"Wait a second!"
The door opened, and the CZE of Swirling Abyss ran out of the door.
"Is there something else you want?" the Governor asked with annoyance.
The middle-aged man with black hair looked with surprise and shock at the Governor.
Seriously, what the hell was going on with her?!
Why was she suddenly like this?!
Usually, someone like the CZE of Swirling Abyss would already feel insulted and would become more forceful, but his surprise far outweighed his anger.
He just didn't know how to interact with the Governor right now.
"You, you can't just say something like that and believe that the matter is done!" the CZE shouted.
The door opened again, and the other three people also walked out.
"We are here for justice! We are not here-"
Suddenly, the CZE stopped talking in surprise.
The Governor just turned around and started to continue walking down the hallway without saying anything.
What?!
Why?!
Why was she suddenly like this?!
The Governor was extremely nervous deep inside, but she did a tremendous job of keeping her nervousness secret.
She felt like she was playing with fire.
This felt like a really, really bad idea!
Why was the Specter forcing her to disrespect these people so much?!
The Governor wanted to ease the tension, but the Specter kept whispering to her to stay stalwart and dismissive.
"Wait!" the CZE shouted.
"Listen!" The Governor exploded as she explosively turned around with a frustrated voice. "Stop bullshitting!"
The CZE became silent again as his head leaned back with a shocked expression.
"You're representing a Manufacturer," the Governor spoke with annoyance. "You want money. You want advantages. You want special treatment. You want growth."
"The only things that care about justice are humans, and companies are not humans."
"Trying to act like you give a shit about any of the people that died in the last couple of days is the equivalent of insulting my intelligence."
"All of us are veterans in the industry. All of us have killed people before. All of us broke the law before."
"Listen, I don't have the time nor the energy to entertain your little political game. I gave you a chance to become the monopoly of Zephyx production in the city."
"M O N O P O L Y!" the Governor spoke slowly.
"Is there something else that you want?" she asked before turning to look at the CEO of Swirling Abyss. "Does Swirling Abyss want even more than that? Is that not enough? Is being the monopoly not enough? Tell me!"
The CZE became more and more shocked.
Who was this person?!
Who the fuck was this?!
"Wait a second," the CEO of Swirling Abyss said, looking at his CZE.
The CZE looked with confusion at the CEO.
Then, he looked at the Governor again.
And back to the CEO.
Finally, he shook his head in confusion and walked over to the CEO.
The CEO took a deep breath and looked at the Governor with a serious expression.
"Can you, once again, confirm what you have said earlier?" he asked. "You said that we would have the legal opportunity to fight our competition without any restrictions from the law. Is that correct?"
"Not entirely," the Governor said. "You have to keep the civilian damages to a minimum. That naturally includes framing the other side for civilian casualties."
"We would nev-"
"Ssshh!" the CEO quickly hushed his CZE before looking back at the Governor. "Can you be a bit more specific?"
"Too much needless work," the Governor said. "I am being honest with you right now. I'm not using some kind of fancy political language that can be interpreted in strange ways that allow me to play around with you. I'm being sincere here."
"Don't be an asshole," she said slowly. "That is everything I ask of you. Just do not be an asshole, and we won't be having any issues."
A moment later, the CEO smirked.
However, his smirk was not a victorious or arrogant one.
It was more like the smirk of someone who was looking forward to a good competition or a good fight.
"Fine by me," the CEO said.
"But…"
"If you are being honest, I will also be honest."
The Governor casually nodded.
The next moment, the CEO narrowed his eyes, and his aura turned extremely dominant and threatening.
"If you decide to break your neutrality…"
"There are wild Demons around here…"
He didn't directly say it, but everyone understood him.
He had said that they would kill the Governor.
Naturally, this had never happened before in this city, and none of them would have ever believed that this would happen.
After all, they were all playing this fancy political game, and doing something like that was taboo.
The Governor had broken the rules of the political game with her frank statements earlier, and the CEO of Swirling Abyss had done the same thing.
