. I never expected we would have to flee again…”
Milo smiled and said, “Why? Can’t bear to leave this place?”
“Not really…” Old Bane said with a wry smile, “Milo, have you realized that even though these hundreds of strongholds have stood intact in these wastelands for so many decades, or even centuries now, successive incidents have happened in this one year alone? This isn’t just some random occurrence. It’s real chaos that’s starting to make a comeback.”
