CHAPTER 58: TRY IT, AND SEE.

"Every time I come here... I can tell even before stepping inside that the management here is doing a good job."

As the man’s voice came from the inside of the meeting room door, the sword hanging from his belt dragged against the wooden floor with a scraping sound. "And this inevitably reinforces our desire to be friends, Taras."

The man stopped just a couple of steps in front of Taras, the sound of the sword ceased, and a dozen more people followed him into the room, none of them looking the least bit trustworthy. In Taras’s unit, in the group where Maxim stood at the front, there was at least an air of hosts receiving guests. On the other hand, the new arrivals bore no trace of the cautiousness or respect befitting guests.

"Taras." The man did not extend his hand. Taras clearly had no intention of shaking it either. He merely parted his lips, "And you are?"

"Ah, I am Renzo, the main representative of Awakening."

"Hm." Taras looked at the man’s face, gave the faintest of nods, then pulled his gaze away as though losing interest. "I thought this meeting was supposed to be an important event," Taras said, moving with heavy steps to sit at the head chair of the long table.

"After the invitations we sent you and the shock of our latest victory... do you still not consider this meeting important?"

Taras didn’t answer the question right away, and instead, he turned his eyes to Maxim. "Maxim, go take care of what I told you, take two more with you."

The Awakening representative also shifted his gaze from Taras to Maxim, tilting his head. "Well, well... An omega esper?"

Maxim’s lips reflexively twitched to answer, but he kept silent. Ignoring the remark, he turned his back and picked two tight-lipped men from the group to help him protect Kiet.

As the two men moved, the Awakening representative, Renzo, kept talking to Taras about Maxim.

"Allowing omegas on the frontlines like this seems a bit careless, doesn’t it, Taras? If your omegas die, your unit’s birth rate will fall, and... the future of this... will be in danger."

"And how do you evaluate omegas, then?" Maxim asked heatedly. The representative’s eyes glimmered with a disturbing light as they roamed over Maxim. "I don’t think you want to know, darling."

Awakening supporter units mostly did not utilize omega espers on dungeon missions; instead, they relegated them solely to breeding and population growth. In some units, this practice had even gone so far as to include omega slaves bound to the unit leader.

So, even if these units provided food, shelter, and security to their own, it could not be said that humane conditions reigned there. And that was also precisely why Taras had ignored every one of their invitations.

As the Awakening representative laughed, watching Maxim leave the room with quick steps, several from his group chuckled while eyeing Maxim. Taras watched in silence, and when Maxim slammed the door shut, his deep voice cut through the chuckles.

"If this were truly an important meeting, they wouldn’t have sent a representative before me, a unit leader, am I wrong?" Taras asked without even really looking at Renzo. "I fail to understand why they didn’t send someone equal."

The smile instantly vanished from Renzo’s face. "I am also a unit leader. From Kohlhaas to Sayubin, every place is under my command, Taras. Are you saying we are not... equals?"

Several in the room swallowed as though their tongues had stuck to their palates from the tension. Taras leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and said with no eagerness left even to talk. "You are not an Awakening leader. You’re just a unit leader bound to the movement."

"And you, are you a leader opposing our movement? That is, in fact, what we want clarified."

As Taras silently fixed his eyes on him, Renzo went on, standing. "Our leaders, because you interfered in our last victory, do not wish to share their identities with you, Taras. The leaders understand that you will not move with them. However... you must accept that by interfering with our plan, you have crossed the line."

"Your plan... being to slaughter innocent espers and guides to spill blood and push the government into hunting the outskirts?"

Renzo laughed almost smugly at Taras’s words. "Innocent espers and guides? You call the privileged people within the borders innocent?"

Renzo looked at the faces of those in Taras’s group and asked, as if sincerely, "Do you all think this way like your leader? Do you believe there are innocents among those who abandoned us in the middle of nothingness?"

No one in the crowd answered. But this silence had nothing to do with disagreement with Taras; it was simply their refusal to dignify the question with a response, and their faces showed it plainly.

"Hah, your management team must be made up of mutes," Renzo said with a more irritated smile this time.

Taras gave a faint laugh as he looked at his own people, who hadn’t answered him, and asked, "What are you here for?"

"To learn why you stopped us from executing Treasure," Renzo said at once, without beating around the bush.

"If you cared so much about these so-called innocent espers and guides, I imagine you would have saved them too," Renzo continued.

In a way, for the first time, the Awakening representative was taken seriously ever since he entered here, as though he had actually said something logical. Heads turned toward Taras as Renzo leaned toward the table and, once more, with the sound of his sword scraping the wooden floor, like drawing a line that could not be crossed, asked.

But you only saved Treasure, the one most guilty, the dirtiest of them all. Awakening’s leaders, before forming an opinion about you and your unit, are understanding enough to hear your explanation. So, I hope you have a good reason for this, Taras. Why did you save Treasure?

