Along with the reconstruction of District 44, all media outlets simultaneously released the same article.
[Shocking! Dark dealings between the Redevelopment Union, corporations, and the military!]
The article with its striking headline contained detailed information about the corrupt dealings among the three previously mentioned organizations. While specific details about the "baptism of fire" weren't revealed, it was clear they had attempted to kill innocent people en masse.
Learning about what they had discussed and what they had plotted, the citizens were outraged.
The city government felt the same way. They officially expressed regret regarding this incident and declared they would handle this matter with utmost severity.
The civil servants who had taken money from the Redevelopment Union and the corporation Architect went into a state of emergency. They tried to destroy any related materials and cut their connections by any means necessary, but...
"Don't move!"
"You bastards! Stay still!"
They were immediately subdued and dragged away by the military police who burst in. Beyond just being stripped of their positions, those who had swallowed too much were thrown into prison.
The military police didn't stop at just rooting out corrupt civil servants.
"Everyone freeze!"
"From now on, if any bastard moves even a hair, we'll slap handcuffs on them immediately!"
They immediately raided the Redevelopment Union.
"Huff, huff, Chairman Hugo! This is terrible! The military police have burst in!"
"I know!"
Hugo shouted while looking down outside the building's window. Below, military police were already spread out everywhere.
"Damn it. Damn! What about the others? Why aren't they answering the calls!"
"That, that's no use. All the civil servants who took money from us have already been swept up!"
Hugo clenched his fists trembling. Somehow, information about his secret meetings with Caleb and Major Gerhardt had spread. From the conversations they had at the time to all the corruption they had secretly committed. This wasn't something he could deny. Someone had been watching from right beside them and filming with an artifact.
Hugo wasn't a clean person. There had been much corruption in his rise to the position of chairman of the Redevelopment Union. Tirna was a place where you had to do such things to survive.
The thought that since everyone does it, he alone would be fine. But that didn't serve as a complete pardon. Hugo was restless. There was no way to overcome this situation, no way to escape from here.
At that moment, the chairman's office door burst open with a bang. The expensive solid wood door shattered as if a bomb had exploded.
"You, you bastards! Do you know where this is!"
"Ah. Since there was no answer even when we knocked on the door, we suspected an escape attempt, so it was an unavoidable decision."
What answered the secretary's angry voice was a woman with long white hair. She slowly withdrew her extended leg, which was presumed to have broken down the door.
As soon as Tirna's executor Alensia Hair saw Hugo, she immediately gestured with her chin. The military police lined up beside her moved and captured Hugo.
"Let, let go of this! Do you know who I am!"
"Hugo Graf. Still can't grasp the situation?"
Alensia stood in front of Hugo, who was subdued and shedding tears. Hugo bit his lips.
"Call a lawyer!"
"You still haven't come to your senses. What you did was a quasi-rebellious act that would cause civil war in Tirna. Appointing a lawyer and such, there's no way that would be permitted. If you tried to make big money and failed, you should have been prepared for this outcome."
Alensia's voice was cold. Knowing that all the violent protests that had occurred everywhere during the recent demonstrations were manipulated behind the scenes by such people, anger surged within her.
"Don, don't be ridiculous!"
Hugo had a fit. Rationally, he already knew he was in an irreversible crisis. Nevertheless, the reason he somehow raised his head was because he had been a chairman until now. He was in a position where he never had to bow his head to anyone and only received respect. Naturally, he couldn't accept this situation of being thrown to the bottom.
"You vermin bastards! Do you think there's anyone in this city who hasn't taken money from me!"
Crack!
Hugo was about to shout that when he screamed. Alensia had approached and heavily stomped on his foot.
Hugo's foot bones were broken. It was only because she had controlled her strength; otherwise, his foot would have been completely crushed and disappeared.
"Listen here. Hugo Graf. You're no longer the chairman of the Redevelopment Union. You're a criminal arrested by me. And a villain among villains who tried to kill countless people. Don't worry. The Redevelopment Union will also have to pay all the unjust profits they've made so far as compensation."
Hugo couldn't answer. From the shock of his broken foot, he could only tremble. Alensia ordered her subordinates.
"Drag him away."
Thus Hugo Graf was taken away. At the same time, similar things were happening in other places.
A tax investigation was conducted on the construction conglomerate Architect. City government agents burst in and the company was completely devastated. Caleb Stone, a participant in this incident, was subdued and dragged away with disheveled hair, his usual intellectual appearance nowhere to be found. That scene was captured by reporters' cameras and printed large on newspaper articles.
Major Gerhardt was the same.
"Haah."
Gerhardt quietly watched through the glass window as military police burst in. From the moment he heard news that the baptism of fire had failed, he had anticipated this would happen.
This operation had caused truly enormous damage to the military.
17 escort ships sunk. 7 heavily damaged. And 1 aerial battleship Ultima sunk. 2 heavily damaged. Plus the casualties among crew members and soldiers on the sunken ships.
The death of soldiers was especially painful. Corsolini, the field commander at the time, was a very excellent soldier. He was someone with high potential to become the next general. Unlike himself who had risen through politics.
Such a person had died. And by an outer god who had intruded at the time. This left an indelible wound on the military's pride.
Incalculable, truly enormous losses. This wouldn't cause Tirna's military to falter to this extent. But that didn't make these losses nonexistent either.
All of this incident was naturally largely Major Gerhardt's responsibility.
Because he was a soldier, he wouldn't be captured by military police like other people. Instead, he would be referred to military law. Considering what he had done, the price would be very harsh.
