Might as Well

After finishing with the hot spring, they retired to their rooms, logging out for the night, as Sam wanted to check up on a few things, while Tim needed to deal with the real-world fallout of the event that led him to meet Sam and get some rest as he was rather exhausted.

Sam removed the helmet from his head, as it had become a routine. He placed the helmet on its stand and, after a satisfying stretch, approached his computer.

The first thing he did was check up on Shadowland.

The website was still in the middle of transforming into a Magic Unbound specific site, so one could still find requests and posts related to other games and software, but most of the site’s traffic was dealing with the world sensation that Magic Unbound became.

Countless requests for money-making guides, asking for exploits, sources of strong magic, or badass weapons. Then there were the expected money selling and buying posts, most of them promising tracking free delivery of the money, as some people didn’t want it to become public knowledge that they had bought game money.

Then there were his own posts.

His posts about the old games were archived, but they still received a few visitors once or twice daily.

The big money makers were the small guides he uploaded to some mundane stuff he had evidence that worked in the game. A few magic and skill tutorials, plus a few hints for the hidden bonuses that can be earned at the training hall.

Then there were the requests. So many messages…

Most of them were spam, as expected, but the in-built filter of the site worked well, so he didn’t see much of them. But even so, he had to be careful what message he answered and what he did not.

He ignored the messages that promised unbelievable information for only a small amount of money and went straight for the requests. Sam was hoping that the Steel Lions sent him something so that he could use it to make money and screw them over.

Sadly, thanks to the anonymity that the site provided, he couldn’t pick out if somebody from the Steel Lions wrote to him, so Sam simply picked out a few requests that offered a good payout and asked for information that he already had.

He spent the next hour writing down the realities of Deepanchor which, thanks to his discussion with the Morrisons, was still rather vividly in his mind. The pair of them spent some time just complaining about the politics of the city. Then a few minutes to write down the mechanics of several spells as he understood them, with a few practice exercises, and then sent them away.

Soon after, his messenger app dinged, showing that the promised money arrived in the temporary account he set up for this kind of thing. After pushing a few buttons, the money vanished from the account, went through a little journey, and arrived in his business account, billed as services provided. Sam disliked paying taxes as much as the next guy, but he wanted to get caught not paying taxes even less.

The situation with the game was just heating up, so people were simply watching the game being played, but maybe in years, the situation would escalate so much that the people’s lives would be entwined with Magic Unbound.

While only the lowest of the low, and the criminals (or the insane) would reach for physical altercations in the real world to settle the score from the game, a lot of people instead used bureaucracy to stymie or even ruin their foes.

He wanted to make sure that no matter who looked into his finances they would find nothing.

Finished with his clandestine accounting, he turned his attention to the wider world.

He scrolled through news sites, making sure to keep up with the news that had nothing to do with the game he was playing, while also checking to see if they wrote anything about the few movies he was interested in.

Apparently, on some of the websites, there were already people considering doing a movie about Magic Unbound.

However, the biggest news was that he spotted an article about the new generation of virtual reality pods.

‘If they are writing about it, that means that the rich and well-connected would be soon getting them…’ Sam mused as he browsed further. ‘Hey! The Future Unknown has been using my image in a lot of commercials. I wonder if they could get me one…’

Feeling like he wouldn’t lose anything by trying, he quickly typed up a letter to customer support on their official website and sent it off.

Standing up from the computer, he looked around his office and shook his head.

“Welp, why not clean a little…”

Returning back to the game, he was met by the still tired-looking Tim as they both emerged from their rooms at the same time, as previously agreed.

“Morning, Tim!” he greeted the assassin as they began walking down the hallway, ready for breakfast.

“Morning, boss…” the other man returned the greeting half-heartedly.

“Did you go over the new contract?”

Tim shook his head.

“Didn’t have time. Had to deal with the old contract,” he explained.

“Any trouble?” Sam asked.

Tim waved his hand around.

“Eh, so-so. They weren’t happy, let me tell you. But they understood it’s a game, and sometimes shit happens.”

“Really?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Of course not!” Tim retorted while rolling his eyes. “They were a bunch of drama queens, demanding that I go back, let myself be killed several times, then join them in their new cult,” he ranted while they took seats in the hot spring’s modest restaurant.

A moment later, a nicely dressed and super chipper waitress took their order, and they were back to discussing the situation.

“Did they pay the agreed amount of penalty?”

“They have no say over it. We uploaded the contract to the game and connected it to our accounts. As soon as the game’s system recognized that they broke it, the money was wired to my account.”

“I assume they were not happy about it…”

“I wonder why… Originally, it was made so that when one of us fucks up, the penalty fee could be deducted from our accounts without trouble. The leader really liked that part…” Tim explained as he began munching on some fresh complimentary bread slices. “Plus, this way it was easier to get our share from the jobs we took.”

“Makes sense. We set up a simple business in real life and it works that way. Little more complicated, but less prone to abuse.”

Tim nodded and watched suspiciously as the chipper waitress arrived with their food.

“Here you go, guys! Have a fun meal!” she chirped as she placed the food before them while sending Tim a saucy wink before walking off to deal with the next customer.

For a long moment, Tim blinked in surprise, then shrugged and tore into his food.

“I think she liked you,” Sam commented, starting on his own food.