In a way, breaking the rules was like descending a level or lowering oneself, and the CEO had followed her to a lower level.
Now, he just wanted to ask for confirmation.
And the Governor answered.
"Naturally," she spoke casually with a nod.
The CEO's eyes shone a bit before he glanced at the two people from Vertigo Box.
The two people from Vertigo Box looked back.
The only one who seemed a bit confused at this point was the CZE from Swirling Abyss.
Everyone else seemed to have accepted the new political state.
"Finally," the CZE from Vertigo Box said. "I've been rearing to prove myself for a while."
The next moment, the CEO from Vertigo Box walked forward and offered his hand to the CEO from Swirling Abyss with a smile.
"Let's have a good, clean fight," he said.
The CEO from Swirling Abyss shook his hand and smiled back.
"Don't die too quickly," he said casually, like he was commenting on the weather.
The two looked at each other for almost five seconds as they kept shaking their hands.
It was so long that it already started being awkward.
"Well then," the CEO from Swirling Abyss said with charisma as he pulled his hand back and looked at the Governor. "We will be going now. We have… things to prepare."
The Governor just nodded.
The CEO from Swirling Abyss walked by his CZE and gestured for him to follow.
The CZE scratched the back of his head a bit, shrugged, and followed after his CEO.
"Governor," the CEO from Vertigo Box said.
The Governor looked at the CEO.
"That was an… interesting conversation," the CEO spoke, "but not unpleasant. I'm looking forward to working with you more closely in the future."
The Governor nodded, and the two people from Vertigo Box also left the building.
After they left, the Governor's body swayed a bit, and she started to breathe rapidly as her cold gaze turned into a shocked one.
It worked!
It worked?
How did that work?!
Any of these two companies could kill her, but simply acting like a dismissive asshole, she managed to not only not anger them but even make them happy?
They had been here to demand compensation!
They had been furious at her!
But now, they left happily without even asking her to sacrifice something!
This… how was this possible?!
"Surprised?" a voice spoke in her mind.
Naturally, that voice came from Nick.
Over the past couple of months, while Nick had been surveilling the city, he had also practiced a bit more with creating manipulation lines.
Since it was much easier for Specters to create manipulation lines in their Specter Cores, Nick also didn't need a lot of practice to find a way to send his voice to someone.
Nick had found many ways to send his voice to someone, and the way he had come up with was quite unique.
The words Nick wanted to speak would be interpreted into Zephyx, which was then sent to a person's cochlea. The cochlea then directly interpreted the Zephyx into nerve signals that mimicked a human voice.
Compared to normal speech, the speed was almost instantaneous, and the signal didn't stretch to other people, making it almost impossible to overhear.
One would think that this technique could be used as a mental attack on someone, but sadly, that wasn't the case.
Anything dangerous would get blocked by the Barrier.
The only reason why Nick could even make this technique usable on strong people was because he had learned quite a bit about Zephology by now, and he knew enough to access the transmission channels of the Barriers.
These transmission channels were freely accessible, but one needed to learn how to access them first.
Otherwise, every voice transmission would be blocked by the Barriers.
The Governor took a deep breath and nodded.
Yes, she was surprised.
"They are used to fancy plates, shiny forks, and beautiful knives when eating their food," Nick transmitted. "However, they only use them because everyone else is using them."
"But if you use the right words and the right attitude, you can ask them to use their hands."
"Most people just want to eat their food and be done with it, and as long as they are not insecure, they will be fine with using their hands to eat if it makes things faster."
"They want more power."
"All of the power is held by the other side."
"And you let them attack that side."
"It doesn't matter how you present it. The fact is that you gave them exactly what they wanted."
"Additionally, since you were so vague with the rules, they will err on the side of caution in the battle, causing fewer issues for the normal people."
"Now, we only need to deal with the riot outside the gate."
"And that will be even easier."
The Governor looked at the exit of the building.
Then, she took a deep breath and walked out.