"Me?" Alex chuckled. "Because you're cool, do I need to have another reason?"
Sylas looked at Alex deeply. The answer was so ridiculous that it was almost impossible not to believe it. However, by the same token, it was hard to know if Alex was just playing a character or not.
Since Alex had caught the eye of Legacy, and had been denoted as a Bronze character in their eye, he was definitely an elite. His strength alone spoke for itself.
The fact that he was so carefree and didn't seem to care about anything else felt more like a red flag than anything else... because this sort of personality was precisely the kind that was the hardest to get a read on. It felt like Alex was both capable of nothing and yet everything at the same time.
If Sylas had been Alex's handler, and he watched him go through life ... would it be possible for Alex to be as readable as Sylas was?
Sylas was, supposedly, a character his handler couldn't get a read on. But in the end, they had technically made the right decision.
If Sylas had been approached by Legacy back then, he wouldn't have hesitated to join, just like he hadn't hesitated to join the excursions of the Grimblade family.
However, his actions wouldn't be rooted in any sort of loyalty at all. If it benefited him, in this sort of new world order, he wouldn't hesitate to betray them when the time came, and he would certainly keep secrets of his own.
Of course, his Lawful Neutral morality type was also true. He would definitely follow their orders strictly when it was right to do so. But that was also what made him so dangerous. They wouldn't know that he opposed them until it was too late. If it wasn't for Bloom's unique Profession, allowing her to see Sylas's Favorability ahead of time, Lucius and his crew wouldn't even be aware that Sylas was a worry at all.
But then there was Alex...
To Sylas, he felt even more difficult to read.
Sylas had been exposed as someone who was difficult to control because he never knew of Legacy's existence and just continuously worked to return to his baseline. As such, he thwarted a lot of Legacy's plans before they even came to fruition.
Alex's disposition, however, was very much different. He was so bright and cheery, always seeming to go with the flow no matter what it was, and because of that, he probably easily swayed with the wind Legacy blew....
But that might have also been precisely why he was so difficult for them all to read.
Sylas had a feeling that Legacy might be aware of how special Alex was as well, at least in part. Or else would they really send a Bronze on a mission to support a Gold? That didn't particularly make much sense.
Maybe if it had been multiple Bronzes, Sylas could accept it. But just one? Something about that was fishy, and Alex had probably seen that as well. So he was ready to make a different sort of pivot.
Pulling the wool over the eyes of such an organization wasn't an easy task at all.
"So, what?" Sylas asked with a pause. "You plan to betray Legacy?"
"Of course not. The benefits are too good."
"Why do you say that like you think I won't kill you?"
"Ugh, Psycho Syl," Alex pressed a hand to his chest, but his body was so beaten and broken that he struggled even to do that. "I thought we had a mutual understanding."
Sylas looked at Alex and didn't respond.
Alex grumbled. "Do you really need to worry about your identity being exposed now? I already told you that it's too late for that."
Sylas still didn't respond.
His identity was one thing, his family would be fine. But what about Cassarae's village? Only Alex would know that he was both Sylas Grimblade and had a relationship with Cassarae's village.
Of course, Lauren might piece that together potentially as well. But it was hard to say. After all, he wasn't the only person who was named Sylas in the world, and he had always said his last name was Brown.
That said, it was only because Lauren existed and was a potential leak that Sylas didn't act to kill Alex immediately. It was just that he was waiting for Alex to say the right thing.
"Don't be like that, Syl. Maybe in the future we can work together."
"You're still not saying the right thing. If you return now after being gone for so long, do you think that you'd still be of any use to me?"
Alex sighed when he saw this. It seemed that Sylas had seen through this as well. Indeed, Legacy was too meticulous to still place the same trust in him after this matter. He would probably be treated like a real Bronze from now on, he might even be strictly monitored as well.
"Fine, fine, fine. Protecting your name is useless to you at this point, but I'm sure you need something else, right?" Alex grinned.
Sylas's eyes narrowed.
"Man, you're really gonna make me do all the talking, huh?" Alex chuckled. "Favorability is probably a problem that you're gonna face the moment the Grimblade family starts moving out in full force.
"If your Favorability is too low, there's no way you'll get their support and they might even go out of their way to suppress you, or in the worst case, kill you. Even if they don't go so far, I'm sure you have family that they could use against you to ensure that you follow their wishes.
"Right now, they're probably still duking it out to figure out who their next City Lord will be, so they're far more lax with how they're doing things.
"I can show you how to manipulate your Favorability. But it'll require some... doing. But something tells me that you're up for it."