Gerhardt had eliminated countless competitors to rise to this position. The past when he had sneered at their ends came to mind. Now he too had become in the same situation.
-Click.
Gerhardt took out a pistol from his drawer. He gazed at the pistol with complicated eyes.
Bang bang bang!
"Major Gerhardt. Please open the door. If you do not cooperate, we may use force."
Gerhardt didn't answer. Instead, he put a cigar in his mouth with trembling hands. With a tick sound, the cigarette lit.
Whoosh. The smoke from the last cigarette he exhaled scattered meaninglessly in the air. Finally abandoning his lingering attachments, Gerhardt gripped the pistol and aimed it at his own chin.
Bang!
"So such a thing happened."
After all the situations had ended, it was Amenora who came to find Osian, who had returned to Violet Fox.
She sat facing Osian wearing pure white clothing and a hood.
"You seem unaware of this incident."
At Osian's observation, Amenora nodded as if embarrassed.
"Yes. Embarrassingly, it happened while I was away."
"You were away? Don't you usually operate in the city?"
Osian had thought Amenora couldn't step forward because of the city's balance. But it turned out she had been handling something in her own way.
"The situation outside the city is not normal. Besides, I had to check on the condition of other kinfolk."
Amenora was a Sky Dragon. Naturally, she wasn't the only Sky Dragon in this world. In places far beyond human reach, there were separate high mountains where Sky Dragons resided. She said she had been to such a place.
"Outsider invasions are gradually increasing. So I had to seek opinions from my kinfolk too. But that's not all. There are naturally far more beings targeting the city from outside."
Osian nodded in understanding. Tirna was currently going through a period of considerable chaos. As Tirna, which had seemed solid until then, began to waver, neighboring countries began to gradually cast covetous eyes.
Wasn't now, when Tirna had weakened, a golden opportunity that might not come again?
"However, besides that, there's one serious matter..."
Amenora trailed off while explaining.
"What's the serious matter?"
Amenora seemed to be contemplating whether to say this or not. But having come this far, she couldn't back down, so she revealed what she knew.
"I met with kinfolk this time and had conversations. I needed help from my kinfolk for future situations that would occur someday. But most kinfolk seemed displeased with me living alongside humans. They said why should a proud Sky Dragon bow their head to humans. Even though they're my kinfolk, they're really arrogant and foolish."
After briefly talking behind her kinfolk's backs, Amenora continued her explanation.
"But during that time, I came across one piece of news. It was information about Sea Dragons."
Sea Dragons are a race Osian was well familiar with because they were one of the three major dragon species residing in this world.
'Sea Dragons. That's a nostalgic name.'
The name was just nostalgic, but in the case of Sea Dragons, they didn't particularly remain strongly in his memory. The reason was simple. They didn't play a particularly major role in the game.
There were Earth Dragons that periodically attacked villages and were frequently encountered, or Sky Dragon Numenox and various other Sky Dragons that were very important gateways in the story. But in the case of Sea Dragons, the contact points were very low.
'Because most of them reside in the sea.'
In gameplay, the sea wasn't utilized as a field. Due to system limitations, you couldn't sail out on ships, and if you jumped into the sea, you'd essentially receive an instant death judgment for being outside the field.
So there were no opportunities to encounter Sea Dragons. Of course, it wasn't completely absent. Occasionally, there were cases of encountering Sea Dragons residing not in the sea but in other places.
'Even that was just young Sea Dragons residing in lakes appearing as special boss monsters in fields.'
If Earth Dragons resembled crawling komodo lizards on the ground, and Sky Dragons resembled refined and slender Western dragons, Sea Dragons resembled traditional Eastern dragons. With snake-like long bodies, small arms and legs, and horns and white manes growing on their heads.
That appearance was mystical yet reverent, and somehow projected a strong image.
'I only fought one young Sea Dragon. Even that one had become considerably weakened from being confined to a lake for a long time.'
So if asked how strong Sea Dragons were, even Osian couldn't easily answer. But the consensus was that they wouldn't be weak. After all, they were one of the three major dragon species.
'But that's not the only reason.'
Osian had one thing he remembered about Sea Dragons because there was a field event where you could witness a proper 'adult' Sea Dragon under special circumstances.
Sea Dragons could only operate underwater, but on rainy days, they could fly through the sky riding raindrops with the mystical power contained in their distinctive scales.
Therefore, if you went to the beach on a rainy day, you could witness a Sea Dragon ascending to heaven with low probability.
The sight of a massive dragon so overwhelming just to see from afar piercing through the clouds in the sky and soaring up created tremendous grandeur even if it was just graphics on a monitor.
And now, Amenora was mentioning those Sea Dragons.
"Do you know this? Sea Dragons lay eggs only once in their lifetime."
"That's the first I've heard of that."
This was novel information not available in the game.
"And among Sea Dragons, there are also ancient dragons that have lived since the time when Osian existed. And recently, that ancient dragon laid an egg after a truly long time."
Amenora's explanation continued. It was a very ordinary story according to natural law - that a Sea Dragon had laid an egg. But seeing Amenora's clearly tense expression, Osian instinctively knew this wasn't an ordinary matter.
"Sea Dragons have strong maternal instincts. Especially the maternal instinct of an ancient dragon that has finally come to hold an egg is beyond imagination. If anything happens to the nest, natural disasters would occur in the area."
Hearing up to this point, Osian had an intuition.
"Has a problem occurred?"
"I don't know the details. But listening to what my kinfolk explained, they say terrifying war clouds are swirling in the sea area where that ancient dragon resides."