Freslin changed a lot since he last visited. The second-largest city on Cloudy Curtain featured a lot of new construction. The sudden relocation of billions of refugees required an enormous amount of services to accommodate their integration into Brighter society.

Hospitals, planning offices, distribution warehouses, high-rise business centers and more dotted the outskirts of Freslin.

When Ves saw the enormous sprawl of construction, he guessed that Freslin might double in size within a year!

As much as Ves was amazed by the scale of construction, he knew that this was only a taste of what was to come.

Only the more daring, risk-taking entrepreneurs invested early in Cloudy Curtain. They saw the ballooning population of Cloudy Curtain and noted that the planet would soon be grossly short on various essential services.

The lack of existing institutions presented savvy investors with an enormous gap in the market!

"Still, aren't they a bit too daring?" Ves frowned as he looked down on the expanding city from the window of his shuttle. "If the Bright Republic fails to repel the sandmen, then all of the money sunk into construction will wash away in a tide of sand."

Certainly, many investors liquidated their assets and pulled as much money out of the system as possible. It was the most prudent course of action to do. What was the worth of prime real estate when it would soon be crushed by the relentless sandmen?

However, those who believed the Bright Republic had what it took to defend its space took the biggest gambles in their lifetimes. They snapped up all of the liquidated assets at fire-sale prices and constructed new institutions on planets designated as dumping grounds for refugees without any hesitation!

The risks may be large, but the rewards were absolutely astronomical!

Even Ves, who liked to gamble every now and then, balked at the thought of going all-in on this daring bet!

From what he read in the news, the government did everything possible to facilitate this risk-taking behavior. Anyone who decided to commit to the Bright Republic and take over the assets sold by cowardly, risk-averse investors received numerous perks and tax breaks.

One of the lessons the Republic learned from the border states was that society could quickly break down if everyone tried to liquidate their assets!

Even though many large investors acquired a bad reputation as leeches and corporate raiders, if they all decided to pull out of the economy, the state would quickly be thrown into chaos!

"Well, I don't have to play this game." Ves shook his head.

His primary concern was to improve his skills and grow his mech company. The money he earned from licensing his latest mech designs already surpassed 200 billion bright credits!

Of course, most of the companies and mech designers who licensed his mech designs probably suffered from buyer's remorse right now. Any variants they designed inevitably featured drastically weaker X-Factors.

Once it became known that it was far more problematic to design variants of his mechs than anticipated, Ves predicted that he wouldn't be able to exploit the mech industry's ignorance again!

"Still, 200 billion credits is a huge windfall for the LMC!" He grinned.

The recent board meetings all concerned how to spend all of this money. Ves had pushed for investing much of the money into expanding the Mech Nursery and building more manufacturing complexes.

The LMC's existing production capacity no longer matched its success level. Ves detested depending on third-party manufacturers to make up for the company's severe shortfall in production.

Naturally, Ves did not bet completely on this plan. If the sandmen defeated the Mech Corps, then all was moot.

"Once the Bright Republic falls, the bright credit is worth nothing!"

Due to all of the economic activity and the government's profligate spending spree, inflation already started to rouse. Even though the LMC was earning more bright credits than ever before, the rising inflation continually tempered their real earnings.

Perhaps there might come a day where a nutrient pack sold for 1 million bright credits!

Ves shook his head at the ridiculous notion. "That will only happen if the Bright Republic loses Bentheim and half of its territory or something."

In any case, Ves and the LMC needed to make the most use out of their windfall by converting bright credits to tangible assets as fast as possible.

"It still feels good to be rich, though." He smiled.

While the money he earned was nowhere close to funding his expeditionary fleet, it represented a good start.

As Ves mused about his expanding fortunes, his shuttle finally arrived at his first stop.

Surrounded by Nitaa and his bodyguards, he exited the shuttle and stepped onto a familiar street.

The low, intimidating aura of his Pride of Dusk immediately affected the nearby locals.

"Look! It's Ves Larkinson! He's back!"

"Wow! He looks more handsome than ever! No wonder he managed to seduce a Hexer!"

Most citizens of Freslin regarded Ves and the LMC very highly.

Ves idly waved at the gawkers before entering a rundown bar.

Unlike last time, not a single patron was present. Even if Ves decided to visit in the morning, he knew the Whalers didn't care for these matters.

Ves immediately spotted the person he sought sitting bored and morose behind the bar. He stepped forward and calmly sat on the barstool right in front of the barkeeper.

"Hey Dietrich."

"Hey."

A short silence ensued as both of them looked at each other. Both of them had changed a lot since they last met.

Whereas Ves looked more imposing due to his confidence and his Pride of Dusk, Dietrich resembled a deflated balloon.

His previous confidence and playboy-like demeanor was nowhere to be seen. His messy hair hung limply on his head and his clothes appeared as if he'd slept in them for several days.

"What happened to you, Dietrich?"

"Bentheim happened."

"I heard. Is Walter.."

"My father is dead. Along with more than a hundred mechs and mech pilots who followed him to fulfill his foolhardy dream."

"Dietrich.. my condolences.."

The son of Walter let out an exasperated sigh. "You don't have to feel sorry for me. My father got what was coming! What did he think he could do with a bunch of green recruits and unreliable mech pilots? Even if we outnumbered the gang we targeted, they bogged us down and confounded us with their superior piloting skills and tactics. We should have pulled out back then, but my father and the old guard insisted on pressing through!"

