Between differing guilds, there was a layer of separation and paranoia that prevented them from consolidating information. In this emergency situation, someone needed to make an executive decision for the regular guilds to build an alliance and fight against them.

A perfect leader had already been making steps to build an alliance.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Hansoo had arrived in the residential zone at the beginning of the second year.

Hansoo was already in the process of implementing his strategy to consolidate power and create a more perfect society in the residential zone. Although it was done in an attempt to improve everyone’s overall strength, the steps were in progress.

In fact, if Hansoo had been given a few weeks of time, the majority of the causes for rebellion and the grievances suffered by the criminal guilds would’ve been eliminated. The timing of the rebellion was perhaps the worst as it ruined all his plans in progress to peacefully implement change.

Due to not having time to waste, Hansoo had mainly attempted to implement policies behind the scenes through blackmail, violence, and various threats to guild leaders. Ironically, the most corrupt and easily influenced guild leaders that he was planning on utilizing were also the ones that had the highest likelihood of dying during the rebellion’s assassination attempts.

The corrupt leaders tended to abuse their guild’s power, but they were less likely to have guards around them to avoid others from noticing their abuse. Additionally, the corrupt guild leaders were less likely to have personal power and strength as they were complacent and neglected their training to instead have others fight for them.

The deaths of the corrupt guild leaders caused a key blow to his attempt to build up influence behind the scenes and peacefully implement change.

The rebellion forced Hansoo to step into the spotlight. He directly organized a banquet inviting all the guild leaders to share information and attempted to take control of the situation.

Despite the problems caused by the rebellion, nobody including Hansoo knew about the seriousness of the issue. It was being called a series of collective terrorist attacks. The idea of someone attempting to overthrow their guild’s reign hadn’t even occurred to them.

Many guilds hadn’t even realized that they were reigning over others.

Whilst they prevented other guilds from using the teleportation beacons and implement various rules for them to follow, they were collectively decided rules made under ‘good intentions’ to prevent unnecessary deaths and societal problems. The result was destroying other people’s chance to gain strength and causing countless grievances to those with ambitions, but those in power had convinced themselves that it was for the ‘public good’.

Never did they consider that others wouldn’t see it the same way.

As a guild leader, Kara was obviously informed of the meeting and given information about the various terrorist attacks. The assassinations of multiple guild leaders by the group immediately attracted her attention and Kara determined they were the same group that attacked her based on that information.

Kara had good relations with most guilds and not many people were willing to offend her. Nobody knows when they might need information on the future. Offending someone with divination-type abilities for a tiny amount of profit was a fool’s errand.

Additionally, to be honest, King’s Prophet didn’t have more resources or artifacts than other guilds and Kara carried nothing valuable on her. The benefits that killing her would provide were negligible at best.

That’s why Kara had been extremely confused when she was targeted.

People moved based on their interests.

If an action could provide a lot of benefits, even risky actions are considered… but her assassination had no rewards and only a massive expense. It should be noted, the cost of hiring twenty people to kill someone was extremely high.

Kara could ask her people to take their time to guard her, but it was entirely voluntary on their behalf and done to repay her. Even then, Kara tried her best to repay them for their help.

…but in most guilds, people only bothered to do a job when there was sufficient benefit. Usually guilds had their own currency that could be traded for artifacts and other unique services provided by the guild.

Guilds would provide that currency to their members to encourage them to do work.

Assassinations were a job that was messy and had a high risk, without sufficiently high rewards, who would take it on? That’s why, when targeted, the only reason she could think of was revenge.

Kara didn’t remember offending anyone, but there was always a possibility someone in her guild angered someone and she took the partial blame for protecting them.

After hearing about the terrorist attacks and targeted assassination of guild leaders, Kara realized that her initially understanding of the situation and their investigative direction was wrong. It was unlikely that she was attacked for personal reasons.

The attackers could have been worried that she would predict their assaults on the city and warn others, or they might have targeted her because she was a guild leader.

Maybe… both.

Regardless of the reasoning behind the assault, the groups launching terrorist attacks on the city were certainly involved in the assassination attempt against her.

Whilst the city had only turned chaotic for short period of time, it was still long enough for Rin to rest and recover her strength. Since Rin was awake when Kara was informed of the meeting to discuss information about the ongoing terrorists attacks, Kara took the opportunity to discuss the situation with her and solicit her opinion.

Rin had no particularly opinion about the chaos that was occurring within the residential zone… In her mind, it had nothing to do with her.

So what if a bunch of people launched terrorists attacks? Did their attacks have anything to do with Rin?

Rin wasn’t a picturesque hero that went out of her way to fight injustice. She couldn’t care less about the injustice or evils that occurred. The chaos happening in the world didn’t matter in the slightest to her. In fact, even if the entire residential zone was systematically looted and slaughtered, Rin wouldn’t have any opinion on the matter.

