Chapter 1097: The High Table and the Option to Fight Monsters
Santino was already dead.
Luke had moved him to a safe house last night. He had used an inducer and Basic Hypnosis and Mental Communication. He had pulled out everything that the young master knew, and left his body there. Gianna’s men would come to collect him.
The short-haired female bodyguard was even easier.
Luke just used Elementary Pheromone Control at maximum power, and was able to test the effect of this ability without any qualms.
He rarely used this ability, and there was no need to feel tender-hearted toward the short-haired girl.
When she confessed that more than 30 innocent people had died at her hands, she was already doomed.
And that was only the ones she remembered.
By the time Luke collected the information and got rid of her, she had amply proven that she was worth the 1,500 experience and credit points.
The short-haired girl worked for Santino and they were in cahoots; they could corroborate what each of them knew, which could be considered the last bit of value they had.
The money in Santino’s accounts and the cash in his secret hideouts weren’t a big deal.
However, the intelligence on the Camorra and the High Table, and on the relations.h.i.+p between the twelve members, and even the various branches of the Continental Hotel, was very useful.
To put it simply, the twelve members of the High Table were the ones who had set up this underground alliance, which was equivalent to a board of directors.
They each still wielded their own power; it was just that they all had a secret pact.
Only the twelve members knew the exact terms of the pact.
This setup copied the historical “Twelve Knights of the Round Table.”
The High Table was clearly a round table, and the members were all the knights; even the number was the same.
According to legend, King Arthur was one of the Twelve Knights of the Round Table, and the round table was a “shared” form of governance.
In truth, there were more knights, which had reached 150 at one point.
In a similar way, the High Table had also slowly expanded its power and the alliance had taken in more and more “knights” before finally becoming the High Table of today.
The Continental Hotel, for example, was like a subsidiary company that the High Table operated all over the world.
But after many years, the hotel had gradually become more independent.
Winston, the manager of the New York Continental Hotel, had a high position and was experienced. He also held a lot of the High Table’s resources in America, and couldn’t be touched easily.
As for the people who provided services, they could be considered employees of the subsidiary company or subcontracted small studios.
Thus, the High Table was the highest authority in decision-making and arbitration, but didn’t have the right to casually meddle in affairs at the lower levels.
It was for this reason that, unless the Tarasov family had sent out an official request for help through the High Table, the New York Continental Hotel couldn’t stick its nose into the fight between John and the Tarasov family.
The Tarasov family might be one of the major members at the High Table, but if they put out an order which could potentially damage the High Table significantly, the other twelve members would a.s.sess the risks first. They wouldn’t let anyone use the power of the High Table for personal gain.
For example, Boogeyman John, used to be a legendary killer of the Tarasov family.
The other members couldn’t directly order him to carry out a mission, because he was an employee hired by the High Table’s Tarasov “branch,” and didn’t belong to the “main company.”
At most, they could issue a mission and let John decide if he wanted to take it or not.
In short, the High Table, this ma.s.sive underworld existence, was terrifying.
It was so terrifying that when Luke a.n.a.lyzed the intelligence from Santino, he felt that in eight to ten years, he would only be able to harvest about 70 to 80% of the twelve members.
And this was just the twelve members.
In fact, these twelve forces made up at most just 10% of the High Table’s entire sphere of power.
The other 90% encompa.s.sed the various service providers (hitmen who had accounts with the High Table), “studios” (the small stores that provided tailor-made suits and maps) and the small professional subsidiary (the cleaning company).
He felt that he would never be able to clean up this 90% in his lifetime, just like how he couldn’t clean up the streets of America.
After all, there were roughly a million gang members in America.
The number of members at the High Table, on the other hand, was a conservative estimate of no less than 100,000.
These people were active all over the world, and the casualties from their battles were unbelievable.
The High Table had 500 to 800 hitmen, new and old, who died every year, but there were even more who wanted to become hitmen under the High Table.
Unless a G.o.d showed up to instantly eliminate all human beings on Earth, there would be plenty of fish who would escape the net.
Luke wasn’t discouraged. Instead, he rubbed his hands together.
He wasn’t worried that there were too many enemies, but that he didn’t know where they were.
As for the small fry who stole stuff and sold weed on the streets, Luke really wasn’t motivated to kill them. He just beat them up when he saw them.
If they were unlucky and he caught them committing crime again, he would just beat them up a second time.
As for the third time? It probably wouldn’t come to that.
Any hoodlum who still dared commit crime after being beaten up by Luke twice would get themselves killed eventually in a gunfight.
So, he left them to Selina.
She was very efficient when beating up people, but she rarely killed anyone. These hoodlums were most suitable as practice dummies for her; plus, he could get half of her experience and credit points.
He made up his mind that he would handle the “big monsters” and leave the “small monsters” to Selina. Pleased, Luke then turned to other things.
Currently, he had a lot of information on the “big monsters.”
It would probably be a few more days before the High Table next came for revenge, but it seemed it was time to harvest the Fraternity.
He hadn’t attacked the Fraternity earlier because of the raw ingredients for the medicinal bath, and also because he wanted to get rid of them in one go.
However, the Fraternity now wasn’t made up of just Sloan’s subordinates; it would be impossible to take them down all at once.
But since Sloan had dared stick his hand into things, there was no need for Luke to wait.
As for the ingredients for the medicinal bath, Sloan had been to Iquitos in Peru recently.
This probably had to do with the fact that Cross had injured or killed many elite a.s.sa.s.sins from the Fraternity.
In order to treat the heavily wounded a.s.sa.s.sins, Sloan had no choice but to stock up on the “goods.”
Thus, Luke was basically certain that Iquitos was where Sloan got the raw ingredients for the medicinal bath.
With this intelligence, he could continue investigating even if he couldn’t get any information out of Sloan himself.
Sloan was still important, but not as much as before.
Killing him might not be the best option, but it certainly wasn’t the worst one.
Also, it seemed that Sloan and the others had conned a young man called Wesley Gibson into believing that his “father” had been killed by Cross.
Wesley’s own combat ability wasn’t important; what was important was that Cross was his biological father.
Sloan and the others had conned this silly kid into killing his own father, Cross, to avenge his fake father, Mr. X.
Luke could only watch in amus.e.m.e.nt.