Chapter 198: The Public’s Truth

Chapter 198: The Public’s TruthThe living room was too quiet. Not the good kind of quiet that was restful, earned, peaceful. No. This was the suffocating, vacuum-sealed kind of silence. The kind that swells around you before an earthquake. The only sound came from the television, casting flickering lights over the five of us. My face fully unmasked for the world to see, the one that I had taken when I visited the evaluation center for the first time, filled every screen. Every channel. Every feed. REYNARD VALE — THE MASKED SYNDICATE LEADER EXPOSED The headline repeated like a heartbeat. Alexis stood first, arms folded like she was trying to keep herself from combusting. "Rey," she said, voice too calm to be comforting. "Is there something you forgot to tell us?" Camille didn’t say anything at first. Just let out a long, slow breath like she was deciding whether to laugh or scream. "You know," she muttered, "I once asked you, half-jokingly if you were going to expose the government and be exposed equally." "You weren’t wrong," I said quietly. "Yeah," she said. "I really hate being right sometimes." Sienna sat beside me, tea forgotten on the table. Her fingers twisted into her sleeves. She didn’t look at me. Instead, she just stared straight ahead like if she blinked, the screen might show something else. Someone else. "...Why now?" she finally whispered. "Why would they reveal this now?" "Because I forced their hand," I said. "By exposing the Cain Protocol, by letting the public see the truth... they were starting to have all the attention. Something they couldn’t afford to keep. So they flipped the board, in hopes that they could get some breathing room." Alexis narrowed her eyes. "And just like that, they burned the last card they had against you." "No," I said. "They didn’t burn it. They weaponized it." Camille scoffed and pulled out her phone. "You should see the headlines. ’From Construction Worker to Syndicate Commander: The Rise of Reynard Vale.’ And—oh—here’s a fan-made timeline mapping all your known appearances." Evelyn, seated at the table with a second cup of tea, gave a dry snort. "Took them long enough. I thought it was rather obvious." "They’re going all-in," I said. "Discredit the messenger to bury the message." "But you told the truth," Sienna said. "I told the truth," I repeated. "And they made me the villain for it." Camille looked up from her phone again. "There’s an entire thread calling you ’a glitch in the system.’ Another’s dissecting every skill you’ve demonstrated on stream. They’re calling you the first recorded ’Multi-Class Operative.’" "They think I’m a walking exploit," I murmured. "Proof that the system isn’t stable." "Which you are," Evelyn said. "Let’s not sugarcoat it. You have multiple high-ranking jobs and are walking without any problems. In comparison, I feel like I’m going to burst apart from only 3 jobs, only one of which is high ranking and the other 2 are average." Alexis pointed at the screen. "This isn’t just backlash. This is propaganda. They’re pulling any encounter you’ve ever had under aliases. Saying that you manipulated the media, staged rescues, fabricated the Cain Protocol." "They’ve already pushed a statement," Camille added. "A joint international briefing is scheduled for tomorrow. Apparently, you’re being labeled an ’internal destabilizer’ under ten different jurisdictions." I sat back, exhaling. "Of course I am. Though I should be fine, it’s not like they can outpower the governments that are backing us, in the worst case scenario we get a tie." And then— The world started talking. The screen split into international reactions: interviews, rallies, protests. Some familiar faces. Some strangers. A news anchor from South Korea speaking with urgency: "We now know the man behind the Masked Syndicate. The individual responsible for releasing classified experiments and coordinating resistance efforts across six nations—" An old coworker of mine, Omar, appeared on a live broadcast, standing outside a chain-link fence that I immediately recognized from the northern construction site. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he gripped the mic like it might slip from his hands at any moment. "He started off as an F-Rank Laborer," Omar said, his voice cracking slightly. "No skills. No training. Just another guy trying to make ends meet. He wasn’t even on the radar. Then... then he suddenly started improving. Faster with the tools, quicker with the work. I thought maybe we just never noticed his efforts. Maybe I was blind to his progress. But I never, never imagined he was..." His voice faltered, unable to finish the thought. The reality of who I was, who I had become, was clearly too much for him to process. He shifted his weight, looking behind him as if expecting the very ground to swallow him up. "No one ever told us the full story," Omar continued, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge the truth from his mind. "How could we have known? How could we have known that the guy we worked with, the guy who just showed up and worked harder than any of us, was really the leader of the Masked Syndicate?" His hands shook, and his breath came in short gasps. "I thought it was just coincidence, just... luck. But no... no. This is... I—I don’t know what to think anymore." The camera panned out, leaving Omar standing there, utterly lost. His words hung in the air, a painful reminder of the man I had once been. The man I thought I was. Then another interview cut in. A woman, mid-thirties, with strong, calloused hands and eyes that could hold the storm, stood outside a makeshift refugee camp. Her voice was strong, defiant. She grabbed the mic and shouted into it. "I know him. I know him!" She gripped the mic with fervor, her knuckles turning white. "Regardless of what they say, that man is the real Mr. Fox, the real hero! He saved all of us during the district fires when the government couldn’t even get emergency responders in time! That man risked everything, not for his own gain, but to save us. And now, because we know who he is, he’s suddenly a villain? No. No way. I don’t care what they say. He’s one of us. He’s always been one of us." Her voice cracked on the last words, and she wiped her eyes before looking directly at the camera, pleading with the audience to see beyond the smear campaign. The interview cut to a man, his face twisted with anger. "He’s a liar!" he shouted, his voice full of venom. "All that talk about truth and justice, all that ’I’m fighting for you’ nonsense—while he’s sneaking around behind our backs! He lied to us! All of us! He made us believe in something that wasn’t real. He caused this! He was playing both sides, stirring up chaos for his own benefit! You really think someone like him was fighting for us?" He shook his head, spitting into the camera. "No. He’s part of