"TWA, TWA, TWA."
On many of Eden's military bases that had a runway, this sound continued to echo while fully geared soldiers could be seen marching towards the planes that were stationed near the runways. They started boarding the aircraft, settling in silence as they waited for the plane to take off, destined to go to Esparia.
Their objective during this mission was to monitor the local military and maintain vigilance before the start of their assimilation process, which was anticipated to begin after a few days or weeks.
The same scene could also be seen happening on the Naval bases as well, where soldiers could be seen marching toward large ships while covered completely in military gear like the others. They, too, were destined to head to Esparia.
While these were happening, the internet was set ablaze as nearly everyone who was using it was either willingly or unwillingly informed about the situation that had taken place.
Many people were taken aback by the time the entire fight had progressed as Espaira raised the white flag of surrender exactly eighteen hours after they had declared the war confidently, something that no one had expected would happen.
Another point of discussion that roamed greatly was the speculation of the amount of causality disparity between those two sides. Esparia faced the prospect of thousands of casualties, including many of their captured soldiers, reaching the total tally being more than thirty thousand.
In contrast, Eden, until now, had said there was no report of any death from their side, a fact which many people thought was something impossible and just attributed it that Eden was hiding their casualties very well.
Yet, many people who had managed to sit down and think about the entirety of the war from what public knowledge they had, came to a realization that the armies of the two nations never actually went face to face at all. Rather, it was their airforce and navy that had a face-to-face confrontation, culminating with both of the fights ending with an overwhelming victory on the Edenian side.
This realization proved quite surprising, as while many had predicted that it would be a balanced war, they had also believed that there was no way that Eden had the ability to maintain its airspace security and would be compromised due to the number of their interceptors outnumbering them by something like nine to one.
Nonetheless, Eden defied expectations as they pulled out miracles and also massacred all those aircrafts without losing even a single one of their own in the midst of it.
However, amidst these discussions, a particular group of people relentlessly tried to come up with the identity of the backers who had bribed the Esparian president to entice the war with Eden.
Among the names circulating, a few quite familiar ones came up with one of them being GAIA Technology, for instance, emerged as a suspect since just a few days ago, they had finally finished their process of terminating their registry in America and had moved the company to Eden.
However, this thought was soon eliminated from the list. Then, another group was found when people thought about who might benefit the most after this conflict. They came to the conclusion that other than Eden, it was their military, which many many of them had only learned just a few moments ago from the fact highlighted by Alexander himself during the conference that their military was a private military organization.
This group of people speculated that this PMO had orchestrated this war in order to assimilate the military of Esparia, to expand their forces.
Suspicion also fell upon powerful families like the Morgans, the Rothschilds, and many other families whose names held global recognition.
On the other side, Emanuel garnered attention from international netizens who had watched the press conference on how blunt he was. At the same time, he said everything without mincing any words, even when certain things he had said had put him on an unfavorable side from the perspective of the listeners.
This was then followed by the question as to how the heck the Eden Special Forces even infiltrated the country and captured the President and his family along with many of the other high-ranked officials of Esparia and also forced him to make that announcement.
Many found it puzzling since Emanuel didn't look like someone who had been tortured just a few hours ago. He seemed fully normal, both physically and mentally, during the conference. Thus, some thought that maybe the special forces had tortured his family members instead of him.
.......
Inside one of Morgan's family's many opulent mansions, a tense atmosphere permeated the living room, which had three people– two seated and one standing, could be seen silently occupying the space.
The man standing in the room, his forehead covered with beads of sweat while also slightly shaking, showed his increasing nervousness as the silence in the room grew increasingly oppressive.
Moments ago, they had finished watching the second press conference of the day, which was conducted by Eden. This event marked the final nail in the coffin of their financial downfall, confirming that they had officially lost their money and now it also seemed like Eden was going to assimilate the entire Esparian military, bringing the entire pseudo-continent under the control of one military power, making it impossible for them to cause any war once again unless they sparked chaos imminently by using their mercenaries who were there.
Yet, this strategy would be almost futile since their mercenaries could be killed in a short time due to the imminent influx of Edenian soldiers who will come to Esparia, as President Alexander had announced during the press conference.
"It's not the Rothchild's way of doing things," Aubrey was the first to speak, breaking prolonged silence in the room as he mused aloud. He had spent all this time recollecting the entire sequence of events which started right from them choosing to cause economic collapse, followed by the revelation of the Rothchild's inclusion due to Rina's visit to Eden, which promptly forced them to double down and increase their investment and inadvertently instigate the fight even further.
During the sequences, Aubrey tried to think of different scenarios, including within them, the chances that they could have gotten wrong intel, and even tried to find out what they might be based on their current situation.
Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that they had been fighting against an entirely different force.
"What do you mean by that?" queried George, Aubrey's son, his brows knitted in confusion as to what his father meant by this statement of his.
"This isn't the Rothschilds' modus operandi. Throughout our centuries-long fight, they have never brought our fight to the public eye. They knew that the moment they publicized our conflicts would only lead to a reciprocal exposure which in return would only start degrading our influence after people start to know about us. And as you are well aware of, George, the first step to having a chance of winning against your enemies is by knowing who they really are, as that would mean that you can respond to them directly in a targeted manner without having to start looking around for who the enemy might be and respond in a wide manner which is not as effective as a targeted response," Aubrey explained, his tone composed and measures while he elaborated on his statement to this son.
Although George understood what his father meant by that, he still questioned its validity as he was sure that considering that the public was already aware of their family names and their wealth, then shouldn't that mean that they have already started losing their power?
When Aubrey saw the expression on his son's face, he was slightly disappointed but not too dismayed as he delved into explaining the meaning behind his words, "While people know about our existence, most of the time what they know is just our released narrative, meaning we control most of what they know about us. However, the moment we start bringing media and the public into our conflict, the Rothschilds will be releasing information about us that we don't want the public to know of, and we will be compelled to respond or risk being singled out for consequences. And this back-and-forth revelation would jeopardize the control we have previously had on the public perception of us. The more our fight persists– which I don't think will ever end– the more people would know about us, completing their blind spots regarding us piece by piece until they will finally have a complete picture of us before they could use that to start to dismantle us piece by piece," Aubrey elucidated, his words revealing the intricacies of his initial words.
"Aha!" George exclaimed as realization finally dawned upon him, understanding what his father meant by his previous words.
Following his reaction, he turned to the only man in the room who was standing and was trying to make his presence look as small as possible in the hope that the other two in the room would forget about him completely, George then said, addressing him directly, "So, how should we deal with you, who had brought the piece of intel that has now potentially attracted a new enemy to us," he asked in a chilly voice, causing shivers to run down the spine of the representative.
The representative now had goosebumps all over his body since he knew that all of these escalations were a result of him bringing back the intel of Rina visiting Esparia, which had tilted their plans and forced them into thinking that they were fighting against the Rothschilds, leading them to face such substantial losses and other than that also gain a new enemy all because of him.
It was at this moment that he knew he....
