The Great Thief

Peerless City and Drizzle Court were attacked at the same time. While Drizzle Court managed to hold onto their Stronghold, Peerless City couldn’t and was destroyed. This was only indicative of the influence that Soul Eater’s betrayal had on the club.

Before, although they were in Drizzle Court’s shadow, they were still a top-10 club.

There were many times where Drizzle Court couldn’t match up to them.

They looked to conquer the world, named Glory Capital as their rival, and thought that they could one day rise and be the strongest of the strong.

Everything changed when Soul Eater decided to betray the club. Then, the club’s reputation was tainted with a mark of a traitor and the future of the club looked bleak. Many veterans in the gaming industry thought that Drizzle Court should absorb all of the core elite players from Peerless City into their club and force Peerless City to become a club that couldn’t support itself.

Had they done this, Drizzle Court’s strength would have been greatly increased. Although they wouldn’t be able to match up to Glory Capital, they would be able to fight Blood Red War Flag eye-to-eye.

The effects of the betrayal seemed to have disappeared with time, but upon meeting a powerful foe, the issue of morale was definitely exposed.

Even the core elite members at the peak of the guild were affected by this low morale, let alone the guild as a whole. After talking with Square Root Three, Lu Li found out that over the past month, Peerless City had lost 10% of their members.

As a club with 200,000 members, 10% was equivalent to 20,000 members. Such a number was definitely not negligible.

There were also players leaving Ruling Sword, but it wasn’t even 0.5% of their total members. Compared to other clubs, 0.5% was towards the low end. After all, it was still a promising and growing organisation, so if people stayed, they would become elders in the guild.

Lu Li realised that it was no wonder that Water Fairy hadn’t been in a good mood lately. Lu Li felt that he had failed as a boyfriend.

He couldn’t do anything about it though. The worries of Peerless City players wouldn’t go away by the effect of some promises. Only time could heal the hole that was left by Soul Eater.

According to rumours, Soul Eater’s small guild was once again oppressed.

However, the one who did it was not Water Fairy, but a medium-sized guild. This group of people was targeting Soul Eater and chasing after his group of people all day long. It seemed like this was for purely work purposes, and that they had joined the game just to mess with Soul Eater.

Then, Square Root Three and Lu Li discussed Azure Guard and gained some understanding behind how they ended up taking Stranglethorn Vale from Glory Capital.

Actually, the method that they employed was similar to the one that the Gangnam Royals used.

The only difference was that Azure Guard didn’t hire mercenaries, but hired a lot of smaller to mid-tier guilds instead.

Before Dawn was released, Azure Guard was always a quiet organisation. They were quite kind to the player base. If there were clashes between other people and they were asked to step in and assist, they would always lend a hand. Therefore, their reputation amongst the low to medium-sized guilds was quite favorable.

This time, they temporarily recruited a group of stronger players from a number of guilds and clubs and formed a powerful squad.

Unforgettable Maple from Majin Temple and Wood Fearing from Gods of Dusk were among their ranks this time. All of the included players were forces to be reckoned with and not to be underestimated.

The secret was kept extremely well, so Glory Capital only knew that Azure Guard was to attack their Stranglethorn Vale Stronghold. Therefore, they organised their defense based on their knowledge on the top ranks of Azure Guard and were completely defeated.

From then onwards, additional variables were thrown into the Stronghold battles.

At this moment, Lu Li and Square Root Three were counting their finances.

Ruling Sword already had a complete and functional administration system. They had everything and every position covered. As soon as the Stronghold battle was complete, the finance office was immediately analysing the battle, calculating their profits and losses.

However, Lu Li and Square Root Three still wanted to look at it again themselves.

Both of them lived in poverty. The previous three generations of their family were all living in poverty. Although they were a little wealthy now, it was still insufficient to satisfy their ambitions.

“Should we start a subsidiary guild? We have more and more money now,” Square Root Three suggested.

“Making a subsidiary guild is a handful. Look at Peerless City.”

Lu Li actually had the same idea, but he was growing less fond of it. Perhaps this idea would come back in the future, when Lu Li met a suitable person.

This person needed to be someone strong and was completely trustworthy. Not a sliver of trust could be lacking.

Of course, the other person would need to agree to it as well. Wandering was strong and was completely trustworthy, but it would be utter stupidity to let him organise a subsidiary guild. Lu Li might as well give Azure Sea Breeze a whole set of clothing to cosplay as a female.

“What would we do with this money then? It’s quite a number,” Square Root Three asked.

Neither of them had the thought of withdrawing the money and using it in real life, since there wasn’t a big difference between reality and virtual reality. For them, as professional gamers, it was better to use this money in-game than in reality.

“Well, how about distributing it?” Lu Li suggested.

He was illiterate and his life of poverty has also limited his imagination. He also didn’t know what they could do with this money.

“Distribute? Who to?” Square Root Three responded.

“Well…to the members.”

Lu Li suddenly remembered that the club was quite large. They still had around an estimated 80,000 members.

With tens of millions, each person wouldn’t even receive 1000 dollars. They wouldn’t be able to do much with it.

“Well, you can. However, there needs to be a few rules in place. For example, we would need to limit the number of people to less than 1000. The best would be around 500 people. If we do it like this, then there would be a little motivation boost as well. I’ll head back and make a list for you.”

If there were only a thousand players who would receive the money, then each person would receive at least 10,000 dollars.

An amount in the tens of thousands was a considerable sum. Players would be able to buy a decent item in game or go out with their friends on a number of lavish occasions.

Realistically, no clubs would distribute their wealth with everyone like this.

Clubs would only give special attention and rewards to the players who greatly contributed or had reached a certain level of strength. Otherwise, who would have the determination to contribute if money was just distributed like this? The ones who worked hard for the club’s cause would be unmotivated.

Lu Li felt pretty good about himself, since they had just simply decided where tens of millions of funds were going to go.

However, he quickly thought of something problematic.