Transcendent Gene-Chapter 281: Deception [5]

"So, I guess our first questions are the same, no?"

The grand speech attended by every member of the rebel group had nothing to do with Gio’s party. They never stopped for a moment to watch. They only listened as they followed the woman up to the fourth floor of the bunker.

They were taken to a soundproofed room where the outside world couldn’t affect them. Their guide left, asking them to wait a few minutes. When those minutes passed, she was replaced by a man.

"It’s nice to meet you all," he said in a familiar voice as he approached and held his hand out.

Gio stood up and extended his hand to shake it.

"You’re the one from back then. I’m also happy to put a face to the voice."

He recognized the man’s voice instantly. He was the same person who called for them to be protected not once, but twice before they were forced to flee.

"You can call me Fabian," he said.

"I’m not that important here, but I’m important enough. You guys can’t meet the ones above me for obvious reasons."

Gio nodded.

"Of course. I go by Lynx. My team and I were just passing through and accidentally stumbled on your skirmish. We didn’t mean to involve ourselves in anything."

"Oh, you don’t have to say anything about that. Everyone knows that you’re not from around here."

The man smiled wryly.

"Anyone who knows what’s going on in Lyverne wouldn’t have acted like you guys. Even if they didn’t recognize us, they would’ve recognized the uniforms on the ones we were fighting."

Gin furrowed his brows and thought back. He didn’t see any particular shared uniform among the combatants...

"...ah, you mean the badge."

The only constant he could find between them was a small badge on their shoulders.

"Right, the badge. If you don’t know that insignia, then you can only be someone who’s coming in from the north. We’ve had a couple of you show up in the past few weeks, but nobody was as unfortunate as you."

Gio raised a brow, to which Fabian shook his head and smiled.

"So, I guess our first questions are the same, no?"

"Who are you?"

Fabian nodded at Gio’s words. Gio’s party barely knew who they were siding with, and the rebels didn’t know who they were letting into their base.

"To be honest, it was risky to bring you all here. The only reason we did it is because you made yourselves the Old Duke’s enemies," Fabian said.

"That insignia is more than just a badge. It’s connected to a network controlled by the Old Duke’s right hand. That guy, Ossan, who you saw downstairs, has an ability that lets him track anyone who shows hostility towards him."

He used that ability to create badges that essentially tricked his Sequence into thinking they were his primary body.

Anyone who showed killing intent towards someone wearing the badge would be marked, and anyone who injured or killed them would be highlighted within the marked crowd.

Gio’s party was forced to fight the Old Duke’s forces even though they were only just learning their enemies’ identities.

"...and they’re brutal. You know how it is around here. Kill or be killed."

Fabian assumed them to be young djinns from the Godspark Mountain Range’s vicinity. He expected them to understand some of the basic knowledge gained from living as a part of their society.

Their actions coincidentally backed his theory. As he thought over it, Gio started to understand the chain of events better.

"We’re basically just freedom fighters. We don’t like our benefits being stolen by a fat fuck who just sits in bed all day and waits for results."

It wasn’t a fight that started when the Scenario Quest appeared. In fact, the Old Duke was a prominent djinn in the area surrounding the Godspark Mountain Range, and many of the djinns in the scenario were those who lived under his domain.

He wasn’t a tyrant only in the scenario, after all. His absolute control over the djinn population came from years of ruling.

"We’re going to kill him, rob him, and leave this city to dry. That’s our only goal."

They didn’t care about the scenario. The freedom they were fighting for came after everything returned to normal.

"We never gave ourselves a name because it doesn’t matter. We aren’t organized because we want to be. It’s because we have no choice. They just call us the Rebellion, and we...well, all of us will probably split ways once we get what we want."

Fabian finished his words of explanation and refocused on Gio.

"It’s your turn, now. You know who we are, so who are you guys?"

To say that Gio encountered any difficulty when crafting a lie to verify their identities was a lie. The blueprint had been laid out for him before he said a word. All he needed to do was follow it.

"As you said, we came from up north. Things are getting too chaotic there, so we decided to come down to see what was happening here."

