Aubrey Morgan, his son, and his assistant were in a secure room. "Ares, who are they? Find out everything about them, especially who their owner is," Aubrey said in the room, without even looking at the others.

The assistant immediately nodded and headed out the door to relay the order.

"They seem to be the most likely beneficiaries of this conflict, and are either the ones behind our defeat, or at least connected to them. We'd never heard of them before they became Eden's contractors. At first, that didn't seem important to anyone and we all thought it was just a cost cutting measure, but now they're going to take over Esparia, too. That means they'll be the military overlord every PMC dreams of becoming and can be considered a legitimate military force, with military-grade weapons. They may even be the ones producing them," George said, slightly jealous that, despite their power, they couldn't legitimately have such a massive force under them. Instead, they were forced to break their forces into multiple PMCs in different countries. That didn't mean their forces weren't large, or were particularly weak, but with such measures came cost increases, especially since each company had redundant departments and they couldn't be merged lest they draw the suspicion of everyone involved.

"It's either a small family that got lucky, or a company supported by a large family, but whoever it is... I don't care. I have to teach them a lesson for embarrassing us," Aubrey said, his tone slightly higher than usual. It was the tone he used when he was angry, something as rare as a unicorn horn, but as his family's honor was on the line he had become a person nobody would want to face at all. He cared about honor above all. That was why George was his favorite sonhe showed a promise that his brothers didn't. It was like the Morgan family honor was carved into his bones. Not that his brothers were especially lacking, but despite being hard workers, there wasn't really anything outstanding about them, much to Aubrey's disappointment.

"But why six months, and not a few years?" Aubrey asked in his usually calm tone. He wanted his son's view of the situation and considered the question one of the many tests he had given the younger man.

"There's two possibilities. Either they already know of some large deposits and are using the time limit as a means to justify 'discovering' them, or they're confident in finding something within that time frame. At the same time, they can't make the period too long, so that in the event they find something, the citizens would still have hopes of discovering something better when the six month period is over," George answered. It was an easy test for him, as he'd been thinking about a possible reason from the moment it had been mentioned. He knew his father well and had long expected such a question from the man.

"What do you think we should do if it's the second possibility?"

"All we have to do is suffer a loss of a few hundred million to book all the world's reputable prospecting companies for six months," George answered with a sinister smile.

"Good thinking, but too naive. That'd make it too obvious that someone's out to sabotage them," Aubrey said with a smile on his face, then started explaining where his son was wrong. Then he gave a better plan.

"Why go to such a needless extent when we could just pay the company they hire to simply not report what they find. Instead, they'll tell us. Then, after the six-month period is over, all we'll have to do is 'accidentally' find it and win the extraction rights. That way they can't do anything, as long as they value their word"

...

Aron was hard at work, training his combat skills. The blows exchanged between him and his opponent seemingly carried the weight of the world with them, but at the same time, a normal person would have a hard time tracking them. The two combatants were moving and attacking at such speed that an onlooker would only see afterimages, at best.

Today marked the two hundred and tenth day since he had begun training in Athena's hellhole.

During that time, he'd had everything a soldier from every department in ARES was supposed to know drilled, and sometimes hammered, into him. And his trainer would accept nothing less than excellence from him. Infantry skills, piloting, driving, spying, sniping, and many more skills had been tested, and each score of 'average' that Aron received had only increased the intensity of the 'retraining' he suffered. The teacher assigned to him by Nova would make sure that he was perfect, or suffer deletion in the attempt.

The image of someone hitting a boulder and shattering it was soon followed by the sound of the punch landing. The one who threw the punch, Aron, remained standing in place. His chest rose and fell as he heaved for breath and wheezed, "Is that satisfactory?" He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

[Good. That's what I wanted from you before I could allow you to leave,] said a voice from inside the dust cloud. A beautiful woman was walking out of it without a speck of dust or ounce of sweat on her clothes or skin.

[Congratulations, sir,] said Nova, who had appeared the moment the instructor mentioned that Aron had passed his final test.

"You really went all out when you made her," Aron said. He had directed Nova not to interfere during his training, unless something urgent came up. Thankfully, everything seemed to have gone well while he was otherwise occupied.

[You need to lead by example,] she said with a smile, feeling quite happy about Aron's hard work. She had been observing and recording everything without missing anything.

"I know, I know," Aron said as he sat down to rest. It was his first rest of the day after seven consecutive hours of fighting. Thankfully, he had finally won the confrontation against his instructor, making him the most combat-proficient human in the world at the moment.

"Let me rest for a moment," he said, then laid down and fell asleep within a few seconds.

...

"Catch me up on the world's situation," Aron said. He had slept for three days straight in the universal simulation before waking up completely refreshed; Nova had put his pod in rest mode, making his three-day nap equal nearly a month of vacation.

[Esparia's already signed the surrender accord, and the announcement's already been made. The citizens' reaction has been quite good, and Alexander's approval rating in Eden is at its highest point. The latest poll has it at 93%....] She continued catching him up on what had happened during the week that he'd been disconnected from reality.

"How about Vladimir... or rather, how about what remained of him?" he asked.

[The personality change is complete, and he can be considered an entirely new person with a new and enhanced body and memories of his former self. He's waiting for orders when you wake up,] she explained.

"Good. Find a way to return him to his country so he can continue his tasks there, while at the same time preparing himself to rise in the Kremlin. If possible, I want him to take over their entire intelligence network, then resign and start a career in politics. Leave the task of accomplishing his return without suspicions to the intelligence department. That's what they're there for," Aron calmly said. He planned for the man to return to his position and gain political power. As his revenge on Russiawhich had forcefully taken his things without his consentcould now enter full swing. It wasn't just the one that executed the order that he wanted to pay, but the Russian leadership had to pay as well.