"Jack definitely saw us, not our faces though, otherwise he would've caught up by now."
If it was anyone else upstairs, Four could just take them out to shut their mouths.
Unfortunately, we caught a glimpse of Jack's maroon blazer descending the stairs, that's someone we cannot kill.
It's why Four chose to sprint directly out of the building and back here, to my spawn point instead of confronting the man upstairs.
We've already been in this small room, sitting on the mattress I spawned in for about 2 hours, the longer nothing happens to us the more certain we can be that our identities weren't discovered.
And if our identities indeed weren't discovered, this stage is as good as completed.
We already know Jack's position, we just need to prevent anyone suspicious from nearing it.
"You should go ahead and sleep." Four says as he stands up beside me.
"What are you gonna do?"
"Lookout, it's fine I've done this a hundred times, I don't need my sleep."
I don't really need mine either, I'm an avid gamer with the most inconsistent sleep schedule known to mankind after all.
"Thanks."
I slept anyways though, considering how tomorrow might get chaotic, I should preserve my energy.
Was a way better slumber than I would've imagined after committing a crime just yesterday night.
The room was empty when I woke up, doesn't concern me much at all though, if Four was caught, I wouldn't have been left here unscathed.
As usual, I tidy up the collars of my shirt, sweep off some dust on my shoulders and perfunctorily combed my hair with my fingers before heading out.
"Your men looks a lot less hostile than mine."
As I expected, Four was all well right outside.
"I guess." My men were just either still sleeping or sitting idle, doing nothing specifically.
"In quite a few of my games, some of my men tried to kill me because of the food distribution."
"Didn't cause much trouble for you though right?"
"Not at all."
I thought so, which is why I didn't bother sharing my strategy in avoiding conflicts with subordinates, it would be redundant.
"Well let's go, maybe Jack will show up today after we busted into his place yesterday." Four suggests.
"Alright."
The centre of Diamonds territory, the 60 story tall building, even from afar, we could spot the dispute occurring in the entrance hall.
All the ranked officer except Two were present, with only one man in a different attire, Ace of Hearts.
"What's going on?" Four asks Nine.
"Lab got broken into, we think it's Hearts' doing."
A reasonable assumption, the very first night they stay over and the lab is infiltrated, everyone's first instinct will be to suspect the recently arrived foreigners.
"Give me one goddamn reason to believe it wasn't your doing!" Ten condemns Ace of Hearts openly and loudly.
"Me and my men were under constant surveillance by Ace of Diamonds and his soldiers twenty four seven, I think Ace of Diamonds can vouch himself that none of us ever left."
"Is that true?!" Ten turns to Ace.
"Um uh, I'm pretty sure..."
Ten was clearly still dissatisfied with the proof a witness has provided, his face was disgruntled and his body was tense.
"Who else could've done it then?!" Ten asks indignantly to Ace of Hearts.
"I believe that's your responsibility to resolve, we are simply visitors waiting for your Jack."
Ten was so furious, I can see smoke pumping out his ears, it was comical.
"I have a different opinion." This is the first time I've heard Five talk.
We the players take the physical body of characters in-game, but not their voice, so this is Corpse's real voice.
I believe it's supposed to sound intimidating, but he sounds like he's suffering from chronic sore throat to me.
"How can we be so sure that our own men didn't betray us." Five turns to Ace.
"Look at him, he's been a different person from yesterday. He lost his guts, you noticed it." Five then averts his stare to Nine.
"What if it wasn't him being nervous, but guilt that induced such drastic changes in personality?"
There seems to be some ranked officers nodding and considering that possibility proposed by Five, with Six and Seven looking especially like they're convinced.
Masterful manipulation by Five here to turn the ranked officers against Ace, I must admit, 10th best player in the game for a reason.
"What if, he's cooperating with Hearts?" Five continues.
"I-I'm not!" Ace defends himself.
"You have anything to support that claim?" Five walks towards Ace with slow and menacing steps.
"You look like a coward." He arrived right in front of Ace and leaned forward, Ace instinctively flinched and shrank backwards into a wall.
"A coward who's scared for his life."
"Enough, we don't accuse one of ourselves." Nine stepped in between them two to deescalate the situation.
"That goes for you too Nine, you're scared for your life too."
Hearing that, Nine grimaced and gritted his teeth.
"Don't think we forgot how you helped Clubs, smuggled food for them, became their dog because your life was at stakes."
The stages in the game follows a chronology, whatever happened in the earlier stages is within the npc's memories.
Nine was speechless at that reminder from Five, not able to find the right words to retort.
A moment of awkward silence later, it was the sound of friction from the bearing issues of the heavy duty trolley that ceased the tension.
It wasn't the man from yesterday, it was Jack himself.
"Stop it." He orders with conviction.
Since the objective of this stage is to protect the Jack, Five don't have the power to oppose his orders, so he backed up from Nine and Ace.
Four observed Jack attentively, it's probably for two reason. One to ensure his safety, two to ensure he's oblivious of the real perpetrators of the break-in in question.
"Ace is leading the expedition today, prepare all your men. Ten will be in charge of monitoring Hearts' activity today."
Jack then turns to Ace of Hearts, who had an even wider and malicious smirk than usual upon finally meeting our Jack.
"I'll join you in the discussion for the peace treaty later this evening."
"Very well."
Just like last time, he spoke what needs to be said, and walked away without another word in the same graceful manner, leaving the trolley with the ten boxes behind.
"You think I can take two of the boxes? Two's not here after all."
"You already stole one yesterday. And no you cannot do that just because one of us is absent, I've done it once and lost the trust of basically all officers."
That's what I was concerned of, guess I won't take two boxes then.
"After distributing, we'll stand in front of the lab to monitor Jack's movement." Four says before we part ways.
When I've returned to my building, I simply dropped the box full of bread on the ground.
"I've got things to do, distribute evenly yourselves."
I carved something onto the cardboard box with my poker card and took the stolen box of food from yesterday before heading out.
Thankfully, I managed to do everything I needed to do before Four arrives here.