Chapter 507 - Counter
Date- 29 Mar 2321
Time- 22:13
Location- Sky Blossom City, Guild Association Mall, Warehouse no. 234
"Boss, we could officially challenge the Circle of Sun Blossom branch to a guild war." Seeing me in deep contemplation, Van proposed an idea to directly confront the Circle without worrying about facing the entire city's forces, a Guild War.
Guild War is a legal way of slaughtering enemies or competitors to handle disputes and grudges. But this requires the initiator of the guild wars to prove the legitimacy of the reason behind invoking the Guild War. Unless the cause is found reasonable by the War Council or it is found that there is no room for compromise between the two parties, neither of the parties involved can engage in a war, but most of the time, private battles take place in the background, hidden from the War Council. And most of the time, the War Council turns a blind eye to this unless concrete proof is provided by the parties involved.
"A guild war through official channels will take a minimum of a month. I do not have that much time with me. And also, that is not the point here. I am not afraid of any legal actions. As long as it doesn't involve me massacring half of a city, the Heatsend Royal family will take care of it. The point here is public opinion." I wanted to deal with the Circle before leaving for the Royal Palace. Which meant I did not have much time in my hand.
"..." Van went silent, not understanding how the public opinion would affect our battle against the Circle.
"Master, I have made the specific armor cards you asked for. I think we can hide our identity using these armors so that the regular citizens do not know that it was us who attacked the Circle." Having served as a soldier, old Ben knew one or two things about the effects of public opinion. During the monster war, all the soldiers were seen as heroes, but now, after the war, as a momentary peace is achieved, the world saw them all as a nuisance and freeloaders of taxpayer's money.
I had tasked old Ben to create the armors based on a new uniform code I planned to introduce for the members TSR guild and Tiger Squadron. Uniform was elementary for any organization. With a presentable uniform, our members could leave a lasting impression on the clients. Members of the TSR guild were adventures. They would require a little time to get used to the new uniform code soon to be imposed, but the members of Tiger Squadron were veteran soldiers. I bet they would love it to be collectively represented by a uniform.
Old Ben, having witnessed firsthand how public opinion could affect after the war suggested that we hide our identities such that regular people don't know that it was the TSR guild and Tiger squadron that attacked the Circle. This would work if not for other branches of Circle, who will try their best to bring the matter to light and create an unfair public opinion against us.
"That won't work. We have to approach this issue in a different way. To tackle this, we cannot find the solution to this by thinking like an adventurer or a soldier. We need to think like a politician. That is to snatch the control of the public opinion from the Circle's hand.
Van, you understand what I am implying, right? Please find out how the Circle is controlling public opinion, how they are able to hide all their dirty laundry from the people's eyes and figure out who are the people helping the Circle to circulate this new public image of theirs." The answer to my question was obvious, since the Circle is playing the role of good guys in the public's eyes, I just had to snatch the role of the good guy from them.
And how am I going to achieve this? Obviously, by shedding some light on the dirty laundry of the Circle, which it is hiding from the rest of the world. There are two steps to this part, the first being finding evidence of their wrongdoings and the second being figuring out the public reach.
Finding evidence of the Circle's wrongdoings is an easy task because many of the current members of the Circle in Sun Blossom city are the old members of the Circle in Sky Blossom city. Those people have learned to cover their tracks in Sun Blossom city under the direction of their new leader, but these people have left a lot of evidence of their past crimes in Sky Blossom city. So digging up dirt on the Circle was a simple task.
Public Reach refers to how I get the evidence of the Circle's shady past to reach as many people as possible before the Circle's goons scrub it all. This is why I asked Van to find out how the Circle is maintaining its new public image. If I know how the Circle is doing its false publicity and keeping its past from surfacing in the grimoire network, then I could figure out a perfect way to shed light on what the Circle is, to the general populace. And prepare for countermeasures against the goons of the Circle trying to scrap the evidence I have provided in the grimoire network for the people to see what the circle actually is.
"About that boss, they have hired a lot of unemployed mortals just to go through the grimoire network and erase any evidence of the Circle's criminal past surfacing on the grimoire network. These people are also responsible for spreading false publicity of the circle. And if anyone tries to voice out the past of the Circle, this army of mortals, using their iron grimoire, suppress any and every voice against the Circle.." Van reported what he had already found out how the Circle was keeping the grimoire network clean from its past crimes in his initial findings.
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