A week passed quietly... During this week, the chaos was gradually suppressed, and things more or less returned to normal.
Daniel and his family successfully settled down in the capital and even bought a large villa big enough for the four of them.
Of course, the guild also offered them a house, but it was far too average, and Daniel preferred to buy a luxurious home for his family.
After all, money wasnât a problem for him. There were other reasons tooâfor example, he wanted their house to be located in a safe area and to also have a training room for Awakened, so he could train Alice and Tiana or let them practice whenever they wanted.
At the moment, Daniel was at home, going through the latest news. During this entire week, other than resting and spending time with his family, he hadnât done anything else.
After all that hardship, he deserved a bit of rest, right? He ate the best food, slept for half the day, and spent the rest either swimming in their villaâs pool or playing basketball.
It was a completely normal week, free from any kind of problem or trouble.
"I really missed days like this," he sighed as he watched the news.
How long had it been since he had a week this peaceful? It wasnât that long, but it felt like an entire lifetime had passed. What both he and his family had gone through was truly miserable.
If possible, heâd really like to spend the rest of his life in such peace, but he knew that was neither realistic nor something he himself could doâhe wasnât someone who could give up on his ambitions.
"Still no news about Kaelos, huh?" His attention returned to the news.
As expected, the top headline of the country was about the leader of the Sairon Blade Guildâor rather, their former leader.
Naturally, the entire nation was aware of the incident that had happened last week. Everyoneâs first reaction was disbelief... After all, Kaelos was a national pride, one of the strongest and most powerful swordsmen in both worlds.
Yet this very man brought the capital to the brink of destruction. With all the recorded casualties, the death toll had surpassed one hundred thousandâand that was just the fatalities. More than half of the capital had been completely destroyed in that battle.
If civilians hadnât been evacuated earlier, the death toll would have easily reached millions.
And that was only part of the consequences of that fight. Following the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the death of Logan, the Chairman of the National Awakened Federation, struck the biggest blow to the core of the countryâs ruling system.
The Chairman of the Awakened Federation was a National Rank Awakened, one of the top five individuals in the country in terms of both combat strength and political power.
And now, such a person was dead. Naturally, the chaos that engulfed the nation in the first two or three days after this news broke was beyond description.
The entire population was terrified, the Federation fractured and severely weakened, the countryâs economy took a heavy hit, and even the national stock market experienced a 1,000% crash.
On top of that, the position of the Chairman of the Awakened Federation wasnât something that could simply be replaced. There was no replacement at allâthey couldnât just pull a National Rank Awakened out of nowhere.
Because of this, the nation was now facing an unprecedented crisis, even dropping in the global power rankings.
Fortunatelyâor unfortunatelyâthe government somehow managed to suppress the chaos with unfair methods. The media began bolding secondary news and other "more important" topics.
Even more absurdly, the government linked Kaelos to a global terrorist group and blamed everything on them. In the first few days, several military strikes were launched on that terrorist groupâs bases, and the government declared that "revenge" had been taken.
They rebuilt the capital at the fastest pace possible and heavily bolded the progress in the media. Of course, they also compensated the public for the damages caused.
By doing all this, they were able to suppress and control the chaos to a certain degree. However, this was only on the surface.
Daniel was certain that his countryâs government was in an extremely bad situation right now, with the biggest problem being the damage done to the nationâs economy and stock market.
The reason behind the damage to the economy and stock market was that global trust in the Republic of Medes had been shatteredâthe leader of the most important organization in the country had been killed by the head of one of its strongest guilds, and now the killerâs whereabouts were completely unknown.
In other words, Kaelos could attack again whenever he wanted, and no one knew when or where he would strike next. Essentially, their country was no longer considered safe.
The only way to solve this problem was to find Kaelos and execute him. Only then could they restore the trust of the global community and bring foreign investors back.
"Poor fools... They donât even know Kaelos is dead," Daniel quietly chuckled.
He was one of the few people who actually knew what happened to that bastard. After all, he had read that letter he found in his pocket last week.
The letter explained that Kaelos had been killed, and more importantly, why Daniel had been helpedâand it even contained a request for him.
He really wanted to know who had killed Kaelos, but until he fulfilled that request, that wish wouldnât be granted.
Not that he mindedâpatience was one of his strongest traits. Besides, anyone who could kill that bastard without anyone noticing was definitely someone possessing power beyond imagination.
"Should I tell them?" he wondered to himself. He could say that Kaelos was dead and stop the government from wasting resources searching for him.
But the problem was that he had no evidence, and besides, he knew there were a handful of people in this world who were aware of Kaelosâs death.
If they hadnât revealed it, it meant they didnât want Kaelosâs death to be made public yet. More importantly, he himself didnât want to reveal it. On the contrary, he saw many advantages in keeping it a secret.
As long as everyone believed Kaelos was alive, both the government and the public would remain terrified and vulnerableâand that would give him countless opportunities to seize power in the country.
He also had several ways to help the country resolve its current problems, and by presenting those solutions to the government, he could secure a place for himself in the nationâs politics.
One way or another, to reach the peak of power, there were things he needed to do.