The Great Thief

Soul Eater walked very hurriedly for two reasons. Firstly, things were urgent. Secondly, he needed to solve this issue quickly before returning back to manage the whole situation.

“Why are you so sure he will go?” Water Fairy asked.

“Because he’s greedy,” Lu Li said.

“I never would’ve thought that Soul Eater was such a greedy person.”

Water Fairy could only sigh. She felt that her previous understanding of Soul Eater had been completely overturned. They had worked together for so long in the past. Even if there wasn’t anything between them, Water Fairy still felt he was a good partner and friend.

“Actually, all people are greedy,” Lu Li laughed. “It’s just that different people have different goals, so their methods are different.”

“From your tone, it sounds like you’re looking down on Soul Eater.” Water Fairy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“His methods actually aren’t that brilliant and he’s too greedy, so that’s why he can’t even see through such a basic little trap,” Lu Li said scornfully. Lu Li really had a tendency to look down on Soul Eater, but this was a pretty flawed little trap. Soul Eater had completely and innocently stepped into it.

“So what should we do now then?” Water Fairy asked Lu Li directly.

The feeling of having someone to rely on when something happened was a good one indeed. Although Water Fairy was a tycoon, in this world, not every problem could be solved with money. In the course of her striving, she had encountered many difficulties and suffered many losses, but she needed to quietly bear them all, struggling amidst unfavorable circumstances.

“Get your Human Resources Department to meet to discuss about Elite Group members. Give them a pay increase, and while you’re at it, sign an extra contract as well.”

Lu Li thought that as long as Soul Eater was a bit further out of the picture, things would be easier to manage.

If they did things directly, without considering what others thought, then it would definitely be a loss to many members. Also, the game had only been in operation for under a year and it was developing well at this time. Therefore, it wouldn’t be worth it to spend too much of Peerless City’s time on reinstating a traitor.

The first task at hand was Peerless City’s Human Resources Department.

The game had been developing well, a for a long time, the game already possessed company-like administrative systems. Naturally, there was a Human Resources Department, which was able to perform the tasks it needed to do.

Soul Eater went out to discuss the merge, and he needed to bring a group of people with him. After all, he might not understand the details of the contract. Also, the people he was bringing away with him were his henchmen, so there wouldn’t have been many others left. They selected a few members that might have a tendency to support Soul Eater, and sent them to a job fair to search for talent.

Afterwards, the trusted, reliable Human Resources Department could start to talk about the Elite Group members.

“Now, Peerless City has been developing extremely well in its early days. Therefore, for our extraordinary Elite Group members, we have decided to give them a bit of a pay increase,” the official specially sent from the central administration said with a smile, then continued, “But there are too many people in our club. There’s no way to increase the pay all at once, so we’ve got no choice but to do it in batches. Before we increase the pay for everyone, we hope that you won’t leak details of the new contract to anyone. As soon as word gets out, we have the authority to and take no responsibility in firing you. Do you get what I mean?”

One Elite Group member was stunned at this.

“I…I couldn’t think of a more wicked to do.”

“You’ve participated in farming nearly all of the Instance Dungeons, and you’ve been very active in PVP battles in the Wilderness. Furthermore, you’ve completed 234 guild tasks, and you’re number 67 on the rankings list in terms of your integrated score. You deserve a pay rise,” the specially delegated personnel said, showing all of his authority. He naturally knew those facts and figures like the back of his hand.

This Elite Group player didn’t think that in the eyes of the club, he was as valued as this. In his heart, he felt extremely happy.

There was a pay increase of 10%!

This was a solid pay rise, especially as it represented how highly the club viewed him. This player patted his chest, sure that no one else would be as honoured as him.

“We are simply putting it down in writing here. It’s also recorded here that you provided help to 22 brothers. I’m afraid there are a lot of other things which have been left off the record. Your passionate spirit for this club deserves a bit of a pay rise from us. Because our club is going through a period of rapid development at the moment, we can only give a pay rise of 10%. I’m not sure if you’re satisfied with this?”

“I’m satisfied, yes. I like to play PVP, so I haven’t thought at all about being rewarded.”

And just like that, a player was tricked, as he happily signed the new contract.

“You signed the new contract last Wednesday, right?”

Another player had been called.

“Yes.”

“There were some problematic terms in the new contract. It just so happens that the club was planning to raise your pay, so you need to look at this contract again.”

“So I have to sign the new contract again?”

This player didn’t really doubt anything. After all, Soul Eater had only set everything up in motion, but hadn’t yet mobilised everyone. So afterwards, when all of Soul Eater’s followers were congregating, he only felt a little annoyed by them.

“Over the past 3 years, you’ve made a great contribution to this club. Your pay last Wednesday was only a 5% increase, but Miss Shen feels that this isn’t good enough. As such, we’ve come out with this new contract, where your pay will be increased by 10%. There are also some other additional benefits.”

“Hehe, well then I’ll thank Miss. Water.”

As soon as this player heard about such a substantial pay increase, he didn’t think signing it was troublesome at all.

When they first started, they managed to get the core members of the Elite Group.

The Human Resources Department had used the method of sending text messages to meet with these people. They had also taken over about a dozen offices just for this purpose. On average, they were able to get one person every 5 minutes. In the first day, over a 1000 people signed the new contract. By the morning of the second day, they managed to get another few hundred people.

However, there was no way they could deceive everyone in something like this.

Water Fairy didn’t intend to deceive everyone, nor did she plan to keep up the deception.

Lu Li’s advice to her was very simple – get rid of the opponent to achieve the goal, use underhand methods, and confuse the opponent so that they didn’t see your real plan. There was no need to be scared of scoundrels; it was just their ‘culture’ that was scary…a culture that began after a scoundrel grew up and became enchanted with Sun Tzu’s Art of War in a university class…

As such, the people of Peerless City had become like an object to test a knife against.

After Soul Eater left, all of his close associates had suddenly been wrapped up with trivial affairs.

For example, when Misty Shadow went out to eat, for some reason, he bumped into an old woman. He really thought he hadn’t bumped into anyone, but in the end, the woman fell over and hit the ground. After sending her to the hospital, he still had to deal with the old woman’s outrageous children. His head was pounded by a baseball bat and he had to stay half a day at the hospital. How could he have the energy to care about club things?

There was another pretty fortunate thing for another associate – for some reason, a hot girl was hitting on him. In his life of over 20 years, this was something that had never happened to him before.

After they ate at a café, they headed to karaoke afterwards – the more they talked the more fun it was. Then, they’d go rent a hotel room.

As a result, he was blocked off by someone in a bathroom and given a good beating. In the end, he was taken away by police.

Anyway, it was these various bad things that really taught them a vivid lesson. The world would seem like such a scary place with these things happening. However, because they occurred so naturally, for a brief time, they never realised that they were being set up.

Misty Shadow couldn’t just go around everywhere and tell people about how he helped an old woman who he bumped into. People would beat him up for it; it just wasn’t honourable.

The one who was jumped on by that goddess would want even more to seriously protect his secret. Otherwise, he would wish he were never born.

Soul Eater and his henchmen weren’t the first to notice what was going on with Lu Li’s brazen methods and what was happening in Peerless City. It was actually the more-informed Green Flag Wine who had an inkling.