Slime Evolution

Chapter 394: 394 - Infiltrated in the Meeting

Lohan’s small clone, reduced to a nearly fully invisible drop of gelatin, crossed the barrier without incident.

Thanks to the evolutions he’d recently refined, the light in the hallway bent around his small structure, making him undetectable to ordinary senses.

The silence barrier protecting the Broken Suns’ leadership meeting room muffled any outside sound, but once inside that perimeter, sound vibrations reached Lohan’s chemosensory perception clearly once again.

Lohan moved the small fraction of his biomass behind a tall carved wooden cabinet, positioning himself at a strategic spot where he could hear everything without risking being crushed if someone walked by. In the meeting room, the atmosphere was thick with smoke and tired murmurs. Six players holding high ranking officer positions in the guild sat around a rectangular table, each with parchment reports laid out in front of them.

"This week’s recruitment pace has exceeded even our most optimistic projections," remarked a mage in a blue robe, adjusting the dice in his hands. "We closed yesterday’s registry with a total of thirty nine new members. Considering Thalendor doesn’t have the same player density we see in the big human cities, bringing in thirty nine people in just one week is an absurd record for our group."

A heavily armored warrior, resting his elbows on the table with a tired expression, let out a loud huff. "Yes, the number of members looks great on paper, but has anyone actually looked at the guild’s financial balance? Our recruiters are promising the world and more to anyone who accepts their invite, the problem is the cost these Players bring in without any inflow of earnings."

"He’s right." an archer cut in, fidgeting with a crystal tipped arrow. "Without charging direct fees on the loot members bring back from hunts, our accounts are running in the red. We rented this building for a thousand gold coins a month with the local nobles’ backing to impress the new players. But without an active internal income source, the funds provided by the noble families supporting us are running dry at an alarming rate. If we keep going like this, we won’t have enough coins to cover potions and gear repairs for the main teams before the end of the month."

"And what’s your suggestion?" the mage in the blue robe asked, his tone slightly irritated. "You want us to start charging a thirty percent fee on every member’s loot, like the other guilds do? You know very well the only reason those thirty nine players joined us this week was the promise of zero fees and financial stability. If we change the rules of the game now, the dissatisfaction among the ones already here is going to be massive. Half of them will jump ship the very next day, and our progression speed in Mythlorien is going to plummet."

"But we can’t just pretend money grows on trees!" the archer shot back, tapping the tip of her arrow against the oak table. "If the nobles find out we’re burning through the resources they gave us to fund our structure this fast, they’ll cut our supply line faster than a lightning bolt, especially considering these costs keep rising with every new member. We need to set a minimum maintenance fee, even if it’s just twenty percent, just to cover the mansion’s fixed costs."

"Twenty percent is still a lot for people used to keeping everything they hunt," another officer pondered, a cleric who flipped through a prayer tome for some god of this world without much enthusiasm. "Elysium’s audience is extremely fickle. To be honest, if we start charging fees, next week’s recruitment is going to be a disaster. The free players of Thalendor will simply look for other groups, or worse, they’ll start listening to the rumors about Astralis Requiem discreetly recruiting in the shadows."

"Astralis Requiem is nothing but an urban legend in this city so far." the blue mage scoffed, though his tone carried a subtle hint of concern that Lohan’s clone picked up instantly. "They cleared the first dungeon and the second dungeon, sure, but where are they now? They don’t have a headquarters, they don’t have real financial infrastructure in the real world, and they don’t offer support to their members. We’re a solid corporate brand, Players will surely prefer the security of the Broken Suns."

"The security of the Broken Suns depends on us having coins in the treasury," the archer insisted, crossing her arms and staring down the mage. "Without money, our solid corporate brand is going to end up getting kicked out of this luxurious building for nonpayment."

The discussion started going in circles, with the officers split between the urgent need for revenue and the fear of shattering the illusion of free membership that had been fueling the guild’s explosive growth.

From the corner of the room, Lohan’s clone processed every argument with his parallel thought, feeling a mix of relief and disappointment.

It was good to know the Broken Suns’ business model was this fragile, but so far, none of the officers had touched on the main subject Lohan needed to uncover, the truth behind the northern rift and the alleged fraud they’d pulled to deceive Thalendor’s Council.

The meeting room door slowly opened, and silence fell over the room immediately.

Every officer straightened up in their chairs, adopting postures of extreme respect and submission.

The man who walked into the room moved with slow, confident steps, but his face carried an expression of cold bitterness that aged his features.

Lohan, monitoring the scene through the clone’s shared vision, felt a shock of recognition.

That man was, without a shadow of a doubt, the new form of Gideon, the rare race elf Lohan had digested alive in the forest of Mythlorien.

After his brutal death, Gideon had lost his rare race as a penalty from Elysium’s system, returning to the game in the common body of a human.

Though he still retained some traces of his previous appearance, like his hair color and cut and his basic bone structure, the aristocratic beauty and refinement his High Elf biology had provided were completely gone.

His face now looked subtly less refined, with a more rugged jawline, skin lacking its former pearly shine, and an expression hardened by the anger of having been demoted in that world’s hierarchy.

He no longer gave off the pure magical aura he once had, but his authority within the Broken Suns was unquestionable.

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