"Perfect. Let's move on to the next part, then," Samur smiled.

It was a shame that his charming smile was hidden by his white mask, but alas it was a necessity.

It wasn't that Samur was afraid of being attacked, kidnapped, blackmailed et cetera for his invention of the Elixir; he had already gone through them a lot of times.

So many times, in fact, that he couldn't help but yawn whenever he even thought about them.

Ultimately, there were only so many endings such scenarios could have.

So rather than proving that he had the balls of steel by revealing his identity and then having to deal with something utterly boring, he'd rather just keep the material his balls were made of to himself and enjoy doing something actually interesting.

Like finding new ways to kill himself.

In fact, even during the presentation, he was constantly thinking about that.

However, he didn't just want to die; he wanted to die in a NEW way.

Of course, if that pursuit became more trouble than it was worth, he would simply try it in his next life.

He was never going to be out of lives, after all.

"There's something AFTER this?" Jennifer looked at him with widened eyes.

"Oh, it's about the general stuff, like how we are going to handle this discovery and all that."

"Ah…" she nodded as the thunder of her heart calmed down.

She didn't think she could handle another mind-boggling invention today.

"If you would please take your seat."

"Ah, sure," she nodded and sat back down.

"Now, as I said, let's move on to the more general, boring stuff. The first is the scope of this discovery."

"Scope?'

"Yes, mademoiselle. While we have found a way to artificially create Elixirs, we still have no way of mass producing them. Each of the Elixirs has to be created by hand, which requires a hella lot of effort along with rare and expensive raw materials."

"Then simply get more hands," Jennifer replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I'll come to that shortly," he replied. "Now, since the number of Elixirs is limited, we have decided to push philanthropy aside for the time being and first provide the Elixirs to those we consider important for our survival; namely, you."

The room erupted in a melody of murmurs and whispers.

"Yes, it has been decided that all of you present here are crucial in the war against the Aggressors. What that means is that you are the cream of the crop, and that your life no longer belongs to yourself. To be more precise, none of you get to decide whether you live or die."

"So you basically want to control us," Jennifer scoffed.

She really hoped that this wasn't another attempt by the Royalty to tie them to puppet strings; she'd be truly disappointed if that was the case.

"Not exactly, but some sort of 'Order' is necessary in a war. Of course, those who do not agree are free to walk out. There'd be no point in forcing you to give up your life for something you do not believe in."

"…" she frowned, and so did many others from the Player faction.

"I can see that many of you are not fond of the idea, so allow me to elaborate a bit."

"…Go ahead."

"In case you're worried, we have no wish to control you, or tie you down, or anything of that sort. You can go wild for all we care. There are simply some rules you will have to follow."

"Which are?"

"The first is that you must complete any mission we assign to you. The second is that you cannot decide where or how you will die. If a situation requires you to sacrifice your life to resolve it, you WILL have to abandon it. The third is that you will cease all in-fighting immediately; instead, all matters will be resolved through diplomatic discussions."

"What kind of missions are we talking about, exactly?"

"Missions will be tailored to your repertoire. Dungeon expeditions, making policies, eliminating organisations, assassinating targets. Whatever that threatens or is crucial for our survival."

"You are going to turn us against each other?"

"We will turn you against those who are an active threat to our world. For example, those who are working with the Aggressors in the shadows, or those planning to destroy us from the inside."

"People like Dmitri, for example?"

"Well, he's not at that level yet. But he's an extremist; he's bound to create problems sooner or later. When he becomes more trouble than he's possibly worth, shall we send you to do the honours, Ms. Jennifer?" Samur chuckled.

"That will be very tempting," she smiled. "But there is one thing I have been wondering about."

"And what might that be?"

"You keep mentioning 'we'. Who exactly are you, and who do you work with?"

Oh shit. Samur had been using the term 'we' because it sounded cooler and gave off a mysterious aura. Was he supposed to take responsibility for his words now?

"Me? I'm just a… malnourished orphan who happened to discover something useful and decided to share it with you all."

Yes, Elixir=something useful.

"Pfft!" Vafferan almost burst out laughing.

"And what about those behind you?" Jennifer only glanced briefly at Vafferan, perhaps thinking nothing of her chuckle.

"They are just a group of people who want to live a somewhat happy life alongside the people they love. But they can't do that when the world is about to be destroyed, can they? So instead of just sitting around and waiting, they decided to take matters into their own hands. Nothing more, nothing less."

That's what Samur would like to think anyway.

But then again, the members of the New Dawn Guild were unpredictable wankers; for all he knew, they could be fighting to save the world just because an Aggressor stole their water bottle.

"Are they trustworthy?"

"For me? Yes. But for you, I guess they haven't done much to earn your trust. Aside from revealing to you the artificially created Elixir which they could have easily monopolised and used for their own benefits, of course."

"Haah," she sighed heavily.

"It's a bit hard to digest, I imagine. Please take your time."

He also needed some time to straighten his story.

'I'd like that,' Jennifer lamented in her heart.

"Alright, so let me get this straight," she organised the thoughts revolving in her head. "You, and those behind you, believe that we are critical for this world's survival. And because of that, you want to… regulate us. Your first way of doing that is the Elixir."

The moment he heard that, it suddenly dawned on Samur just how big a deal the Elixir had become.

It was supposed to be something to pass the time, yet it had somehow turned into something which held the weight of the world's fate.

Well, thankfully, due to his superior critical thinking, disaster management and crisis prediction skills, he had been using the term 'we' instead of 'I' (and their respective counterparts).

In other words, he could leave all the work to the wankers at the New Dawn Guild, and just relax by saying something like how he had to work on more things that could shape the future.

In fact, this could be the long con and the finishing touch to his epic prank.

Not only had he emotionally scarred those big gurls by tricking them during the Elixir demonstration, he would also leave them with the burden of shaping the future of the mortals inhabiting this world.

A burden which was probably much more than what they could possibly handle.

His prank had another prank hidden behind it. Noice.

Samur Professional Epic Prankster, at our service.