FB: Chapter 54 – All I See Is Failure

Jerking back, the knife exited my neck. I didn’t hesitate and used Blink to teleport in the air a distance away. I quickly used a healing potion as my health plummeted. The assassin was probably shocked that their surprise attack wasn’t a critical hit, despite getting me in the neck.

My Luck stat reduced the chance I got hit with a critical or super critical hit. The damage was still immense, but it didn’t reduce my health instantly. That meant I was able to use Blink once the dagger exited my body and teleported away.

They should have used a thorn spear right through my gut as their first attack. Barely any damage, but it would have stopped me from escaping and given me a mental shock. Then they could have followed up with an attack to kill me. That was the proper method of assassination, not a dagger to the neck. Clearly it was a player who had no clue what they were doing and didn’t understand that I had a Luck focused build. Also, the absolute level difference played a role as well.

I looked back to where I had been standing and the assassin had already been cut down. They had probably gone all in on the plan. I floated down to the ground and walked back to the command tower. “The assassin is dead,” Kill Blade said.

“I can see that. But that doesn’t excuse your failure or the failure of the guards here at our command outpost. While it isn’t the most exciting job, it is incredibly important. I want an explanation on how the assassin got through and what will be done to prevent such a thing from happening in the future. Also, once we win, we need our own assassination squad. Better than this failure,” I said with a shake of my head at the assassin’s corpse and turned to look at the battle, which was quickly ending in our favor.

“Failure? They, um, got through our defenses,” Kill Blade hesitantly asked.

“They didn’t use a thorn spear. They aimed for my neck. There was no death skill that was activated when they were killed. The knife wasn’t even poisoned or an actual weapon. It was just basic trash with a basic enchantment. They could have used a crystal blood knife at the very least to curse me for a couple of days. Or get some legendary poison to permanently curse me. The lack of effort is incredibly disappointing. I give the entire attempt a 2 out of 10. They only got a 2 since they snuck past people who weren’t paying attention,” I said with a glare. Kill Blade backed away slightly and bowed his head.

“The flanks?” I asked.

“Our reserve forces have arrived, and they are collapsing,” he said.

“Once they collapse the observers should call the battle in our favor,” I said, and a horn sounded across the battlefield signaling the end of the battle. “Or they were just waiting to see if the assassin would actually accomplish anything.” After that things quickly wrapped up.

The observers from the Administration Union, gave me a scroll, signifying my guild’s victory. Glexx who had been named as the commander for Rebel Rising was resurrected and was forced to hand over their guild flag. I planned to display it in our entry hall as a monument to our victory. The scroll would be framed and placed on a wall in the main conference room.

“How much did you spend on consumables?” Glexx asked once we returned to my guild building to discuss details of our merger.

“300 platinum personally,” I said. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes.

“We spent everything we had leveling people up and getting more equipment,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Your guild leader?” I asked, since I was wondering where he was.

“He chose to not join along with his personal team. About a quarter of our guild won’t be joining yours and that number will probably go up,” Glexx said with a heavy sigh. Well they would be stuck with a non-compete for a year, which was fine by me.

“These are the contracts we offer. You will be offered a staff position as our Operations officer. I know you have the talent after seeing that battle. This contract is for your two Champions. Another one for their teams, up to nine other people each. The final contract is our external contract, which will be offered to all your remaining members.”

“Well we have no pendants, and only Hammer Crusher has the noble title of Lord,” he replied while picking up the contracts I had laid out so he could look them over.

“That won’t change anything, since he will be getting favorable terms. You don’t have anything left in your guild account?” I asked.

“One copper,” he replied, and I shook my head and waited for him to finish looking over the contracts. He put down the last one and looked right at me. “Fairly generous. More than I thought you would be.”

“I am not a slave driver. And if the people don’t want to join that is fine. They just can’t join another guild for a year,” I replied.

“Any chance you could lessen that time frame?” he asked.

“No. The terms are already quite generous,” I replied. “You have one real world week, before Rebel Rising must officially disband.” Glexx let out a heavy sigh and then left my office.

Vice Leader Don Anthony then entered. “Congratulations on your win, but the guild is in quite a debt to you,” he said, and I nodded. The guild would have to pay me back for the consumables.

