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Was it difficult to attend Hansen's banquet?

If you threw that question at citizens scraping by on the streets, unable to land even a decent job, it would be harder than climbing to heaven—the big shots in suits at that banquet were people they could only glimpse fragments of in braindances.

But for those truly qualified to receive an invitation, whether or not to attend Hansen's banquet was merely a matter of whether they were willing to lower themselves and make a trip to that dump called Dogtown.

At least, that had been the case before.

Now, undercurrents churned through Dogtown. Anyone with eyes could smell that something was wrong with this banquet, yet it happened to coincide with Hansen's selection of an heir. Every faction had no choice but to grit its teeth and attend. As a result, every name on the guest list had become worthy of scrutiny.

Of course, that only applied to the formally invited guests who intended to take part.

For outsiders—especially outsiders who now had every reason to show their faces at the banquet—no matter how difficult the event was to infiltrate, it was worth taking the risk.

"Hansen's making such a big show of announcing he'll choose an heir. What do you think? Doesn't look like that old fox genuinely intends to retire."

In a safehouse temporarily arranged through Slider's network, Mingzhi had sent the team members away on the pretext of "important business." He casually bit into a cream bun while discussing this sudden development with Slider, who had come alone, and Kenichi Shiro, disguised as a consultant.

"Hansen definitely has New America's fatal weakness in his hands. I still don't know exactly what it is, but it must be a shocking secret capable of shaking the very foundations of the Federation.