They had to consider the possibility that Cyrus was lying to them, that he was intentionally pushing them out to be two sacrificial pawns. Thus, while they were filling their treasuries, Cyrus was secretly withdrawing money to prepare for a robbery phase in the later stage of the game. As for the mutual exchange of money in the treasuries, it looked fair, but what if this was also just Cyrus's trap? After all, Cyrus's side was the one withdrawing money, and knowing for sure he would not be robbed until near the end of the game, this was no different from an agreement that existed only in name.

Under that situation, the Zento alliance was no different from a safe harbor; those four players would proceed with a financial exchange.

Specifically, the representative of the Flamed Family and the representative of the Zento Family would draw their main income from the treasuries of the Raymon and Don factions. In other words, they divided themselves clearly into a front line and a rear. The Raymon and Don sides only needed to fill their treasuries, while the Zento and Flamed sides would be responsible for the main attacks.

In this way, all four of them would be balanced in terms of interests, keeping the alliance tighter than ever. For this to be feasible, the amount of gold coins that the representatives of the Raymon and Don families poured in would absolutely be "more" than a player who acted in a trickle like Cyrus. But because of his early emergence, added to his previous performance, everything would still operate on the foundation of "Cyrus is the target" as a cover, while the true target had already shifted.

In the end, Cyrus only needed to sit back and watch the two alliances tear each other apart. Not enough profit? Weren't the four people of the Zento alliance perfect prey for the four people of the Faith alliance?

What did Faith's failure have to do with him?

Only like this was Cyrus finally satisfied.

...

And just as Cyrus thought, after returning, those two did not intend to hide but decided to speak candidly.

It wasn't because they were so good, but because the Zento alliance was still trustworthy, added to the fact that both of them smelled something wrong with Cyrus's proposal.

Seeing this, the representative of the Zento Family almost burst out laughing; he had been wondering what reason to use to persuade the two of them to act as "treasuries" for the alliance, and unexpectedly, a reason had been delivered right to his door.

According to him, the most important thing was for the alliance to huddle together for warmth, while Cyrus or the rest were disregarded. They could even take this opportunity to stockpile money to pretend as if they were losing their competitiveness against Cyrus toward the end, causing the other players to lower their guard.

"Of course, to deceive the rest, we still have to occasionally take action to signal that they are being targeted. That way, they will think that all factions are sabotaging each other and wasting financial resources on retaliation."

The representative of the Zento Family made the proposal; he could already see the future vision where other players were fighting each other while his alliance sat behind and profited. This could even be the foundation for their families to cooperate in the future.

In addition, the representative of the Zento Family thought of another benefit to be gained. A massive benefit that not everyone could see: the redistribution of the gold coin ratio in the treasuries of the entire game.

Why say that? It was because of Kain.

In a situation where all factions were restraining each other, Kain was almost an untouchable and unrestrainable force; the fact that he would win the final turn and put a massive amount of gold coins into the treasury was practically a certainty.

Therefore, to reduce the impact of this, there was no other way except to also increase the number of gold coins stored in their own treasuries.

For example, instead of fighting each other only to have around 100 gold coins in the treasury near the end of the game, the Zento alliance could completely let the two players of the Raymon and Don factions accumulate up to 900 or even 1,000 gold coins, then split them in half for the players of the Zento and Flamed factions. This meant each member would have at least 200 gold coins or more; their ratio of gold coins compared to the total would more than double.

But this, again, was only the tip of the iceberg. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Half of the money from an ally was not enough to satisfy the representative of the Zento Family; he wanted those gold coins while also wanting to accumulate a large amount of gold coins in his treasury himself. By relying on two sources of income, his ambition was to achieve a gold coin ratio nearly equal to or on par with Kain of the Egretta faction!

With this perfected strategy, Zento confidently re-entered the fray.

...

As for the members of the Faith alliance, they had almost immediately thought of stockpiling gold coins to contest Cyrus's treasury.

After all, benefiting oneself at the expense of others was a common mindset.

But Faith immediately warned them.

"Don't be in such a hurry; have you never thought that this is actually another opportunity?"

"Another opportunity?"

Seeing that they did not react in time, Faith patiently explained.

"Many wolves, little meat."

"If we proactively dispute over that thing, only one of us will benefit while the other three get nothing. This is the breakdown of the alliance we worked so hard to build."

"So I propose that we don't wade into that mud; the four of us can completely just put money into our own treasuries while leaving the other alliance to fight and tear each other apart. This is a good opportunity when all attention has been poured toward the representative of the Bethel Family; at the same time, the fact that those people are only focused on accumulating money to fight each other will leave them with no mind to attack and reduce the incoming money of other factions."

"What do you think?"

Faith smiled and spread his arms, his face full of goodwill as if he were giving his all for this alliance.

And he was not wrong.

An alliance maintained by interest required that everyone benefit; once it fell apart, they could only serve as prey for others.

In a normal case, they might not have listened to Faith's words, but under many constraints and a tight situation, they found that the paths they could choose were not very many.

After all... wanting to swallow all the benefits alone was not feasible; in that case, it was better to share the benefits with a group of allies.

"Of course, to deceive the other side, we also need to pretend that we ourselves are attacking them or attacking each other as separate factions. Don't you agree?"

The representative of the Nostag Family and the representatives of the Acer Family glanced at each other as if exchanging thoughts; after calculating for a moment, still no one saw any problem with Faith's proposal.

But that wasn't all; Faith's next words made them believe even more.

"Besides, you should have felt something was strange from the start."

"Strange? About what?"

"About that representative of the Bethel Family."

"Think about it; you have all likely met the heir of the Bethel Family, haven't you? How do you see him? Is he a fool?"

All three frowned simultaneously.

The heir of the Bethel Family—Nostragia—was certainly not a trivial person in their perception, especially for a Great Family that rivaled the Sword Family like Bethel.

That is, at least the other heirs did not look down on Nostragia but had to place him on equal footing with themselves.

"Would such a Great Family use a weak 'second-choice' like that instead of having Nostragia himself enter the battle? I don't think so."

Faith exposed a point that almost no one had noticed since the game began. And even if they had noticed, it was only with contempt for the "emergency plan" of the Bethel Family—something that was actually created by Cyrus's own plan.

And as soon as he entered the game, Cyrus had exploited the phase where players were focused on gathering information—primarily the distraction provided by the rules of the game, which are often defined as objective—to proceed with building the image he wanted others to see. Because in a stage like this, where players are still slowly absorbing objective information from the rules, when Cyrus indirectly poured more information into their heads, they would unconsciously regard it as "objective" as well, because at that moment the purpose of "collecting" was higher than the purpose of "finding the truth."

If Cyrus had only started playing the role suddenly during the course of the game, the effect would absolutely have decreased by more than one level, because by then they would have had enough foundational information for thinking and assessing the situation.

"You mean... this person is faking?"

"I can't be sure; I'm only considering a feasible possibility."

Faith shrugged and then explained.

"Of course, you can ignore it, but think about it: suppose the representative of the Bethel Family is truly pretending to be a weakling?"

"He is baiting us!"

They understood immediately. Faith snapped his fingers, wearing a natural smile.

"Exactly!"

"Suppose that happens; then when we are full of desire to rob that treasury, it is very likely that will be the moment this person strikes, taking all of us—who have been financially exhausted from fighting others—in one clean sweep without leaving anyone behind."

"At that point, there will be nothing left to save."