Second World

"Before that, please choose this equipment first," John said. Flame had already picked up hers. She took the uncommon pendant.

"I have no need of them," Jack said, the two uncommon pieces of equipment were nothing special. After all, the equipment he wore was all rare grade already. "How about you keep these two uncommon, and give me all the common equipment you looted instead?"

John was surprised. Even though the common equipment he looted was much more numerous, but they could be considered trash. After all, players could easily buy common equipment at the shops in the city. At this stage, everyone had had at least full gear common equipment already. No one would have a use for this common equipment other than to sell it or dismantle it into materials. But the coin they could get from selling the common equipment was just too dismal, and the material one could get from dismantling it was only common iron ore, which could also be easily bought at the shops at a low price.

As for the uncommon equipment, even if he didn't use them, John could sell them to another player and get more coins compared to selling these huge numbers of common equipment to NPC shops. That's why he was rather confused as to why Jack was refusing the uncommon equipment and instead asked for the common equipment.

What John didn't know was that Jack had the Transformation Box. He only needed four common equipment to fuse them into an uncommon one. With a large pile of common equipment, he would get more uncommon equipment than what John was offering.

Since John didn't see any loss for him, he agreed with Jack's request. He kept the two uncommon equipment and handed Jack fifty common equipment, which were what he had left after sharing them with his team.

"I can understand you didn't invite Men of Solidarity since they won't be willing to go up against the big guilds for no reason, but why you didn't invite Star Bowler as well?" Jack asked.

"He is not an expert," John answered.

"But he is a ranged magic user, and he is also an advanced class already," Jack countered.

"He doesn't like me, he won't listen to my order, it will cause trouble instead," John said. "And his advanced class is a healer. What do I need a healer for?"

Hearing John's words, Jack thought he got a point. The ploy this guy made didn't require any healing. From start to finish, almost none of his team received any damage. Come to think about it, Jack was impressed that he could come up with such a plan.

"Your plan is really good, choosing this place for an ambush, occupying the high ground, using the Walls of Vines to trap them and whittled them down until they all died. I am surprised you have so many coins to buy that many magic scrolls."

John chuckled, "not really, I was only given 15 gold coins to cover the operational cost. Most of them were used to pay those recruits. As for the scrolls," he took out one magic scroll. "This was my last Wall of Vines magic scroll," he said.

Jack was flabbergasted by his reply. He tried to count from his memory, and said, "wait! You only have six of that scrolls? Are you nuts? What was your plan if I didn't show up?"

"Well, six of these scrolls could last a total of thirty minutes, I was hoping they would have decided to run away by the time I reached the last scroll."

Jack's eye twitched, he didn't know how to respond to this.

"Wait a minute," Fierce Flame joined in. "You are blocking their two paths of escape. Even if they want to run away, they wouldn't be able to."

"You are too shallow, I will just leave one path open when I am down to two scrolls. I can use that scroll to refresh one end and I got an extra ten more minutes. That should give them enough time to think about escaping."

John kept on explaining, he didn't notice Flame's eyes which had narrowed to slits when he called her shallow. All through his rambling, she had been thinking whether or not to stab this asshole. Now that he had given her pay, she would not lose anything even if she killed him.

"And what if they are still not running away when your last scroll expired?" Jack asked.

"Then we will be the ones that run away," John replied nonchalantly.

Jack's eyes twitched again.

"Of course we are not waiting until the last Wall of Vines to disappear before we run. I mean, that will be stupid, don't you think? And I'm certainly not stupid," John continued. "If the last Wall of Vines was already halfway through and the enemies are still being stubborn. Then we will start moving away. Even if they tried to look for a roundabout way from the other exit, it would take them much time to find their way through this rocky maze. It should be enough time for us to disengage from combat. Then we will use the Town Return scroll which I have given one such scroll to each member, and voila, mission accomplished!"

"If you run away, then you didn't eradicate them. What mission accomplished?"

"The mission is not to destroy our pursuers. It is to disrupt the meeting. Messing with our pursuers is only a bonus."

"Anyway, that was still one half-assed plan," Jack criticized.

"It was still a half-assed plan that's successful," John countered.

Jack decided not to argue with this lunatic. He asked instead, "Who the hell are the group that is crazy enough to pay you for messing around with those three big guilds?"

John didn't immediately answer, he put on a cryptic smile and said, "another big guild of course."

  "Who? White Scarfs?" Jack guessed. They were the only primary guild that was not invited to the meeting. Silver Wing had mentioned that he was looking for a way to find out about the meeting or do something about it. Perhaps hiring John should be that something. But spending so much gold coins to hire John? Weren't they in a race with Death Associates to be the first one to build a guild base? They should be in dire need of coin.

"No, no, no," He said with his finger doing the no sign. "I was thinking at first to approach them as well for some extra income or additional manpower, but decided against it. Because the more party that knows, the more chance my intention would leak."

Hearing his words, Jack remembered what Earmouth had mentioned about the White Scarfs. John had made the right decision. If he had approached White Scarfs, the spy inside would have learned about his ploy before the meeting. Death Associates would then find out about it."

"If not White Scarfs, then which guild?" Jack asked again.

"It's another big guild."

"Cut the crap! I'm not playing a guessing game here," Jack said in vexation.

"Sigh, kids these days. No patience," John commented.

Jack felt like slapping him. The guy didn't look that much older than him.

"If you want me to stab him, just say the word," Flame offered.

"It's Saint Edge," John told them.

"Them? They were in the meeting as well. They didn't look that hostile to the three guilds. I thought they only decided to leave after you ruining the reputation of Corporate United."

"You talked as if you are in the meeting directly. Where did you hide? I don't see any place that is possible for hiding, and I certainly didn't see you," John said to Jack with a suspicious look.

Jack felt awkward for his stare, he waved his hand and uttered, "that's not important. Don't distract the subject. Why did Saint Edge have the interest to disrupt the meeting?"

"Is there a need to ask? Are you a newbie in gaming?" John satirized him. "What had those big guilds do all the time? Fight with each other, compete with each other. They never stopped messing with one another, for whatever stupid reason there is. It was no different this time. The three guilds were planning something big. If they succeed, they will have a certain advantage over the others. Saint Edge didn't know what their plan was, but they were sure they don't want those three guilds to succeed. Yet they don't want to confront them directly, considering they were not in top shape due to a large portion of their original members didn't appear in this capital Thereath here. Hence their decision to use an outsider to do their dirty tricks. That's where I come in."

After hearing John's explanation, he did think it made sense. This was another reason Jack chose to be an independent player. He disliked the senseless competition these guilds were always having, all the dirty tricks behind them.

"Anything else you want to ask, newbie?" John asked him.

"The offer still stands," Flame said.