Might as Well

The restaurant was nothing to write home about (not that he had anybody he could write) but the food was solid, and most importantly, they had private booths that would allow them some space for a private discussion.

As was his habit, he arrived around ten minutes before the agreed time and was sitting in the booth, sipping the lemon water that a clearly disinterested waiter brought to him, looking at the door, and waiting for his friend.

Exactly on time, he saw Lucy, dressed in a somewhat conservative but clearly good-quality dress, enter through the door. It was clear she spotted him and by the time the hostess began to wake up from their daze (Sam suspected they were on something) she was already power-walking in his direction.

The hostess sent him a questioning look as Lucy’s trajectory crystallized in their mind and Sam just smiled at her. The woman nodded and returned staring at her giant book while oddly swaying a little from side to side.

Lucy sat across from him and nodded with a friendly smile. “That hostess is high as a kite…”

“What do you think she is on?” he asked idly while searching for a waiter with his eyes. He spotted them and indicated that they needed some attention.

“Probably Glitter,” was her matter-of-fact response. “That’s the most popular currently. Apparently, it makes everything look like it is covered in glitter.”

“Glitter? What a cliché name…”

Lucy snorted, and the waiter arrived next to their table. He offered them the menu and spoke up.

“Would the madam like something to drink?”

They ate their food quietly, occasionally talking about mundane things, like their health or family situation. The food was edible but Sam wouldn’t be coming back as the chef clearly had no idea how a kitchen worked.

Still, the company more than made up for the tedium of the food.

They were waiting for their dessert when the talk turned serious.

“I read your report about the ‘organization’. Not much info and anyone I asked refused even to entertain my questions.” She stated while idly swirling around her drink, looking into the glass. “I even offered…well, never mind. So, spill, you always know more than possible…” she finished while playfully glaring at Sam.

Sam desperately wanted to know what she offered, but Lucy was notoriously tightlipped about her quests among the high society people. Whether they were embarrassing or she liked to annoy him with the mystery was unknown to him.

Instead of probing further into the topic, he decided to be magnanimous and began to explain.

“They’re basically the kingdom’s secret service, from what I figured. They mostly deal with domestic threats, including demons and nefarious cults.” He didn’t say the name on purpose, as that was impossible to figure out without completing the quest. There would be no excuses about how he knew the name. There would be no escape from ‘justice’… “I got lucky and told some of my stories to the best random old person, and they turned out to be a member. Or a leader, I don’t know. We didn’t discuss organization hierarchy much.”

Lucy gave him a look that said that she barely believed what he said, but Sam just gave her a shrug. This was the best he could do.

“They sent me against a demonic fracture, then they warned me about the ambush from the Steel Lions. Well, kinda warned me. However, they didn’t act when the clearly demonic cultists attacked me. So, I think they’re playing the long game.”

“Bait and reel in?”

“Mhm…”

“What’s your next quest with them?”

“To destroy demonic plots.”

“Ugh, that will take ages…”

“Well, not really…”

She looked at him with a curious gaze, clearly waiting for him to continue.

“Steel Lions are clearly using the Silent Step who, as you know, turned to summoning demons. This, with the transitive properties of demon cultists, every Steel Lion plot will count as a demonic plot.”

Lucy looked at him and shook her head, exasperated. “That’s such bullshit. Do you think it will really work?”

“Who knows… Worth a try.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“We have Tim. We can go after the Silent Step, they will count,” he told her with a smile and raised his glass in salute. “By the way, how is he working out?”

She returned the salute. “Well, I still think your recruiting skills are bullshit. The man clearly understated his security expertise. When we were negotiating the contract, he showed me his certificates.” She explained, then grimaced. “I had to sign a governmental NDA just to look at one of them, Sam.”

Now that was surprising!

“Then why is he working in IT?” he asked curiously.

“Apparently, because that leaves him with more time to play…” came the answer, accompanied by an eye-roll. “But returning to your question… He is great. The security system has already been revamped at all locations in Ironwood, and he is currently working on the other locations. We caught several infiltrators and traitor NPCs after he came aboard.”

“Did you turn the traitors?”

“Naturally…”

“Excellent. What about Liz? Anything important?”

“We are still modernizing Heavenly Forest and the Headquarters. I think we are doing the illumination system, but she is also working on some kind of security system for Tim.”

“Cool. Any issues with her streaming?”

“No. A few fans tried to follow her to find out where she works, but thankfully she noticed them, but we can assume that soon her place of work will be an open secret.”

