Chương 289: Chapter : 289

She placed the sealed Upper Council letter on his desk.

"We have questions about the Benjamin Group's acquisition of Devil Flour supplies and your connections to known criminal networks." The Vice Director finally looked up from his tablet, his small eyes settling on Iris with an expression of mild, patronizing amusement.

"Princess Iris, is it? How charming. A little princess playing detective." He leaned back in his plush leather chair, the leather creaking softly under his weight.

"I've reviewed the so-called evidence that your unit has been circulating. Frankly, it's laughable. A dead scientist's encrypted ramblings and some old shipping manifests? Is that the best you have?" The word hung in the air like a slap. Sayma's hands tightened around her notebooks. She had spent six hours deciphering those encrypted ramblings. She had bled over those documents, literally, when a paper cut had smeared blood across a critical passage.

And this man, this pampered executive in his expensive suit, was calling her work laughable. Sayma bristled visibly, her glasses flashing.

"Those encrypted ramblings, as you call them, contain detailed records of your company's systematic acquisition and suppression of Devil Flour, a substance that could save three hundred thousand lives a year."

"Could save," the Vice Director repeated, savoring the word.

"Could. Not would. Not has. Could. Theoretical benefits from an untested substance do not constitute evidence of wrongdoing."

"The substance was tested," Zinia said, stepping forward with her notebook.

"For thirty years, it was the most effective cancer treatment on the continent. The medical records are extensive and well-documented."

"Ancient history," the Vice Director waved dismissively.

"Medical practices from decades ago are hardly relevant to modern pharmaceutical standards. We operate under strict regulatory guidelines, and I can assure you that every product we manufacture meets those standards." He steepled his plump fingers and smiled. It was the smile of a man who had won a hundred boardroom battles and expected to win this one too.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have actual work to do. Please see yourselves out."

Naomi's patience snapped. It wasn't a slow process. It was instantaneous, like a rope that had been fraying for weeks finally giving way under one final strain. One moment she was standing calmly behind Iris, and the next her twin daggers were in her hands with a loud, ringing shink that cut through the room like a thunderclap. Her green eyes blazed with fury, the kind of fury that comes not from anger but from something deeper and more primal. She had spent hours translating the shipping manifests.

She had read the names of the pharmaceutical executives who had signed the orders to suppress the cure. She had seen the numbers. Three hundred thousand a year. A number so large it stopped being a statistic and became a wound. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. She had also seen the internal memos that Sayma had decoded, the ones where executives discussed the financial impact of a cure with the cold detachment of accountants reviewing a quarterly report.

No mention of lives saved. No mention of suffering relieved. Just profit projections and market share analyses. One memo had included a calculation that Naomi would never forget. It estimated the value of a single cancer patient's lifetime treatment at approximately forty thousand Bel. Multiplied by three hundred thousand patients per year, that was twelve billion Bel in annual revenue that the Benjamin Group would lose if a permanent cure reached the market. Twelve billion reasons to kill a scientist.

"You will start talking," Naomi said, her voice low and dangerous, "or I will personally dismantle this office piece by piece until I find what you're hiding." The Vice Director stared at her daggers with an expression that shifted rapidly from surprise to amusement to something colder. He did not flinch. He did not pale. He simply leaned back further in his chair and let out a loud, mocking laugh that echoed off the glass walls.

"Oh my," he said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.

"The little princess's attack dog has teeth. How adorable." He stood up from his chair, the leather groaning with relief, and walked slowly around the desk. His movement was unhurried, confident, the walk of a man who knew with absolute certainty that he was untouchable.

"Let me explain something to you, little soldier," he said, his voice dropping to a sneer. He stopped in front of Naomi and looked down at her with unfiltered corporate arrogance.

"Even with the authority of an Imperial Princess behind you, you simply do not possess the raw political power to threaten us."

"You don't have the financial backing. You don't have the political connections. And you certainly don't have the magical strength necessary to lay a single scratch on a corporate syndicate that practically owns this capital's economy." He gestured broadly at the panoramic windows, at the city sprawling below them like a kingdom of lights.

"Every hospital in this city depends on our pharmaceutical division. Every clinic, every pharmacy, every medical supplier in the Empire is connected to us through contracts and partnerships." From this height, the people below looked like insects. The Vice Director liked that. It reinforced his worldview, the belief that some people were simply more important than others, and that the ones at the bottom existed to serve the ones at the top. It was a philosophy that had served him well for forty years.

He had risen from a junior accountant to the Vice Directorship of the most powerful corporation in the Empire by understanding one fundamental truth: the world was divided into those who had power and those who served it. And he intended to stay firmly in the first category. The philosophy had a name in the rarefied circles where he moved: Practical Necessity. It meant doing whatever was required to maintain order and profit, regardless of the cost to those beneath you.

It was the religion of the powerful, and the Vice Director was one of its most devoted practitioners. In his mind, the people who died of cancer each year were not victims. They were market data. Demographics. Revenue streams. And the scientist who had tried to cure them was not a hero. He was a threat to the bottom line. And threats to the bottom line were dealt with swiftly, permanently, and without remorse. That was the Benjamin Group way. It had worked for decades.

It had made them richer than kings and more powerful than ministers. And the Vice Director was confident, despite his momentary uncertainty, that it would continue to work for decades more. He had outlasted three CEOs, survived two corporate scandals, and personally orchestrated the destruction of seventeen competitor firms. Each victory had reinforced his belief that the world operated on a simple principle: money talks, and everyone else listens.

"If we sneeze, the entire healthcare system catches cold. If we fall, millions of people lose access to medicine. We are too big to fail, too connected to touch, and too powerful to challenge."