The Goblin Empire got some news. A few spies on the Thousand Small Kingdoms reported Jack’s unusual behavior but, at the time the Goblin Empire and Demon Kingdom sent their assault troops, all that happened was for both sides to clash.

However, the Kingdom’s assault troops were comprised of mostly neuromancers, while the Empire’s were comprised of max-leveled players.

The former had no way to defend against the complex scripts used by the first, so, even though the Empire began with a heavy charge and managed to kill a couple dozen of their troops, the Kingdom laughed in the end - as over two thousand max-leveled Empire troops got killed - while their souls got trapped and brought back to the Kingdom.

Still, it wasn’t a great achievement. Every single of those dozen neuromancers was worth a whole platoon of max leveled players, so, in the end, it was somewhat of a pyrrhic victory.

Unknowingly, Jack had destroyed both the Kingdom’s as the Empire’s assault troops, bringing the shadows of war to a stalemate - the Kingdom wouldn’t attack the Empire without their Assault troops, as, even if they managed to breach the Empire’s protections, they would still need to invade the dungeon and deal with the players inside. The assault team was the one to do the duty, and breaching the fortress without conquering it was a waste of resources.

As for the Empire, it wouldn’t be able to launch any kind of attacks so soon - it’s Assault forces were involved in preparing for guerrilla warfare, so, now, the Kingdom would be able to rebuild its troops without fear of being pressured.

However, getting new neuromancers was a bit easier than training players to get to Max Level. Not only could Carlos train a bunch of people to become programming monkeys in no time, he also had access to the Real World and a good number of neurosets as well. Training would take a couple years or something, while getting “new blood” inside could be done almost immediately!

As for the Goblin Empire… it would take at least a decade to train new people!

Of course, the Demon Kingdom had a huge advantage in this case - they could just take the souls of their lost comrades and put them on new bodies, NPC bodies spawned at Carlos’ dungeon.

While Marcus had lost his subordinates’ souls, and the hard-earned skill and experience of each one of them had was irreplaceable!

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Even if he expended his hard-earned mana on strong NPCs and killed some of his loyal followers near them, in hopes of their minds taking the NPC bodies, it would take a long time for them to adapt to the NPC’s skills and optimize their performances!

Not to mention, Max Level NPCs were so costly he would end up broke!

In his throne room, Carlos smiled while looking at the frozen body of the late Demon King Orloss, whose mind used to be the one of Meredith, the pure and sheltered girl.

Victory was in his grasp. The only real question was the price he was willing to pay in order to get it.

***

- I’m back.

- Welcome back.

An old man took his neuroset off. Carlos had aged well. His body was still vigorous and he had little white hair.

In front of him, a young man prepared some tea, which he heartily drank.

- How are the negotiations with the Armenian guys?

- They seem to be interested in the deal, but the pictures they sent seem to have been meddled with. We reconstructed the original to our best, but the results were inconclusive.  

Carlos walked slowly and took a towel while heading to the bath.

- Call it off them, and contact Kim. I want to know what is happening.

Kim Katagary. Thirty years ago, Carlos worked with him. Now, as both found each other, they had started a business relationship.

Kim would give him info on who could have neurosets for selling, while he would intermediate his dealings with contacts while using his Another World influence and power.

Generally speaking, it was a very profitable business association between former co-workers.

- Also, what about Jack’s daughter?

- Her grandmother died and she is being held for questioning as we speak, sir. Should we send someone over?

Carlos stopped in his tracks, while a huge smile surfaced on his face.

- What a heavens-sent… do send someone to do something about it.

***

- How do I contact him?

- I… do not know…

- Why can’t I teleport?

- You need… to destroy me… to teleport…

Sasha was trapped inside Marcus. The old programmer had been, in a certain sense, fortunate. His mind wandered and found a NPC body to enter on. However, that was the body of the Living Fortress - a Late Game NPC which was, basically, a living dungeon which had no masters or core.

Unless it was killed, Marcus was bound to be immovable for all eternity - or at least for a long time, since the Living Dungeon was located deeply inside the earth and hadn’t been discovered so soon.

In fact, had he not been stalking Jack and Elicia’s secondary avatars, he probably wouldn’t have had entered this dungeon in the first place.

Jack’s puny level 40 avatar obviously couldn’t defeat him, and Marcus wouldn’t let Sasha go as well.

He wanted to be rescued, but he had no guarantees. He might have helped both Jack and Elicia back in the day, but he also abandoned them once things got too ugly.

All he needed was for someone to destroy him. It should be enough to have Sasha on a lock-down for a while, right?