"Too chaotic?" Fabian repeated.

"Too many people," Gio responded with a shrug.

"Even if we manage to grab something from inside it all, it’ll be hard to get anything of worth. I know it’s not much better down here with the Old Duke, but..."

Fabian cracked a small grin as he realized where Gio was going with his words.

"You came to do something similar to what we’re doing, huh?"

"The scale was going to be a lot smaller, but pretty much. I don’t know how that’ll work out now that we know all of this is happening."

Gio’s eyes shifted to the door. Beyond it was a base holding hundreds of people fighting in a revolution. The situation in Lyverne was a bit too tense for anyone to think about ordinary heists or robberies.

"I see...and I assume you have no interest in joining us?"

Fabian’s question caught Gio by surprise.

"I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be recruiting people you’ve known for five minutes, but to say we have no interest is wrong. I don’t really care about the Old Duke, but as you said, you guys don’t plan to stop at just killing him."

The Old Duke was always the end goal, but the original path Gio had in mind was slow and methodical, containing barely any confrontation.

The direct path was only too dangerous until they found a rebel group willing to pave the way for them.

Fabian smiled at Gio’s warning.

"I know it doesn’t seem very safe, but if you had any hostility towards us, we would already know. If you were in the Old Duke’s camp, you wouldn’t be allowed to walk around without your badges fully visible. If you came from the good guys over in Astarune..."

His gaze swept over all of them but mainly scanned Gio up and down.

"...you wouldn’t look so much like me."

The others had no idea what he meant, but Gio recognized his eyes well enough to not need an explanation.

"We don’t really care about unity that much. Most of us are united by a common enemy and only a common enemy. We’ve already agreed that loot is first come, first served until the Old Duke is gone. Once we win, the spoils belong to whoever can keep them."

It was a loose alliance that only existed for the death of one man and his faction. In the end...

"...we don’t need trust. We just need mutual agreement. As long as you agree to not touch anyone on this side until we have what we want, you’re welcome."

"That’s all I needed to hear."

Gio grinned as he stood up and held his hand out for another handshake.

"You already know that our main goal is loot, but if there’s anything you need us to do to get there, just let me know. We aren’t trying to eat without working for it."

Fabian matched his expression as they clasped hands.

"Great. We’re actually going to start moving again soon, but as I said, I’m not that important around here. You guys will probably be stuck in the bunker for a few days before the real higher powers give the ’okay.’"

"Of course."

It was Gio’s second time experiencing such conditions, so he wasn’t surprised by them.

"I guess people won’t be too worried about us?"

"Not unless you go causing problems. If they aren’t being friendly, they just won’t approach you."

"Got it."

Gio gave Fabian a vague look before leading his team out of the meeting room. They’d essentially been given a free pass to the bunker, but that didn’t mean they could walk around as they pleased.

There were boundaries to be respected. There were rules in place that–

’There’s no such thing as a rule that can’t be broken in djinn society.’

Power and opportunity. Those two things led to even the most sacred rules being broken. Gio could almost guarantee that the moment they saw signs of a vault or treasure storage, all hell would break loose.

’There’s a reason why they’re prioritizing killing the Old Duke. They know that all of this cooperation stuff will end the instant benefits get involved.’

The "few days" Fabian spoke of were, in reality, no more than one or two.

’It isn’t much time. Things will escalate without our interference, so this is legitimate free time we can make use of.’

Though it seemed like there was nothing much they could do, it was only an illusion of nothing. There was plenty for them to see, do, and discover.

There was plenty for them to understand about the ongoing civil war before they became a real part of it.

’And if it’s possible, I want to find out where those clues are before all hell breaks loose.’

The timeline in Gio’s head wasn’t necessarily wrong, but he could never accurately predict events that he didn’t know about. He could assume how things would play out, but outliers would almost always cloud such situations, especially in war.

Gio expected for at least several weeks to pass before they made any substantial progress.

However, the war was further along than he thought. The cards both sides were hiding were their last, and within a week, the situation was bound to reach its breaking point.

They didn’t have much time to carve themselves a place in it all.