Grace managed to calm herself and was now eagerly watching with curious eyes as the chairman lifted his phone to his ears. She would never admit it out loud because she was a loyal and professional secretary, but she was bursting with excitent to hear how this conversation would unfold.
However, the woman beca dismayed when she realized she wouldn't hear the respondent as things stood. Grace was a resourceful, smart woman, though. To solve her problem, she pushed her glasses up before speaking up, "Sir, I believe it to be beneficial to the Awakened Association for to silently listen in on the conversation. As the person tasked with observing Vespera's son and his harem, I might catch sothing aningful that would fly by your ears without notice."
The chairman eyed her for a re second before sighing once again and putting the call on speaker mode just before the call connected.
"Miss Ashborn, it's . I hope life has been treating you well," The chairman greeted.
"Yes?" Vespera replied to his amicable, gentlemanly greeting with a single, cold word.
"Miss Ashborn, I know that you're a busy woman, so I'll skip the formalities."
"..."
Not receiving a single word this ti around, the chairman fought a sigh back before continuing, "Can I ask what you know about your firstborn son and the recent developnts surrounding him?"
For the first ti since the call began, Vespera parted her lips to deliver a response that was more than a single syllable; "I'm spending a million dollars a day to fund a team that solely exists to surveil him offline, online, and on the awakened platform, so excuse , chairman, but you'll have to be more specific. If I begin detailing all my information—which is not sothing I would do for you, by the way—this call will never end…" She paused for a mont before clarifying, "Literally. I'm getting updates on the surveillance targets faster than I could convey them."
"Haaah…" The chairman was on a sighing spree today, it seed. He couldn't help it; this woman's control freak nature perfectly collided with her mother bear instincts to create a true monstrosity.
When Vespera disowned Kaiden, he told her to stop stalking him or he'd have to call the cops for a restraining order. Vespera was a mother who wanted to give her son the freedom to pursue whatever he wanted in life, but that didn't an she would listen to him.
Just as he could do whatever he wanted, so would she, as far as Vespera was concerned. Therefore, the first thing she did after stepping out of the sushi restaurant was to ignore his words and begin establishing a team with the sole purpose of spying on him and the three ladies.
That being said, Vespera was not going to barge into his life when danger approached; that was not what this was about. She didn't step in to stop his reckless duel with David where the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against him, and she didn't even rush to Kaiden's rescue when he was in the middle of his death battle with the level 5 silverback mauler.
Kaiden was an awakened now, a modern-day warrior.
Vespera firmly believed that battles to the death were the best way for an awakened to beco stronger, not just because of large XP gains but because it forged civilians into proper battle-hardened combatants.
Of course, as a loving mother, she was worried for Kaiden's life—just like a certain little sister who went absolutely ballistic and had to be restrained to not rush to his side during the fight with the silverback mauler monster—but Vespera hardened her heart to let her son pave his own path in life.
Thus, the reason for her spying was not to make his life easy but to safeguard him from nefarious actors of the human species with incredibly high levels and high-tier classes, such as the man who was on the other end of the communication line.
"Miss Ashborn, I'm referring to the current broadcast that can be found on Valhalla's Sinners."
"Yes?"
'Stop playing dumb, you damned woman! You just admitted to knowing everything there is to know about him!' These were the thoughts swirling inside the chairman's head, but he only displayed a tired frown.
That was more than enough to elicit a muted giggle from the ever-observant Grace, who was having a greater ti right now than any cinema or theatre could ever provide her with. Her eyes danced with glee as she anticipated the next part of this very entertaining drama.
"He's running around in the beginner dungeon with new spells under his belt, and the sa is true for his three partners. They all underwent sothing strange, as if they just passed their first bottleneck before even reaching level 5. This is a completely unprecedented phenonon in the entire decade-long history of the mana apocalypse!" The chairman inford Vespera with all the patience he could gather.
"Okay."
*Crack!*
A fierce vein bulged on the chairman's forehead as he gripped onto his chair's armrest by utilizing all the Strength stat he had to his na, which resulted in him pulverizing it entirely.
The chairman closed his eyes as he slowly, deliberately breathed in and out. He repeated it a few more tis until he managed to calm himself down.
"Miss Ashborn, I wish to inquire if you would be willing to provide your consent to us re-evaluating their awakened tests. The information we might glean from doing so could be more valuable than any amount of wealth."
"I'm not their manager. I've never even spoken to three of their four mbers. You're overestimating , chairman."
"…" The chairman grimaced.
Although his words might seem rather straightforward, they had hidden anings behind them. Naly, the Awakened Association could legally force awakened individuals to submit themselves to re-testing, but only once a year. As a result, he couldn't strong-arm the mbers of Valhalla's Sinners into re-evaluation for more than 360 days using legal thods.
The association could only ask them nicely, but the chairman understood that any sane person would deny re-testing in their case like their life depended on it, because it most likely did. If the results were to be released, nurous underground organizations would be vying to kidnap him and the girls as curious subjects to study.
Hence, the chairman wasn't asking Vespera if she would kindly ask Kaiden in his stead to submit himself for a re-testing, but if she would raise hell should the Awakened Association force the four youngsters into doing it, whether they liked it or not.
Vespera's answer, on the other hand, was that of feigned ignorance, pretending to be clueless. She likely wanted to catch him saying these thoughts out loud so that she could record it.
"Na your price…" the chairman grunted, feeling his nose ready to begin bleeding at a mont's notice.
"A first-class, one-way ticket to Beijing should do it. Their president did invite for 'sightseeing' many tis, maybe I should oblige. It's rude of to ignore him for so long."
'Here it is!' Grace cheered inwardly, 'She's threatening treason on a recorded governnt line. Vespera is so damn badass!' Most won tended to look up to an inspiring, heroic person like Scarlet, the awakened with the Fla Monarch title. However, to Grace, Vespera was the most badass woman to have ever existed.
"… I'll permit you to be present during their re-testing."
A cold, chanic voice ca as a reply. "I once ate curry in a restaurant, but it was horrible. For years, I told myself I would never try it again, but then I realized I was being a close-minded woman, so I visited three more Indian restaurants, but the al was still terrible.
However, my taste buds are perfect, and curry is a beloved dish all across the globe, so it makes no sense for to hate it. This train of thought led to realize it might just be the Arican cooks who can't make a good Indian dish or the ingredients beco stale by the ti they get here. Thus, I was forced to conclude that the only surefire way for to ascertain whether I like curry or not for good is to visit the origins of the al to try it as it was ant to."
"Vespera…" the chairman growled.
"Yes?" the woman asked innocently.
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