The two men started to bicker with each other. Jack who was picking up the loots, said to Bowler to stop their quarreling, “hey, Bowler! Can you help me pick up these loots, please?”
“Sure thing, bro,” Bowler replied and went ahead with the task.
“Hey, boss! You are being unfair, how can you leave me behind?” The Man complained.
“Uh… Can you help me pick up the loots as well?”
“You only need to ask, boss!” The Man started picking up as well, making sure to note Bowler’s picking pace. Soon the two men started to compete to see who could pick up more.
Jack was speechless at them.
“Look there,” Flame’s call took his attention from the two busy men.
Jack looked at where Flame was indicating and saw a group of people approaching. His Dragon’s Eye enhanced vision allowed him to see further and identify the head of the group as John. As expected, the guy was the one responsible for bringing the group that caused that dust cloud.
Hm? The group had many people but the numbers should not exceed fifty. He looked to their rear and expected to see many more players, yet there were none. The dust cloud was nowhere to be seen anymore.
When John came within earshot, he greeted Jack, “I see you are still here. So I assume my plan works then.”
“Thank you, it’s all thanks to you. If you haven’t sent those two guilds here, and didn’t bring those independent players… Where are the rest of the players with you?” Jack could not help but ask.
“What do you mean? These are all the cronies I could find,” John said.
“Who the hell are you calling cronies?!” Many of them started to protest once they heard his words.
Some of them broke away from the group and ran at The Man. “Boss! They called.”
The Man stopped picking up loots and found out they were his lackeys from Men of Solidarity gang. “It’s you worthless lots! Where are you when your boss needs you?”
“You can’t say that. We could not contact you at all, how do we know you are in trouble? Only after John told us that we rushed here with him.”
While the Men of Solidarity were having a talk, another person from John’s group came out and greeted Jack, “hey there.”
Jack turned to the voice and was surprised to find a familiar face.
“Jeanny? What are you doing here?” He asked. “Wait, you are not with the Wicked Witches people? It’s good that you were not. I just killed a good bunch of them, it would be a pity if I wasted you by mistake.”
“You did? I thought we are rushing here in order to save you.” Her eyes wandered to the loots that scattered across the ground. “Are they…”
“Yeah, some of them were dropped by Wicked Witches players. You don’t blame me for slaughtering your guildmates, right? Wait… why are you… Where is your guild description?” Jack asked when he used Inspect on her and no longer saw the guild’s name under her name.
“I’m no longer with the guild Wicked Witches,” she said.
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? Do you forget already what you said to me the last time we met?”
“Oh…” Now that she mentioned it, Jack remembered it now. “I didn’t expect you to really leave them.”
“You don’t? You sounded so serious when you talked about it.”
“Haha, never mind that. It’s a good thing that you are no longer with that guild. Otherwise, we probably would have been fighting each other not long ago.”
“Is this all your doing?” John butted in, indicating the loots scattered on the ground. He knew for a fact that White Scarfs and Saint Edge’s groups had only arrived not long ago, so it was impossible for them to cause these many casualties. He was the one that sent a message to Jack about reinforcement was coming. He had someone inside the Saint Edge group who feed him with the intel of the group’s movement.
Jack nodded.
“I expected you to be holding your own till reinforcements arrive, but I certainly did not expect you to cause this much damage,” John admitted, and then asked, “so, did you reveal your Mage class?”
“He knew?” Jeanny blurted out in surprise.
“They knew?” Flame also did the same.
“Yeah, yeah, everyone knows now,” Jack uttered, and then said to John, “now please stop distracting my question, where are the rest of the players you bring?”
“These really are all of them,” John replied in exasperation.
“No way!” This time Bowler joined the conversation. “Do you know why the coalition army retreated? It’s because of that dust cloud the people you bring created. There is no way such huge dust cloud was created with just you lots here.”
Some of them laughed when they heard Bowler, even Jeanny giggled. Only John gave a sneering face.
“What is it?” Bowler asked, puzzled.
“It really is just us,” Jeanny said. “We spread in a wide formation and moved along while dragging leafy boughs behind. The terrain was rather sandy, so the leafy boughs swept the dust on the ground and caused it to rise as we moved, creating the falsehood as if we were a large force.”
Jack looked at John and asked, “you thought of this?”
“I was simply copying the tactic of a certain military old man from the past,” he replied.
“What military old man? Are you referring to Zhuge Liang?” Jack asked. Zhuge Liang was the only tactician in history that he knew of.
“Zhuge Liang? I’m pretty sure the old man I was referring to was called Papirius,” John mumbled.
“But we heard from Manager Steelhand that his people had seen you went out from the capital with a large mass of independent players,” Bowler said, which Flame agreed with a nod.
John gave a wide smile, “oh, that? I simply choose the afternoon time when adventuring players had just finished their lunches and were going back out for monster grinding again. The traffic was always full at that time. The real folks who follow me were just these lots, the rest were walking behind them was simply coincidental crowd. That spy from Corporate United simply mistook it as all those players following me.”
“So you have expected someone from the enemy was watching you?”
“I always assume someone was watching,” John replied.
“That’s why you asked for the extra hours, you needed to match your timing with the crowd,” Jack came to a realization.
“That amongst other things,” John said.
“Good thing the coalition fell for it,” Flame said.
“Of course they are,” John uttered confidently.
“Stop feeling so good about yourself,” Jack said. “Another good thing was that you gave Silverwing the message jammer and asked him to keep their cooperation with Saint Edge and the group haste scrolls as secrets until the jammer was applied. If not, the coalition would have known about it.”
“Of course, that strategy is called deceive the heavens to cross the sea,” John exclaimed.
“The f**k are you talking about?” Jack uttered with annoyance. The guy was not talking at the same wavelength.
“So, did the spy reveal himself?” John asked, before quickly added, “or herself?”
“Yes. Don’t you already know who he is?”
“Do you think I’m omniscient or something, friend?” John replied.
“Ugh,” Jack felt like smacking the guy.
“So are you going to tell me who the spy is?” John said.
“It’s Grimclaw.”
“Hm… I had a feeling he was the one.”
Now he felt like slicing the guy.
“All right, please remember that you owe me one for this,” John said. “Seeing the numbers of loots on the ground, you slaughtered not a few of them. I’m very impressed. And glad, having someone like you owing me will be a good thing when it’s time for me to use you.”
“Can you please keep that kind of talk to your own self? You sound like an evil mastermind who is planning to use me for your nefarious plan,” Jack said.
“I might just be, my friend. I might just be. Now please excuse me, I have to go have some words with the other pawns I have used. And you,” John pointed at Bowler, “you can go back to pick up the rubbish.”
“F**k you!” Bowler shouted.
Jack observed John as he walked towards the Saint Edge’s acting leader, William of Wellington, and talked with him. They talked as if they were old acquaintances. He then thought of something. Saint John, Saint Edge? Was that a coincidence?
Then he remembered again that John had gone and disrupted the meeting out of behest from Saint Edge guild. His connection with the guild appeared to not be shallow. Did he have a history with that guild? But why was he not a member then? Jack was curious, but he decided not to pry. If his friend was not willing to share, then it was not his business.
