Once they were underground, West pulled on a string, igniting a light in the center of the room. The faint scent of mildew hung in the basement, and all of the walls were a dull gray in color. On one side, there were rows of file cabinets, and on the opposite side, there was a large whiteboard on the wall.
In one corner, there was also what looked to be an older d*ll computer.
"This…"
West quickly cut off Elric's words before he could start his sentence.
"As I said, this is just a side area. Our main meetups are much, much fancier than this."
West walked over to the whiteboard. There were already words and pictures drawn all over it, notes that had been long since forgotten. At the top and center of the board, there was a single word larger than all of the rest.
Villainous.
"Most of the D rank local access people think the 'Villainous' tag is cringe, right?"
Leaning against one of the walls, West spoke with a foreboding tone.
"Well, once one reaches C rank, more channels can be unlocked. Role-specific ones. Kukuku, while they are all mulling around in their useless chats, we are free to plot and connect with intelligent folks."
West's creepy laughter was made more sinister by the dim lighting of the basement room.
"You should be reaching C rank after completing a few more requests, Elric. I look forward to when you join us for real."
West swept his hand through his showy hair.
"And if you climb even higher on the ranked ladder, your connections will only increase. Heh, I've heard A rankers can connect with The Boys all around the world. At that point, there's no stopping us, right? Any of our plots will surely succeed!"
West rubbed his chin contemplatively.
"I wonder, just how much of the world is already ruled by us? We are clearly the world's greatest force."
Elric couldn't help but feel excited as he listened. Crushing the nearby talent agencies would be simple work for the top rankers of The Boys.
As he continued to advance in group chat rank, his influence here would only increase as well.
"Now, then. There is a goal for this part that we'll be attending tomorrow. As a junior Villainous, I hope that you will assist with my plans."
Elric nodded his head.
"Definitely. What's the mission?"
After wiping a portion of the whiteboard clean, West started to draw on it.
"A rival clothing company has an up-and-coming designer, Ned Nesland. My father wants me to start taking over control of our clothing company to gain experience as a businessman, so this is my problem now. There will be a fashion competition in a few weeks, and I'm not sure if our designers can win."
Elric nodded.
"So you want me to take this Ned guy out while we're at the ball. How serious do you want his injuries to be?"
West looked at Elric with a visage of scorn.
"Beat him up? That would be dumb, and useless. You'd probably just get in trouble with the law."
Looking at the bruises still on Elric's face and remembering the slightly cautious way he'd walked on his way in, West recalled how he'd heard about Elric being beaten up by drunks.
"Besides, who knows if you'd even win. No, I don't want you to beat him up. Just watch him, pay attention to who he speaks with, and try to figure out who his assistants are, if they are attending."
After a slight pause, West decided to reveal a possible secondary plan.
"The only action that might happen there… if CosplayNow is good enough at acting as a girl, I might ask him to seduce Ned."
Elric nearly choked on his spit as he heard West's words. It had already been like pulling teeth to get the crossdresser to attend the party with West, but to seduce people as well?
"I reckon he would agree if I offered money and clothing supplies for future cosplays… but it would definitely hurt my reputation if I asked him to seduce someone else. I don't want to become known as a humiliated upstart when my 'girl' runs off with some other dude."
"Mm. It would get even worse for your rep if he later revealed Cosplay as a man. People might draw some odd conclusions about you."
"Yea, I guess I shouldn't do that. Sticking to observation it is, then."
Noticeably, West didn't even propose the idea of Ember being the one to seduce Ned. Part of the Bro Code was to help your bros' romantic affairs, and to do nothing that might drive them apart, unless the relationship was toxic.
West scribbled more details on the whiteboard to describe Ned, and the duo continued discussing the mission for a good long while.
Eventually, Elric glanced back at the stairway.
"Do you think Ember is done yet?"
He glanced down at his phone to check for any messages but noticed it was blank. Furthermore, the cellular icon was completely grayed out.
"All signals in here are blocked out, and the computer in here runs on a private system. This much is just basic precautions. I think we've discussed enough, let's head back out and pick out a suit for you."
West led the way back upstairs, and the duo made sure to cover up the trap door again after they exited.
West had a message from his designer, giving him details about what they would need to match.
"Alright, this should be interesting."
Elric tried to peek at what had been sent, but when he saw West's phone screen, there was only text.
"Hah, my designer prefers to make it a surprise. She'll also still need to customize the dress, which will take some time. It's better if the two of you come here before the party tomorrow to pick up your clothing. We can all leave together from here afterward."
Elric wasn't familiar with the fashion world, but he was still pretty sure having only a day to fully customize a dress wasn't very long.
"My team is good. Come, let's pick out a cool suit for you."
Despite his overly flamboyant and poor hairstyle choices, West actually seemed to know his stuff when it came to clothing. The suit he picked out was a fairly standard black suit, but when one of his assistant designers came over to show Elric the customizations for it, the young man was thoroughly impressed.
Threads of golden string would be woven into the fabric around the welted front breast pocket.
"A dark tie with threaded gold will fit well. As for pants, standard black ones should work perfectly."
Elric decided to just leave all the decisions up to the experts, letting himself become a dress-up doll for a bit. After all his measurements were taken, the assistant designer took the suit to go and customize it.
Just as he was finishing up, he got a message from Ember. She was done as well.
"Well, thank you for the help, West. Hopefully we fit in at the party now."
West bowed to Elric.
"Of course, it is my mission request, after all. My… my only worry is about CosplayNow. He said that he'll meet us at the venue, instead of here… he's also handling his own dress. Hopefully he doesn't do anything dumb with his outfit."
"Eh, he seems great at clothing stuff. I don't think we need to worry."
Elric and West walked out toward the store's exit, meeting up with Ember and the head designer as they walked out. Ember was still wearing the same red dress, but now also had two large bags of clothing.
"Sir Tony, you said she could take whatever she wanted for free, correct? I helped her pick out some stuff. It's not every day I get to work with someone who has such a perfect appearance!"
The lead designer winked at Elric.
"Lucky guy. Come over and help her carry these bags out, there are another two I need to go back and grab!"
Being a luxury clothes brand, everything in the store was outrageously priced. Seeing his designer send Ember out with multiple thousands of dollars worth of clothing, West couldn't help but grab his own forehead.
"There goes this month's profits… Dad is going to kill me."