The Cursed King

"Tessa, let's talk about this elsewhere," Elise said and tried to move back to the elevator. "What happened to Julian?"

"Y-You dare even ask?! Bitch! You did this to him and now you dare ask what happened to Julian???"

Ahead of them were a couple of security guards that didn't actually manage to stop Tessa and Julian. 

These people tried to talk the two people down, but whether it was through bribery or Tessa's insistence and her family name, she managed to reach this floor of Sanderman Group.

Right now, one of them took the opportunity to send a quick report to one of their higher-ups in concern of this situation. 

Elise gritted her teeth and looked at Tessa. "Let's go out of the building and discuss these things without making a scene out of it."

"You don't want me to make a fuss?" Tessa laughed. "Oh sweet and dearest cousin, you asked for this to happen. The people in this company have the right to know what kind of person you are."

"Tessa!" Elise shouted. She tried to look at Julian who sometimes could be reasoned with. "Please let's talk outside and don't involve them. We're disrupting work hours right now."

"Sorry Madeline, but Tessa is right. What you did was wrong and I know it as a lawyer--we can't have you faking an ID to work here just because you want to. Let's just go home right now before things start to get worse."

It was a sudden change in Julian's tone.

Almost like a bad cop and good cop scenario, Julian tried another method to get Elise to back down from this conversation--and that was because the two of them assumed that she did something wrong.

Elise did nothing of that like.

But before Elise could say anything else, someone thundered down the stairs and arrived at the second floor to find them.

*** 

Marc Sanderman had a lot of work that day and he was also in a terrible mood. He got nominated for the most eligible bachelor in the world again this year. The announcement and award ceremony would be held at the end of the year by the Ritz Gala association.

However, he was pissed because this year his ranking fell down from 5th last year to 9th this year. So many new young bachelors popping up in the scene and they took the world by storm.

In the year 2045 nomination, they had this prince whatshisname from Sweden, the youngest president in the world from Malta - also whatshisname, Alexei (who was only known by his first name) a famous model from Germany.

There was also Terrence Chan, the president of the Schneider Group, Marc's nemesis for years. Lastly, there was this new guy who shot to stardom just because his company created a new virtual reality technology that could be used to connect people to communicate better, called Virconnect.

His name was Elios Linden from this technology group called RMI and women were crazy for him. Tch... Marc had tried Virconnect and was not impressed. He didn't know what was so good about it.

Basically, it was just a technology that enabled people to have a 3D experience while they communicate with other people. Anybody could make that... right?

It was said that many people could use this to connect with their families in long-distance relationships. They would feel like they were in the same room when they talked. 

Influencers could also travel to exotic places and shared their experience in 3D with people who were willing to pay good money for it.

So, if you signed up to their space during their live moments, you could see aurora when they witness it in Iceland as if you were there with them. 

You could also feel like you were climbing Everest when the traveler took you there. Many people gushed about this new experience and were excited to try it.

Tch… only poor people would enjoy this type of thing, Marc concluded.

Poor people couldn't afford the real thing, like traveling in person to Iceland to see aurora because the cost was extremely high.

They also couldn't attend an exclusive classical concert for the same reason, so they had to feel satisfied with the fake one, sharing a secondhand experience from those who did it themselves.

Unfortunately, there were way too many poor people in the world who would love to use Virconnect. So, that made the company's popularity skyrocket.

RMI's businesses also branched out to media (they owned Splitz, the largest social media app in the world), the communication industry, AI, and basically all technology-related businesses.

Since RMI controlled the media, Marc was suspicious that Elios took advantage of it to boost his popularity that he now topped the ranking as the most eligible bachelor.

Yeah.. he must be cheating, Marc pursed his lips. Elios was not on the list last year… in fact, he was nowhere before 2044. It was as if the man never existed.

Elios Linden only suddenly appeared out of nowhere and led the two big groups, Meier Group and Rhionen Industries, which conveniently merged under him to become what was now known as RMI (Rhionen Meier Industries) and he quickly became such an important figure in the technology industry.

In just one year he took the world by storm. This was suspicious as hell, wasn't it?

Actually, Marc didn't care if Elios won the stupid award. He just didn't want to have his ranking lower than Terrence, his nemesis. This year Terrence was ranked 3rd, while Marc was on 9th.

This was a humiliation for him. He had been competing fiercely with Terrence for many years and he had never lost this badly.

"Aaargh!! I must do something to boost my popularity," Marc muttered to himself. If Terrence was at 3rd, he should at least be 2nd or 4th. Ninth was just too embarrassing.

Hmm.. maybe he should spread a fake engagement gossip with an actress or something. Only after they announced the award, he would deny everything.

He knew what he was doing was stupid, but Marc couldn't help it. He couldn't lose to Terrence Chan. This feud that he had with that man was childish, but Marc wouldn't budge. It all started when they were dating the same woman, years ago. 

Ah... it's a long story. He didn't want to think about it now.