Infinite Realm

"Seiichi, you heard him. Come on out!"

A few seconds after Sato had spoken, Seiichi walked up from in front before stopping a few metres away from Rolo's team. With a bow in hand and a nonchalant attitude, he looked like a godly archer that could shoot the sun and the stars down with his bow. Of course, this was only a metaphor as Seiichi didn't possess such power. He was only a level 6 [Ranger] after all.

"Yo." Seiichi greeted as he nudged his glasses with his free hand.

"So it was you...?" Rolo said in a somewhat questioning tone.

"Duh. Who do you think it was? Can't you see my bow or are you that blind? Do you need me to lend you my glasses?" Seiichi poked at Rolo with his words while still keeping on a smile.

"Haha. Good, good. You three will die today." Rolo declared as he pointed his dagger at Sato.

"Hey, you missed us." Lu Zhen smirked while pointing at his face. 

Rolo was stunned. He had indeed forgotten about the original 2 targets and had set his focus on the 3 newcomers. In a group battle, forgetting the existence of one of the opposing party's men was tantamount to losing the battle already. Having Lu Zhen point out this fact made his face a bit red out of embarrassment and anger. However, part of the qualities of a dark player was their thick skin[1], so Rolo ignored Lu Zhen's words and only glared at him.

"What? Was I wrong?" Lu Zhen grinned.

"Enough chitchat you two. Let's finish this." Sato said. 

Hearing this, Rolo regained his focus and glanced at the opposing team. As he did so, he involuntarily made a serious face. On his side were only 3 players; himself included, while on the opposing team were 5 players and at least 3 of them were close to the Expert rank. Rolo himself was a bit close to this rank and he was the strongest in his team. Just forgetting the numbers advantage alone, Rolo's team was still destined to lose this battle. 

"Hey, Reeves was it? What are you still doing there? Didn't we join forces? Come help me already." Rolo glanced at Reeves and shouted.

When Rolo was being attacked, Reeves' team had withdrawn a bit and set aside some space between themselves and Rolo's team as if saying 'we have no part in this'. How could Rolo have not noticed this? But there was nothing he could do back then as he had to focus on the newcomers who were attacking him. Now with a bit of time in hand, he wanted to know Reeves' take on this. He was still of the opinion that Reeves would help him after all, in Rolo's mind, Reeves was a noob player that was obsessed over getting his revenge for being humiliated.

With Rolo's statement, Sato's team had to slow down their movements, after all, even if the addition of 4 new players wouldn't stop them from winning, it would affect the battle. So rather than rushing in to attack, they wanted to know the status of the other team.

Now everyone's focus was on Reeves and his teammates.

"What am I doing here? Spectating of course." Reeves smiled weirdly. "And did you say join forces? Haha. You even asked me to help you." Reeves began laughing out loud as if he was in a circus watching a clown performing some really silly moves.

"What's the meaning of this?!" Rolo roared with red eyes. The red eyes weren't because they were about to tear up, instead, it was from pure anger and fury.

"What do you think it is? Your use to me is no more." Reeves smiled gently like a Saint who had just performed a good deed for the sake of the world.

"My Use..?" Rolo was stunned.

"Haha. How foolish can you get? Did you really take me for a dumb**s player that knows nothing? You think I didn't know that you were scheming against me?" 

Reeves smiled, revealing all his speculations as facts. Truth be told, Reeves wasn't so sure whether Rolo really intended on back-stabbing him; he was only 80% sure, but that was more than enough for him. Whether or not Rolo would have back-stabbed him, Reeves didn't care as he planned on avenging his comrades for back then.

"You…you knew?!" Rolo was stunned.

"Of course I did. In fact, it was all going according to plan. Yes, you fell right into my plan since back then." Reeves smiled. Since his aide had already said that he could handle Sato's team while giving the instruction to 'handle that foolish guy', Reeves didn't plan on using Rolo any longer. Indeed, the 'foolish guy' was Rolo. What else would you call a person who got devoured by his greed? 

