Chapter 1985: Getting to the Root Cause
Chapter 1985: Getting to the Root Cause
"Nah, not really. If you do not mind me. I might hate the terrorists under the Banned Emperor but they are not my primary concern. After all, I am just a businessman." Jin reasoned as he felt that there were many unfinished business that he would have wished to take care of from the past few days. One could say that he might have taken an impromptu vacation.
"Besides, Ryuli should be within the extermination team, right? She probably can handle it solo if she puts her mind to it."
"I figured that you say that but Ryuli is currently busy with another mission and I cannot pull her out from that. I was hoping that you would go or at least a minion or two so that if shit hits the fans, we are able to manage it better." Kong Rong replied.
"Then I am guessing you are not faring well in the trust department?" Jin guessed it right at the start and Kong Rong did not hesitate to admit to that since Jin and Ryuli were the only ones he trusted more than the rest. "I thought we did make your men sign the contract thingy? You still do not trust them as much as the System's scanning?"
"When we did the secret purging, the men were more or less affected by the betrayal. They did not know how we found out but because it was so surgical in nature, quite a number were affected by it. And because of our drop in numbers, the defence ministry filled in the manpower immediately with no questions asked.
Naturally, we do not know whether there are sleepers in this group since the task force to bring down is not under my direct jurisdiction."
"And asking them to sign something out of the blue would not aid with your need for trust. I assume you are not going into the battlefield as well?"
"Yes, I am not. If I did, I would not need to go through this. At the very least if I am putting some of your men into the fray, I feel safer if there are sleepers in this strike package." Kong Rong addressed his concerns.
"Kraft, do you wish to go? You may have some fun with the sleepers." Jin asked and Kraft's expression was perplexed, thinking whether it was necessary for him to go through that another boring flight to a certain area.
"While I do enjoy the luxurious flight from Italy, I would not wish to go through that again," Kraft said bluntly and Kong Rong chuckled.
"You can just meet them there, you big dumb dumb." Kong Rong replied while taking out a metal card and handing it to Kraft. "Use this as part of the credentials. I can tell them, you are the secret backup that I have in case shit hits the fans. Otherwise, you just observe how they do things. Is that fine with you?"
"Erm..."
"I will give you access to a restricted folder that I recently found in the Ministry of Manpower. You can work your way-" Kong Rong had decided to use these access rights as an excuse but Kraft did not allow him to finish saying and accepted the proposal.
"Done deal."
"Whut." Jin and the rest who were still at the runway were surprised by Kraft's quick acceptance.
"With access to the Ministry of Manpower, I would be able to find if there are any cultivators that might be worth looking into," Kraft explained his rationale clearly for the first time in ages.
"Why would you want to do that? And how did Kong Rong know that you want access to the Ministry of Manpower?"
"Because for some fucking reason, there is no secret electronic database in the Ministry of Manpower," Kraft replied and Jin was surprised to hear that.
"I can only concur with that, the Ministry of Manpower had decided to keep their secrets in a restricted basement instead. With files and files of secret stuff that would not see the light of day."
"So you already know that I am going to send Kraft and thus you prepared this to pique his interest?" Jin questioned but Kong Rong merely shuddered his shoulders.
"There was a high possibility that you would send or you go with Kraft since there are no other people better at manipulation than him
considering how I want to clear the sleepers in the strike force. But if it was pure annihilation, I think your regular better than average minions would have done the job nicely." Kong Rong reasoned and Jin gave a quick grin.
"I see, you do think far."
"Or else, how am I supposed to stay on my toes and keep China from breaking apart due to internal threats?" Kong Rong smiled back as the Devil Fox readily accepted the card. "Anyone else wished to follow?"
The crowd was quiet aside from the loud background noise the planes made on the runway. It gave the indication that they were all busy with their own things and even as Kraft looked at Kiyu, she pretended to whistle and moved away from him.
All that was to know was that Kraft was really going alone and everyone in the crowd knew it would not end well for the sleepers since no one was going to keep him unchecked.
"Send me the coordinates. I will go now." Kraft remarked and the System immediately placed the inputs based on Kong Rong's request allowing him to disappear in front of everyone. It was at that point where Jin felt like asking if it was okay for Kraft to disappear in plain sight after all the shit he went through with Italy but then he remembered that they were in Kong Rong's playground.
The guardian of the playground was here to make sure that nothing went wrong and also give privileges to the 'little children' that he was guarding.
That was why Jin finally relaxed when he remembered that Kong Rong was in control of the area. After which, the Royal Zodiac Dragon Clan Head even offered the rest a ride back to their Tree Mall. Every single fox refused and only Jin took up the offer as he wanted to talk to Kong Rong on certain things, especially after what had happened in Italy.
The Clan Head was undoubtedly happy when Jin said that he wanted to talk to him about that topic.
So when the both of them were in the car, they tried to address the elephant in the room. What was the response that both countries gave?
"The Italy Ambassador to China was full of praise for you but also apologised for the treatment of your ...stay. But there were no indirect responses when it came to the fact you had earned a hefty amount from their Prime Minister. They felt that the 15 million was too steep a price until..."
"Our China Ambassador to Italy defended you immensely by stating that if there was someone that could dish out a 10 kilometre wide dungeon instance, show her. She will ask what was their asking price for such an incredible feat. She also defended and stated that the ill reception that our team had received was nothing short of disgust.
For cultivators of reputable strength to withstand such ill reception was considered as something undeserving for the regular public."
"Wow, her words were strong. Who is she?"
"Just some random Rabbit Clan member. I do not really remember her name to be honest. All I know was that the government was insistent on reparations for such ill reception especially when one of those receiving it is an upcoming Royal Zodiac Clan Head."
"They are really going for that?" Jin did not feel particularly comfortable hearing the news
"After what you had done, the recommendation to put you up as the official Royal Zodiac Panda Clan head is getting more and more...shall we say erm approved by the government officials as well as the rest of the Royal Zodiacs."
"I thought they hated me."
"Well, it's not that bad to think that way, but I can say you are definitely warming it up to them considering what you had done for the country and for quite a few of the Royal Zodiacs Head."
"Yeah, and when I got promoted to Head Clan, I got to give everyone a special discount for dungeon instances fighting," Jin said with a little bitterness but Kong Rong laughed.
"If every capable fighter goes through your dungeon instances, there is no need to worry about defending from external threats. The ones I should be worried about are internal ones when each of them fights against each other.
"Maybe that is why the decline of dungeon suppliers?" Jin tried to think about it.
"What do you mean?" Kong Rong had no idea.
"If everyone is strong, it sets a new standard for everyone. But the less dungeon suppliers that you have that can do this, the balance would not be interrupted."
"I see, but seriously, yours is just the abnormal one."