Quadruple split.

Chapter 2704 The Clown Card

As we all know, the charity organization "The Clown" has two trump cards: the "King" and the "Fool." As for which one is the former and which one is the latter, it depends on the stance of the organization's members.

Leaving aside the temporary members who don't have much say, all those within the organization who are given a unique number, or "signature" status, are basically divided into three factions.

The first type is the neutral person who just wants to work hard and doesn't stand on either side of the two trump cards, such as Cholera, who is the cash cow of the "Clown" card, and Mu Xuejian, who is the "Ace of Spades".

The second type is those who firmly stand by the ace named 'Tanmo'. Although they will follow the instructions of the other ace in most cases, when their positions conflict, they will not hesitate to follow Tanmo's lead. They also have many reservations about Futaba and often carry out secret missions for Tanmo's side. For example, Spider, whose card is [Ace of Clubs], and Scarlett Diesel, who should be neutral but was forced to stand on Tanmo's side because she participated in the assassination of Futaba.

The third type is the opposite of the second type, namely those who completely side with Futaba. Representative figures include the delinquent girl with the Queen of Clubs, Lucy Yuk with the Jack of Diamonds, and Evie Lehman with the Ten of Clubs.

Beyond these three factions, there is another rather unique entity. Although currently only one person, they are highly valued by both aces, possess extremely high authority and ability within the organization, and can even hinder the actions of the aces if necessary. This leader-type neutral entity prioritizes the organization's interests above all else.

[K of Hearts] Foster Ward.

Indeed, Foster, who holds the highest administrative authority in the [Clown Card], has never set foot in the organization's headquarters in the City of Freedom. To this day, he serves as the 'Captain of the Enforcement Team' and the 'President of the Male Student Council of Danu Military Academy' in Academy City. Although he joined the organization at the invitation of Mo Tan, he has never been a member of the 'Tanmo Faction'.

In the evaluations of Mo Tan and Shuang Ye, Foster Ward was on par with them based solely on 'ability'. And that was indeed the case. Although according to the rules, [King] was lower than [ACE], a closer examination would reveal a significant difference in rank between the two, even just looking at the literal meaning.

First, there's 【ACE】, which means 'top person' in Elvish, and also has the meaning of 'ace'. If we really want to nitpick, the 【JOKER】 for Tanmo and Shuangye should actually be understood as 'clown card', while the four ACE cards of spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts are the 'aces'.

However, because the term "Clown Card" is rather awkward to pronounce, the two top leaders are usually referred to as Aces. The difference between them and the ACEs is that the two Aces are "cards representing the 'King'", while the ACEs are "Aces" in the literal sense.

Although it may seem like meaningless nonsense, given that the organization itself is already in such a mess, this level of rambling is actually quite reasonable. In fact, in Foster's "White Paper on Members of Public Interest Organizations," there is a dedicated section explaining the differences between "ace" and "ace" and their usage in various contexts, which is quite thoughtful and considerate.

So, given that the ACE is known to be the 'ace', what about the 'King' that Foster Ward represents?

This is actually easy to understand, since in Elvish, the meaning of 【King】 is very simple and direct: 'king' and 'monarch'.

Whether by chance or by design, Mo Tan gave Foster the [K] card as naturally as breathing, and the latter indeed did everything a ruler should do, and was infinitely close to perfection.

As the saying goes, everyone has their own expertise. Perhaps Tanmo and Shuangye are the only two helmsmen of the "Clown Card," but in terms of specific management, they are both the kind of people who, although capable, do not like to put too much thought into it. Because of this, what Foster can do may not be difficult for them, but they will never do it better than Foster.

Often, we need to separate 'ability', 'achievement' and 'results' for analysis. So even if we judge by ability, Mo Tan and Shuang Ye are not at a disadvantage. But if we only look at the results, Foster Ward is stronger than them, by a significant margin.

In short, Foster's existence, in some ways, represents the "Clown Card" even better than the two top leaders. If Mo Tan and Futaba can determine the organization's upper limit and activity, then Foster is the one who can ensure the bottom line and stability.

It's worth mentioning that the 'bottom line' here has nothing to do with morality; it's merely about ensuring the stability of the clown card. After all, although Foster Ward is seen by most people as an excellent student who is fair in his conduct, enforces the law impartially, and has a clear sense of right and wrong, the position of captain of the law enforcement team in Academy City has never been something that textbook-perfect students are qualified to hold.

In other words, as the most successful, outstanding, popular, and well-supported law enforcement captain in Academy City's history, Foster is not as innocent or sweet as she seems; her skills and abilities surpass even those of the vast majority of teachers.

In Mo Tan's view, it would be a waste to leave this ability in Academy City. Moreover, if you think about it carefully, Foster himself probably wouldn't want to stay in Academy City either. Even though he had been hinted that given time, even if he ran for president of the Teachers' Union and became the representative of the entire Academy City, he hadn't changed his mind.

In this situation, the 'internship opportunity' offered by the [Clown Card] was somewhat tempting for Foster, who was about to graduate. In addition, he didn't really want to become a live-in son-in-law, but he knew very well that he probably wouldn't have any romantic involvement with any woman other than Lian Yuanrui. Foster finally accepted Tanmo's invitation and decided to undertake an 'internship' at the [Clown Card] for a period of several months to several years.

That's right, few people know that the highest-ranking executive of the "Clown" card, whose authority is no less than that of the two leaders, is actually an intern, a temporary worker who will likely leave after accumulating some experience.