Rolo was even more shocked at this revelation. As he began recalling all the events back then, he realised something. The 'Reeves' then was not the same as the one he fought before. They were like two different people; one a noob and the other a veteran gamer. A noob might invite a wolf to take down a tiger but a veteran player would rarely make such a mistake. Even though his instincts had warned him, Rolo still fell for the trap all because of his greed. As for now, it wouldn't be a lie to say that he was regretting it, but he still had to face the truth here.

"You…You won't die a good death! You must pay for this!" Rolo yelled fiercely but he didn't make any move yet. The reason was obvious. In front there was an enemy, behind there was another enemy. Sideways? It wasn't like they would both let him escape just like that.

"Hey." Reeves called out to Sato.

"???" Sato stared inquisitively at him.

"I want to make something clear to you guys. I never really intended on targeting you guys. Everything was a trap for this dumb**s over here." Reeves said.

"Oh?" Lu Zhen replied with a sarcastic tone.

"Yes. Really. To fool him wasn't easy and I had to plan out a lot. You should have already known that I'm not his match. So I needed help. I was originally hoping to borrow your strength to finish him off but when I saw only you two, I lost confidence in the plan." Reeves said as he glanced at Lu Zhen and Xue Yan. With his statement, he indicated that he felt that Lu Zhen and Xue Yan's strength was insufficient to take down Rolo's team.

"So you went on to attack us." Xue Yan glared at him. There was no way she would believe such a silly statement at all.

"Yes. I needed to give him a solid reason to trust me and attacking you guys seemed to be the best option. Also, if you guys were gone, there was a high chance that you would inform him." Reeves glanced at Sato. "With that, you guys would be much stronger the next time we meet and so your strength would have been sufficient to end him." Reeves slowly explained.

"Is that so?" Lu Zhen chuckled. "I've never seen someone as shameless as you are. Even fatty's act of naming himself 'Emperor' seems to be lacking in comparison to your words."

Reeves sighed and said "Taking one step back, you should have noticed that my men weren't putting their all to kill you, right? That's simply cause we didn't want to but wanted you to escape. Even when we pursued you, we were always at the back. "

As they listened to Reeves' words, Lu Zhen and Xue Yan recalled that this was the case. He was actually speaking the truth. 

Even if Lu Zhen was strong, with the strength he had displayed back then, it was strange that he had been able to survive the onslaught of 6 players. Even with Xue Yan's help, it was still unimaginable.

'So it turned out that way. No wonder I felt something was weird.' Lu Zhen thought as he stared at Reeves. But he still left the decision-making to Sato.

Sato wasn't present when all these happened so judging lies from the truth was difficult. Even if he was, it wouldn't change much. All he did now was to stare at Reeves eye-to-eye.

Rolo suddenly said, "After we have dealt with him, you guys could even keep all the loot. I just want my revenge."

"He's lying! Don't trust him." Rolo suddenly shouted. "Work with me and let's defeat him. If he betrayed me, he could do the same to you." He knew that if he was to have an opportunity to escape, it would lie with Sato. Sato's team alone could defeat his, what more the two powers joined together. Hence in his opinion, Rolo wanted Sato to team up with him so they can defeat Reeves however, his real goal was to escape when they would least expect it.

Regarding Sato's pressuring stare and Rolo's outbreak, Reeves kept a gentle smile on his face and didn't bother about what Rolo said. He guessed that someone of Sato's caliber wouldn't be easily influenced especially after seeing his calm attitude again. He had even prevented his teammates from attacking Rolo so as to not make Sato suspicious of anything. But it wasn't like Fudo was the same.

"Shut up you shithead before I blast a hole through your head." Fudo glared at Rolo.

Despite being insulted like that, Rolo didn't retaliate, only keeping quiet and watching Sato. However, his eyes seemed to be convening a plea to him. 

"So, what will it be then?"