JohnWillStab stood with his head hanging low in shame, beside him stood Bonifacius and Crown.

They were located on the stage this time, along with the other groups.

Dylan stood in the centre of the stage, doing his best to avoid eye-contact with the L.F.T.O group representing the jGuardians.

“As you may know I have been elected to govern Glumington, as such I decided to organise a training event for those of us who are less experienced with this game,”

Dylan turned to the first group, TradeRash.

The three stepped forward, the one in the middle being their speaker.

It was an olive-skinned human with short, spiky white hair.

“Hi! I’m Nouvel, leader of TradeRash, as the number one company in this world we’re always interested in hiring skilled bodyguards and making connections, so we’re happy to help everyone improve!”

He grinned.

“Who knows, we might even come to you with a job offer!” Nouvel smile, giving a polite bow before stepping back.

The next group stood out, it was the Silverlight guys, the speaker was Atwoz, the light-blue haired man, his two companions were short, wearing long cloaks.

“Welcome! My name is Atwoz, I am the leader of Silverlight, a guild dedicated to preserving the free nature of this world while improving infrastructure and stopping criminals such as the jGuardians from returning to their former strength!”

“As mister Nouvel said, I too am interested in improving and gauging the abilities of everyone here, and I would be happy to accept any of you who desire to join our cause into the Silverlight guild,”

Like the others, he returned to his corner.

Next stepped out the three figures dressed in grey robes.

The two in the back wore their (uncomfortably pointy) hoods with only eye-holes and a line for a smile drawn below.

The speaker didn’t wear his hood.

“Hello, everyone! My name is Gr3gry, but you can call me Gr3g,” the man introduced himself.

“Ladderhome is a group dedicated to one, simple purpose, returning home!” the speaker was a human with short blond hair and pale skin, his eyes were silver in colour and a wide smile remained on his face.

He paused awaiting cheers but was instead met with murmurs,

“Is that even possible?”

“Can they do that!?”

“Do we get to keep the gold?”

“We can return home?!”

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He speaker smiled.

“Indeed! We are constantly working on a way to return home!” he explained.

“We’d be more than happy to welcome more people into our ranks! Regardless of skill!” he exclaimed.

Someone in the crowd raised a hand.

“I have a question!”

The speaker looked down to the person.

“Is it about the pointy hoods?” he asked in an exhausted tone.

They nodded.

“We were going for a different kind of look, but our tailor thought it would be really funny to do this…” the man pinched the bridge of his nose.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, he took a step back and the next speaker walked out.

Two ogres and a wolfman stepped up, the wolfman was the speaker.

“Name’s Reggie, I’m the vice-boss of ReAjuan,”

“We came here to help the newbies, but most importantly clear up many misunderstandings about this world,”

“That is all,” he bowed politely and stepped back.

The next group was composed of a harpy, fishman and wolfman.

“H-hello!” they said in unison, though their voices were out of sync making them hard to understand.

“We’re the people of the Dumblr guild, we’re kind of… well… there aren’t any leader really, we’re all even you know!”

The crowd remained silent.

“We… we noticed there aren’t many non-humans in the crowd… p-perhaps you could work on that… but it’s ok… we’ll make sure to educate you on p-proper group diversity!” they bowed before stepping back.

The next group stepped up.

Their characters had dark skin, wore suits and afros, it was difficult to distinguish one member from the other.

“Good evening, I come representing the combined powers of the 4Tard guild,“ the man was reading off a script.

“With the rise of guilds racing to be the new pseudo governments, we have banded together to keep this world chaotic and free!”

“We at 4Tard believe that with our combined autism, we could truly reach greatness!”

“That is all,” the man gave a polite bow and stepped back.

Throughout the entire speech, the crowd remained silent and confused.

The L.F.T.O group stepped forward.

“SHIT! SHOULDN’T BONIFACIUS BE THE ONE GIVING THE SPEECH!?” John though looking back only to see Bonifacius giving him a thumbs up.

He cleared his throat.

“Hello everyone!” John began.

“I guess I should start off by apologising for the introduction, there was a slight misunderstanding!” he explained.

JohnWillStab looked around and saw everyone still very tense.

“Shit… I need to break the ice…”

He glanced back seeing Crown giving him a dirty look for very obviously being the cause of their judgement.

“I’m going to regret my next comment…” John thought taking a deep breath in hopes of somehow inhaling some aerosolised courage.

“Either way, my name is JohnWillStab, this is Bonifacius and that gremlin-faced frog is Crown!”

A few of the people let out a chuckle at the comment as JohnWillStab chose not to look back for fear of the expression Crown would shoot him.

“We’re representing the jGuardian guild – a few of our achievements include beating the first raid in this world and overthrowing HaremHarry over in Ajuan!” John explained.

A handful of people from the guilds as well as the crowd looked over to them.

“Hah! Impressed yet?!” John thought smugly as he maintained a polite smile.

“Is that meant to be some sort of joke?” Atwoz laughed, looking back to the crowd as if he was a comedian.

JohnWillStab turned towards him.

“Huh?”

“I mean there isn’t an official culprit for HaremHarry’s disappearance,” he laughed.

A few of the people in the crowd looked over to John with looks of pity.

“I-it’s true!” John exclaimed.

“And the fact you managed to do a raid is nothing but proof of how easy they must be in this world!” he laughed.

JohnWillStab breathed a sigh.

“You little-” he felt Crown and Bonifacius pull him back as Dylan hurried onto the stage.

“A-alright! That’s it for introductions!” He exclaimed.

“You guys are free to form groups of five,”

“Then you can line up in front of the group you wish to train under for the next few days!” Dylan explained.

In a flash, the people shifted away from John’s side of the room.

Most people signed up for TradeRash and ReAjuan.

Three groups joined Ladderhome.

4Tard and Dumblr got two groups each.

The jGuardians got nobody.

“…”

“…”

Dylan shot John a look of pity.

He looked back to the crowd.

“A-are you guys sure? You seem pretty… clumped up…” Dylan remarked.

“Mm, I do think it’s unfair the liars get to avoid work, but I could never go as far as to doom a group by entrusting them to the jGuardians,” Atwoz said faking sorrow.

John breathed a sigh.

He wasn’t even angry at this point, mostly sad.

“Shit… I may have been a little too aggressive…” John thought.

“One way or another, they did manage to level-up high enough to be up here and not down there, Atwoz…” Nouvel remarked with a polite smile.

“T-that may be so but-… “ Atwoz began but was cut off.

“Worst case scenario their groups could leave and come join us!” Nouvel added.

“…yes, yes - you’re right!” Atwoz grinned.

Dylan scratched his head.

“A-alright… anyone willing to join the jGuardian group please do so now!”

A collective sigh of defeat was heard throughout the crowd.

Reluctantly, seven people walked over to their side, mostly individuals who left their groups out of pity for the jGuardians.