However, this inclusiveness is indeed a characteristic of the "Clown" organization. Just as Scarlett's primary identity is definitely that of a member of the Diesel family, Countess Laysa Cayworth is first and foremost the patriarch and leader of the Cayworth family, and Evie Rayman is destined to be the direct inheritor of the Rayman family's Eye of Magic technique, even in the eyes of many executives, this organization is not the main theme of their lives.

So outsiders might find it strange, but if the people inside the Jesters knew that Foster was a 'temporary worker,' they probably wouldn't feel uncomfortable. At most, they might just exclaim something like, 'That's amazing!'

Incidentally, Foster Ward actually represents a faction himself. Although he is different from the delinquent girl and has no intention of establishing his own faction, it is undeniable that he has a far greater influence on Teresa Tarossa, the "Witch" of the "Ace of Hearts," and Lady Lian, the "Queen of Hearts," than any of the two leaders.

Incidentally, although Foster is the King and Lian is the Queen of Hearts, and their relationship is quite delicate, this does not mean that the King card must be a manager of Foster's level, nor does it mean that the Queen card must be a woman or the opposite sex of the corresponding suit King, and it certainly does not mean that something will definitely happen between these two people.

After all, the other two [Q] cards are already Leisa and the delinquent girl, and the pairings of these two are absolutely not going to be the [K] cards of their corresponding suits.

In fact, because of this incident, Mo Tan even wrote a letter to Foster to confirm whether to give these patterns various additional meanings. The reply he received was one of the countless paper fans he had given to Foster, with two large characters written on it: "Neurotic".

So this idea was abandoned.

Incidentally, while there is a concept of "cadres" within the [Clown Cards], even the lowest-ranking card, [3], has considerable influence and freedom. Of course, this applies only to unique [3] cards like the Maleficent Lolita-esque type. Ordinary members or associates with only temporary numbers can be broadly categorized as lower-level, tool, and high-level tool personnel. Now, back to the main point: besides the four factions mentioned above, the [Clown Cards] also include two other types of cards we've previously discussed: the Character Cards and the No. 2 Card.

Regarding the character cards, the current registered members are [Supervisor], [Clown], [Doll], [Maid], and [Lobbyist]. Although [Supervisor] has severed ties with the organization due to carrying out a secret mission and is only responsible to Mo Tan, the others are still diligently carrying out their tasks.

Based on the above information, we can discover something that is not a secret: from any perspective, the number of people on the 'Tanmo' side is far greater than the number of people on the 'Shuangye' side.

Of the five character cards, four belong to Tanmo.

Within Futaba's faction, Evie Lehman had been secretly dating Tanmo for a long time, and Lucy Euk was too individualistic to be controlled. Even the more determined and capable delinquent girl had begun to waver recently due to a certain incident. As for Tang Ciba, who also belonged to the Violet branch and obtained the [6 of Clubs] card, both Mo Tan and Futaba knew that this woman had some problems, but they were too lazy to expose her or investigate.

However, Mo Tan has a large number of devoted followers, which gives him far more say in internal affairs than the latter.

This was never a secret, because even Futaba, his direct competitor, knew very well that Motan's advantages were almost 'inevitable', since while he was racking his brains to improve his abilities, this person had almost single-handedly built up the [Clown Card] brand.

But it doesn’t matter—

Because she herself had been invited into the organization, Futaba knew very well that the other party would give her a long time to catch up, rather than using those advantages to snowball and overwhelm her.

After all, the [Clown Card] with Futaba and the [Clown Card] without Futaba are not the same thing. Moreover, this kind of unstable bomb, which is like a ghost story to Mo Tan, is better kept close at hand.

Therefore, Mo Tan relinquished the position of another leader, and at the same time, he swiftly left the headquarters in the City of Freedom, moved Shuang Ye to the power center of the [Clown Card], and chose to 'disappear'.

Rather than having Shuangye come to the Free City to clean up the mess he had just set up and exploit her as high-quality labor, Mo Tan's real intention in doing this was to give Shuangye a chance to make up for the things he had missed in the early stages because of improving his strength. It was also a way of showing his sincerity.

With connections in Gray Money, Wanderer's Inn, Academy City, and the Cult of Wealth, plus the connections Futaba herself has on the Violet Empire and the backing of Miracle City, Futaba, backed by this network of relationships, can quickly achieve a situation where she can rival 'Tanmo' as long as she doesn't slack off.

Only when the two leaders can maintain 'fairness' can the [Clown Card] truly function.

Even so, because of the incident involving Mu Xuejian, Shuangye inevitably became interested in the [Black 2] card that belonged to Tan Mo.

The girl with the game ID "Princess" is actually the planet-level idol "Snowy" in real life, and is also the girl with the "Black 2" in Tan Mo's hand. Shuangye is not unaware of her background, but as the two of them had agreed before, even if she knew about this, she would not do anything to that special "Black 2".

In fact, Futaba hadn't originally planned to do anything to her idol, whose soul wavelength was quite compatible with hers, but now she was actually hoping that the latter would do something to her.

For example, someone singing a song next to you, preferably the kind that can make you scream into an epic epic.

"You're overthinking it."

Mu Xuejian glanced at her and shook his head, saying, "You can't replicate my situation. The biggest problem in breaking through to the Epic level is realm, and I am an exception, someone whose realm is half a step ahead of my strength."

"That doesn't stop me from listening for a bit. I'm practically an epic now, what if she can really sing it into my mind?"

"Do you think Tan Mo would agree to let her sing it for you? Even if the possibility is extremely slim."

"That bitch deserves to die."

"Stop with the nonsense. I've rested enough. Is there anything I need to do?"

"Before that, tell me why you were able to carry this sword again?"

"Because the content of my [Epic Class Quest] is to pass the [Frostless] test."

"How?"

"do not know."

"6."

Chapter 2695: The End