A long while later, the meeting of the national leaders ended.
Before it did, the prime ministers and presidents of other countries looked at me with meaningful eyes.
Even after the VIPs’ meeting ended, the working-level meeting continued.
Listening as that meeting began, I left the conference room.
I was not the only one to leave. The President of the United States and several officials came out with me.
We left the conference room and headed to another room.
It was a large room that looked like another presidential office.
Magreta and Samuel, the Deputy Director of the intelligence agency, were already there.
When we entered, the two rose from the sofa, and the President waved them down before sitting on one side of the sofa and loosening his tie.
He let out a heavy sigh, then spoke as if to himself.
“This won’t be easy. God can be cruel. I prayed that this would happen after my term, at least, but He didn’t listen.”
Listening to the President grumble, I sat beside Magreta.
The Secretary of State I had seen in the conference room sat across from me, and beside him sat a four-star general, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Once everyone was seated, the man I had heard was the Chief of Staff closed the door and stood in front of it.
When the room had settled, the President rubbed both hands down his face, then looked at me.
“Thank you. Thanks to the awakening agents you brought, we were able to finish the meeting without any major problems.”
It seemed he wanted to hear me say it was fine, but I had no desire to say that.
“There’s no need to thank me. I’m just an ordinary former soldier, so I never imagined that medicine would be used that way. It was my fault for showing it to you without thinking.”
It was not my fault, and it was not that I had failed to think of it.
Of course, it was not me saying it was fine, either.
At my reply, the relaxed atmosphere in the room hardened.
The officials looked between me and the President in surprise, while Magreta lowered her head and pretended she had not heard.
Perhaps because he was a politician, the President understood the criticism contained in my words as well.
The President straightened from where he had been leaning against the sofa and looked at Deputy Director Samuel.
Samuel shrugged, and the President smiled bitterly as he apologized to me.
“I heard you weren’t an ordinary soldier, and that’s certainly true. I apologize. The situation was urgent, so I couldn’t tell you in advance.”
The others did not see it, but I could sense the displeasure that flickered through the President’s eyes.
The President had not apologized to me because he was broad-minded.
He apologized because he needed me that much.
As expected, the President of the United States was seasoned.
Well, that was only natural.
If he had been the sort of powerful man who could not control his temper, America would never have gotten matters this far.
“Next time, I’d like to know before something happens.”
“I’ll make sure of that.”
With the President’s promise, that matter came to an end.
The President spoke again.
“We took quite a hit right from the start. I’d originally intended to express my thanks and then talk about compensation, but I doubt this conversation will end easily.”
“I’m afraid to hear what you might want.”
At the President’s words, the Secretary of State joked lightly.
A few faint chuckles followed his remark.
Once the atmosphere had eased like that, the President said to me,
“You would know best, of course, but they say the medicine you brought cannot be made on Earth. The altered dark energy contained in that medicine does not exist on Earth, so it can only be made on a star where dark energy exists.”
At the question embedded in the President’s words, I told him truthfully what was needed to make the awakening agent.
“To make the awakening agent, you need dark energy, ruins where the flower used as the raw material can be grown, and magical ability to turn that flower into an awakening agent.”
After hearing me, the President looked at the Chief of Staff, and the Chief of Staff nodded.
“The scientists who examined that medicine said something similar. In the end, that means you’re the only one who can make it right now.”
It seemed likely that I would be the only one able to make it in the future as well, but I did not interrupt the President.
“As was said in the conference room, even without this medicine, your accomplishments have been nothing short of remarkable.”
“Forty percent of the Akzar black stone brought this time was obtained by Deputy Commander Hyun and his exploration team.”
Samuel added to the President’s words.
Everyone was surprised by the amount of black stone I had obtained, but this was only part of what I had acquired.
In truth, I had obtained far more black stone, but I had not handed all of it over.
I needed to keep some black stone separately in case of emergency, and if I handed over too much, it might arouse suspicion.
That was why I had only turned over a portion.
“Truly impressive. Considering the amount you brought, that means you killed that many monsters. While you’re on that star, you may be strong enough to be called a superhuman.”
I was strong on Earth as well, but only a few people knew that.
I shrugged, and the President shook his head before continuing.
“Given your accomplishments so far, and the awakening agents you brought this time, I know very well that there ought to be proper compensation.”
At the President’s words, the Secretary of State and the Chief of Staff nodded. It seemed they had discussed it among themselves beforehand.
“In the past, it would have been enough to give you a great deal of money in the form of bonds, real estate, stocks, and the like. But now such money has become useless. You don’t seem to make much use of the money in your bank account, either.”
When I came to Earth this time and checked my account, the units had changed again.
The amount was so large that it now looked like game currency.
As the President said, money no longer held much meaning. The same went not only for cash, but for real estate, stocks, and bonds as well.
If Earth was going to be destroyed, there was no way assets on Earth could have any meaning.
“So I decided to ask you directly. What do you want? The U.S. government intends to grant whatever you want to the greatest extent possible.”