"Because killing him would have served no purpose other than to cause an explosion in society," Taras said, rubbing the fingers of his hand that he had rested on the table. "And that attack, as you must know, would in the long run have only pushed people to side with the government."

"Long run? Hah, haha!"

As Renzo laughed like a beast, some in Taras’s group grimaced, while Taras simply watched the ugly sight without blinking.

To take Awakening as enemies had already been inevitable before this attack. From the moment they had violated the rights of the people in Taras’s unit, they had already become his enemies.

And yet... as Taras continued to watch the representative, whose ugly laughter finally ceased, his eyelid twitched for a moment.

Killing their representative and throwing him out the door wasn’t a good idea, was it?

Even though the end was inevitable, Taras knew he should not do anything to hasten the process. Before things escalated with Awakening, he needed more time to gather evidence with what he had obtained from Treasure, and that concrete proof, the paper.

To conquer a fortress from within, of course, could only be done slowly.

"Even if we have connections to the opposition, we... are not thinking of anything long term, Taras," Renzo said, the demonic glint in his eyes deepening.

"You should have understood that. In a few months, we are only interested in smashing everything, crushing the heads of everyone in this country except the outskirt people. After causing enough destruction, we will declare independence. Sending them off one by one to hell."

As Taras listened to Renzo to the end, he remembered how, once, right after his father’s death, that had been his dream too. A bloodthirsty desire for revenge, completely stripped of humanity.

But now, every day, providing food, resources, and everything else for the people who trusted him, building a life out of nothing, and being the one they relied upon had, little by little, tamed that bloodthirsty voice inside him.

Because Taras knew that after revenge, the next day, the day after that, and the days after that, his people, their loved ones, the children, would still need a life.

A life where bellies could be filled. Where children could still go to school. Where streets still flowed with the ordinariness of life, not drenched in blood.

"I will not take part in your plan," Taras said, his tone coming out hard as steel. "Your ideals do not align with my unit’s. And every time what you drag this country into turns into something that will harm my people, I will stop you. Tell them that."

Everyone in the room tensed as though witnessing a declaration of war delivered with chilling calm. Taras, without taking his eyes off Renzo, added,

"And tell your leaders that the next time they mess with my people at the border, I will do much more than this, Renzo."

"You know this... means war," Renzo said.

Taras almost laughed. "All you need to do is reconsider your plan."

"So... you are ready to risk everything?" Even as his resolve was questioned, Taras did not falter, leaning back once again as the heavy weight of alpha energy sank into the room. "What do you mean? We don’t need you. But you need us. Just as you did not allocate workforce to agriculture, choosing instead to do something as foolish as making people into sex slaves, now you are threatening the biggest unit that supplies you with resources?"

Taras’s unit was the largest provider of food to the other units. There were units in the outskirts that would starve to death without his support. Renzo smiled. "You’ll realize you made a mistake belittling our plan," he said, as Taras’s mocking expression stoked his anger.

"Do you think our people care about dying of hunger for this cause? This road we’ve taken, Awakening, means this, Taras. Either they die, or we do. And if you stand against us, either you die, Taras, or we do."

Taras shrugged. As he suddenly stood up, several in the room and even Renzo shifted uneasily. Though the fire of vengeance blazed alive in Renzo’s eyes, Taras’s unflinching, quiet composure -suppressing every other sound- was even more frightening for them.

"Escort the Awakening envoy and the others out," Taras said at last. Renzo let out a sound of disbelief and asked once more, as if for the very last time.

"So you’re saying... if we ever tried to kill Treasure again... you’d stop us?"

Taras fixed his gaze on Renzo’s eyes, pupils trembling despite his attempt at disdain. In those dark, unyielding eyes, the answer was already carved, an unspoken vow that no one, not a single soul, would be allowed to harm Treasure, let alone kill him.

Yet Taras’s lips parted slightly, as if determined to hammer it into everyone’s head. His voice spilled out like venom, sharper than even he had anticipated, more threat than words.

"Try it, and see."

A knock came at the door. Someone from the Awakening team entered, leaning down toward Renzo to whisper something into his ear. Renzo’s gaze, still caught on Taras’s deadly expression, snapped back in bewilderment. "What? But I was told there wouldn’t be any meetings."

"She’s coming to see him personally," the man replied.

Renzo shook his head, clearing his throat, then cast a sharp glance at Taras’s men, who had begun to close in on him. Forcing a smile, as if to gather himself, he turned back to Taras.

"One of our allies wants to speak with you, Taras."

Taras glanced indifferently toward the door. Reading his impassive face like a command, his men opened it. Before the ally could step through, Renzo began to speak, introducing the figure that was about to enter. "Ah... in fact, after you saved Treasure, there was a lady who had to lie countless times to clear all suspicions from herself. "

A woman entered the room, the woman who had led Le An out that night among the businessmen and brought him to the center of the balcony, where his execution had been planned.

It was Miss Maleah. Known as a government supporter, yet secretly in collaboration with the Awakening movement. And now, she was standing before Taras.