Chapter 218: Traitor
“We have a traitor among us.”
Around a round table, Willy rested his chin on his hands and said with a grim expression.
In front of him, at the other seats of the round table, sat the patriarchs of several other underground arms families.
These people were men and women, old and young.
Some looked righteous, while others had shifty, thieving eyes.
But no matter what, upon hearing Willy’s words, everyone present immediately grew grim and began to look at everyone else with undisguised suspicion.
It was as if by suspecting others fast enough, they could prove their own innocence.
The flickering candlelight on the candlestick reflected in Willy’s gold-rimmed glasses, perfectly concealing his eyes and making his true thoughts unreadable.
“Kuge, it’s you, woman!”
A man who was thin and clearly lacked vitality was the first to slam his hand on the table.
“Oh? Sendog, don’t make wild accusations without evidence~”
The woman named Kuge looked at her newly done nails and said nonchalantly.
Although she looked only forty or fifty years old, by actual age, she was one of the oldest at the round table.
“Wild accusations? Who doesn’t know you’ve taken a fancy to that pretty boy from the Mediya family, and that you’ve probably already used him to get on Beasts Pirates’ good side and sold us all out?”
“Heh~ What, are you jealous because I found him? Or are you holding a grudge because I dumped you back then, and now you’re stepping up for personal revenge?”
“Pah! You old hag, you dare talk about back then! If it weren’t for you back then…”
“Enough! Stop bickering!”
An elder patriarch tapped his crutch, forcibly ending the emotional dispute.
“The important thing now isn’t discussing that brat from the Mediya family, but how we’re going to face Beasts Pirates, that colossal entity!”
With the establishment of the second and third arms factories by Beasts Pirates, the large market share left vacant by Old Mediya’s departure was instantly devoured.
And the other party clearly had no intention of stopping, continuing their rampant expansion.
Everyone seemed to feel a pair of scarlet vertical pupils staring intently at them, as if in the next moment a gaping maw would swallow them whole, flesh and bone.
“Willy, you summoned us here, so what do you propose we do?”
Looking at Willy, who remained silent at the head of the table, the elder asked.
“Sigh~”
“My proposal… is that our families temporarily put aside our past quarrels and unite for now.”
“Whether we fight or negotiate, having a larger scale will give us more chips.”
“…”
“Indeed, we can only do it this way for now.”
“I second that.”
“I second that.”
“I second that.”
…
“I second that.”
As the last family representative nodded, facing immense external pressure, a vast underworld military-industrial complex was born.
No one mentioned the traitor anymore, as if that traitor had never existed from the beginning.
“So what do we do next?”
“Let’s test their attitude first. Go and capture that kid from the Mediya family and send him over to Beasts Pirates.”
Willy, temporarily serving as the leader of the conglomerate, said so.
Right now, everyone in the underworld knows that Caspar caused trouble at Big Mom’s ceremony, tried to flirt with Beasts Pirates’ executives, and then, without any brains, revealed all the major players’ weaknesses.
Honestly, the fact that this kid has managed to last this long is purely because Beasts Pirates hasn’t made a move yet, causing others to hesitate. After all, no one dares to snatch prey from that colossal entity.
The reason Beasts Pirates has been slow to act is… they forgot.
To be precise, they didn’t remember Caspar at all.
Aoxi, due to later events, completely forgot about the minor incident involving Caspar.
Obei, on the other hand, hadn’t even paid attention to this person from the start.
Lati did mention him in a report, but Kaido doesn’t read reports.
Caspar is currently like a lucky mouse; the dragons above don’t care, and the jackals below dare not move.
…
The party ended, and the guests departed.
After the family representatives, who appeared united and hostile to outsiders, had left, a mentally exhausted Willy went to his study, where the mansion’s butler was already waiting.
“Master.”
“Mm.”
“Has Lati fallen asleep?”
“Miss has already gone to bed.”
“That’s good.”
When his daughter was mentioned, a smile would always involuntarily appear at the corner of Willy’s mouth.
She was the most precious gift left by his deceased wife, and his only family that he had to protect at all costs.
“Bring me paper and a pen. I need to write a letter, and I’ll need you to deliver it to Beasts Pirates tonight.”
“…Please.”
With that, Willy bowed respectfully to his young butler.
“Master…”
The butler quickly helped his master up.
“Don’t worry, I will deliver it! Even if it costs me my life!”
…
In reality, the delivery of the letter was far less perilous than the butler imagined; by the evening of the next day, he had safely delivered the letter to Fenrir Island.
Along the way, they were only questioned upon entering Fenrir Island’s sea area; other than that, they encountered no waves larger than a ripple.
Under the subtle gaze of the Beasts Pirates reception staff, the butler handed over the letter, and without even touching the hospitality banquet, he swiftly returned to the mansion to report.
“Hmm?”
“Another one?”
“This should be the last family, right~”
In a small room next to the warehouse, Wright examined the gilded envelope sealed with the elegant family crest of the Willy family, but had no intention of opening it.
After all, he had already seen many letters with similar content, so he knew what was inside without even opening it.
“That’s right, Teacher.”
“According to the intelligence provided by the person named Mediya Caspar, the Willy family is the last of the major families controlling the underworld arms trade in the New World.”
At some point, Dante, who now wore rimless glasses and had a refined demeanor like Wright, stated a shocking fact calmly.
That’s right, even though Willy immediately wrote letters to sell out the other families after the meeting, he was still a step too late… no, he was several steps too late.
In fact, not long after he sent out the invitation letters for his butler to gather the other families, their letters of surrender were already on Beasts Pirates’ table.
And the fastest to act was the head of the Mediya family, Mediya Caspar.
After finishing his business in the wild, this guy immediately packed up all the confidential materials left by Old Mediya and sent them to Beasts Pirates.
These included secrets of all the major figures in the underworld collected by his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather over three generations.
Of course, the focus was on the interest network between those major arms families and the World Government, special sales channels, and hidden raw material production sites.
It can be said that Mediya took nearly a century to completely strip bare the secrets of these competing families.
And the current head of the Mediya family, ‘Lone Wolf’ Caspar, after being scared by a certain old woman, decisively made the most correct decision.
As long as he didn’t have to play steel ball with an old woman twice his age, he would be willing to lick the boots of a rude brat every day.
…
“Still so slow, sending the letter this late, are you still holding onto some glimmer of hope?”
Wright wanted to toss the letter aside, but upon seeing someone in the corner suddenly look over, he understood and got up to hand the letter over.
“According to the information from the Mediya family head, this Willy is a cautious and steady person. He will carefully consider every decision, and the more important the decision, the longer he will think.”
Lati, who was sitting in the corner knitting yarn, put down her work, took the envelope, and used her golden knitting needle to pick open the sealing wax.
“Correspondingly, once he makes a decision, he will arrange everything that follows.”
Taking out the letter inside, Lati read it carefully and then handed it back to Wright.
“See, just as I said, Mr. Willy has already begun to lay out the red carpet for us.”
“Red carpet…?”
Wright curiously took the letter and, along with Dante, began to read it under the small fusion energy desk lamp Lati had placed on the table.
