One Year

"Chirp~ Chirp~"

Somewhere in a forest, a pair of sparrows chirped merrily.

Blinding sunlight streamed through gaps between maple leaves, spilling across the damp earth. Looking closer, one could also see all kinds of mosquitoes and other insects buzzing around.

Of course, the place was not without that furtive instant-noodle enthusiast—Raccoon.

If someone set up a camera here, the footage would definitely be worthy of National Geographic or Animal World. Everything looked so serene and beautiful.

"Rumble—rumble!"

However, the roar of a black Humvee's engine shattered nature's tranquility.

Although there was no proper road for vehicles through the forest, the Humvee relied on its brutal off-road capabilities to drive deeper into the woods as if it were traveling over flat ground.

Inside the vehicle;

"Whew... hah..." Someone's breathing could be heard as they slept soundly.

In the driver's and front passenger's seats sat Alpha and Hunk, both dressed in suits.

In the back sat William, leaning against the soft padding with his head tilted back and mouth open as he slept deeply.

"Grrr! Grrr!" The tires seemed to have rolled over some fairly large rocks, making the vehicle jolt violently.

Even William swayed with the vehicle, yet the commotion still failed to wake him.

"Lieutenant."

Alpha, who was driving the Humvee, asked Hunk, "We're almost there. Should I wake the boss?"

Hunk replied flatly, "No. Let the boss rest a little longer."

"Yes, Lieutenant."

The two Alphas fell silent again, leaving only William's steady breathing in the vehicle.

Not long afterward.

The Humvee passed through the stretch of obstacles and arrived on a dirt road concealed beneath even denser foliage.

"Ugh~! Ah~!"

William stretched, rubbed his sore neck, then lowered the window and looked outside.

The cool breeze beneath the shade of the trees cleared his head considerably.

It was August 17, 2007. More than a year had passed since William came to this world.

Umbrella had also developed at a breakneck pace over the past year, monopolizing the vast majority of Canada's businesses.

Even though outsiders had no idea how much wealth William actually possessed, the American magazine Fortune had still ranked Umbrella twentieth among the world's top five hundred companies.

Fortune had based its calculations on Umbrella's publicly known businesses, estimating its operating revenue at around 100 billion, its profits at roughly 14 billion, and its workforce at 120,000 employees.

Umbrella's various figures had overwhelmed Bank of America, making it the world's twentieth-ranked company.

And the world's number one?

It was...

Walmart.

That's right, Walmart.

Walmart's operating revenue was 351.1 billion, while its profits were 11.2 billion.

Yet BP, ranked second in the world, had profits as high as 22 billion. Even Umbrella's 14 billion fell short. So how had Walmart reached number one in the world?

That was because Walmart's workforce had reached the terrifying figure of 1.9 million employees, allowing it to retain the top spot on the Fortune 500 for many years.

However, Fortune's evaluation of Walmart was not particularly favorable. Instead, it had lavished praise on Umbrella.

It had even published articles several times claiming that Umbrella would become humanity's guide in the twenty-first century, making its stance clearly opposed to Wall Street.

For that, William still had to offer his thanks.

Precisely because of Fortune's noiseless war of mutual slander with Wall Street, his Umbrella had remained firmly atop the storm's eye.

And the money kept pouring in.

Therefore, William did not need to micromanage anything to attract attention. Naturally, he had to thank Fortune magazine.

As for the 14 billion in profits calculated earlier, the vast majority had been deposited into accounts managed by the system, and belonged entirely to him.

The system allowed 500,000 per month to be spent on himself, but compared with 14 billion...

William could not even be bothered to touch that 500,000.

Speaking of the system.

Fortunately, William had purchased the Nova Scotia bank long ago.

Otherwise, if the entire world learned that he had 150 billion every year...

That would be quite a show.

Over the past year, William had also used the Athabasca Protocol signed between Umbrella and the United Nations to crazily acquire all kinds of arms companies.

The first to fall was Lockheed Martin, followed by Boeing, and then various established arms manufacturers.

This meant that...

The core technologies of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport aircraft, the C-130 Hercules, the F-22, and more had all fallen into Umbrella's hands.

The USA might have had complaints, but there was not much it could do.

Umbrella was not a country. It was William's personal property.

And capitalism held personal property in the highest regard. If you had money, you were the boss.

The working class?

They had no rights whatsoever.

They called it democracy and freedom, but in reality... hehe.

William was now the sugar daddy of the vast majority of companies in North America.

Taking advantage of this, the Umbrella Arms Department used various core technologies, along with all kinds of blueprints purchased earlier in Ukraine, to produce large numbers of enhanced vehicles and weapons for the armed forces.

As for the Xbox development project, it had stalled somewhat.

The Abnormal Crisis being developed at the same time, however, was nearing completion.

William had tremendous confidence in the Bungie development team.

After all, the Xbox launch title Halo in the Original World had come from Bungie.

When William became Microsoft's largest shareholder and discovered that this world also had the members of the Bungie development team, he could hardly describe how excited he had been.

The reason Xbox had been able to fight Playstation to a standstill was precisely because of the masterpiece Halo.

Yet Microsoft's executives in the Original World had gone crazy, driven Bungie away, and handed the series over to 343, nearly destroying Halo.

Back to the matter at hand.

The Abnormal Crisis produced by Bungie would absolutely fire the first shot of the gaming industry.

But...

As mentioned earlier, Xbox development had stalled.

Software for the games was easy enough, but the hardware was just a little troublesome.

Microsoft's engineers and designers simply could not understand the console William described, because it was very different from an ordinary computer.

In the end, they only managed to make a shell and an operating system.

Fortunately, the shell looked decent, resembling the final version of the Xbox360 in the Original World...

But what good was that?!

During the period when Microsoft was researching the Xbox, William had invested more than 100 million in total.

And they had made nothing but a shell?

How many agents or soldiers could that money have saved?

Therefore, William directly used one of his rights as a major shareholder to fire those genuinely useless engineers.

But another problem arose: Who would handle the development?

With no other choice, he had to seek the help of that female genius, Halsey.

William had not held out much hope in the first place. No matter how intelligent Halsey was, she could not possibly understand the kind of console players needed... right?

The truth was that she had finished the Xbox's various circuit diagrams and software systems in just two nights.

"..."

Thinking of this, William, who was looking at the scenery outside the window, was truly speechless.

The Xbox console and launch titles such as Abnormal Crisis were expected to go on sale at midnight on January 1, 2008.

At the same time, Iron Man would premiere on November 11 of this year.

As the grand finale, Starship Troopers 2 would have its midnight premiere on December 26, after Christmas, during the holiday known as Boxing Day.

By then, Umbrella's three major productions would be released one after another.