?Nick took a deep breath and nodded.
"I have no other choice," he said.
The two people from Anatomy didn't say anything, subtly telling Nick that they wanted to hear more.
"Quite frankly, I know that Kugelblitz wants to kill me as soon as possible," Nick said. "You've probably already heard about the fake contract, right?"
The two of them nodded.
"I think Vernon killed his son to get Dark Dream. I don't know how things got this way, but I'm pretty sure about it."
"I mean, he didn't even grieve for ten minutes before he approached me to ask about my 30% of Dark Dream."
"He probably thought that I was easy to manipulate since I wasn't born in the Inner City."
Nick narrowed his eyes as he looked at the table.
"But I'm not."
Then, he shook his head.
"Anyway, I know that I can't protect Dark Dream since I am only an Initial Veteran. So, I have no other choice but to sell Dark Dream."
The two from Anatomy looked silently at Nick, making him nervous.
Then, they exchanged a glance.
"We don't think that's what happened," Mundus said neutrally.
Nick's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"While we wouldn't put it past Melfion to kill his son for money, we also know that he's more intelligent than that," Zarren said from the side.
"The timing and manner of everything is too strange. Melfion also wouldn't have made it so easy to disprove his contract."
"If he had planned something like that, he would have sent someone to exchange your copy and his son's copy in secret."
"Additionally, he wouldn't have killed his son right in front of his own place of work."
"Maybe there's some kind of hidden plot or meaning to commit such a dumb act, but for the life of me, I can't see it," Zarren explained.
Behind the desk, Mundus chuckled a bit.
"When looking at the facts, we're way more suspicious than Melfion," he said with dry amusement.
Nick looked at the two of them with a bit of anxiety.
"But you didn't do it, right?" he asked.
The two of them looked at Nick for a couple of seconds.
"Of course not," Zarren said calmly.
If Nick wasn't sure that he had been the one who killed Wyntor, he would think that they had killed him.
They acted just way too sinister and untrustworthy.
'Do they want me to believe that it was them to intimidate me so that I wouldn't ask for a lot of money?' Nick thought.
"How many Specters do you have, and how strong are they?" Mundus asked.
Nick looked with discomfort at them.
This was highly confidential.
However, he had to tell them since he was about to sell Dark Dream anyway.
"Nine Adolescents and three Hatchlings," Nick said.
The two of them showed no reaction.
For a couple of seconds, Mundus just wrote something on a sheet of paper.
Then, he gave the sheet of paper to Zarren, who looked at it.
Lastly, he nodded at Mundus.
Mundus turned back to Nick.
"80 million," he said. "Additionally, you get a spot as team leader, and we will also hire all of the current employees."
Nick took a deep breath.
That was a lot of money.
Nick closed his eyes for a while.
"Thank you," he said.
"But I can't give you a positive answer without asking Ghosty's Lab, Gemini, and Solace for offers."
The atmosphere in the room changed, and the two of them looked at Nick with cold eyes.
Nick looked back.
Over ten seconds of silence passed.
Mundus looked at Zarren.
Zarren furrowed his brows.
"120 million," he said.
Nick took another deep breath.
"Thank you, but I still have to ask the others."
The two of them looked at each other again.
"Are you going to ask Kugelblitz as well?" Mundus asked after a while.
"My goal is to survive," Nick said. "If I enter Kugelblitz, I might as well jump into the Crimson Sea right now."
Mundus and Zarren looked at each other again.
"Alright," Zarren said. "But just to be safe, we want you to decide by tomorrow, and we also want three of our people to guard you until then. None of us want you to die to some assassin from Kugelblitz."
Nick nodded. "Thank you very much."
The three of them nodded and left Mundus' office.
Nick quickly received three of Anatomy's Experts as bodyguards and left the building.
Next, Nick went to Ghosty's Lab to talk to their CEO.
Naturally, Ghosty's Lab was also interested in purchasing Dark Dream.
However, they only offered 90 million credits.
Nick kept all the offers secret.
Next, Nick went to Gemini and met with the twins.
He was quite surprised when they offered 150 million credits.
Nick thanked them for their offers and left to talk to Solace.
His talk with Hera was the longest, and her offer was also quite unique.
She would give Nick 10% of Solace in exchange for all of Dark Dream, making Nick a director.
Additionally, Nick would also become one of their team leaders, working under Hera.
Hera told Nick that she was quite impressed by him and that she had a very high opinion of him.
She would love to work with him.
Solace's offer was incredible since 10% of Solace already represented about 300 million credits.
It seemed like Solace put much more value on Nick as a person instead of Dark Dream.
However, Solace might also not have the strength to protect Nick from Kugelblitz.
After getting all of his offers, Nick returned to Dark Dream.
The three people from Anatomy kept watch over Dark Dream, and several Veterans from Anatomy were scouting Dark Dream's surroundings.
They didn't want any of Dark Dream's employees to come to harm.
Nick met a couple more people in his office over the day.
The next day, in the early morning, Nick publicized his decision.
And the decision shocked everyone!
Nick wasn't selling Dark Dream to Anatomy.
He also wasn't selling it to Ghosty's Lab.
He wasn't selling it to Gemini.
And he also wasn't selling it to Solace.
The entire city heard the news.
60% of Dark Dream was sold to its new CEO.
Julian!