“It means that what they did will haunt them for the rest of their lives. We can’t kill them or evict them from this world, but…” Roland said with a smile, “Those people will be on our blacklist. Nobody will ever cooperate or communicate with them, or help them when they’re in need. They’ll be jokes to everyone. That’s a social death. All the Golden Sons are well-informed. Now, almost everybody knows what happened.”
Cage was relieved. “I thought that you would cover for them.”
“Don’t worry. The Golden Sons have basic morals.”
“That’s good. That’s good.” Cage nodded quickly.
Roland spent one day in Reed Village and didn’t return to Delpon until Cage was fully recovered.
When he returned to his manor, he found that Andonara was teaching several Warrior players on what Great Swordsman meant.
Seeing Roland, she told the players to come again tomorrow, before she took Roland into their room. They cuddled for a while. Then Roland told her about what happened in Winterwind.
When she heard that Cage almost died, her red lips immediately turned pale.
Clenching her fists, she asked fearfully, “Is he okay now?”
“He’s fine,” Roland said. “I healed him and confirmed that he was fully recovered before I returned.”
Relieved, Andonara threw herself into Roland’s arms and enjoyed the silence for a moment. Then she raised her head and said, “Roland, I’m going to be away for a while.”
“You want to kill someone?”
Andonara nodded. “My uncle always treats me as his own daughter. I couldn’t have survived without him. Besides, as the patriarch of the family, he even gave the Phoenix Blood to me. As his niece and his family, I can’t stand by after hearing what happened to him.”
“I don’t have a reason to stop you.” Roland grabbed her hand and said, “I’ll go with you.”
With a smile of delight, Andonara said, “Thank you, but no. This is the Reed family’s business. This is my business. It’s inappropriate for you to be involved in my revenge as a Golden Son.”
“The Golden Sons are not as united as you think,” Roland said with a smile. “Nobody will blame me if I kill those who have a black leaf on their faces.”
“It’s really unnecessary.” Andonara held Roland’s hands and said, “Actually, you would only be a burden for me if you came with me!”
Roland was quite startled to hear that.
As the best Mage among the players, he could destroy a city with a fully-blown fireball. Yet, he was considered a burden.
That was utterly unreasonable.
Seeing Roland’s shock, Andonara appeased him with a kiss and said, “We fight in different ways. I’ll attack the enemy and then immediately jump away. Although you can fly now, you’re not nearly as agile as me. If we worked together, you wouldn’t be able to keep up with my pace.”
Well… Roland had to admit that Andonara had a point.
Roland’s most powerful spell was the big fireball, but it required time and a safe distance. Also, he could only cast it once.
Apart from the big fireball, he was still quite good with his other spells, but he was not inhumanly strong.
Andonara was different. After activating the bloodline power of her family, she was undoubtedly the strongest person in all of Hollevin.
“Then take Christina with you,” Roland said. “She’s your servant anyway. She can take care of you.”
At this point, a bunch of fat bats flew into the window and crashed into Roland’s head. It wasn’t very painful but quite annoying.
Roland had to protect his face with his hands from the little bats.
He didn’t want his unremarkable face to be even more unremarkable.
Andonara smiled and closed the windows.
As the room fell dark, the bats turned into a girl, who ran to Roland and said angrily with her arms akimbo, “You Golden Sons are as mean as demons, and yet you want me to fight them? Are you trying to kill me because I’m a third wheel between you and Anna?”
Andonara covered her mouth and chuckled.
After spending some time with Roland and Andonara, Christina knew that they were very approachable, and she didn’t have to behave like a servant even though she was one.
“Don’t worry.” Roland patted her head and said, “Ghost Blade is now hunting vampires in Urganda. You’re safe in Hollevin.”
Christina was relieved.
“Besides, you don’t have to fight the Golden Sons directly,” Roland said. “You only need to watch out for Andonara during the night.”
“Okay. I’m fine with that.” She was completely reassured.
Then, Roland told them the vulnerabilities of the players and the things they should pay attention to. For example, if possible, they should dispose of the players’ bodies after the battle, preferably by feeding the bodies to beasts. This way, the players would lose experience points and would be feeble for a long time after their resurrection. It would be easy to kill them again.
For example… The players liked to work in squads of five, but the female players generally lacked battle awareness. They could be the weak links of the squads.
After Roland introduced the habits and weaknesses of the players, Christina immediately grew cocky. “If you had told me the Golden Sons’ weaknesses sooner, I wouldn’t have been scared of them.”
Roland merely chuckled.
In any case, Andonara left the manor with Christina the next day.
Roland returned to the Magic Tower and stayed there. Vivian was the happiest of all, because Roland would be solely hers for now.
While continuing his magic studies, Roland focused on the forum.
Silver Wings and Jalan Temple were truly doomed.
They couldn’t remove the black leaf on their faces after resurrecting, nor by recreating their character.
Many members of Silver Wings had tried recreating their character. But after they were born in the Temple of Life, the reverends there would simply hit them with a cudgel and hit them again after they were revived.
The reverends of other churches would also attack the Golden Sons who had a black leaf on their face without giving them any chance to explain or beg for mercy.
They were only lucky that the black leaves were not carried over into reality.
Now, it was the most heated subject on the forum, but the authorities simply ignored it.
Altogether, four hundred people from the two guilds were marked with black leaves. Another two hundred players who tried to make a profit in the mess were marked too.
They initiated a class-action lawsuit against the game company.
The session was scheduled three days later.
Also, the local court had announced that the trial would be streamed… The news became a hit all over the Internet and claimed the headlines of some of the most popular social media news outlets.
Three days passed quickly.
At home, Roland turned on the stream channel of Law Online.
