"Miss, check the news!" Rachel, Eva's secretary, burst into the latter's office with a shocked expression.
The red-haired woman didn't ask anything and quickly turned on the news. It if was not something important, Rachel would have knocked first and then entered the room.
"Breaking news!" The same newswoman who had announced the creation of Oracroft popped in front of Eva and Zack who was sitting on the chair opposite of her. "Oracroft has just announced that they have gotten the number 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th top players to sign a contract with them!"
For a moment, Zack and Eva remained quiet and exchanged a glance before their expressions turned to one of shock.
Both of them knew that the players mentioned there had never wanted to sign a contract but all of a sudden, all of them had signed a contract at once.
What shocked Zack was the fact that the newswoman had taken WolfHeart's ranked number two.
The pink-haired girl was still the third-ranked top player however, the rankings were changing too fast so there was a chance there was some other number 3rd player now.
[ 1st: Lin Fan: Level 24
2nd: Elyon: level 22
3rd: WolfHeart: level 17
4th: Lazy Panda: level 16
5th: KockSucker: level 15
6th: XQYZ: level 15
7th: GoldStone: level 14
8th: PersianEmperor: level 14
9th: Kratos: Level 14
10th: Lodovico: Level 14 ]
This was the current ranking that was shown on the news screen. The newswoman sounded as though she couldn't believe what she had heard.
The same was true for half of the world's population
"Zack, you did ask her to come and join Doogle right?" Eva asked in a cold voice as Zack nodded.
"Let me massage her now." He then opened his phone watch and the first thing that greeted him was the message sent by him to WolfHeart.
"Evangeline, what are the chances of my phone watch being hacked?"
"Extremely low but not zero."
He then moved forward and showed her the message which made the CEO slam her right hand on the desk.
"Contact her while I find you something completely untraceable and unhackable." Eva cursed herself for not doing that before as Zack started talking with WolfHeart.
[ WolfHeart, where are you now? ] The black-haired boy immediately sent a message to WolfHeart using his phone watch.
[ Sitting in a car. Why? ]
[ In a taxi? ]
[ Zack, didn't you send a car for me? ]
[ My account was hacked and if they are people with you in the car, they are from Oracroft. ]
[ ... ]
Zack knew that it was too late to do anything then. WolfHeart was already sitting in the car with the Oracroft company officials and was now being taken to the company to become a slave.
"Eva, can you track the location of a phone watch?" Zack immediately asked the red-haired woman who looked confused.
"I can but what do you need it for?"
He then told her how WolfHeart was being taken to the Oracroft company and how she would become a slave there.
"Why would she become a slave?" Eva asked while narrowing her eyes as Rachel handed Zack a new phone watch.
The secretary then went outside as Zack's expression turned grim.
"There is a rumor flying around that those who join Orange can not leave the company unless and until they are fired. Apparently, the most professional and skilled people were held at gunpoint and were asked to sign a contract.
After that, a chip was implanted in their bodies to prevent them from telling the truth about this to anyone. If they tried to talk about it, the chip will give a shock that will make it look as the person was having a heart attack."
What the black-haired boy was telling was the truth and he had learned about this in his last life when the top player had committed suicide.
He had secretly leaked the details about it which led to Orange being sued by the game developers of Hikari for breaking the law of free will. However, the company merged with Miscosoft and things turned better for them even though their reputation was forever ruined.
But in Zack's current life, things had been too different and there was no proof that Orange was doing something wrong.
"First of all, tap your old phone watch with the next one and the data will transfer over. I can track her down too and get a helicopter with military-trained people, however…"
"There is no proof that those people belong to Oracroft and such a plot exists." Zack finished her sentence as her deep green eyes stared into his eyes.
"And how do you know that what you are saying is more than just a rumor?"
"Sometimes, you just have to trust people. If I am proved wrong in the future, you can take 10% of my income."
"I don't need more money," Eva smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "I have enough money that if I party every day till I die, I will only spend 1 to 5% of it. If you were wrong then our trust will be broken."
She finished and asked for the serial number of WolfHeart's watch. After Zack acquired it from the pink-haired girl, he passed it on to the CEO of Doogle who entered it into her database.
What most people didn't know was that the tech companies could actually track their locations using the serial number on their devices.
No matter where the person was, he or she could be tracked using the serial number.
"She is currently on the Twitch bridge and is heading towards the south-east. The Oracroft headquarters are situated in the south-east of Northern Continent."
Zack nodded and rushed out of the door. He only had a single idea in his mind and if that failed, he was in for some huge trouble.
He quickly tapped the new phone watch with his old one and shifted the data.
Suddenly, a message saying 'self-destruction mode activated' appeared on his old phone watch and a countdown started from ten.
He threw it on the floor to see it explode and vanish into nothing. Zack then wore his next watch.
He dashed up to the roof of the place and panted as he caught his breath. He then looked around to see that no one was watching him.
'I hope no one is seeing this or it's not being recorded.' The teenager prayed before he took a deep breath and raised his right hand.
He remembered how Gugnir had appeared in front of him and how he had stored the lance in his inventory. And that had led to him wondering whether he could use Chastiefol the same way.
He remembered the words that he had heard the woman speak shortly before she had vanished and he had been ejected out of Hikari.
'Whether I like it or not, I am the protector of the world tree.' He thought and closed his eyes.
"Hear my call Chastiefol." He whispered but when he opened his eyes, nothing happened. But the black-haired boy was not one to easily give up.
'Looks like whispering isn't going to work.' He thought and decided to raise his voice. Perhaps someone would hear him and think that he was a mad person but he didn't care about such people.
"Hear my call Chastiefol!" His voice resounded around the entire roof but nothing happened again. The black-haired boy was about to try again when his entire body froze.
The space in front of him started to distort in the same way when Gugnir had appeared in front of him. And indeed, the golden spear soon appeared in front of him.
Chastiefol shined in front of its wielder as the spear rose and hovered above the teenager's right hand.
Zack remembered how heavy Chastiefol had felt when he had tripped on it back home. But it wasn't the time to chicken out. He was not going to let WolfHeart turn into a slave.
'But what if things are different in this timeline?' The voice in his head asked him but he shut it off and took a deep breath.
His hand moved a little up and grabbed the spear. The golden glow surrounding the spear suddenly vanished and the black-haired boy expected his hand to be broken from holding the spear.
However, that didn't happen.
"Now it's the final step." He knew that it was not time for him to see whether his idea would work or not.
"Spirit Spear Chastiefol, Seventh Form, Guardian!"