Griffith Family.
Nella was walking down the hallway before she saw Ray turning around the corner.
"Uncle." Nella politely greeted Noel.
"Oh! Are you going to the meeting room?"
"Yes."
"Me too. Let's go together, shall we?" Ray smiled.
Nella smiled back. She still maintained contact with her family before the apocalypse. But due to the apocalypse, she completely had no idea about her parents.
She had been searching for them but to no avail. So, she didn't have a lot of hope for it.
In the darkest hour, Ray was there for him. She felt like she had become his daughter. And Theo acknowledging her as his younger sister made their relationship become closer.
In a sense, she had already become their daughter. Though, there was no need to announce it with this kind of situation going on.
Nella gave a document to Ray. "Uncle. See this."
"What is this?" Ray grabbed the documents and tried to read them, but Nella had summarized them for him.
"There are three reports in those…" Nella paused for a moment. "The first one is about Edward.
"I have made an arrangement for him to go to this base. Thanks to Maya's help, it's possible for him to reach this base in two months. He will be among the second batch to cover his identity."
"Oh! Thank you so much." Ray smiled. It seemed like he had been waiting for this arrangement and couldn't wait for their reunion.
"Are you going to have a party for his return?"
"I want to, but the condition doesn't seem to allow us. For now, I'd like to settle all the problems first. As for the party, we can make the biggest one after all of this is over."
"Fair enough." Nella nodded in agreement before continuing, "As for the second report, it's about the number of our force as well as the plan from the headquarters."
"Agata is the one making the plan, right?"
"Yes."
"Alright then." Ray read the information for a moment.
"We have around thirty thousand people, including the people from the Griffith Family and the beggar association.
"All our forces in charge of espionage have been infiltrating all defense points. They will be reporting to us about the situation. The beggar association has helped us a lot in maintaining the network since we lack manpower right now due to us fortifying the base's defense."
"Is there a problem with the network?"
"Not at all. With the help of the beggar association, we can deploy the web."
"That's good then." Ray nodded. After a while, he flipped the page to find the last report.
"That's the report about the news that has spread all around the base."
Ray frowned when he saw all the news. "It seems that the situation won't be as peaceful…"
"Yeah. The public has been questioning the government and other influences. It's impossible to hide this kind of operation from the public.
"And since we're getting help from other influences, there is bound to be some leaks of information."
"I see." Ray murmured something she couldn't hear before asking, "What has the government done?"
"The press is making up their own story, but with all the leak of information, the government is going to clarify everything.
"I'm assuming that they will be doing it tomorrow or the day after at best."
While they were confirming their information, they reached the meeting room.
Nella opened the doors for Ray since the latter had his hands full with the reports.
Inside the room stood a woman with three men who seemed to be helping her with the map on the table.
She was none other than Theo's mother, Valerie.
As soon as the two entered, she stopped and turned around, informing them. "We have made a total of fifty simulations with the data we currently have."
"The result?" Ray asked with a serious expression.
"We won thirty times. But half of them require a lot of sacrifices."
"The enemies are that powerful, huh." Ray narrowed his eyes. His expression darkened when she mentioned the sacrifices.
They had made a lot of sacrifices when they tried to hide Theo, and Ray personally didn't want to sacrifice things again if possible.
Ray pinched the bridge of his nose and asked Nella. "How much time do we have left?"
"We're not sure about it. Around three days? At best, seven days."
Ray thought for a moment and asked another question. "What do you think the problem is?"
"Our number and the support from the government. The fact that we can't rely on the Mafia Queen deals a lot of damage to us. For now, our numbers have been reinforced by her mafia group, but we can't expect much," Nella answered while looking at the board.
Valerie, on the other hand, gave another suggestion. "How about we don't expect anything from the government?"
"Do we have a better chance of winning if we think that way?"
"No, but I think it will make less sacrifice since we don't hope for anything. It keeps our expectations low. But we have to find a way to keep the morale high."
"I'll take care of the morale problem. For now, redo the simulation. Make sure we don't sacrifice a lot."
"Alright." Valerie nodded.
"Nella. I want you to help me with something." Ray dragged Nella outside. Nella was confused but still followed Ray, who seemed to be leading her to another room.
The room seemed to be where they stored their archives.
"There are a few organizations that don't join, right?"
"Yes."
Ray walked toward a shelf that had the tag 'USA' on it. "These are the weapons we have against the people in the US back in the day. Try to find their weaknesses and let them know why the Griffith Family is the number one espionage family in the world."
"!!!" Nella widened her eyes. It seemed that Ray was planning to go all out. The Griffith Family had a lot of hidden information and he actually wanted to use that information to blackmail them into participating. But this should solve most of their problems.
"Got it."