The President interlaced his fingers, leaned forward, and said those words.
I could feel sincerity in them.
It felt as though he would grant whatever I asked for.
However, I did not reveal my true intentions.
Because at that moment, I heard Soph’s voice.
[Perhaps because he’s the leader of the strongest nation on Earth, he really is a slippery old fox. Don’t be fooled. You must proceed according to the original plan.]
Even a politician’s acting, which felt almost like magic, could not fool Soph.
“There are a few things, but…”
“Say them all.”
At my cautious words, he nodded with an expression full of sincerity.
I said what I had prepared.
“First, as you may have heard, I can bypass the spatial transfer restrictions on firearms and electronic devices. It is still in the experimental stage, but many items disappear in the process, so I need several times more supplies.”
At my words, the President’s eyes gleamed as he looked at me.
“I heard about that as well. With that ability, you would be truly needed in Paradise too…”
Before he could finish speaking, Samuel and the four-star general, who had been silent, objected.
“That won’t do. We cannot pull him out of Trappist.”
“I agree. According to the data, Trappist’s fighting power cannot be maintained without him.”
At their objections, the President raised both hands.
“I know. I only said it in passing.”
Then the President asked the Chief of Staff and the four-star general,
“In the end, what he wants is to be able to use supplies and weapons without restriction. What do you think?”
The Chief of Staff immediately wrote the directive down in his notebook, and the general nodded with a confident expression.
“I will give the order.”
“There will be no problem. We will make sure he can use them without restriction.”
The President said to me with a satisfied look,
“Good. We’ll hand over not only supplies, but all weapons as well, so long as they are not strategic weapons.”
It was as expected.
He said they would give me everything, but there was no way there would truly be no restrictions.
It had been a good decision to secure the nuclear missiles in advance.
“That seems settled. What’s next?”
At the President’s question, I stated my next demand.
“This is a somewhat different issue, but please allow me to check the people being dispatched to Trappist beforehand.”
“You want to check the personnel before they are dispatched?”
The President tilted his head.
“Because the probability of someone becoming a user candidate was so low, all sorts of people have been dispatched to Trappist until now. From teenage girls to elderly women and men who had never even held a weapon.”
“I have heard about that.”
Even the President of the United States knew that.
“Because of that, the loss of personnel has been horrendous. In a situation where combat has become the main focus, there were far too many people who could not be used in battle. Many people had no choice but to die.”
A week or two of training could not change them.
In the end, many people were pulled out of combat, but even so, many still had no choice but to die.
“Moreover, there are still many people in Trappist who cannot use energy. Depending on whether they can use energy or not, there is an enormous difference not only in combat power but also in survival rate.”
More than half of those remaining at the terraforming base were unawakened.
They could sense energy, so they were stronger than ordinary people, but that was all.
“It is not easy to send people who cannot fight back to Earth, either. Sending them back to Earth is impossible, even if we have plenty of black stone.”
After they learned that remaining on Trappist was a ticket to escape extinction, even the unawakened did not want to return to Earth.
In the end, the number of useless people would only continue to increase.
The President had been nodding, but at my last words, he looked puzzled.
“You’re not wrong. Now that multiple countries are participating and we have the awakening agent, there should be no need to force people in indiscriminately. But there is no way to know on Earth which candidates will become energy users, is there?”
At the President’s question, I pointed at myself.
“The probability is not high, but I can identify them to some extent.”
The President stared at me in disbelief.
“You can do that too? I heard energy cannot be used on Earth.”
“I’m not using energy. It’s just that my senses are good. That’s why the probability isn’t high, either.”
Of course, that was a lie.
Since I could use energy, the accuracy was high as well.
I could tell which candidates would quickly become energy users.
The President looked over the officials in the room, then nodded.
“It certainly seems necessary. We’ll do that from now on.”
After hearing my second demand, the President put on an expression.
“This request wasn’t personal. It’s even a bit ambiguous to call it a request. Do you have any other demands?”
Of course, on the surface, this was not for my sake.
But this was meant to bring the people I wanted to Trappist.
For my goal, I needed to fill Trappist with the people I wanted.
And after filling it with the necessary people, there was one more thing I needed.
“Until now, the Trappist expeditionary force has received orders from the U.S. government as well as from the power holders who rule Paradise. Their objectives differed, and their orders differed as well, so I have heard that it has continued to be difficult to operate the expeditionary force.”
I spoke as though it was serious, but in truth, it had not been that difficult.
It was not that there had been no problems, but anything that could become a problem had already been cleared away.
However, there was no need to say that here.
“I heard that the power holder in Paradise who had been giving orders to the expedition commander recently fell. Please use this opportunity to allow Commander Catherine to operate the Trappist expeditionary force independently.”
I put sincerity into my voice, showing everyone the loyal devotion of a deputy commander who cared for the expeditionary force.
Of course, that commander had already become my subordinate, but they did not know that.
To Tibet (1)