the problem. And I’ll be damned if we let someone like him get away with it." The hate in his voice was palpable, but there was also fear. Fear that he and everyone else had been manipulated, and now they didn’t know how to fix the mess I had inadvertently made. The broadcast switched to a debate panel in Brazil, where politicians and economists were arguing fiercely. One of the panelists, a professor of political science, leaned forward, her voice incredulous. "You cannot tell me that one man, no matter how capable, could break this system. We are talking about a breakdown of the entire hierarchical order, and this man... Reynard Vale, he has made a mockery of it. He has not only manipulated the system, but he has completely shattered it. What are we even fighting for if one individual can break every rule we’ve lived by?" Her co-host, a man from a rival political party, shook his head. "You’re missing the point. Reynard Vale isn’t just some anomaly. He’s a symbol. What he has achieved, holding multiple jobs, bypassing the system entirely, proves that the system is not set in stone. It is a constructed hierarchy, and it can be torn down if people like him exist. People who break the mold and show us that anyone can rise, regardless of their background." "That’s what’s so terrifying about this," the professor snapped back. "He proved that our entire way of life is... vulnerable. And we have no idea how to control that. He’s a ticking time bomb, and we’ve already seen what happens when someone like him is left unchecked." The broadcast shifted again, to Egypt, where a military tribunal had convened to discuss the ramifications of my exposure. The head judge, a grizzled man with years of experience in counterintelligence, looked directly at the camera. "This man is a terrorist. His actions have led to the destabilization of multiple governments. He has manipulated not only his own country but entire regions. The deaths, the destruction, it’s all his doing. He cannot be allowed to remain free. The world must unite against him before it is too late." Meanwhile, in Spain, a think tank was discussing the implications of my multiple jobs, something no one had ever done in the system’s history. "It is unprecedented," one of the economists said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Not only did Reynard Vale rise from a F-rank laborer to A and S rank jobs, but he also holds multiple jobs simultaneously, jobs that nobody has ever thought to combine before. That’s not just illegal, that’s... impossible." The others on the panel nodded gravely, one tapping his pen against the table. "In all the years of testing, no one has been able to hold more than one job. It’s never happened. Yet he has not only done that but has effectively mastered them. This should be a sign. A warning. If the system can be this flexible, if a single person can transcend what was once thought to be an unbreakable barrier, then what does that mean for the rest of us?" The global reaction was spiraling faster than I could process. On one hand, there were those who saw me as a symbol. A symbol that the rigid, broken system of job ranks, an antiquated and oppressive construct, could be broken. That people could rise. That they could transcend their given roles and become something more. They hailed me as a beacon of hope for the masses. A figurehead for revolution. A living, breathing testament to the idea that anyone could rise above their circumstances, regardless of the job they were given at birth. On the other hand, I was being painted as the villain. The instigator of chaos. The mastermind behind the uprisings. I had become the face of every wrong in society, the scapegoat for a broken system that now had to answer for itself. Some were calling for my execution. Others were calling me a prophet. "I always knew there was more to him," said a teenage boy on a livestream. "His videos as Mr. Jester weren’t just exposés, they were movements designed to help us push forward with the truth." "But what about the riots?" asked another. "What about the cities burning?" "They were already burning," a girl replied. "He just showed us who lit the match and I bet it was that ’World President’ guy that he was talking about when he was Mr. Angel." The apartment felt colder than it had minutes ago. I wasn’t just a man anymore. I was a revolution. And a scapegoat. My burner phone buzzed against the side table. I answered without checking. "Good news or bad news first?" Anthony asked. I glanced at the others. "Bad." He didn’t hesitate. "Two crowds outside. Forming faster than barricades can hold. One side’s chanting your name. The other’s screaming for your head." "And the good?" "We’ve pieced together the NovaCore archives. The files are usable. There’s enough data to expose the origins of System manipulation experiments. And some early notes on gene-bound job implants." I froze. "That’s it?" Alexis said sharply. "That’s the good news?" Anthony gave a grim laugh. "Yeah, I guess it’s not that good in retrospective to the bad news. I was honestly expecting you to ask for the good news first." I hung up and stood, walking to the window. Below us, the streets were chaos. On one side: people holding up signs with what I could only imagine as a Masked Syndicate’s sigil drawn in neon paint. Others had scrawled phrases like SYSTEMS FAIL and I’M MORE THAN A JOB. On the other side: uniformed protestors. Hired private guards. People with signs that read: BLOOD ON HIS HANDS, DESTROYER OF ORDER, LIAR, FAKE HERO. It was a perfect storm. And I was the eye of it. "What now?" Sienna asked gently. I turned. And for a moment, I didn’t see the frightened girl clutching her tea like a shield. I saw the woman who’d stood beside me through every war. I looked at Alexis who stood fierce and unrelenting. Camille who was calculating, calm, sharp. Evelyn, still sipping tea, but watching me like a scalpel watches flesh. I met their eyes. "Now," I said, "we tell the story before they do." "You mean another stream?" Camille asked, skeptical. "No," I said. "I mean a reckoning. A truth the world can’t twist." Alexis crossed her arms. "You’re planning to release the NovaCore report." I nodded. "And we’ll do it right. Live. Annotated. With faces and names if we have to. If they want to make me the villain, fine. But they’ll see every hero they buried along the way." Evelyn stood and walked to the window. "They’ll hunt us after this." "They’re already hunting us," I replied. "The difference is now the whole world’s watching. The least we could do is have more people on our side." Camille walked over to her bag, pulled out a portable streaming rig, and started assembling it. Sienna touched my shoulder. seaʀᴄh thё nôᴠel Fire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. And for the first time since the TV lit up, she smiled. "Then let them watch," she whispered.