Upon signing the contract, Jin finally relaxed and asked a question that had been bugging him for a while now. "Say, I thought you guys were supposed to be vigilantes. The kind to fight against the oppressive rich and give to the poor and such… but here you are not even hesitating to take this deal so openly, to the point you openly showed your desire for money, land and even a thirst for massacre."
Neil laughed at Jin's comment as he grabbed the silver bottle and drank a gulp of it before replying to him. "Now isn't that imposing your ideals on us? Besides you need money to help others, doesn't matter if it has to be stolen by some pretentious noble guy or from some rich young master who has delivered himself in front of me."
"Still, it's true that we care about those with little means, but so does your side. As much as I hate the crown, I can't help but admit that 'King' Rex has been doing some nifty things to ensure the survival of those who had been abused. Oh don't give me that look, you should be perfectly aware that we have rats and moles everywhere. So his deal with the Pandapolis Lord has been extremely beneficial to my fellow people that they have reported that they need to observe the situation a little longer."
"Why? Afraid that there is no such thing as a pure good deed?" Jin chuckled which made Neil shrug his shoulders momentarily.
"In a way. How can we not be wary? They are suddenly being provided with food, shelter and even a living daily wage to tide over the difficult times… who would believe that nothing shady was going on in the background. A lot of them had a bad bout of scepticism because they suffered too much under the previous ruling of King Baal. Not to say he is a bad king, mind you. Just that, he had fallen from grace, which is why all of us had been dealing with his advisor instead." Neil revealed as he took in another mouthful of alcohol.
"Say, now that I have you before me, Mr Lordling of Pandapolis, what's your relationship with the usurped?" Neil asked as he placed the silver bottle down and smirked at him. Jin then realised that this must have been the reason why a Shadow King had so readily accepted the deal without any reason or excuse.
"Firstly, how did you know it was me?" Jin questioned and sighed, not even trying to deny the truth. Neil blatantly laughed at him for his ignorance.
"For starters, if you want to stay incognito you might switch to a different type of mask. Your feud against King Baal was possibly one of the most anticipated fights in Demopolis history. How could I not recognise you from that alone?" Neil stared at him for a moment to check for any reactions before explaining that the Mafias as usual had their ways and methods to get footage of the fight between Demopolis and Pandapolis. No doubt, they had also taken Moloch to be the main lead against Baal, so they had been just as surprised for a human with strong physical and magical abilities to appear and fight the previous King for so long.
"And later we found out that the owner of the Pandapolis Core was not entirely by Moloch but a human too. That information was quite an expensive purchase but to have the Lordling to be right in front of me, offering me a deal that I cannot resist, this is just way too exciting to refuse."
"I see…" Jin was unsure how to feel about his infamous status in the eyes of the Mafias.
"Another thing I would like you to confirm is about an interesting rumour flying around. Apparently the true objective was never to take over, but to use Demopolis as bait to fight against the other cities. No need for false courtesies here. I for one am hoping this to be true. I would be looking forward to working alongside a Lordling with such a crazy mindset, as the world needs someone like that. Someone who could get rid of the discrimination between the rich and poor." Neil replied with a wide smile.
"To be honest, that is not the only thing I am aiming to change." Jin felt a bit more talkative than usual and decided to tell Neil about his ultimate goal for the Dungeon World since now he and his entire Mafia had been officially registered to be under the System's command.
"The Church of the Afterlife?! The root of all evil in this world?! Are you kidding me? Hahahaha!" Neil laughed so hard, one might even worry he could fall off from his chair.
"The root of all evil?" Jin queried and the Red Tiefling controlled his laughter for a little.
"The might and deeds of us the three Shadow Kings pale in comparison to the Church of the Afterlife. They probably don't even know themselves just how many people got ripped off by their piss poor agents. Their ruthlessness in achieving what they want is something our yolk can learn from."
"Driven by their greed for power, they had crawled their way into the beds of politicians and royalties. If we had not seen you in action before, we'd think you to be insane proposing such a dangerous goal." Neil explained, making Jin believe that the Tiefling must have clashed against the Church of the Afterlife quite a few times to have such an experience.
"That's not all. We want to attack them where it will hurt them to most, by putting up our own religion against theirs." Jin revealed and with a snap of his fingers, the System started to load a summary of details into Neil's head. He was instantly stunned by the overloading information.
A while ago Jin and the System had requested Pei and Kiyu to create a spell that would allow fast transmission of information so that they would not not have to explain to each and every new recruit that joined under Jin's banner what the end goal would be.
This way was very effective and they could get on with what they needed to discuss without wasting any time. However, the one downside they had failed to get rid off, was a series of slight headaches for the recipient. When asked if the spell could be improved, Pei said, that it's less a direct result of the spell and more an after effect of the brain getting that influx of information. The easiest remedy was to take paracetamol or any other suitable painkillers to aid with the headache.
"Wow. Alright." Neil shook his head and tried to steady himself by taking another shot of his alcohol. It indeed relaxed him a fair bit before nodding to Jin with regards to his plan to create a religion so that they could go toe to toe with the Church of the Afterlife.
"Ultimately, a Crusade War, huh." Neil felt it would be quite the befitting end for the Church of the Afterlife if Jin were to succeed. "If that's the case then I might actually have an idea or two you could consider and possibly implement at the later stages of this current battle." Neil smiled in a way he usually only saw in Kraft.
