Since every guest invited to the Golden Crown was only allowed to bring one person with them as their chosen companion, normally only two of them could follow Emilia and Sam into the venue.
After much deliberation, the crimson-haired girl finally settled on taking Crystal and Dixie along, while leaving Mindy and Noelle to assist Justine with her mission instead.
Taking Crystal with her went without saying, of course. With the heroine’s ability, it would be far easier for her to figure out the inner workings of the top elites in the world, and would also allow her to plan ahead in case she caught something unexpected. It may have its flaws, but it was still amazingly useful.
As for Dixie… naturally, Emilia would feel much more assured of being able to keep both Crystal and Sam safe with someone capable by her side.
Noelle and Mindy might be able to fill this role as well, but Dixie’s perceived threat to others was naturally lower than that of Noelle, and Mindy wasn’t quite as capable as the other two options. At least, not yet.
Of course, it was definitely possible for them to arrange for the others to be escorted in through other means, such as through Mr. and Mrs. White, but Emilia didn’t want to take any chances with her missions.
Cynthia may not urge her too frequently, but the crimson-haired girl could obviously feel her partner getting a little more impatient and jittery every passing day.
Even toning down on her ‘energy consumption’ only made things a little better, and Emilia knew that to really get the raven-haired girl to start talking again, she would once again have to show her some ‘results’.
It might upset her to get the cold shoulder from her partner like this, but Emilia knew that she would only be able ‘reeducate’ Cynthia once she had completed another mission.
Otherwise, with the raven-haired girl’s bullish thought process, it was unlikely that any of her arguments would get through. Fortunately, this didn’t discourage Emilia much, and only made her more determined to figure out a way to make faster progress.
Although she had already completed her second mission, both the first and the third mission had extremely harsh requirements.
Not only did they require her to make the most out of any opportunity she got, but there was also a certain factor of ‘luck’ involved in the process. Plus, meticulous care needed to be taken to make sure nothing went wrong in the process.
In the first mission, for example, she needed to not only bankrupt the Black Tiger, but also make sure that the White Deer Corporation became the ‘number one’ in the world.
Emilia now knew that the ‘success’ of the mission depended on the world will acknowledging it, so she at least had to make sure that Amos ‘accepted’ that as a fact… which was easier said than done.
Since this was not a game with a ranking system, being ‘number one’ was extremely subjective, and even they became the ‘richest’, as long as Amos — and by extension, the World Will — continued to consider someone like the ‘Gray Wolfe’ as the ‘real’ number one, Emilia was almost certain that the mission still wouldn’t be completed.
Fortunately, while Amos was dense and stubborn, he wasn’t a complete moron. As long as Emilia could ‘defeat’ all the ‘top’ corporations in the world, she didn’t think he would be able to deny that her White Deer was the number one.
Compared to this rather ‘simple’ task, what gave Emilia a far worse headache was the third mission, which required her to be a ‘winner in life’, at least in the eyes of Amos and the World Will.
But considering that completing the first mission should already take her at least halfway through the third, Emilia decided she might as well not worry about it too much for now, and focus on what was in front of her first.
It was a pity that they still had to work first after traveling so far, but Emilia had already made plans for an outing later to have fun with everyone before they left Phoenix. It may not be as glamorous as the Golden Crown, but they would at least be free from prying eyes and various social restrictions that came with such events.
Compared to that, Emilia was more worried about the status of the ‘hero’ and the heir of Gray Wolfe.
Her people were keeping an eye on them as best as they could, but it was naturally impossible for them to obtain much from a distance without taking the risk to alert the enemy.
’Well, I guess it’s already time to find out if my plan will work or not. Hopefully, they don’t fail to meet my expectations.’
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Dixie could naturally tell that her princess was lost in thought while they waited for the others. ‘Is Emily worried?’
She sighed. ‘Well, I guess all I can do is not disturb her…’
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Sam and Crystal to arrive, and their idle chatter soon distracted Emilia from whatever ‘worries’ she might have had, much to Dixie’s relief.
Soon enough, Emilia’s entourage reached the venue of the Golden Crown, where they were greeted by a welcoming official in red.
After a few rounds of flattery and ‘subtle’ probes to make sure she wasn’t dissatisfied at having to walk the rest of the way, the middle-aged lady finally breathed a sigh of relief.
There was no lack of egotistic assholes that she had to deal with during the Golden Crown, but fortunately, this little Empress was much more docile than she expected.
Her colleague, on the other hand, was clearly not having nearly as good a time. Not only was ‘Miss Samantha’ not answering any of his questions, but she was also actively chatting with Emilia as if to drive that point home.
Of course, anyone who knew her would know that it was a bad idea to try to catch her attention when she was absorbed in flirting with her little sister in the first place.
Unfortunately, the poor official had missed the memo, and only felt like his eighteen generations of ancestors must have offended the woman he was assigned to greet today, somehow.
Luckily for him, though, since Sam didn’t even realize he existed, it was quite unlikely that she would file a complaint against him either.
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