The issue Rin had was that they targeted her sister. In order to ensure Kara’s safety, Rin had to act and decided to attend the banquet.

Rin wouldn’t care that much had the group had attempted to kill her. She would happily fulfill those that wanted to die. Rooting out those behind-the-scenes, though, was troublesome work and Rin couldn’t be bothered in most cases.

In fact, Rin planned on spending some time to find those behind the scenes after ensuring Kara’s safety… but since other people are willing to do the work for her, Rin obviously wouldn’t be polite and she decided to leech off their hard work.

Under those circumstances, Rin and Kara decided to go to the banquet and learn about the situation.

King’s Prophet remaining relatively unharmed from the chaos that was occurring. Without any key facilities outside of their guild hall, the entire debacle had avoided them… the rebels were not bold enough to directly attack a guild’s main location at the beginning of the war.

Soon, Rin and Kara arrived at the banquet location.

The meeting was held within a public restaurant run by the Phoenix guild. The restaurant was filled with various tables that had been lined up within a circle. People from various origins sat in differing places. Many people had clearly decided to show up at the location early to attempt to figure out what was going on.

People sitting within the crowd didn’t care about the appearance of the two girls.

Most people were furiously chatting with each another, they were attempting to learn to as much information as possible whilst hiding their own guild’s weakness from competitors. Despite the fact that the banquet hadn’t started yet, everyone knew that the learning more would only be helpful and not a hindrance.

The various terrorist attacks could shake up the landscape of the residential zone and influence those in power. The guild leader’s present were each praying that other guilds were more damaged by the attacks than themselves and trying to discover whether anyone else had any weaknesses.

“It’s noisy…” Kara frowned and looked around the room in an uncomfortable manner. The entire room emanated an unfamiliar and unfriendly atmosphere at the glance. To be honest, she considered leaving upon noticing the chaos within the room.

The lack of instruction that should provide a sense of order was infuriating. The initial impression informed her this meeting would be unhelpful.

How could such a chaotic environment be effective in sharing information?

There wasn’t even a sign posted anywhere with information confirming this was the banquet’s location.

“It is to be expected.” Rin sighed and gaze around the room, covering her nose and turning her wolf-ears away. “I count between sixty to seventy people.”

“They’ve already separated into groups.” Kara noted as she looked around the room.

People had moved to those they recognized and trusted to spreading information within their connections and validate their own experiences. Kara had connections with a few people in the room, but it was only at the level of passing acquaintances.

Rin already regretted coming to this place.

It was noisy and uncomfortable… an unpleasant smell bothered her nose and made her want to throw up.

Whilst nowhere in the city was comfortable for Rin, this place was particularly uncomfortable. Especially when combined with the idea that she would have to deal with it for awhile to acquire the information she wanted.

At this point in time, Hansoo entered the room from the kitchen.

Hansoo wore chain-mail with a spear on his back and remained calm despite the crowd ignoring him. He scanned the crowd and his eyes momentarily paused on Rin by the entrance, recognizing her before his eyes continued scanning the room.

While the crowd ignored him, Hansoo's arrival was obviously noticed by Rin.

As a fellow compatriot from Hell Difficulty, Rin had an impression of him. Hansoo was extremely mysterious. He liked to intervene in various situations and had a lot of information.

Rin’s gaze lingered on him, before she turned away and prepared to leave. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Huh?” Kara saw that her sister was preparing to leave the room. “Wait, why?”

Although Kara didn’t want to stay, she did need to exchange information on the group that attacked her. That was the best way to learn about them.

“No questions, just leave for now.” Rin shook her head and led her away.

Although Rin didn’t know why Hansoo was there, she knew this was no longer her place to intervene. None of the people in Hell Difficulty were easy to deal with and Hansoo was perhaps the most difficult to respond to. Other people at least acted consistently and could be manipulated by taking specific actions.

Hansoo’s actions and responses varied wildly whenever she came into contact with him. His actions were never consistent through reloads. He could turn from ally talking with her and spreading useful information to an enemy without changing his expression. He acted inconsistently without an ounce of common sense.

In Rin’s mind, he was the personification of the butterfly effect.

Repeating the same actions around him could end in wildly differing results.

The first time Hansoo would be friendly, the next he might directly attack her. Hansoo was the most unpredictable and mysterious person within Hell Difficulty.

Sometime he would help her, other times he would purposefully hinder her. Whilst Hansoo rarely attempted to kill her, the unpredictability involved in his actions caused her a massive headache and it wasn’t worth dealing with.

To begin with, Rin didn’t really want to get involved in this banquet. She only thought it would be a change to get useful information. When she saw the arrival of Hansoo, she immediately abandoned the idea of staying.

It was far more reliable and less of a headache to simply find the person behind-the-scenes by herself.