The high panes of glass broke a faint light.
Next to the projection, the lamppost emitted a warm, golden light, a rare touch of warmth in the otherwise cold room.
The hanging fern on the windowsill brought a touch of vibrancy to the otherwise sterile décor of the room.
The dark-haired boy brushed his hair back.
Although he was wearing what appeared to be a plain white shirt, it exuded an undeniable authority.
— Jonas Veiting.
Heir to the Veiting Consortium and lacking a leader within it, the infamous young Master Jonas finally ushered in the most glorious moment of his life.
— He will join the board of the Veiting Consortium, becoming one of the youngest board members.
But Jonas was not happy about it.
Because he had already foreseen his own fate.
Ah, let us imagine that again.
Jonas Veiting, twenty-three years old, an unassuming transmigrant who found himself in this world after his awakening.
This is a world in a cyber-romance-war-SLG hybrid game.
Players take on the role of the leader of the Resistance, who ensnares the game characters as he leads the Resistance to overthrow the Consortium's rule.
Actually, there should be a happy ending... but when you become the antagonist in the game, things do not look so rosy.
As heir to the Consortium, your subordinates are either underlings idolized by the protagonist or mindless teammates.
Despite having the most advanced technology and the strongest armed forces in the world and painstakingly devouring all Consortiums, they are eventually defeated by the protagonist and his motley crew.
Alloy swords meet heat swords, a single rifle meets a mechanized legion, three individuals destroy a tactical fortress designed for a thousand people.
Not only does the protagonist seem overpowered, but your incompetent underlings insist on supplying the protagonist with resources as if they were the Seven Dwarves rescuing Snow White.
And as the antagonist, you can only watch as the protagonist grows stronger step by step and overthrows the Consortium's rule while dating girls...
So the question arises, is there really no one in the huge Veiting Consortium who is capable of doing this?
Yes, there is, and quite a few of them.
[Esny Celine is one of the fastest rising employees in the consortium. She has the ability to fight single-handedly, and has already defeated an entire mechanized army single-handedly and accomplished countless feats.
But in the original story, the two developed mutual respect during a confrontation with the game's protagonist due to their strengths, and later, when surrounded by out-of-control mechanized forces, they developed feelings after sharing life and death together.
Eventually deciding to join the resistance, she stormed into the Consortium headquarters alone in one of the endings, decapitating the enemy with a heat sword.
[Neural Hacker] Eilis, a talent dug up from the slums by the original protagonist with an extremely self-deprecating personality and a desire for recognition, was used as a tool after she was dug up by the antagonist.
In one ending, she was idolized by the protagonist, infiltrated the Consortium as a hacker, and inflicted significant losses on the Consortium.
[Noel, a genius strategic commander with crippled legs, was mistreated for a long time, and even after being recruited by the Consortium, he was often treated inhumanely.
After being idolized by the protagonist, he became the strategist of the resistance and dealt a fatal blow to the Consortium with minimal casualties, and the decapitation operation was a great success.
There are many similar examples... although it sounds like the original protagonist reaps what he sows, because who can stand a group of incompetent underlings?
Jonas took a deep breath and tapped his fingers incessantly on the armrest of his seat.
Joining the board... this was not good news for Jonas.
After all, it meant that the conspiracy had been going on for a long time and the protagonist had already secretly amassed a considerable amount of power.
If all went as expected, he would send Esny Celine, the black god of war, to put down a gang uprising in the settlement district.
And that would also be Esny Celine's first encounter with the protagonist.
He stood up and paced back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
Now it's no longer a question of how to get onto the board smoothly, but how to prevent Esny Celine from becoming a pawn...
He took a deep breath and pressed his hand to his temple, whereupon a virtual AR surface appeared before his eyes.
Communication was quickly established.
He spoke:
"Have Esny Celine come to my office."
...
The elevator continued upward, and the eyes of the girl named Esny Celine continued to flicker.
Since she had joined the Veiting Consortium, she had rarely seen her employer.
To be honest, she did not have much affection for her employer.
After all, rumors had spread throughout the lower city about the young Master Jonas, who treated the citizens as less than human.
And as someone who had once been a member of the Undercity, she was quite repulsed by his behavior.
But she could not bring herself to fulfill someone else's wishes, especially when Jonas was so generous and Esny desperately needed the money to save her sister's life.
Esny was not sure what Jonas wanted from her and therefore felt a little uncomfortable.
— The matter
Just as the girl's feelings were getting complicated, the elevator doors slowly opened.
And she saw the infamous Jonas Veiting.
He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, the sunlight casting a shadow on him, his jet-black hair tied back and his thin white shirt unable to hide his innate sense of superiority.
He looked very young, but he gave Esny an indescribable feeling of oppression.
"You are here," he said quietly.
"Mr. Jonas, what can I do for you?" Esny took a deep breath and met the gaze of the young man standing in front of her squarely.
"Esny Celine, twenty-one years old, from the Undercity..."
The man did not answer Esny's question, but continued:
"You killed sixteen fully armed gang members with an alloy sword during a conflict, earning you the title [Black God of War]."
His voice was not loud, but his calm narration exerted immense psychological pressure on Esny.
Finally, she could bear it no longer, suppressed her voice and asked:
"Mr. Jonas ... what do you want to say?"
When she heard this, the man standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window slowly turned around and Esny finally saw the object he was holding.
It was a collar.
"Miss Esny, I know what you want..."
He spoke slowly, a hint of playfulness flashing in his eyes.
"You do not want your sister to suffer any more, do you?"