Chapter 129: Muggle Security Corps

After the Watchers were deployed, the frequency of werewolf attacks immediately dropped significantly.

And after a werewolf wizard was stunned and even captured by the outnumbering Watchers during one attack, the Watchers' morale soared. Their fear of werewolves vanished, and they became unstoppable, repelling werewolf attacks one after another with overwhelming combat power.

One week after the Watchers were deployed, the werewolf attacks had actually died down completely.

This outstanding combat performance naturally needed to be boasted about. Murphy had Rita write a follow-up report every day, on one hand promoting how brave and powerful the Watchers were, and how they were locked in a life-and-death struggle with the werewolves, ensuring the safety of wizarding civilians.

On the other hand, it heavily ridiculed and satirized the Aurors, mocking them as cowards who trembled at the knees upon seeing a werewolf, while Barty Crouch was crowned with the title of "Werewolf Phobia." Rita also maliciously had someone draw a caricature of Barty Crouch as a big-headed baby being scared to tears by a werewolf.

This unscrupulous reporter had always had a knack for disparaging others.

As for those few werewolves unfortunately captured during the battles, since the Aurors didn't care, Murphy naturally accepted them with a smile, sending them directly to the Transfiguration Research Group, which was just lacking such genuine werewolf samples.

The Watchers' morale was high, and the Security Shop was immersed in the joy of victory, but Murphy did not let his guard down.

He suspected that these werewolves wouldn't give up so easily, and that the instigators behind them might have further moves in store.

One day in June, Murphy arrived at Patrick's home.

"I'm planning to assign a few security guards to you." After mooching a meal and playing with Patrick's son, Ares Jr., for a while, he said it as if it were a casual remark.

"Security guards?" Patrick found it somewhat amusing. "Did you borrow usurious loans from somewhere?"

"No usurious loans, but there are quite a few people who are jealous of us." Murphy said, "I don't show my face much outside. If someone wants to deal with Umbrella, you will be the primary target."

It took Patrick a good while to realize that Murphy was serious.

"This is London," Patrick said, somewhat disbelieving. "Who would hurt me? Did something happen?"

"I hope I'm just worrying needlessly, but it's better to be safe than sorry, isn't it? You're a billionaire now, after all; it wouldn't look right not to have a few bodyguards around."

"…Alright." Patrick didn't refuse; after all, it just meant a few more people in the house. Compared to the safety of his family, it really wasn't a big problem.

"How is the progress on the computer system research?" Murphy asked.

Since part of the chip research required the use of magic, most of it was conducted in the Magic Research Institute, while the computer system and overall machine design were the responsibility of the Muggle company.

Among them, the overall machine design was handed over to Sinclair Research. They were responsible for communicating with various manufacturers of motherboards and other components according to the chip parameters provided by the chip research group, helping them design accessories that could leverage the performance of the new chips.

For this reason, Murphy had also invested in several manufacturing plants for motherboards, memory, and hard drives.

As for the computer system, although a large amount of research and upper-level architecture design had been conducted in the early stages, and some functions of the system had been written in high-level languages, the actual combination of these into a system only began after the instruction set research was completed and their own compiler was designed.

"I talked to Bob from the project team before. Currently, the overall completion of the system is less than 40%. According to his expectations, it will take at least another year to complete development." Patrick looked at Murphy's darkening expression and said, "He suggested that we could first launch some server equipment using a DOS-like system…"

Because servers were mostly in the commercial field and performed relatively singular tasks, customers had higher requirements for their computing performance than for operational convenience, so this suggestion was reasonable.

But this path wouldn't work.

For one, the server market wasn't as large as the personal computer market.

For another, in the server field, technical barriers were difficult to establish. Historically, an architecture as strong as Intel's x86 took decades to dominate the market. Without a monopoly advantage, high premiums couldn't be formed, and without high premiums, measured against Murphy's early R&D costs, selling no matter how many products would just be losing money for the sake of noise.

"Continue recruiting people," Murphy said. "We can't wait. Once the chip tape-out is successful, we must immediately start producing our own personal computer terminals. In six months at most, our own desktop system must be online."

"But…" Patrick looked at him with concern, wanting to say more but stopping.

Murphy knew what he meant; with such aggressive money-burning, their funds could not last for long.

"It doesn't matter, our first movie can be released next month."

The Lion King had already entered the promotional stage and could be released within a month at most.

And not only that, Pict's next movie, Aladdin, was already on the way.

There was no help for it but to keep shearing the sheep that was Disney; among 2D animated movies, the ones with the highest box office were indeed all from Disney.

Doing this also carried risks. The Lion King was fine, but Aladdin was completely in the mold of a Disney animation; perhaps they already had a preliminary plan.

Therefore, Murphy planned to copy at most one more Frozen before letting Pict turn over a new leaf.

…

Leaving Patrick's home, Murphy went to see the mansion's security supervisor, Ladwan Perry.

That was a burly man with a red beard.

"Ladwan, I need a fully armed team to protect several of our key personnel. Can you help me organize such a team?"

"You can contact the company directly; they surely have a plan suitable for you."

"No, you don't understand what I mean." Murphy said, "It's not about cooperating with a security company, but that I want to form Umbrella Company's own security team."

"You want to poach me from the company?" Ladwan asked suspiciously.

"Not just you, but your team, and your former comrades-in-arms." Murphy looked at the other man. "I know you served in the British military. You and your friends participated in the Falklands War as Royal Marines, right?"

Ladwan looked at Murphy suspiciously. Logically speaking, the data on the Falklands War was not public now; these should be classified, and his resume didn't even write them. How could Murphy know?

However, he still nodded slowly.

"Come to Umbrella. I will pay off your breach of contract penalty." Murphy said.

Generally, scarce talents like Ladwan were also highly valued in security companies. The Hazard Mitigation Group had signed a five-year employment contract with him. If Ladwan wanted to leave the Hazard Mitigation Group, he would need to pay a breach of contract penalty of twice his annual salary, reaching as high as one million pounds.

But, a mere million pounds, to Murphy, who was burning money so fast he was almost ascending to immortality, he didn't even bother to haggle.

"Bring your friends. I will give you twice your original salary. During combat missions, the salary will double again."

"But I require you to form a team with sufficient combat capability within half a month. I mean a team composed of members of the same level as your former teammates."

Ladwan nodded. "Besides ordinary security tasks, is there anything else I need to know?"

Murphy glanced at the burly man.

This guy was very sharp.

But this was also one of the reasons Murphy valued him.

He thought for a moment. "I hope I'm just worrying needlessly, but if the worst-case scenario really happens, you might face some unusual enemies…"

Murphy hesitated for a moment, ultimately not telling the other party the truth, only saying: "In short, get the equipment ready."

The lethality of firearms was no less than that of wands. Those werewolves who could only transform during the full moon couldn't take many hits either. Dozens of gunmen who had undergone professional military training should be enough to deal with most situations.

Thanks to Elemental Summoner for the 4,500 Qidian coins tip~~ Thank you, boss, for the support~

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 130 =====