“It is a zero-interest loan. I managed to win a small bit of money by defeating Garren Tine and decided to ensure we won. Nothing is more horrible as a battle won, except a battle lost,” I said.

“No need to throw quotes at me. It puts the guild in a precarious financial state,” he said.

“With ENN reporting on our victory, on top of the people we will be getting from Rebel Rising, we will make that back that much soon enough. Setting ten percent aside to repay me is a small amount. I could have asked for a lot more,” I countered.

“It sets a bad precedent,” he grumbled.

“Is that you complaining, or the board members bitching about something?”  I asked.

“Some of the board members,” he replied.

“Ignore them. That is why we have Hamid. If they don’t like it, they can call a vote to sanction me or stop me from lending money to the guild at zero interest. Otherwise tell them to shut up like the whiney little girls they are,” I said.

“You really want me to tell them that?” Anthony asked me with a grin.

“You might think I am joking but tell the ones complaining that directly in front of all of them. If they want to give out zero interest coinage loans to purchase war material, they are welcome to do so,” I answered.

“You won’t be making any friends,” he replied.

“And I have veto power and a 42% ownership in the guild and corporation. If they are looking for dividends, they can wait just like everyone else. They won’t think about replacing me.”

“What about other guilds, will we be going after them?” Don Anthony asked.

“No. If we do that, they will target us outside a sanctioned battle. Winning one battle is fine. Winning multiple battles, will only create long term trouble. Now we can start building up the town and the surrounding areas. I need to find a competent officer candidate to handle such things,” I replied while thinking over possible candidates. I had already invited one to speak with this afternoon, but I was hoping a better one would spontaneously enter into my mind.

“I have some suggestions,” Don Anthony said, and I rolled my eyes.

“Well your previous ones weren’t horrible. Kill Blade needs a lot of work to grow into his role as Combat Officer. I offered Glexx the Operations Officer position,” I said.

“Is that wise? He is an outsider,” Don Anthony said.

“That is the point. As Operations Officer he will be overseeing teams, most of which are external teams. It will give them a voice in our discussions,” I answered without hesitation.

“My son Mark. He would be a good choice for the officer position,” Don Anthony said. I didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched out for half a minute, becoming more and more uncomfortable. “Or perhaps someone else.”

“Young people are capable. If you really want to put him in such a position, it will mean actual work. If you want to give him a staff position so he can get his feet wet, then no objections from me. But I don’t think he would enjoy his time in Exponential working on building designs and maximizing productivity. We need a person with the right mind set and I have someone in mind, even if they are a complete asshole, annoying, and have an utterly garbage personality,” I replied.

“Then they have to be really good at what they do,” Don Anthony said.

“Unfortunately, yes. I arranged for them to come here this afternoon,” I said with a sigh and got up. “I will have to greet them personally, so they don’t make a scene. You are welcome to sit in, if you are willing to have a thick skin. A very thick skin.”

“I can handle someone with a bit of an inflated personality,” Don Anthony said.

“I wish it was just an inflated personality,” I muttered loudly. He gave me a look but didn’t say anything else as I made my way to the entrance of the guild hall.

The man showed up precisely on time. He was anal like that, or OCD. Probably both, if I had to guess. If he wasn’t a genius at playing Sim City in Exponential, I would never have even bothered inviting him. I had worked with this man in the past when I had been in the same super guild as him. At least this time I would be his boss and not the other way around.

He strode into the guild hall like he owned it. I had to pay for his airship here, accommodations, and a small interview fee of ten gold just to get him to come.

“Your tits are smaller than I expected,” the man said while looking me up and down. He said it in such a deadpan way that it was hard to understand if what he was saying was joke or serious. I unfortunately knew since I had this conversation once before that he was serious.

“I kept them close to my natural appearance, since I trained as a gymnast. I didn’t want to impact my balance in Exponential,” I explained.

“You should increase their size by 4.7% to achieve a better balance. You are already ugly, so it won’t matter if you reset your face.” It took everything I had not to kill this person. I could tell Don Anthony was in shock. Quant Z had no filter. People might say they didn’t have a filter, but they were lying. Quant Z really didn’t have a single filter and just spoke his mind.