Before Jack went up to ambush Goliath and The Real Man, he had cast Body Double. During the entire endeavor, he had controlled his doppelganger to ran towards the capital. The copy created from his Body Double skill could last five minutes, hence he had been keeping a tab on the time. He let go of The Real Man when it was ten seconds left before his skill expired.
Unfortunately, his hostage could not let go of his grudge and decided to kill him, so he took him out instead. When Goliath charged at him, he finally switched place with his copy at the last second before the skill expired. The skill ended once he traded place with his copy.
He reappeared at the place where his doppelganger was a moment before. He looked at his surroundings and checked his map, he was actually ahead of Bowler and the others, so he decided to stay at his place and wait for them.
He could imagine the clueless expressions from the members of Warriors of Solidarity who were charging at him, or maybe they ignorantly thought that they had killed him when he disappeared into thin air? No, the others maybe, but the one called Goliath was not your regular player. He was one of the more well-known players amongst the Warriors of Solidarity.
Jack was still amazed by the fact that Goliath had managed to detect his attack at the last second when he ambushed the big fellow. If they fought with balanced stats, he was not confident he could win that easily against the giant.
Three tiny figures appeared on the horizon as the three green dots approached him on his map. He could see Bowler, Fierce Flame, and The Man running in his direction. When they got nearer, they were taken aback when they saw Jack.
They had seen his dot disappeared from their map and reappeared somewhere in front of them. They had difficulty understanding the phenomena and thought that maybe there was a glitch in the map system. But here Jack was, standing right in front of them. The guy even looked like he had been waiting for them for quite some time already.
“How do you…,” Bowler was at a loss.
“Magic,” Jack replied with a grin.
Bowler rolled his eyes at Jack for not telling them his secret, but Jack had been honest in fact. He indeed used a magic skill from his Mage class.
“Haha! I admire you more and more, boss!” The Man laughed without restraint.
“Let’s go back to the city,” Jack said.
On their way back, Jack asked them what exactly had happened. The Man and Bowler recited to him the events that had brought them to the woods.
“It was lucky that you arrived when you did,” Bowler said. “We would have been a goner if you arrived any later.”
“Well, it looks like you guys will have to be more careful in the future,” Jack said. “It’s unlikely they will be letting this slide, now that I have killed their leader.”
“You killed The Real Man?” The Man asked.
“Yes, he forced my hand,” Jack answered.
“Well, serve him right, that deceiving prick!” The Man uttered.
“He won’t be able to find us so easily in the city,” Bowler said.
“But he can post some men at the gates and called his friends whenever we go out of the city,” Flame reminded.
“For the time being, maybe it’s better if you guys stay in the city and do quests that can be completed within the capital. If there is a need to go out, then you should do it together. Try to find out if anyone is following you and take them out before their friends arrived.”
The Man nodded, “guess that’s all we can do at the moment. Damn that scheming prick! Ever since that boy was put in charge, the Warriors of Solidarity is getting off track day by day. They started to scheme for God’s sake! Real men don’t scheme! We fight if we don’t like you, we yell and curse when we are angry, and we will never desert you if you are our brothers, but that boy just does not respect the values which have defined the guild at the start anymore… He is even involved in the scheme to unite most of the powerful guilds in the city to assert more control on the other players.”
“What scheme?” Jack was intrigued by his last sentence.
“You haven’t heard?” The Man asked back.
“No, I’ve been busy with my quest the past few days.”
“There were talks on the street, about one of the top guilds had been arranging for a meeting with other prominent guilds in the capital. From the look of it, they were planning to make some big waves. The Warriors of Solidarity is among the guilds that would be in the meeting.”
“When will this meeting be held?”
“Not sure. My group isn’t among those invited. I assume The Real Man has something to do with that, but I reckon it will be within these coming few days.”
“Do you know which guilds will be involved in this?”
“Only rumors, nothing to be sure of.”
“I know one big guild which is not involved,” Bowler joined in the conversation.
“Oh? Which one?”
“White Scarfs”
“You sure are buddy-buddy with them to know about that. But how come? Aren’t them the biggest guild at the moment?”
“They are just biggest in term of member counts, probably because most of the players that came to this city were from Bay City, which was their base of operation. But in terms of expert counts, they are rather lacking.”
“That still doesn’t explain why they are not involved. They are big enough to make an influence in this city.”
“In that case, it’s probably due to the guild that is rumored to have initiated the meeting,” The Man said.
“Who?”
“Death Associates. Words are they got a beef with the White Scarfs.”
“Well, then we are partly responsible for that,” Flame commented.
“This has nothing to do with us anyway, let the guilds sort it out between them,” Bowler said.
“Don’t say that,” The Man disapproved. “When those with influence start to band together and make some rules, they will affect all of us. The worst thing is we have no say in it, and they will force their rules on us since they have the power. This freedom that we enjoyed right now will not last long, once those on top learn about the rules of the game, they will start to use them to their advantage and left us small people with only leftovers.”
“In other words, it will be better for us small people if they do not band together?”
“That’s the sum of it, or the alternative best we can hope for is the ones on top will not be so selfish and will still consider the needs of those small guilds and independent players.”
“I think that’s a bit unrealistic hope.”
“We can also have all the small guilds and independent players band together to take them on! The total number of independent players easily outnumber those top guilds,” Bowler exclaimed.
“That is also unrealistic,” Jack countered. “Those independent players chose to be independent because they do not want to be bothered by all these power struggles. Unless those big guilds had proven to act unreasonably and abused their freedom in a big way, it’s unlikely that they will give a damn.”
The Man shrugged, “there is nothing we can do about it then, let’s just hope for the best.”
They continued to chat on the way back, but Jack was deep in thought about the rumor of that meeting. If the balance of power amongst the existing guilds were shifted to one side, it would certainly affect the way they live here. In the past, it was still ok since it was just a game, if they didn’t like it, they could just quit and try another game. But here, they could not quit. They did not know how even if they wanted to. Was there really nothing he could do about this situation?