Tim looked up, and after swallowing his food, spoke up. “Why?”

After enjoying their meal, they paid the hot spring for their stay (or rather, Sam paid) and began heading toward the capital.

They were well outside of the small town when Tim asked a question.

“If I’m to be working with your guy, how am I getting back to Ironwood without running into my old friends?”

Sam stopped in an empty clearing, cast his senses far and wide, and when satisfied that nobody was anywhere close to them, called out to Lucky. And while the affectionate wolf made sure to showcase his love for Sam, he answered Tim’s question.

“You’re going to take a ship. I have a contact in shipping who can get you to Deepanchor. From there you will take a caravan,” he explained while running his fingers through Lucky’s luxurious fur to the obvious enjoyment of said wolf. “As long as you keep to yourself, and nothing catastrophic happens, you could be in Ironwood within days.”

Tim nodded while eyeing the giant wolf.

“Hey, sorry if it is too much to ask, but where did you get your pet?”

Sam looked up from Lucky and smiled at Tim.

“Lucky? He is pretty unique. To my knowledge, you can’t really get shadow wolves as pets…”

“Pity,” Tim replied with a sigh. “Would have been cool to have one.”

“Indeed. Lucky is magnificent. But if you want a pet, I heard that Brightgarden has dozens of guilds specializing in pets, summons, and familiars.”

“Let me guess… you have a contact there?” Tim asked wryly while Sam hopped on the back of Lucky and motioned for him to follow.

Sam waited until Tim got comfortable behind him, then gave him a glance and a smirk.

“Of course I do! Now hold onto your panties because this is going to be fast! Lucky go!”

And then they were off, straight to the capital.

A few miles off from the capital, they stopped riding on Lucky, and after the clever wolf returned to Sam’s shadow, while Tim watched it happen a little jealously, they headed, on foot, toward the enormous road that led to Vividora.

Soon, they were among the giant crowd that was headed for the obscenely big and green walls of the capital city of the Kingdom of Emerald Crown.

The walls were dotted with guard towers, while under walls, beyond the moat filled with water, were golden fields of wheat and all sorts of other gardens and plant nurseries. They could even see a few small collections of houses, no doubt for the workers on the field, providing bare necessities.

The closer they were to the gates, the slower the crowd moved. By the time they were under the shadow of the wall, their speed could only be called glacial. Thankfully, the system was well developed, so soon, they joined a line that held more people entering the city on foot, while those on mounts or carts were directed to a different line.

Entering the city was a rather simple affair. The guards took the ID cards that they had made back in their starting town, ran some tests on them, asked for a one-time fee, and they were free to enter the great city of emeralds.

Instead of sightseeing, Sam spent a few minutes getting oriented, thanks to a helpful street urchin, and after a loss of one of his silver coins, he grabbed Tim and dragged him to the office that the Morrison family maintained in the capital.

He then dumped the confused Tim on the office manager with a small sack of gold, a flash of the sigil that the older Morrison gave him, and then he was off enjoying the sights and services offered by the capital.

Before doing anything, he chose a café randomly, ordering a simple meal and drink, while people-watching and thinking.

He had the letter to the library, the training hall, hell he could even approach the Magic Tower for some extra lessons. Then there were the countless quests he had knowledge of in the area.

Not to mention the ‘main quest’. The game officially didn’t have a main quest or main storyline, as the developers felt that adding one would constrain the players too much, but like the Fracture, there were several bigger quests that permanently and on a large scale affected the world of Magic Unbound.

He could work for that, as while the people who managed to get those types of quests kept them as secret as possible, he could extrapolate from the effects that their completion had on the game world. Plus, several of them were made into videos after the guilds who laid claim to them finished extracting as much money and power from them as possible.

The other Sam religiously watched those videos, either cursing those lucky fools or trying to glean some kind of information that the guilds missed and he could capitalize on.

Sam spent almost an hour just snacking and drinking while going through his mental plans and trying to decide what to do with himself.

Finally, after finishing his drink, he made a decision. His skills were looking rather anemic. While he had a decent foundation, aside from one or two skills, none of them were impressive in the damage-dealing department. He needed something with heft behind it.

‘Well, it IS the emerald city, so time to see the wizard, I suppose…’

The wizard tower in the capital was much bigger than the one back in Ironwood. For one, it wasn’t just one building, but an entire campus filled with thirteen towers and several buildings, small and big.

The entire thing was surrounded by walls and, according to his Mana Sense, a dense wall of magic, either to keep unwanted people out, or keep things in.

He approached the gate along with hordes of other people, mostly players, and was let through rather simply. He only had to show a membership card to an artifact, not unlike a metro card in his old dimensions, and the honest-to-God turnstile allowed him to pass.

Then he meandered through the campus, taking his time to look at the busts of famous people, or enjoying the cool wind that flowed amidst the expertly taken care of trees that dotted the greenery surrounding him. Surprisingly, he couldn’t really see any guards or servants anywhere.

‘I suppose, on a magical campus, most things are done by magic…’ he mused.

After some sightseeing, he arrived at one of the biggest buildings that had the Magic Tower’s symbol right over the giant double doors.

Sam stood there for a few seconds, allowing people to pass by him, simply taking in the ambiance and preparing himself mentally for the ordeal. After a minute, he shook himself, took a big breath, and began walking toward the constantly opening and closing doors.