26 The Director

Northern Borough, 123 Welsh Street.

"Here, have a drink, gentlemen." Jack placed three cups of coffee on the table and sat down on a sofa. On the opposite side, Russell and two other Golden Lion members sat with cold expressions. They looked at the steaming black coffee and turned to the well-toned man, who didn't seem special.

"Thank you, but we didn't come here to drink." Russell took off his glasses and wiped them with a silk handkerchief. Then he placed them back on his nose bridge and said. "We have reason to believe that your son, Jason Grandhart, stole something important from us. So, is he here or not?"

"Oh, my son did something like that?" Jack's face showed surprise as he asked in puzzlement. "I am sure you gentlemen have very good proof then."

Russell acted calm as he nudged his glasses. "Your son was at the meeting when the war started. When everything started, your son disappeared. It was as if he was waiting for that moment. Then he rushed to Golden Lion, broke into the vault, took as much as he could, and ran off."

He leaned forward and cracked his knuckles as he asked. "So, is he here or not? If he delivers the stolen stuff back, we will give him a light punishment."

"Whew." Jack moved the back of his palm across his forehead as if he were wiping sweat off. "You scared me for a moment, hehe. Your theory has a lot of holes."

"What do you mean?" Russell frowned. "It is a very viable theory."

"Alright, let's see." Jack looked at the ceiling as if he were thinking, then said. "What if he escaped the building because the fighting had started? He must have realized that war would start and he would be in danger if he stayed there any longer. Y'know, he is only System Apprentice.

"Then, he decided that the smartest choice was to leave the Inner Circle since it will be a battleground sooner or later. Instead of trying to come here, to his home, since it would have been risky, he left the realm for somewhere safe to wait for things to calm down."

"Yes, it's a big IF." Russell scoffed. "I have another theory. Your son, intentionally, wanted to become our cleaner to get close to us. Then, he faked the Mark of Death, convinced Percy to hold the meeting, then went to plant bombs before the meeting so everyone would be focused on fighting, and in that chaos, went to rob the vault."

"Ah right, how did he become the cleaner, mmh?" Jack calmly smiled. "Your guild master isn't a fool. He doesn't accept every mercenary, correct?"

"That isn't the point." Russell snorted. "With him as cleaner, he would know the location of the vault and all the guards. Then he assassinated them by tricking them into trusting him."

"Ok, answer me this. How did my son enter the vault?" Jack rubbed his chin. "Does the vault need a key to open or a keycode? Did my son use his "bombs" to blast it open? Or did Percy leave it open?"

Russell opened his mouth before closing it in frustration. To open the vault, one needed a keycode. It was in Percy's possession, and without him telling it to someone, no one would know. The vault door was also perfectly fine except for a small scratch on it, which wasn't nothing.

"You realize that your theory has many alternative solutions." Jack sighed. "I am sorry; if you had given me proper proof to believe you, I would have delivered my son to your guild personally. But, alas."

"Enough!" Russell slammed his hand on the table, spilling the coffee. "Tell me where he is, and I will personally question him."

"You don't shout in my house." Jack's eyes turned cold. "Don't you adventurers have any manners?"

Scwing...

The two golden lion members revealed their blades from the scabbard. They were only moments away from unsheathing their swords.

"Do you want to make our guild really your enemy?" Russell laughed mockingly. "A mere cleaner boy's father. Let me guess, you are a plumber?"

"Nah, I am Director." Jack curled the corners of his lips.

"Hmm?" Russell frowned, but then his entire body froze. The nearby golden lion members stood frozen in place. Neither of them could blink.

Jack's body was the same. His eyelids looked like they were about to blink, but he was entirely stuck in time. The entire house was stopped in time. No, the entire Human City had stopped moving. The walking pedestrians didn't move an inch, and all the cars stopped in the road as if their engines had stopped working.

Director of Movie-Making.

Then a translucent figure left Jack's body. The figure was Jack's astral projection. He looked around, and all the walls, floors, and figures had turned azure blue.

He turned to look at the motionless figures and tapped his chin thoughtfully. 'What movie should I direct this time? Hmm, a detective movie sounds nice.'

He grinned and waved both his hands upward. In his left hand, a thin paper scroll appeared, and in his right hand, a pen appeared from thin air.

Jack then placed the paper scroll before him and started writing with the pen. "The glassed man suddenly noticed the cracks in his theories. He began to realize another possibility: maybe Jason Grandhart had actually run away. After all, it was common to escape war.

"His two henchmen noticed the change in their boss' expression and sheathed their swords and apologized to Jack Grandhart for their impulsiveness. Seeing that, the glassed man's cheeks reddened in embarrassment as he realized that he was greatly out of line.

"They apologized and left the house on good terms. They decided to return to their headquarters to properly investigate what truly happened that day!"

The scroll of paper vanished, and Jack's astral projection got sucked back into his body.

The blue-colored domain disappeared, and the Human City started to move once again.

Russell's body flinched as flows of memories flashed across his mind. He thought about countless other possibilities and realized that he might have accused the wrong person of a crime he didn't commit.

He sat back down with a regretful look.

