Demon Lord's Reincarnation

If someone was literally turtling down and avoiding any sort of confrontation, it could be stemmed for something that happened pretty recently—or he was like this from the beginning and his willingness to cooperate with me last time was only due to sheer luck or one of those times when he really wanted to do something to fix the situation.

However, since being allied with me and Mauricio, it might've made him revert back to this lame-ass dude who had gotten complacent due to his almost impenetrable fortress and strong allies behind his back.

And yeah, that's now how it fucking works.

It's just that what's worse was that his whole family was behind him and they saw no error in how Mr. Garciano was doing things.

So yeah, nothing better to do than an impromptu emergency meeting—though I did call over the people I sent here plus all the other officers available including Captain Dagan who stayed by their main entrance. Mr. Garciano and his family tried to get out of this situation a few times but once they knew I wasn't budging an inch, they just put their hands up and sat down in defeat.

It took maybe 15 minutes to set everything up, and good thing they had a good projector on hand and a nice sound system so we could address everything as clear and as open as possible.

While I did say we should do this in private, this was still somewhat of a private setting where the people involved were individuals who had some say in this place or were in charge of a few things to keep things running.

And I started, "Alright, I'm really sorry to do this after cooking us a delicious meal but if I saw something, I'd say something. Discover exclusive tales on empire

I was really looking forward to just catching up and trying to suggest a few minor things I may or may not spot for some improvements but nah, all that shit went out the window when one, the officers running this place was in disagreement with how their leader was doing things and two, how the supposed leader just as easily gave away his position the moment he felt a bit of push from everyone else around him."

"..."

"Nothing? It could be the way you do things—figuring everything else nonverbally but that's not the fucking way to go. Open communication between all your people should be top of the list and it should be one of the things that you excel at since you were in politics. You either tell me the thing that's been plaguing your head or this shit wouldn't work.

Have you seen what's happening outside this area? That alone is a big red flag, you should be keeping your area of influence clear of the dead, not hosting an evolution party."n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"..."

"Look, I'm handling more shit than all of you and I hadn't even had the chance to do something selfish for my own sake so can't we meet in the middle here?"

"..."

"Still nothing?! Is that the best you can do?! Clam up?! ANSWER ME, MR. GARCIANO! THE FUCK'S HAPPENING WITH YOU?!"

Mr. Garciano sighed before he opened his mouth, "Look, I… H-Haa… I-It's… I'm… I'm done, that's it. So, can you just please have it your way so I could—"

"THAT'S NOT HOW IT FUCKING WORKS, YOU FUCK! YOU HAVE LED THESE PEOPLE ALL THIS TIME AND YOU JUST BOW OUT WHEN IT PLEASES YOU?! YOU'RE PROBABLY AT THE TOP OF THE LEADERBOARDS RIGHT FUCKING NOW AND EVERYONE ELSE OUT THERE WOULD FUCKING KILL TO TRADE PLACES WITH YOU AND YOU PULL THIS SHIT?! HOW—"

Mrs. Garciano suddenly cut in, "H-He has cancer, alright?! S-So— C-Can you please lay off?! We're just being supportive here and you just have to ruin everything!"

Hearing that, my first go-to was to be empathetic but as coldhearted as this may sound, he had fucking responsibilities and again, as many times as it would take, I'll fucking say that open communication was so fucking easy, why the fuck can't anyone fucking do that in the most important time as they should've?!

So I exploded back, "SO WHAT?!"

"YOU—"

"THEN YOU SHOULD'VE FUCKING SAID SO, DUMB FUCK! WHAT'S YOUR TREATMENT PLAN?! YOU SHOULD'VE TOLD EVERYONE SO WE COULD ALL FIGURE OUT THE NEXT STEPS! ARE YOU PLANNING TO FUCKING DRAG EVERYONE DOWN WITH YOU?! ANSWER ME, YOU FUCK!"

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO—"

Mrs. Garciano was this fucking close to stabbing me with a fork but Mr. Garciano just looked at her solemnly before trying to calm her down. After that, he stood up and looked at everyone apologetically before he bowed down and actually apologized:

"Everyone, I'm— I'm deeply sorry for the past few when… w-when I stopped caring completely because I… because I was r-recently diagnosed with cancer and… Heh… Out of all the things to go down to, it's… it's something this f-fucking stupid… I… I tried so hard to really take care of myself, I do, but one thing I neglected was doing regular checkups with a doctor so that's… that's why I… that's why this thing in my head wasn't seen until recently…"

Hearing that, the place couldn't be more silent because everyone else wanted to vent out all of their frustrations as to how Mr. Garciano was running things but when they heard the word 'cancer' they couldn't even look him in the eye.

However, again, it wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card or anything—though it might be for some people—but yeah, he really should've communicated it because even though it should be a personal thing, the time and the place to act this way like it doesn't affect everyone else was tantamount to his people and also his family's survival.

And while I do understand— no, while it's true none of us here could understand what was going through his head right now, once you take up the mantle of the responsibility of protecting the lives of other people, being selfish or taking the time for oneself could come at a greater cost.