Birth Of The Crafts-God

"Boss open up, quickly! There's trouble!" Kelvin banged on the door.

Lucas froze for a second before walking towards the door. For some reason, he could feel his heart beating with unease and agitation, but he did well to mask that.

"What's the matter that couldn't wait until later in the day?" Lucas said as soon as he opened the door.

"It's bad, boss. Bad, big time bad." Kelvin said as he stepped into the store.

"Have you seen the news? Or the media? What about Kikao?"

"I just woke up. What do you take me for? Some internet addict?" Lucas' lips twitched.

"Take a look at this."

Kelvin ignored the question before projecting a few articles from his communicator.

{{ Shocking: Seven Sparks Forge in secret alliance with terrorists? }}

{{ Limited SS vestige spotted in the hands of the terrorists? Do they have a secret supply line or is the store a secret supplier? }}

{{ Terrorist spy uncovered: The tale of how a vestige-smith business worked undercover as a supplier for terrorists }}

"...what is the meaning of this?" Lucas grimaced as he stared at the projections.

There were at least seven projections, but their topic was roughly the same. Some of them had the image and logo of the store, while others had Lucas' face on it as he was the face of the store. Regardless of whichever it was, the articles all shared the same contents; Lucas was a terrorist and the Seven Sparks Forge was secretly supplying terrorists with vestiges.

"This is absurd. Since when did the media make such insane comments without confirming their sources." Lucas almost flared at the spot.

What terrorist spy? What secret supporter? What supplier?

It was understandable that there were secret suppliers for terrorists, after all, vestiges were strictly regulated. It might seem like there were a lot, but this was because of Lucas' area of work.

For one to get a vestige, they either had to be: a registered freelancer with a licence; a registered security agent, especially a public security agent like a member of the Patrol Corps or Defence Force; or they had to have a permit from the official regulation agency. To get a permit, one would need a recommendation from a strong freelancer or a high ranking security agent.

With these regulations in place, it was difficult for the average fellow to own a vestige. Vestige-smiths, as well as businesses, were banned from selling vestiges to anyone who failed to fulfill one of those conditions.

It was impossible for a terrorist to fulfill those conditions as they were either human or hybrid.

For a human, it was impossible to be a freelancer or work in a public security agency because they were innately weak. As for getting a recommendation to apply for a permit, that was even more difficult for them for both the previous reason as well as the stigma attached to humans; a combination of the disgust hyumans had for them as well as the suspicion that all humans were potential terrorists.

For the hybrids, the suspicion that they could be a terrorist played a part in making it difficult for them to get a permit. While they could apply to be a freelancer, life wouldn't necessarily get better. Also, Baylands City had almost no hybrids.

Based on all of this, the only way for terrorist organisations to get access to vestiges —of which the bulk was produced in Baylands City— was to make covert deals with vestige-smith businesses and dealerships [1]. As such, it was natural to suspect them for supporting terrorists.

However, Lucas didn't understand how he got caught up in this. He had been doing his best to keep a distance away from such topics, and even from the Digress city-state. Regardless, Lucas was still somehow caught up in a crazy web of lies.

"Hold on, play that video for me."

Lucas pointed at the second projection.

It wasn't just an image as there was a clip attached to the post.

Kelvin immediately played the video clip and Lucas finally understood what had happened.

In the video, the scene was that of the Central Prefecture district that got attacked just the previous day. However, one of the terrorists that attacked was in possession of a unique vestige. It appeared to be a spear, but in the course of the battle, the spear transformed into a sniper rifle which he used to kill a few agents. Your adventure continues at empire

At first, Lucas was shocked and thought it was his Blue Spear, but the design was slightly different and even the colour wasn't the same.

One of the reasons the Blue Spear went by that name was because it was blue in colour. So far, Lucas didn't take custom orders for the spear no matter how much people wanted to offer. As such, he was confident that the vestige the terrorist used had nothing to do with him.

"It's not mine." Lucas said.

"I know." Kelvin replied. "I never doubted you, boss."

Lucas glanced at the latter, a bit surprised by his behaviour. Although they were employer and employee, Kelvin hadn't even worked in the store for up to three months. There was no reason for him to trust Lucas with such conviction.

"Why so?" Lucas asked, a little bit curious.

"Because you aren't so stupid to make such a mistake, if you were a spy." Kelvin smiled.

'Fucking brat.' Lucas cursed as he erased all his positive feelings about Kelvin.

'But he's right. This is such a flawed attempt at framing me. The question is, this should be so obvious, but why is the media reporting it like it's the truth?' Lucas began contemplating with a frown on his face.

It only took him two seconds to figure out why.

'It can't be...'

Lucas froze.

There was only one reason that such a flawed plot would be preached by the media as if it were the new gospel. There was someone fanning the flames behind all of this. However, the party behind was definitely not one person, neither were they weak. What's more, there had to be a reason why they were so bold as to carry on with this complot.

One should know that if it didn't work out, Lucas could sue for defamation, harassment, emotional and psychological abuse, unfair business practice, and many more offences. By the time he was done, even if the parties involved didn't go bankrupt, their businesses and reputation would take such a huge hit, that it would be very difficult for them to recover.

Despite the very high risks involved, the plotting side still went on with this scheme. Therefore, the only explanation was that they were confident; very confident. For that to be true, it meant that they had a very powerful backer supporting them as well.

For some reason, Lucas' unease began to grow even worse. It was clear that there was a conspiracy ongoing, and it was targeted at him.