Inside the meeting room...

"Those old bastards…" No matter how much Lucas cursed, it didn't quench his anger. He wasn't even sure to whom he was supposed to direct his anger. Those old fogies of the council who blocked him from communicating with Aiden or Aiden, who didn't receive the call when he had the chance.

*Knock* *Knock*

"What is it?" Lucas' outburst did not faze his assistant as he had already been used to it.

"I contacted Dr Sachi's office," he took a moment to look at the face of his boss and said, "she went to the meeting."

"Meeting? What kind of meeting takes… those bastards." The moment he realized it, he exploded again. "Get out."

The assistant did as he was told, and at the next moment Lucas took out the gear and put it on.

He was standing in front of the door. The screen was there too, but when he entered the authorization code, it didn't respond at all.

"What the hell?" Anger wasn't the right term to express his mood. But before he could bang on the virtual door of the room, a virtual woman took form in front of him.

"How can I help you, sir?"

"Open the door." Lucas' voice sounded like a growl of a wild animal.

Yet the woman said with a smile, "That won't be possible, sir. The meeting is already underway."

"I know. That's why I want to enter."

"We can't do that, sir."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" His eyes were already red, as Lucas shouted, "you m*therf*cker didn't even let me know. You blocked my contact, and now you're…"

No matter how much he shouted, neither those sitting inside the room nor Aiden, standing in front of them, could hear him.

Aiden took a deep breath, looked at the dark human shape of the last row and said, "I killed Alex."

"Why?" A man from the front row asked. It was a person he'd seen in news and ads. He was the owner of the tech company that had created the PADS series. However, he has a different identity, he's the father of Alex.

"I had misunderstood that he was trying to kill me." Aiden's voice didn't even waver as he looked straight into his eyes and answered.

"So you accept that you killed Alex?" It was someone from the second row. Aiden wasn't sure about the identity of most of them, but he could guess that they might be the nine directors of the federation.

"I never denied it." Aiden could guess the direction in which the conversation was heading, yet he was still calm.

"What are we waiting for?" Aiden didn't notice who was speaking, but he was the one to answer.

"Get him to a lab, extract the data and send him to prison. Or much better, hang him." Nobody in the meeting room had expected to hear such words from Aiden. It took a moment before they could recover.

"What are you talking about? Is it some kind of joke? Do you even know who we are?"

The angry voice put a smile on his face. Aiden replied, "To hold a trial with a time limit of 24 hours..." Looking at the empty seat on the first row, he added, "To cut off communication with the only person who was in support and not letting me contact my family... Whoever you are, you are certainly capable."

"Impudent." An old voice yelled from the darkness of the last row, "Do you understand the consequences of your words?"

Aiden took a deep breath and said, "Didn't I answer you? You will either turn me into a lab rat or kill me at most."

'Is he the one who had saved my son?' Dr Sachi was not sure when he heard from Owen that Aiden was the one who saved him. When she first heard about him, she was a little curious about Aiden.

Her curiosity increased from the list she had received from Lucas. But now that she was facing Aiden herself, she wanted to know what had happened to him to change him so much.

Aiden, on the other hand, turned to the host and said, "Do you have any way to put some images on the screen?"

"Huh!" The host took a moment to react, "you can send me the image and I can put it on."

Aiden shook his head and said, "It would be better if you permit me. And if possible, please contact Lyla."

The host wasn't sure how the little boy in front of him was so calm. However, he didn't waste much time thinking about it and soon sprang into action. After a few actions, he confirmed that Aiden could use the screen.

Aiden wasn't sure if the people who were sitting in front of him were flustered or waiting for him to say something, but he still put some pictures on the screen.

It was a red man whose body was half human and half bull. Those who were inside the room didn't realize what Aiden was trying to do, but as soon as the next picture appeared, shock drowned their calmness.

An enormous cavern, covered with many mana crystals in every direction, with a giant white mana crystal hanging from the centre of the roof.

Aiden didn't bother to explain what it was and put it on the next picture. It was a small cave with crystals coming out of every direction.

For some, it wasn't much different from the last picture. But for those who knew about it, there was no difficulty in realizing that it was chaos-ore mine.

However, he changed the image of the screen again. Now it was showing a mountain split in two, with buildings coming out of the giant crevice. Beside it was the image of a giant wall that was over ten meters tall.

Silence wrapped up the room, but Aiden didn't rush it. He waited until they could recover their calm. Soon enough, one from the last rows fired the first question.

"What do you want to say? We already know that you have cleared all the missions. So it is natural that you will have the image."

"I want three things." Aiden said with a smile on his face, "First, don't touch my family, neither actively nor passively. Second, let me have a peaceful life. Last but not the least, I don't need any other rewards, but give me the credits I've accumulated with the credit points."

'Is this boy trying to negotiate with those old fogies?' In her heart, Sachi sighed. 'Even if you've gone through a lot of things, you have no idea how high the sky is.'

Yet Aiden wasn't finished. He said, "In exchange, I will give you the information, and I won't tell anyone that you have tried to turn me into a mana crystal."

A shiver ran down her spine as Sachi stared at the teenager in front of her. She did not understand what was going on in Aiden's head, but looking at the empty seat beside her, she cursed in her heart, 'Why isn't Lucas here?'

"What are you saying?" It was one of the directors who yelled, "Do you want us to pardon you for the crime you have committed?"

"Aren't we doing that?" Aiden's face was sincere as the picture on the screen changed again. Lines of massage continued to appear behind him.

[... She had the paper from the federation. One of the directors has sanctioned the experiment. There was…]

Through the string of messages that continued to pass, this line was especially bright. Aiden said, "I didn't see the original thing, but Alex said it was signed by one of the directors."

"If the log of the ship doesn't mysteriously disappear, I think you can find the conversion of Alex and Elijah in it. But I don't think you will find any trace of documents of the illegal experiment in the director's office, right?"

"We can just kill you and send another expedition back to earth."

From the beginning, he was nervous. Even if he spoke confidently and with a smile, he knew very well that a wrong step might send his family and him down the path of doom.

When he heard those words, a shiver went down his spine. Yet he felt lucky that his body was not standing here, otherwise, his leg would have been given away.

'I was too naive.' Aiden sighed, looking back at the dark row. Two months on Earth had sharpened his senses a lot, yet he had never thought he would meet with such a strong killing intent inside the virtual space.

'I don't have any other way.' Aiden whispered the words to his heart to calm himself down as the screen behind changed again. There was the detail of the devil on one side and a paused video on the right.

"Let me tell you the secret of my success. I think you had already sent sizeable forces on this place multiple times, yet all the failed missions could be traced back to this one monster."

"One touch from this A-graded monster and you are dead." As he finished the sentence, the introductory video of the devil played on the screen.

"Well, that explains the high mortality rate." Aiden said as the video ended and he continued, "But the success of the missions, if not the success of our entire expedition, depended on one key point."

Aiden said nothing and played another video on the screen. The video begins with the devil charging at the camera and latches on the person from whose point of view the video was recorded.

However, unlike the last video, it didn't blacken out. As the person looked down, the video showed that the devil was rubbing itself on the chest.

The sound of the video faded, but the silence didn't. Midst of silence, a woman's body took shape next to him. With a bright smile on his face Aiden said, "As you can see, the devil's touch couldn't kill me."

A picture of Adi's humanoid form took shape on the screen with the S-graded detail next to it. "And our captain can vouch that 'Adi' would have killed them if they weren't 'friends' of mine."

Without waiting for Lyla to confirm his claim, he asked, "Do you think there's anyone who can survive the devil's assault or make a friend out of an S-graded monster?"