Chapter 317 - Rhionen Industries' Dark Secrets

Aleksis entered her penthouse with a feeling of loss. Really, she had never felt anything like this before. Little Prince Siegfried was asleep when she arrived. Carl and Sascha were busy with their respective laptops. The two Russian men immediately stood up to greet her when Aleksis entered.

Ah, yes... how would she convey a message to them that starting tomorrow she would have additional bodyguards?

"Carl and Sascha... I have a suggestion… what if you both go on a vacation for a month? I'm going to live in the dorm, so I assume that nothing bad will happen to me there..." Aleksis said to the two.

The two men looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison.

"Young Miss, please don't make Master punish us..." Carl complained. "Our job is to look after Miss..."

Aleksis scratched her head that was not itchy. She could not think of any excuse...

"Ugh... all right. Then, could you help me carry my things to the dormitory? We'll stop by Joo Chiat first to leave my dog ​​at Terry's."

"Alright, Young Miss."

The four of them went to Terry's house using a Tesla car driven by Carl. Terry was editing a video on three giant screens when they arrived. In that house, Terry lived alone, only with a gardener and a cook. The cook hastily told him of Aleksis' arrival.

"Eh, you have arrived." Terry rubbed Little Prince Siegfried's head and pointed to a room on the ground floor, "His room is ready at the end of the hall. Just put all his stuff there. Your dog cannot go up to the second floor, though, because I keep a lot of valuable electronic equipment there."

Aleksis was surprised to hear that. "You prepared the guest room for Little Prince Siegfried? Wow... You must really love my dog that you gave him a room of his own..."

She hurriedly hugged Terry then kissed his cheek. "Thank you!!"

"Hmm..." Terry just grumbled indistinctly.

Carl and Sascha placed a bag that contained Little Prince Siegfried's toys and other stuff, such as his favorite music box and a few sacks of dog food in the designated room.

"What time will you want to go to the dorm, Young Miss?" Sascha asked before leaving.

"Uhm... I don't know yet..." Aleksis turned to Terry, "Do they usually have a curfew in the dorm?"

"10 pm, I guess," Terry said with a shrug, "Why?"

"Would you mind taking me to the dormitory...? That way we will have some time to talk freely. Carl and Sascha can go home and don't have to wait for me. Besides, don't you want to talk about Rhionen Industries?"

Terry thought for a moment, then nodded. "OK..."

Carl and Sascha then excused themselves to their car and kept an eye on Aleksis from afar, as usual.

After the two bodyguards left, Aleksis hurriedly pulled Terry's hand to the sofa and sat next to him.

"I met Prince Siegfried!!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "He's as good as I imagined. And now I'm confused..."

"Why are you confused?" Terry asked in amazement.

"I didn't tell him who I am... He doesn't know that I am an Alchemist and that I have two bodyguards watching over me anywhere to protect me from perverted men..."

"So?"

"So, he prepared two bodyguards to protect me from perverted men..." said Aleksis with a frustrated face.

"Wait... what? So now you have double bodyguards now? Bahahahaha..." Terry couldn't help laughing, "What a waste of human resources, it's better to use some of them to protect me..."

Aleksis laughed and hit Terry on the shoulder. "Then you should date Prince Siegfried."

Terry looked thoughtful for a moment. "He is very considerate though, to the point of protecting you, just like your father... Who is he?"

Aleksis smiled faintly but she just shook her head, "Sorry, I can't reveal his identity now... because he's a very private person. Later I'll introduce him to you when the time comes..."

"Hmmm... he sounds so mysterious," Terry commented.

"Yes, he is. You said yourself that he is just like Dad," Aleksis replied. "Anyway, you said that you wanted to discuss your findings at the party yesterday with me. What interesting information is there?"

Terry immediately looked excited. He pulled Aleksis into his room and showed various data that was open on one of his computers. He pressed the holographic mode and all information was presented in three dimensions in front of them.

"Rhionen Industries has several subsidiaries engaged in the pharmaceutical field and they are well known for discovering the cure to cancer few years ago. They are also one of the leaders in genetical engineering and have succeeded in creating organs in the lab, so in future humans don't need to wait for organ transplants from a deceased donor..."

"That sounds really cool. We also invest in a technology like that right?" Aleksis commented.

"That's right. Those are some of the positive things about the company, which makes their reputation good, but there are also some less exposed things they do that are enough to shake me up. Their public relations division is very good at preserving their image so that we only hear the good things about them."

Terry looked very serious when discussing Rhionen Industries, "They are apparently the company behind Splitz and Gen23. You know those two, right?"

"Splitz is the largest social media platform at the moment... And Gen23 is a genetic research company. What about them?"

"Splitz has been collecting personal information for the past decade and they have stored a lot of data. Gen23, under the pretext of researching cancer medicines and various other diseases, has succeeded in gathering vast amounts of human genetic data from all over the world. You can imagine how rich they are now. The currency in this modern world is data."

"Okay... I understand, then what's the connection? That only means that the owner of Rhionen Industries is very rich..." Aleksis was not worried at all. It didn't matter how good the company was at collecting data, they would never be able to obtain information about the Alchemists.

"It is actually quite worrisome for one company to have that much data, because we don't know whether they are good or bad people, and what they are going to do with the data..." Terry said.

Uhm... I know that Alaric is basically a good person. He is just very sad and holds a grudge... If I can change his heart, then there is nothing to worry about, thought Aleksis.

"And I'm sure they don't have good intentions... based on the latest information I got from my partner..." Terry continued.

"Your partner?" Aleksis became interested.

"Well, I have an online friend with whom I discuss about the things you call conspiracy theory. He is the best hacker in the world today and he has directed his attention to Rhionen Industries for the past several years."

"Gosh... listening to you talk makes me feel like I'm in an action movie..." Aleksis commented. "What did your friend say about Rhionen Industries?"

"Well, first of all, he found a connection between Rhionen Industries and Rhionen Assassins. You know that regular people don't even know about Rhionen Assassins, but he found out about them three years ago," Terry said.

Aleksis began to pay attention with all her heart. Terry was right, his partner must be quite an expert if he knew the about the deadliest and most elusive assassin organization in the world... This made her curious, because it concerned Alaric, her boyfriend.

"Then?"

"Rhionen Assassins kept the secrets of so many important people in the world. They use these secrets to blackmail officials or political figures to streamline Rhionen Industries operations in various countries.

You know that China is a very closed country, but they have managed to grow there very rapidly, and now they even obtained an automation contract for the whole country. There is definitely a game played behind the scenes with the current Chinese rulers.

Then, Rhionen Industries developed a very advanced AI technology that aims to replace all human workers. Just imagine, with all the genetic data they have, someday, all of a sudden, they can expel viruses or diseases that only react to humans with certain genetic codes, and those people will die. Only those they choose to stay alive will survive.

Our daily lives will not be too affected, because after all, the workforce has been replaced by artificial humans or robots due to the automation project with AI... The automation process they are doing, if it starts now,.. will be completed in just 10 years... And in the meantime, they plan to expand to the rest of Asia, Australia, America and Africa."

Terry's words horrified Aleksis.