Encouragements

"Living Cemetery wants you dead, I'm not on good terms with them either, I think it makes sense that we join forces." I proposed to Two.

"You can't team up with me, they'll want to kill you too..."

"The odds of you...or him, dying is higher if you continue playing the game without help."

"You can't save us."

"I just did."

I did save them, albeit I was the one who caused this situation to occur in the first place.

Locating Jack's position and stealing the box of bread were accidental successes from the lab break-in, it had two other objectives.

One of which is related to how all this happened in the first place. Five getting Six and Seven on his side to threaten Ace and lure out Two, that was exactly what I was hoping he would do.

Ace is tasked with monitoring the foreigners, the foreigners that literally none of us trusted, none of us actually believed to an absolute degree that Hearts is only here for diplomacy.

So what happens when an illegal break-in to a vital facility in Diamonds territory happens on the very day Hearts visit? Hearts will become the first suspect, undoubtedly.

But it wouldn't just be Hearts, whoever monitoring them will be condemned too, which is Ace.

I had hoped the break-in will give Five a convincing pretext to use against Ace, to threaten Ace with it and eventually lure out Two.

And he didn't disappoint as the 10th best player in the game. He had manipulated the ranked officers against Ace exactly as how I hoped he would.

Then, it would be safe for him to attack Ace now that it's a justified action, because the ranked officers also believes Ace should be attacked for being a traitor now.

With ranked officers' support and a pretty convincing justification, Ace's subordinates or other soldiers won't rebel and protect Ace from Five.

Thankfully Five followed the path I have intended for him to go down almost perfectly.

All of this is done to get Shockwave as my teammate in my alliance. With the hp bar from this stage, she would become the second strongest player in the game, a valuable asset.

I have brought her and whoever Ace is to her in a difficult situation where their very lives are threatened, and became their saviour.

That should be more than enough to convince her to join my alliance, she owes me her life now after all.

"How did you know?" She asked after I'm done bandaging her elbow.

"I'm not sure what you're saying."

"This isn't a coincidence, you had soldiers working with you, you didn't just convince them to help me within seconds."

"I expected this to happen, it's no secret Living Cemetery is hunting you down. I seen through his tactics to lure you out so...I planned this beforehand."

I left out the part where I'm the one that gave Five an opening for his attack, for obvious reasons.

"You're sharp."

"Thanks." I stood up and extended my hand towards her, offering support to pull her up.

"Guess I owe you one now don't I."

"You don't have to think that way, do consider my alliance offer though."

For a second, all I could hear were Seven in the background calming the crowd and ordering them to continue on the expedition, I thought she was going to reject the offer.

"Maybe it is the best option." Took her a while to think the offer through before she finally agrees, then she looked me in the eye for the first time.

"I have one condition, Ken joins too."

"I'm fine with that." Sure Kenneth Spears isn't the strongest and most competent player of all, but if it means the second best player in my team, I don't see why not.

She clasped my extended hand, it was that moment I realised I have severely overestimated my physical strength, this gamer physique is not capable of pulling anyone up at all.

Nonetheless she still stood up, it's only her arm that's injured and not the legs after all.

"We'll join your alliance."

She shook my hand and walked past me towards Ace, who was still writhing on the floor, wasn't it only one punch?

I didn't bother eavesdropping on the conversation between her and Ace afterwards, Six came forward to me to ask me more about the details of Five being the traitor as well as whether or not we should head back if Hearts has ulterior motives.

I'd say I'm quite the expert at deception, I fed Six a bunch of well crafted lies, lying to him about how Four also knows about Hearts and is doing something about it as we speak.

It's not entirely a lie though.

"Player Shockwave has joined your alliance, Dawn Breakers."

"Player Kenneth Spears has joined your alliance, Dawn Breakers."

We have four members now, just need a fifth to complete our tournament team.

I don't need any extra members after five since I have no intentions on taxing anyone like Living Cemetery.

The reason why I don't have to hurry back to continue the mission of protecting Jack is because I got that handled already too.

The second objective of the lab break-in was to coerce Jack to cooperate with Hearts.

I didn't expect Jack to show up immediately after the break-in, I just thought he'd show up faster after knowing important facilities are being infiltrated ever since Hearts arrived.

I wanted him to feel threatened, the fact that the building we raided is accidentally where he was yesterday night makes it work even more brilliantly.

Since now he feels the pressure, now he thinks Hearts are here to wreak havoc, the logical decision to be made here is to actually cooperate with Hearts so they cause no further issues.

Jack didn't disappoint me either, in fact he surprised me, he showed up immediately the day after.

If he didn't I would've brought Four with me to stop Five from killing Two, but since he did, I left Four behind to defend him.

Now that Jack will be cooperating with Hearts, this gives an opening for Hearts to assassinate him, assuming that's their ulterior motives, I just assumed it would be considering the task of this stage.

Even if it isn't, it's fine, Four is still there to defend him from any aggressors.

On my box of bread, I carved a message that only leaves Four running around in circles in Diamonds territory until I have enough time to leave in this expedition without him knowing.

Because if he does know about this plan of mine, I know my uncle well enough, he will definitely not allowed such extreme measures that may risk my life.

Now that he's not out of the Diamonds territory, and he knows Jack's position, he will know what he needs to do, protect Jack.

And being the 7th best player in the entire game, I have no doubts that it's child's play for him to sweep the stage solo.

"Congratulations, Frostbite has eliminated Jack of Diamonds' assassin, Ace of Hearts. Teleporting you back to game lobby..."

Massive success.