On the other side of the world—
A secret meeting was taking place.
The location was a luxurious mansion hidden in the Swiss mountains. The large classical-style building stood far from the bustle of the city, surrounded by pine forests and protected by a security system nearly comparable to a military facility.
Inside one of its spacious meeting rooms, several men sat around a long mahogany table.
They were not ordinary people.
Powerful businessmen, shadow investors, scientists, and influential figures from the underworld—people who held immense power behind the scenes.
Today they had gathered for one reason.
Eden.
One of the men sitting at the end of the table opened the discussion with an impatient tone.
"Haah, tell us, Walker. Is there any result from duplicating the Mato Essence?"
Thomas Walker, who sat calmly in his chair, interlocked his fingers on the table.
"Not yet."
His answer was short and flat.
The room immediately became tense.
One of the men sitting not far from him clicked his tongue in annoyance. The veins on his temple were even visibly bulging.
"Look at this! You still haven't managed to fulfill your promise! If we had dragged Omar Bradley here, we wouldn't even need to bother recreating this from scratch!"
Several other members nodded slowly.
But Walker remained calm.
"But Omar Bradley is a traitor!" he replied coldly. "We cannot allow him to roam free while carrying the Mato Essence with him!"
An old man on the other side of the table tapped the surface with his finger, his voice heavy with pressure.
"Walker, you must face reality."
He leaned slightly forward.
"That Mato Essence consumes far too many resources. We used a large number of peaches for that experiment."
He paused for a moment before continuing in a sharper tone.
"And lately the Prime Minister of Japan has been very stingy about distributing those fruits."
Several people at the table sighed impatiently.
In the current world, peaches from Mato were almost equivalent to a global strategic resource.
And Japan—held the main monopoly over that resource, because Mato gates had only ever appeared within Japanese territory.
That reality made the entire world dependent on the policies of that island nation.
"Even if we drag Omar back, there's no guarantee he would create Mato Essence again," one man said coldly. "Besides, three months have passed. Is there still no trace of where Omar Bradley injected the Mato Essence?"
Thomas Walker let out a slow sigh at the question.
He opened a tablet in front of him and played several recordings.
"I've dug through various information and analyzed the CCTV footage at the airport from that time."
Several small screens on the table displayed pieces of recorded footage.
"Just before Omar entered the airport restroom, there was a young man who went in first. Based on the timing and camera positions, I'm certain that's where Omar injected the Mato Essence into that person."
Several people in the room immediately looked at the screen more seriously.
Walker continued calmly.
"Unfortunately, even though we used the most advanced facial recognition technology we have…"
One of the men interrupted impatiently.
"Unfortunately what?"
Walker tapped the tablet screen once.
The CCTV footage showed the blurry figure of a young man captured from the camera angle.
"That young man most likely came from Japan."
The room instantly fell silent.
Walker continued his explanation.
"I concluded that from the flight data captured by another camera. His departure schedule to Tokyo was not long after the incident."
Several people around the table immediately let out long sighs at the same time.
From the entire world, why did it have to be Japan?
One of them slowly shook his head with an irritated expression.
"That means we have to operate in Japanese territory."
Another man added in a grim tone,
"The country with the largest number of Peach Blessing users in the world… and the main headquarters of the MDF."
A heavy silence filled the room again.
Their organization's movements were already restricted in many countries.
But Japan—was the most difficult place for them to operate freely.
Not only because of the existence of the MDF, but also because of one person they truly feared.
Ren Yamashiro.
The current supreme commander of the MDF.
Just hearing that name was enough to make several people in the room fall silent for a moment.
One of the old men sitting at the end of the table slowly crossed his arms.
"If our operation is detected by her… then it's over."
No one argued with that statement.
Ren Yamashiro was not just an ordinary military commander. In Japan—even across the world—her name had become a living legend.
"She is called the pinnacle of humanity," someone said in a heavy tone. "A Peach Blessing user who surpasses every capability standard we have ever measured."
Walker nodded slowly.
"According to our intelligence reports, nearly every large-scale operation that occurred in the Mato territory over the past five years ended the same way when she intervened."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Absolute victory."
Several members of the organization looked uncomfortable.
A silver-haired man tapped the table with his finger.
"If she were merely a powerful soldier, this would not be such a big problem."
He looked at the screen in front of him displaying several battle reports.
"The problem is… she is also a strategist."
Another man chuckled bitterly.
"Ah, right. A monster who is also a genius."
The title often whispered within the world's military circles crossed their minds.
Ren Yamashiro — The War God of Japan.
The woman was practically regarded as a god in human form.
Her combat ability, control over abilities, tactical intelligence, and leadership charisma made her almost impossible to oppose directly.
