“I also want to hear what he wants to say,” another voice sounded out. William of Wellington of Saint Edge had made his support on John known.
Now that the two largest guilds who rivaled the organizing guilds had voiced out supports, the others who were curious with John were no longer hesitating. Soon a chorus of voices demanding to let John stay on the stage was rolling.
The two Fighters halted on their steps, unsure of what to do. In their confusion, they looked back at Queen Magenta, who was gritting her teeth. They then looked at Scarface, who wore a blank expression. Finally, they turned to Manager Steelhand, who helplessly gestured for them to retreat.
Supported by the crowds, John was getting bolder with his approach. He waved at Manager Steelhand to go away, “move aside, I need a wide space for this.”
Jack had come back to his place again at this time. He could not see Earmouth, the guy was probably still searching for him.
“Find anything?” Warpath asked him.
“Nothing, just false alarm,” Jack replied, feeling slightly strange for Warpath to talk to him first.
John placed a small stone on the ground after Manager Steelhand reluctantly moved away. The stone was the one that Jack had placed inside the lion sculpture’s mouth. It was one of his recording stones, one that he had used to record an event before.
“I believe everyone here is aware regarding the strings of robberies in several days past. Some of you might even be one of its victims.”
Several murmurs were heard from the audience upon hearing John’s words.
“What does this have to do with that?” One of the audiences spoke out.
John smiled. Without talking further, he activated the recording stone. The stone flared up with bright red light, A series of holographic figures emerged around the place where the stone was at. John moved away in order to not interfere with its display.
The holographic image showed a large crowd of people. The focus of the crowd seemed to be on the lone warrior standing in the middle. The others were encircling him while not far from there, two men were standing on top of a small hill. The warrior was talking with the two men on the hill.
“It’s him?” Scarface, Red Death, and Wicked Witches instantly recognized the lone warrior in the hologram.
Jack heard a weird sound from beside him and looked to the side. Warpath was gritting his teeth with a bitter expression. Jack imagined the guy was still bearing a huge grudge against him.
Everyone was confused about what the scene was about. But after following the conversations for a while, they started to catch up that this group of people was the robbers that had terrorized the wilderness several days past. One of the audiences had even recognized a person amongst the people in the image, “that… that is the guy! The one who had robbed me!”
Others started to utter out similar comments as well, as they recognized several people from the holographic image. The robbers never bothered to cover their faces when doing their evil deeds, so it was easy for their victims to recognize them.
They must not have expected some of their victims came from prominent guilds. Because most guilds had not yet been formally established, their guild name was not yet attached to their identifications. Some of these victims had asked for help from their guilds and came back to the place where they were robbed, but the robbers had prepared for this kind of retaliation. They had scouts that monitored the surroundings. When they saw a large group was coming, they would hide away.
Jack noticed Manager Steelhand’s face darkened, he surely recognized his two subordinates in the hologram. Jack had made the recording and kept the stone as a precaution if Corporate United would look for him for retaliation. Although he was not afraid, too much disturbance would halt his growth as well.
He planned to use this recording to threaten them to back off if they came, but they never did. They were probably too busy preparing for this meeting, or did not want to associate themselves more with the robbery matters. Hence the recording stone had been sitting idly inside his bag till now.
The hologram show kept on going. They watched the lone warrior revealing the interest in joining their robbery act. Followed by their haggling on loots distribution, then finally where Supervisor Faithstooge admitted about the involvement of Corporate United guild.
The scene froze after that. Jack had stopped the recording after he got them to admit. The crowds gasped at the revelation, all of them turned to Manager Steelhand at the same time.
One of the people from Corporate United stood up and yelled, “this is slender! It was fake!”
“That’s right!” Another beside him supported.
John took up the recording stone and walked towards the audience. He intentionally went to where Kill Order was sitting at. He showed the stone and said, “Any of you can try to Inspect this stone, and find out its function. As you know from the gaming experience, we players can’t fake the description of an item.”
The crowd at the front went ahead and inspect the recording stone, including Kill Order.
“It was genuine,” Kill Order announced. The others who had inspected the stone nodded their heads.
John went to another part where Saint Edge’s William of Wellington was at, and did the same. They also confirmed the recording stone was real, and its function was recording an event that really took place.
“Th–Then the people inside are all actors!” The man from Corporate United who had called the stone as fake did not relent. He continued, “That’s right, they must have been paid to stage that show. It was all a ploy to bring down our guild’s reputation!”
John scoffed at the person, “you must be a retarded to not try to make sure first before exclaiming. Here, I will show the image again.”
John placed the stone and replayed the hologram again. “Now try using your Inspect on those two on the hills,” he said.
“We can use Inspect on the image?” One of the audiences blurted out.
That was actually the info that Jack had given to John. Jack had done some experiments when he tried to view the recording. Peniel had given him some hints on what he can do with the image after the recording. If he had known that from the start, he wouldn’t have wasted so much time to make Faithstooge admit his guild’s name.
The crowds started to use Inspect on the players in the image. They found that it was true that they could derive information from it as if they were real players. All the players in the image were independent players except for the two leaders on the small hill. Everyone could check for themselves that their guild tags were clearly indicating them as members of Corporate United.
The crowds had gone wild with it. Some that had been the victims of the robberies started to call out for Corporate United to pay them back for their stolen goods. They were at the brink of rushing out and pounce at the accused guild. The guards that tried to maintain order were having difficulties controlling the rile-up crowds.
“Friends! Friends! Please calm down!” Manager Steelhand finally spoke up. “It was indeed true those people that were in that image were the ones that perpetrated the robbery, but you have to believe me that their actions had nothing to do with Corporate United. None of our core people here was aware of that dealings.”
“How can you still say that? Those two on the leads were clearly from Corporate United!” One of the audiences yelled.
“It was true that those two used to be from our guild, but they are no longer a part of us,” Manager Steelhand exclaimed. “those robbery acts were their private dealings. In fact, once we found out about their involvements, we have banished them from our guild. If you are not satisfied, I can take you to where they are staying in the capital. You can deal with them yourselves.”
When Jack started attacking the robbers after getting confirmation from the two Corporate United members, Trustaide had been suspicious about it. Unfortunately, his wit had instead backfired. After he reported to the upper management. One of them pointed out that Jack’s action could have because he was gathering evidence about their involvement in the robberies in some unknown way.
After a lengthy discussion, they had decided to pull the plug on that robbery strategy, and cut the link between them and the robbers, which included Faithstooge and Trustaide. The two were kicked out from the guild mercilessly, allowing the guild a shred of defense in case this thing came back to bite at them. At this moment, Manager Steelhand was relieved that they had done so
Cutting the tail to save the body, that’s a common practice for these competitive guilds. Jack sighed, that’s why he hated to involve himself with guilds. He pitied Faithstooge and Trustaide, the two had become Corporate United’s sacrificial lambs instead.
