"Let me go f*ckers!" the guy who presents himself as one of the loansharks immediately got beaten to a pulp by Hyde as we capture and interrogate him and the noble-looking guy for information.
"I can cut off your tongue if you keep on screaming you bastard, I mean it and I never give out jokes of any kind," Hyde glared at him and pulls out a knife from his pocket.
Lina's mother is confused when she saw Hyde. "Why are you here Hyde? I thought your lackey is going to ask for payment for our debts which is your business but why are you beating him up?"
"Ah, that is not true because your so-called debt is nonexistent. Your husband might have died a long time ago but he didn't even leave behind a debt to you two to suffer and pay for his stead. The "debt" this guy is saying is quite a bogus. It was already paid before he passed away."
Lina frowned and pulls out her whip again and ready to whack the bogus guy but Hyde stopped her.
"You can do whatever you want with him later but I need him to be energetic for now to be able to extract info about a personal matter."
"I won't say anything!"
"Hoho? Are you sure about that? We will see how you will fare later. But I will save you for the last," Hyde said before he shifted his attention to the noble-looking guy.
"Are you going to interrogate him too?" I asked Hyde.
"This guy is one of the corrupt nobles I have contact with before. He is quite greedy when it comes to money and he will do whatever it takes to squeeze money to individuals. If he was involved, this case might not be the only one but countless others too. This means someone is behind this for him to personally do a lowly work like scamming people with fake debts. Much worse, they are trying to frame my humble sideline business."
I can understand his sentiments but is there someone out there gonna do something of an elaborate work like this just to frame his business and stain his reputation? In the end, Hyde called his lackeys and carried the two somewhere away from there. He also ordered his men to dispose of the bodies of the adventurers and report it to the guild to make a catalog of the names of the fallen adventurers for their family to claim.
"The situation is now back to normal and I see that you are also quite good in sneaky fighting. Not that I am judging you in it since I also did it earlier," Hyde said.
"You really deserved to be a called one of the strongest mercenaries in the Capital. Those swings are precise and decisive. Dealing with enemies is easily done by you."
" Ha, don't just call me strongest, I may be strong but I am far from the strongest in this world, in fact, you are much stronger in terms of raw strength. Even if I go all out in combat against you, I might barely manage to do a decent fight against your skills and I can tell that what you are right now is a half baked warrior and has yet to mature. It would be great to help you achieve that glory."
Before I can even respond, the interface popped up on my face which made me surprised as I didn't expect it to appear without warning.
[Relationship with Hyde has risen to Lifetime Ally! You can now ask Hyde to go in a quest with you once a week to fight for you. Aside from that, you will also have the disposal of Hyde's mercenaries to fight for you too.]
After that, the interface explained the system on reputation since I triggered it but the knowledge is no longer necessary to me after skimming since nothing changed from its content.
Normal players would only get to trigger this whenever they keep on fulfilling minor quests to normal folks in town. Every time players finish a quest, interact with the NPCs, or do minor tasks for them, it results in growth in reputation and relationship to them. Of course, it also works in reverse too, the more you insult, hurt or destroy their properties, your reputation and relationship with them will also fall to negative.
Since I got this reputation and relationship to Hyde due to the quest, it was easily maxed without much problem and I can immediately enjoy the privilege of becoming an ally to Hyde. [Lifetime Ally] is the highest level of reputation to an NPC, every kind of perks will be received once you get to be friends with an NPC either from shop discounts or free repair of weapons.[Respectable Customer] is the level of recognition to you, minor perks can now be enjoyed. [Friend] is the normal level of intimacy to NPCs, neutral to everything, no perks but the NPC is already friendly. [Stranger] and [Acquaintance] are the same level, the former is displayed if the NPC does not know you, and the latter will be displayed once the NPC knows you already but you have yet to establish any friendly measures.
Now if those are good, the reputation will also fall and will also show the displeasure of the NPCs to you once these appeared to them. [Disgusted] is the lower form of displeasure on you, they will still interact with you but they will barely talk to you, and you are limited to a conversation with them. [Enemy] will be displayed if they no longer care if you are a player or not, they will always be angry at you even if you do good deeds for them. [Eternal Enemy] will appear if they will no longer just show their disgust at you but show hostility and will either attack you on sight or outright beat you to a pulp.
The addition of the alliance with Hyde further increases my strength in future battles. If I am going to offend many players in the future and I have fewer allies to gain support on, then getting NPC allies is the way to go.
After our conversation, Hyde left with his lackeys, leaving me and Lina alongside with her mother.
"Thank you, master. It looks like everything is now good and no longer causing conflict. And I am surprised that you are here when the false debt collector arrived," Lina said.
"Nah, you are one of my allies, if you are in trouble, I would make sure I will help you with it."
"Ah, that's right master, that guy earlier dropped a bag of materials when I kicked him out of the store. I already picked it up but I have not seen these items before. Maybe you know them?"
Lina hands over a bag full of miscellaneous items and the interface name of it pop up, [A scammer's stash]
Opening the bag, I was surprised to see the materials inside. It didn't only contain the necessary item I needed to give Almira to start the quest for the Blacksmith apprenticeship, there were also items you can say that only drop from World Bosses! Is this the reward of the quest?!m