9 years ago Alois had his men check once more to make sure the phone wasn’t bugged, then dialed a number.“Hello?”“Hello, is this Oscar Oerndorf of the Kuste Cartel? This is Alois von Netesheim of the Wolf Cartel. I’d like to speak with your boss. I’ll leave it up to you to choose the location. I think we can have a mutually beneficial conversation.”“Hold on a moment.”The person Alois had called was an executive of the Kuste Cartel who had previously come to the East to sell White Flake to Cheerio. Alois had obtained the contact information from Cheerio, with whom he had exchanged details, and was now calling this Kuste Cartel executive.If Heinrich found out about this, it would cause problems.　Heinrich’s stance was that the Kuste Cartel was strictly under the Wolf Cartel’s umbrella. That was why he had imposed economic sanctions to ensure they never became independent. Alois’s contact with them risked creating the wrong impression regarding those sanctions.That “wrong impress

Nine Years Ago　Alois realized that Karl was already moving on to his next move before he even had a chance to assess Werner’s actions. He had obtained intelligence that the Kuste Cartel was beginning to spread the word among the Wolf Cartel’s subordinate organizations that it intended to sever ties with the Wolf Cartel and go its own way.　As long as the Kuste Cartel remained outwardly loyal to the Wolf Cartel, its subordinate organizations would not take any overt action. They were waiting for D-Day. They kept waiting for a D-Day that would never come. That is, the day the Kuste Cartel would attack the Wolf Cartel.　But a purge was necessary.　If we don’t eliminate the troublemakers now, they’ll eventually fall for the sweet talk of someone like Karl. And if they fall for Karl’s sweet talk, they’ll likely fall for the DEA’s sweet talk as well. We must absolutely prevent that from happening.The problem is that a purge will cause chaos. We don’t want other drug cartels to use that ch

9 Years EarlierAlois's purge began without mercy.The units of "Zett" that had received orders from Alois assaulted the subordinate organizations that had been in contact with Karl, as well as those who had betrayed Alois in his first life, riddling every last one of them with bullets.Marie also did everything she could to catch them off guard.If the human bomb in question was used against a small organization, it would blow the entire group away, leaving behind nothing but chunks of flesh, blood, and fire. This surprise attack made any organized counterattack by the subordinate organizations impossible.The units of "Zett," commanded by two former soldiers of the Elnia National Army Special Airborne Reconnaissance Battalion, moved to further strip the subordinate organizations of their ability to resist by attacking the weapon and ammunition stockpiles they had been storing for an uprising.Fierce firefights broke out repeatedly, but the gap in combat ability between the highly tr

8 Years Earlier Karl was an old man. He understood well what it meant for a human being to decline. But Karl also knew that even when the body weakens, ambition does not. Karl. Karl Kaltenbrunner had once possessed an empire. In this very Federation, his homeland, he had owned vast Snow White plantations. He had also owned refineries that processed it. His empire cultivated Snow White alongside farmers, refined the ingredients extracted from it, and processed them into White Glass and Snow Pearl. In the days of his empire, the dangerous substance known as White Flake did not yet exist. He exported it in small quantities to the National Union and maintained his empire through that trade. It did not generate enormous wealth. But an empire was still an empire. And he had been its emperor. He ruled his empire as an emperor. The empire moved according to his will, and the people of the empire treated him as their emperor. There was an unbreakable bond between

8 Years Ago“Damn that old man. No matter what kind of deal they made, the other side betrayed him. Why doesn’t he just kill him and be done with it?”Alois complained to Maverick while sitting in the car.“What your father is worried about is that a third party knows the contents of the agreement. If that's the case, his credibility would suffer. Even in the drug business, trust is important.”“If such a third party exists, then they should also know that Karl was the first to break the agreement. They can't pretend otherwise. We have the recording tape, and your ‘Zett’ made quite a spectacle of eliminating the traitors.”“Well, who knows? Maybe that third party only cares whether your father and Karl are alive and doesn't bother checking whether the agreement is actually being honored.”“Damn it.”If Karl were killed by Heinrich, that possible third party would learn that the agreement had been broken. In that case, Heinrich's credibility—and the credibility of the Wolf Cartel—would