The two henchmen sheathed their swords and bowed with mixed expressions. "We are sorry for acting out of line. I hope you can forgive us. We didn't come here to pick a fight."

"It's alright." Jack smiled and waved his hand nonchalantly. "No harm was done."

Russell, seeing that, suddenly felt his cheeks heat up. He was embarrassed for acting like he was some kind of young master. He shook his head, stood up, and bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

"I am sorry for this. The war is just tensing our nerves; I hope you don't think that we, Golden Lions, are like this."

"No, no, I should apologize. I was just quite angry that my innocent son was accused of doing something like that." Jack sighed in sadness as if he were badly hurt.

"We will immediately return to the Golden Lion and investigate this matter thoroughly. Once again, apologies, and sorry that we wasted your coffee." Russell took his top hat off and bowed once more. "Have a good day, good sir."

"Good luck in the investigations." Jack grabbed one of the cups and lifted it before taking a sip. The three members of the Golden Lions left the house and closed the door behind them. The sound of the car's engine humming soon disappeared from Welsh Street.

'It's been three months... Hmm.' Jack pulled up his sleeve and saw a wristwatch that was ticking down. It was already in the negative, yet it still continued ticking down. 'Slightly more than three months. That will be fine. It means changing the destiny is possible.'

He took a sip and curled the corners of his lips. Jack opened his eyes wide and took a deep breath before exhaling. The coffee that was about to spill over the edge suddenly froze.

Director of Destiny.

The entire Human Realm turned into color of azure blue. The clouds stopped moving; the thin flapping wings of nearby bees stopped moving; and the falling raindrops in the nearby city stopped falling.

Jack's astral projection shot out from his body and phased through the ceiling. As he looked around the vast Outer Circle, he saw the tall Iron Walls in the distance. He took one step and appeared in the sky on top of the vast Inner Circle.

Jack looked around until he found Workers Street, then teleported there simultaneously. He flew into the Golden Lion's lounge and saw frozen-in-time figures. He looked around curiously before summoning the scroll of paper and pen.

"In the Director's domain, the time rewinded till it showed a particular scene that happened three weeks ago."

After writing, the time rewinded until it showed a scene that happened three weeks ago. There were corpses piled on the floor, with exhausted-looking Golden Lion members taking care of the wounded.

'Hmm, not a scene I wanted.' Jack pondered what to write, but then thought about something and wrote. "The Director's domain started to show the scene of Jason Grandhart's last visit to the Golden Lions."

The scene changed, and the time rewinded. This time, it showed Jason carrying three heavy-looking bags while about to walk out of the building. There were corpses strewn across the floor, and one person was impaled by a sword on the floor.

'Son, son.' Jack chuckled and shook his head. 'Now, what happened here.'

He raised his pen and rapidly wrote on the scroll of paper. "The time rewinded another twenty minutes, and the scene then turned into a movie."

The scene moved twenty minutes backward, and this time everything was moving. The dead guards were already dead on the ground, with azure-blue blood flowing across the floor. Then a figure appeared from the basement with three heavy-looking bags. He was Perseus, who wore a sickening grin.

Jack summoned a chair and a bowl of popcorn. Then he put his right leg over his left and started to watch the "movie."

Then, the encounter between Perseus and Jason started. The movie continued with Perseus revealing his evil plan.

'Wow, that guy is f*cked.' Jack was quite surprised at the evil nature of this kid. "Go, son, you can do it."

He cheered for his son while stuffing popcorn into his mouth.

The fight began and lasted for ten minutes. It ended with his son thrusting the sword into Perseus' heart.

"So, that's what happened." Jack made the chair and popcorn vanish. He watched as his son departed from the scene and then ended the movie. He floated to Perseus and frowned. "So, he is the mastermind behind this hideous war. Well, this makes things easier."

He summoned the scroll of paper and a pen, then wrote. "The time rewinded and showed the last scene when Perseus was inside his own room."

The scene moved into Perseus' room, which looked neat and clean. Perseus was on the desk, writing on a piece of paper with a thoughtful expression. Jack floated closer and saw that he was planning the hideous scheme.

Jack summoned his scroll of paper and pen and then wrote. "Perseus had a sudden inspiration to write in his diary. He began with his plan to scheme against the Seven Guilds and how he lied to Red and Rook about what had actually happened. He then grabbed the diary, stood up from the chair, and accidentally tripped on the rug.

"That caused the diary to slip off his hand and fall through the open window, which he opened to get some fresh air into his room. The diary accidentally bounced across the roofs of nearby buildings as if it were a bouncy ball, and after some time, it landed in an alleyway near 42 Crowned Crow Street. He then hit his head on the floor and suffered a small amnesia, which made him forget the existence of his previous diary.

"He then remembered his intention to write in the diary. He went back to his desk; he couldn't find his original diary, so he picked up a new one. He sat down and wrote everything from planning to scheme against the Seven Guilds to lying to Red and Rook.

"And then, he left the diary on the desk and went to sleep after getting drowsy."

Jack made the scroll of paper and pen vanish. Then, his astral projection flew half-way across Human City and got sucked into his mortal body.

Jack's real body flinched, and then he softly smiled before taking a small sip of coffee.