Walker stared at the screen for a few seconds before finally speaking quietly,
"Even with the Numbers we have… would that truly make a difference?"
The murmur was clearly heard by the man sitting next to him.
The man immediately turned with a look of disbelief.
"Hey, don't joke around."
His tone turned serious.
"Numbers are the best product we can currently use—and also the most expensive." He tapped the table with his finger. "If we use them just to deal with Ren Yamashiro… we won't only lose money."
He paused briefly before continuing in a lower voice.
"This place could also come to an end."
Walker glanced at him briefly, then clicked his tongue softly.
Within their organization, Numbers were cards that were very rarely used.
Not because they were scarce.
But because the consequences were too costly.
Numbers were men who possessed compatibility with the Golden Apple—an imitation version of the Mato peach that they had developed through long and expensive experimentation.
But an imitation remained an imitation.
Golden Apple could indeed grant extraordinary physical enhancements to its users—even in some cases surpassing the enhancement provided by genuine Peach Blessings.
Unfortunately, there was one major problem.
Sanity.
Most test subjects lost control of their minds after that power fused with their bodies.
Some turned into monsters unable to distinguish between enemies and allies.
Others… simply became uncontrolled killing machines.
That was why they were called Numbers.
There were seven of them that the organization could control by implanting control chips in their brains. Essentially, those seven men were bio-weapons.
Walker turned his gaze back to the screen.
"The Numbers still lack tactical experience, so we have not yet seen their strengths and weaknesses…"
On the screen remained the blurry recording of a young man leaving the airport restroom several months ago—the figure they believed had received Omar Bradley's Mato Essence.
Walker crossed his arms.
"The Golden Apple failed to meet our standards."
His tone was flat, almost cold.
"And our hope now lies with this young man."
That statement made several people in the meeting room exchange glances.
One of them even let out a long sigh.
"From a blurry CCTV recording like that?" he muttered skeptically. "Walker, you don't even know who he is yet."
Walker did not respond.
His gaze remained fixed on the screen.
For others, the footage might mean nothing—just the shadow of a young man walking out of an airport restroom.
But for Walker, that fragment of an image was the only clue left from their greatest experiment.
That young man was the final possibility for the success of Mato Essence.
At that moment, one of the technical staff members sitting at the end of the table suddenly spoke.
"Walker."
The man raised the tablet in his hand.
"There's something you might want to see."
Walker's brow furrowed slightly.
"Speak."
"This video is currently going viral in Japan."
The tablet's content was projected onto the large screen in the meeting room.
Instantly, footage from a social media livestream appeared.
The first scene showed a crowd gathered in front of a two-story apartment building that had partially collapsed.
Then the camera shifted—revealing a girl surrounded by a dark crimson aura attacking someone with a whip.
The red energy erupted every time the whip cracked, damaging the walls and the street around her.
But the camera did not remain focused on the girl.
The crowd watching the scene was actually cheering for someone else.
A young man.
The young man moved nimbly, avoiding every attack with clean and precise movements—stepping, turning, lowering his body, then closing the distance in a single smooth motion.
A few seconds later, he slammed the girl to the ground with a technique that looked like Aikido.
Walker, who had been leaning back in his chair, suddenly leaned forward.
His eyes narrowed.
The video stopped on a single frame when the young man's face became fairly clear in someone's phone camera.
The meeting room, which had been relaxed moments ago, suddenly fell silent.
Walker stared at the screen for several seconds.
Then he slowly stood up.
"Enlarge that image."
His order was brief.
The technical staff immediately complied, zooming in on the young man's face.
Walker did not say anything for a moment.
But his expression changed—not surprise, nor anger.
Something far more dangerous.
Interest.
Walker slowly turned his head toward the other members of the meeting. His gaze was sharp, as if he had just found something he had been searching for for a long time.
"We were just about to discuss him," he said quietly, his voice almost satisfied. "But he surfaced on his own."
Several people in the room immediately examined the screen more seriously.
Walker gave a short signal to the technical staff.
"Match it with the airport footage."
The facial analysis system immediately began working. Two images appeared side by side on the large screen—the blurry CCTV footage from the airport three months earlier and the viral video clip from Japan they had just watched.
The difference was quite noticeable.
The young man in the airport recording looked thinner, his posture smaller, and his face still carried the impression of an ordinary university student.
Meanwhile, in the latest video, his body looked far more athletic. His shoulders were broader, his posture straighter, and his movements showed physical discipline that ordinary people did not possess.
But the technology they used did not care about such changes.
Digital lines began mapping the facial bone structure, eye distance, jaw contours, and head proportions.
A few seconds later, the analysis result appeared on the screen.
FACIAL MATCH: 98%
The room immediately filled with low murmurs.