The moment I took over the negotiations again, I was faced with a problem.
R5 had disappeared.
In my view, there was a high chance that he had faked his disappearance to stall for time and prevent the negotiations from proceeding smoothly.
These negotiations were important to us, but they might not be important to them for the time being.
They had twenty thousand people, and every one of them was an elite of their organization. Ordinary people in our world could not compare to them. Even our special forces could never reach that level.
The only ones capable of contending with them were the major Ancient Clans. Even the hidden families controlled by the Administration Bureau could only barely hold their own against them. So for us, meeting them head-on in a hard battle would be unwise.
Therefore, we could only pin our hopes on negotiations.
Of course, I did not rule out the possibility of using force, but that would be a decision made only after we had talked.
And they had probably seen right through that.
Still, they were clever. They were not openly opposing us. They had agreed to negotiate and even given us a promising start, but they were unwilling to simply accept our demands. Their original goal had been to become the rulers of this world.
If nothing had happened to R9, if their base still existed, and if there had been no problems at their headquarters, then they would have presented an entirely different face when dealing with us.
So, in their eyes, their willingness to play along stemmed from uncertainty about the future.
What worried them most was likely the trouble at their headquarters.
If their organization underwent a major upheaval, where would they go from there? That was the choice they