"What happened?"

"Our opponents called in their friends. Enemy reinforcements quietly surrounded us from all sides. Once they formed a complete envelopment, they attacked us on all sides!"

The outcome was devastating. The Whalers lost eighty percent of the mechs they deployed in battle. The remnants that came back to Cloudy Curtain were diminished, dispired and utterly broken!

"Are the Whalers still around?" Ves softly asked.

"My father died. The old guard died. I managed to survive, and so did a couple of others. Upon our return, I tried to take charge as best as I could and recalled all of our remaining mech forces to Cloudy Curtain. There was no way we could hang on to our other turf at our current level of strength."

"And then?"

"And then, I got kicked out of my father's own organization!" Dietrich slammed his fist against the bar counter. "What a good leader I turned out to be! While my father and the old guard who supported me the most were still around, all of the Whalers remained honest. As soon as this changed, the disloyal bastards who joined the Whalers in the past few years since the Glowing Planet Campaign usurped control from me! Too few Whalers backed me up when the usurpers launched their coup!"

Dietrich freely explained how it all went downhill.

Ves did not look entirely surprised. Walter's Whalers used to be a small-time gang that lorded over Cloudy Curtain because they didn't have any competition. After participating in the Glowing Planet Campaign, they lost a lot of old hands but gained billions of bright credits.

The Whalers could never protect all of their wealth with the meager forces at their disposal, so they underwent an enormous hiring and procurement spree. Their strength and numbers ballooned in a matter of years, so much so that they became local hegemons that claimed other rural planets in the Bentheim region as their turf!

Yet Ves recognized the vulnerability of pursuing such rapid expansion. The Whalers were never very diligent with how they managed their organization. They recruited too many new Whalers, diluting their old culture, loyalty and identity.

While this situation wouldn't have led to any serious problems, a cancer had taken root in the gang. As long as the only deterrent in the form of Walter and his old buddies was gone, Dietrich alone did not possess enough power to retain control over the Whalers!

"...So that's how I end up here by myself in this deserted bar." Dietrich finished. "It's the only piece of real estate that I have left in my name."

"Walter's Whalers left nothing behind for you?"

"They no longer go by that name. They call themselves the Cloud Whalers by now. As for my severance fee, I'm lucky enough to retain this worthless bar and my stupid life! I wouldn't have been able to walk out from the Whalers if it hadn't been for some of the old members speaking up for me. They still turned their back to me, though."

"How come they didn't support you?"

"My father is tainted. We enjoyed a lot of success, but my father and the old guard's obsession with Bentheim threw most of it away! The old members who remained behind weren't mech pilots. They're the administrators, the business owners, the mech technicians and the like who wouldn't have been useful in our attempt to gain a footing on Bentheim. Even if they had been with Walter from the start, they don't have the power to contend against mech pilots."

"I see. The usurpers probably obtained their support before they launched their coup. Their main demand was to preserve your life, on account for the sentiment they held towards your father."

Dietrich sighed. "In hindsight, that was obvious. The usurpers couldn't have taken over the Whalers so smoothly without making a lot of deals."

The new Cloud Whalers no longer had anything to do with Dietrich and his father. If Ves wanted to be poetic about it, then he would remark that Dietrich and the Whalers had broken the bonds of karma between them. With how lifeless Dietrich looked, not even revenge was on his mind.

"Did Walter leave you a nest egg or something? Surely your father wasn't stupid enough to put all of his eggs in a single basket."

"Hahaha!" Dietrich laughed. "You're right. My father did squirrel away a couple of billion credits to a number of secret stashes and bank accounts. The problem is that my dad is really bad at all of this complicated finance stuff, so he entrusted the matter to one of his old buddies who acted as our chief accountant."

"I see."

He didn't have to ask whether this chief accountant stabbed Dietrich in the back. All of the money that Walter saved for his son had fallen into the hands of the usurpers.

The dispossessed heir to the Whalers snorted at his visitor. "You don't have to feel sorry for me, Ves. We all got what we deserved. This is how gangs are like. I'm tired of the Whalers anyway. They're all a bunch of idiots with too many mechs and not enough foresight. My dad and the old guard could have used the windfall they earned from the Glowing Planet campaign to transition the Whalers into a large mercenary corps or security company."

"It takes a lot of training and expertise to set something like that up, Dietrich!"

"We had a lot of money! We could have set up an investment fund and bought a bunch of lucrative companies to live off the profits, but no, my dad insisted on paying back his old grudges!"

Obviously, losing access to all of the wealth the Walters earned stung Dietrich deeply. Ves understood how bad it must be for Dietrich to be a billionaire for a few years before being robbed of all of the wealth that he supposedly owned!

"How about a new start?" Ves extended his hand to the other man. "You're a decent mech pilot. We shared a life-and-death experience together. I just happen to need a lot of mech pilots."

Dietrich snorted. "I know about your Avatars of Myth and Living Sentinels. Every mech pilot on Cloudy Curtain wants to work for them. It's just.. I won't fit in an elite outfit like the Avatars and I don't want to become a glorified security guard."

Ves already anticipated this answer.

"You don't have to join them. I have a third outfit under my command. Hear me out…"