As Davies made his way toward the meeting room on the 135th floor, everything that Jessica just told him ran through his head once again.

The overview of the situation was like this;

He had just made Jessica the Chief Operations Officer, one of the five executive positions present in the company making her under only him, equal to only four others and above everyone else.

With such a position and his backing as the founder of the company, she was destined to be a rising phoenix that shot for the stars… or that was how it should have gone.

But when news came that Davies had ended up in a mission gate that was extremely rare and known for its extremely low chances of survivability, the whole company was thrown into chaos.

Jessica believed that Davies should be able to make it out, she didn't know why she felt that kind of trust in him or his abilities, but she trusted his chances of survival, and with the kind of exploits he had done when he was younger and his status as a genius served more to put her at ease.

Unfortunately, not everyone felt this way. It took less than a day for the greedy and uncontrollable nature of humanity to show itself and it started from within the company.

Jessica who had suddenly lost her only backer who had just put her in a highly coveted position began to be harassed by the other executive officers who were backing the other two guys to get the position of Chief Operations Officer, and since Jessica had just taken up the position and had not yet been able to build up any power or contacts, she was thrown around by the other executive officers who had been in their respective positions for years.

As if that wasn't enough, even the managing officials who were below the Executive officials refused to follow any of her orders because firstly, she didn't have any real power and had only just been granted the position, and secondly they were already lackeys of the other Executive officials.

With the harassment on all sides, it was all Jessica could do to bear with the absurd treatment and just barely hold on to her position as Chief Operations officer.

But this was when the ugly head of the Lake family began to rear its head after Davies's sudden entrapment into the mission gate. They started extending their reach towards Imperium Technologies and trying to subtly take it over, not caring for the fact that the original owner, a member of the family was currently stuck in a gate, his life or death, uncertain.

Unfortunately for them, due to Davies's extreme mistrust of everyone, he had put the company in his own name and not in the name of the Lake family, so they couldn't just directly take over the company even if he was to be eventually confirmed dead.

Due to this fact, every one of the great families and the other influential groups had their eyes on this matter.

Every one of them wanted a piece of the cake that was Imperium Technologies.

Though with Davies now confirmed alive, they would all have to take a step back and put their plans for a hostile take-over to the side for now… or would they?

Davies didn't know what would happen in the future, after all, he wasn't omniscient, but he did know what he was going to do right now.

He pushed all those thoughts to the back of his mind as he reached the door of the meeting room.

He pushed the doors open and walked in confidently towards the empty seat at the head of the extra-long table placed right in the middle of the room with the employees already seated around the table wondering what had happened for such a sudden meeting.

Right before he sat, he suddenly stopped and with a light chuckle, he turned around at the faces of his employees that sat in their places.

"With all I have heard that has happened since I entered the mission gate…"

"Anyone cares to explain?" Davies asked with a clear tone, without his voice betraying the slightest bit of his emotions.

"Uhh… April Fools," a sleazy-looking man replied with a laughing tone not taking the situation seriously, as there were no telltale signs that anything was going on.

"..." Everyone in the room stayed silent for a few seconds until Davies's voice broke the silence,

"You're fired," Davies wasn't in the mood for anybody trying to be a smart ass right now so he ended the man's career in Imperium immediately not caring whatever position he held or whatever he had done for the company.

"Eh?" the man reacted surprisedly and was about to tell some story of woe, but Davies wasn't having it.

The moment the man opened his mouth to begin speaking, a small ball of ice suddenly appeared midair and shot at the man's forehead at blinding speed and hit him, sending him flying and unconscious.

At this point, everybody in the meeting room gulped audibly. The boss was back from a gate and it was obvious that he wasn't happy.

As for why he wasn't happy, one look at Jessica who stood behind Davies told them all they needed to know. He must have heard of all the occurrences that had happened when he was inside the gate.

No amount of regret could change what had already occurred and what they had done, and the only thing they could do right now was to keep quiet lest Davies turns his attention on them.

That didn't stop the Managing officials from swearing internally at the Executive officials that they followed because it was due to them that they were in this mess. Of course, they didn't dare to show their thoughts on their faces.

"It has come to my attention that there must be some kind of new weed in town, and you all must be smoking some of it…"

"... Because otherwise, I can't understand what gave you all the audacity to turn my company into your personal playground…" Davies began, his voice icy, and his cold aura spilling out and bearing down on everybody in the room.