Chapter 213 - 213. Starlight Ruin
Jack was feeling pity for those trackers. It seemed that Bigarm and Stonecleave's purging was effective, as he could not see any blue dots outside the group any longer. Only green dots representing Bigarm and Stonecleave's teams were roaming around the group. Since Unrivalled Arcaner was registered in Death Associates guild, hence all members of his guild were shown as green dots in his radar when he was using this disguise.
As they were a large group, their traveling speed was slow. They needed to adjust their speed to follow the ones with the slowest movement speed, usually those of the Magician class.
They traveled for almost two hours before a dilapidated structure appeared in front of them. Jack could see several players standing inside and around the ruin. From the look of it, the ruin was the venue of the meeting. This was a wilderness ruin, which should be teeming with monsters.
To be able to assign players like that meant they had cleared out the monsters and stationed players to kill any monster that respawned. Jack was impressed that they could organize such arrangements just for a meeting.
Jack looked at his map. Since the ruin was in close proximity, it had also appeared on his map, replacing the grey fog that was previously covering it. The name on his map showed the name of the structure in front as Starlight Ruin.
Scarface led the troupe into the ruin. Some of the stationed players salute Scarface when they passed, some just gave an indifferent look. Jack scanned them and found out the indifferent players were from Corporate United and Wicked Witches. Of course, most of the female ones were from Wicked Witches. Jack wondered if Jeanny was attending this meeting as well.
The ruin covered a large patch of land, but was mostly in deteriorated condition. It possessed no roofing anymore so they felt like they were still outdoor despite entering the complex. Scarface led them to continue deeper into the ruin. After they passed through several broken-down walls, they came to what looked like a large central courtyard. There were already many players in the place.
Jack could see at one glance from their gender that the group in charge of the ones already present were from Wicked Witches. He saw the annoying Queen Magenta and the aloof Selena, but saw no sign of Jeanny. Scarface went up to them and made some small talk.
Bigarm and Stonecleave assembled the security team from Death Associates and arranged them at one section of the ruin. Jack could see that the arrangement had already been determined beforehand.
As they took their positions, Jack said, "I don't see people from Corporate United."
"That is not your concern," Bigarm replied in an unfriendly manner. "You just make sure to keep this area secured. I won't let you off easy if you don't do your job well."
Jack scoffed, "heh, like you are strong enough to do anything to me."
"Is that how you talk to your senior?!" Bigarm yelled.
"Stop it! We are one guild. You two will make us look bad." Stonecleave chided. Stonecleave's position within the guild was the same as Bigarm. However, his skill was in another league compared to Bigarm, hence the upper rank valued him more. Bigarm did not dare to rebuke him.
"The Corporate United people are indeed arrogant. We are the ones that initiated this meeting, yet they act like they are the main characters and dare to be late," Stonecleave said, expressing his dislike to the missing guild.
After making sure everyone's position had been assigned. Stonecleave handed over the supervision of this section to another core member called Earmouth. The man was a level 17 Magician.
Jack surveyed the surroundings. Half of the courtyard was encompassed with several elevated steps that circled around the central part of the courtyard. Making it looked like an amphitheater. Perhaps in the past when this place was still in its glory, this courtyard also served as a gathering place for its occupants.
The members that he had come with and the ones that had arrived before all took their seats around these steps. Members of Death Associates and Wicked Witches took their position opposite from the steps, separating themselves as the organizers.
Most of the ones present formed their own clusters again as they took their seats. From here, Jack could roughly assume that one cluster representing one guild. The numbers of guilds present were bigger than Jack had expected. From his rough estimate, there were around thirty guilds present. They were still missing the third group led by Corporate United, which meant the final counts might reach forty or even fifty.
Jack did not recognize most of the guilds. He might know if they state their guild names, but he couldn't know just by seeing their members' faces. He was not that active in socializing with guilds in his past games after all.
He had to scan the players in order to know their guild names, but most of the guilds represented here had not formed a formal guild under this world system, hence he still could not see their guild name even if he scanned them.
After all, they need to pay a sum of gold coins to establish their guild. It was not easy to collect gold coins when most of them were still basic class. And most guilds still need to spend expenditure to aid their members' growth. Only top guilds with many experts like Death Associates, White Scarfs, and the likes could afford lavish expenditure during this early stage.
However, there were two groups he recognized amongst the audience. One group was led by a large man accompanied by another man with an even larger body. The people around him were all rowdy-looking men with rough temperaments.
The largest man with the bulky body was a level 18 Warrior, while their leader was a level 10 Fighter. Other people might be confused by why the leader of a group was the weakest one, but Jack was not surprised.
The reason was that he knew the leader had died not long ago, and it was by his hand nonetheless. Jack looked at The Real Man, the guy managed to get to level 10 in just six days. He must have utilized his underlings to help power-level him. Even so, his progress was still slower than Warpath. It was apparent that Warpath put more effort into regaining his lost levels. Goliath who sat beside him was as intimidating as Jack remembered.
The second group was Weary Wolf gang. Boulder and Flowing Fox sat at the front. Jack didn't find it surprising to see this gang here. Flowing Fox had worked with Scarface before, he imagined they still make contact. Not to mention that they share the same common enemy, him.
"Remarkable, ain't it?" Earmouth said. The guy had been walking around inspecting the positions of the guards in this section before stopping next to him and Warpath.
"Huh?" Jack was not sure if the fellow was talking to him. Warpath was indifferent, acting like he didn't hear a thing.
"This gathering," Earmouth replied as he looked at Jack. Jack was now sure the guy was talking to him. "You didn't expect we manage to pull this off, did you? Look, there is Saint Edge," he pointed at one of the largest groups amongst the ones that present.
"There is also Warriors of Solidarity," he pointed to the spot where The Real Man was sitting. "Also Crowd of Sins, Destitute Repudiator, Prodigious Chronicler, amongst many others. They were big names in the gaming industry. But they were behind our guild now because only a few of their members were pulled into this world. Black Cloak will also be joining, they are on their way here with people from Corporate United."
"It sure is impressive," Jack concurred. "What is this meeting about anyway? Gathering so many well-known guilds. Do you have a clue?" Jack decided to pry since the guy was chatty.
"You will find out soon, the show is about to start," Earmouth replied. "I heard that you are the highly-skilled new recruit who had a duel with Scarface? He thought rather highly of you."
Maybe he shouldn't be so direct, Jack thought with wariness. What if Earmouth got suspicious if he thought of him being nosy. He decided to be humble and also quickly changed the subject, "Scarface was just going easy on me. What about White Scarfs? Aren't they currently the largest guild in the capital? Will they be here as well?" Jack pretended to not know.
"That guild?" Earmouth sneered. "They can enjoy their glory day for a few more days. Once the guilds here come to an agreement, their progress will get seriously impacted. We are not interested to work with them, so they are not invited."