147 Root of the Problem

After a few hours of conversing with the people and asking for their needs, they had talked to every single person in the guild.

"This solution will only be temporary since they could leave again. We need to find the person who is paying them to stop paying them," Scarlet Sunset said.

Everyone in the blacksmith guild would move back to the city, but who's to stop them from leaving the city again?

They need to remove the people who bribed the guilds into leaving. The first thing the party was asking the guild members about where their employers are.

"I don't know, you can ask him. He's one person who made a deal with our employers."

The man pointed to a slightly chubby man who interacted with everyone with a slight grin and some tiny slits for eyes. An interesting individual with a heart full of greed.

Emile walked up to the man and started talking to him.

"Can we know who your employers are?"

"I don't know, but they messaged me and told me to meet up at a location. They informed me of other things that will remain private," the man said. His eyes flashed with a greedy glow before resuming his normal self.

"Can you send me the messenger to my system, so I can talk to them," Emile said.

The man shared the messenger with Emile. Emile texted the person.

"Hey, can we meet up, I want my guild to partner up with you. I'm the guild leader of the Tailor Guild and I want money. Let's meet in these coordinates, xxx, yyy, zzz," Emile typed out the message to the man after consent from the party. The coordinates were in a random part of the forest.

They didn't trust these people who were poaching guilds for no reason. It was best to leave them in a lie and hope they fell for it. The people poaching would be glad if another guild joined the plan. They were willing to tarnish the cities reputation in any way they could.

The messenger responded right away.

"Where did you get this number? We already asked you to join our program and gave you some benefits, but you declined our offer," the man replied with suspicion.

Emile asked the party for the best response to these questions and statements.

"Tell him the truth about the number. There's a 50/50 chance here for the next statement. The first is that they haven't met the Tailor Guild leader and they're using the question to trick you or the second scenario where they did meet the guild leader and he was making a statement. It's best to say, 'I don't remember meeting you' or 'I thought you were a scam,'" Scarlet Sunset said.

"I got it from the person in the Blacksmith Guild. I don't remember meeting you or giving me any benefits," Emile said with a confused face.

"You're right, we never asked the Tailor Guild. We'll accept your offer since you could spot my lies. All right, we'll meet up with you in one hour. Wait for us at the location," the messenger said.

They succeeded at tricking the person. The party couldn't celebrate too early since the man might have figured out something or some other misfortunate thing that could happen.

"Someone should go find out how the Tailor Guild leader looks like, and prepare the ingredients for me or someone else to copy their appearance," Emile asked the party. It was a suggestion.

"The guild leader is a girl, so I'll copy the looks," Scarlet Sunset said. She messaged their guild, Nature's Wrath, to do her work for her.

"If anyone is in Lyria City, send me a picture of the Tailor Guild leader," Scarlet Sunset said.

There was one individual stopping by Lyria City and noticed her request. The man entered the Tailor Guild and found a picture of the Guild Leader. He took a picture of it using the system and sent it to Scarlet Sunset.

"Okay, does she have any distinct properties about herself," Emile asked. Scarlet Sunset told the party what she was doing with the guild and the guild leader.

"She likes wearing light blue skirts, with a blue and white jewel on a necklace. Her blonde hair tied as a bun," Scarlet Sunset said as she analyzed the picture. She felt dread since she had to change her red hair color to a different color.

"You could just hide your hair or tell a white lie to the guy by saying you changed your hair color," Emile said.

He suggested more ideas she could use.

"The white lie will be too difficult to get by someone of intelligence. Only if he was stupid would he believe my words without a second thought," Scarlet Sunset said.

If these people could remove a guild from a city, then they had to be smart. She used tactics against clever people. Overthinking things when facing an average person wouldn't do any good since they didn't have a high chance to understand the things they did. They might also ignore it or miss out on it.

The change in hair color was drastic enough to make the man suspicious.

"We need to find the fashion shop or whatever its called inside of the city," Nimble Rod said.

Skipping forward thirty minutes. Scarlet Sunset now had blonde hair with a bun. It was only a temporary change in appearance.

She also bought a light blue dress to wear. And last but not least, a necklace with the same pearls as the guild leader.

She looked similar to the guild leader in the picture. It was astonishing the resemblance.

The party figured out what personality the guild leader had. She was a bit arrogant in her ways to show herself off.

They walked out of the fashion store and headed towards the coordinates they gave the man.

The people walking around the city gave glances at Scarlet Sunset. She was beautiful and had an arrogant disposition. She imitated how a guild leader would act and react. Beautiful, fancy and imposing.

Scarlet Sunset was the best pick to talk to the man since she had to most common sense was clever in her ways.

A Chinese novel would describe her as a heavenly maiden send by the gods. Prettier than the moonlight, calmer than the placid water, and arrogant as a typhoon.

"What are we going to do after we meet the man," FBS Fulcron said as they walked.

"I'll talk to him normally, then I'll see if I can find a reason why he's doing everything. If we can't find a reason, we'll ask him about his boss or other people related to him and his organization- if he has one. If he reveals nothing, then we will attack him," Scarlet Sunset said without batting an eyelid.

"Why are we attacking him?" Nimble Rod didn't understand.

"Well, we have to eliminate the group of people taking the guilds away. If we don't eliminate them, then other cities will lose their guilds. We act peacefully at the beginning, I'll message you guys in the party chat if things go dire," Scarlet Sunset said with a shrug.

They soon arrived at White Tree Forest. The party walked towards the meeting spot and waited for the man to arrive. Everyone except Scarlet Sunset hid somewhere far away from the meeting spot so that the man didn't spot them.

Scarlet Sunset felt cold since she wasn't wearing too much clothing. The dress didn't protect her from the chilly temperatures.

In the distance, a man grew closer step by step. A battle of wits and intelligence was about to take place.