Sam thought for a few seconds, then nodded. “Let’s assume that the really competent ones already know. Much easier that way.”

“Understood.”

“Crafters?”

“Chugging along. We hired everyone you marked and put them to work in the supermarket. But nobody special. They keep doing all the usual stuff, but nothing exceptional has been created yet.”

Sam frowned. ‘Maybe I can help with that? What was it they used? Some kind of magical technique…’

Lucy saw the frown and chuckled. “I know that look. You have an idea, right?”

“That I do, my friend. But I’ll need some time for that,” he explained. ‘And I’ll also need to raise my own crafting skill levels…’

Then he put down his drink, leaned forward, and looked directly into Lucy’s eyes.

“Let’s shelve those discussions. I had a new business idea.”

His friend also leaned forward with interest. “Oh, do tell…”

“You know how we have a large influx of new people coming into the game, either starting the game or re-rolling the characters they gimped?”

“Mhm…”

“And you know how I’m really good at mana stuff?”

“Clearly…”

“Well, all you need to do is contact the training ground, buy them out, and share some of my tutorials I’ll send over, and then…”

He watched as Lucy sat there, eyes glazed over at the thought of the amount of money they would be raking in. Then she shook herself.

“Do you think they would go for the buyout?” she asked, a bit anxious.

Sam shrugged. “If we phrase it the proper way. They’re clearly getting overwhelmed. The forums are full of people complaining about the long wait times.”

“That’s true…” she murmured, clearly going over the logistics in her head. “It would also be a great place to recruit people for our player guild.”

“We just have to be careful about smurf accounts…”

“Indeed. Now, what exactly were you thinking…”

The two of them descended into a hushed discussion about the details while they munched on their marginally better desserts.

Returning to the game later, he disentangled himself from his companion and stood up, stretching. But before he could do anything, he found a scroll on the desk that came with the room.

To his magical senses it seemed as if it was as mundane as they came, but seeing as he was working in circles where hiding the mana signature was rather easy to do, he didn’t really trust it.

Getting out a wooden stick, designated as the poking stick from his inventory, he took a step closer and poked the scroll.

To his surprise, nothing happened. So, he poked it again.

Still nothing.

‘Hmm. It needs more pokes.’

Thus, he spent the next half an hour poking the scroll around from all sorts of direction and strength. He only stopped when Lucky woke up and began to whine.

“Don’t give me that look, Lucky,” he told the wolf, who somehow managed to roll his eyes. “It could be rigged to explode when a human touches it.”

“Wuff!”

“No, I’m not paranoid!”

“Wuff, wuff!”

“Fine!” he threw the poking stick back into the inventory and carefully touched his index finger to the scroll.

To his surprise, nothing happened. Feeling the superior gaze from behind him, Sam ignored the wolf, took up the scroll, and opened it. Unscrolling it, he saw it was a small map of the country. The main cities were marked, and they added a few borders to show which city was responsible for them. But the most important part was the glaring red marks in several spots.

There was only one legend on the entire map, aside from the compass. It indicated that every red spot contained at least one demon.

Sam smiled and put the scroll away. Sadly, it didn’t indicate the difficulty, but as he recognized a few city names; he didn’t mind.

For now, he had another quest to finish.

Before heading to the Training Hall to deliver the recommendation letter, he stopped for a few minutes at the local Auction Hall.

The building was bigger than the one at Ironwood, and according to it, the crowd was also much bigger. The armor, robes, dresses, and other alternative clothing looked marginally more expensive than what he saw back in Ironwood. The guild representatives here didn’t really hide themselves. They all had their little area, surrounded by either goons or guards, depending on how much they cared about their image. Granted, to Sam, they all looked like mooks, anyway. They were staring intently at the screens in front of them, occasionally speaking into the air and then going on a spending spree based on how their arms moved around at a rapid pace.

A few times, some people who looked unaffiliated approached them, but they were either intimidated by the goons or gently shoved away by the guards.

Shouts filled the entire hall, either happy or angry, and he could see at least three people get financially ruined by the time he reached a free seat. He opened the auction site and began browsing while unloading some of the junk that had no actual value that he had in his inventory.

Naturally, the first thing he looked through was the skill book section. He browsed through until something caught his eye. The Life of Blood skill books at a ludicrously cheap price. Checking the names selling the books he couldn’t help but chuckle.

BrotherBloodTheLeft

One of the infamous pairs that managed to declare war on the entire game. Apparently, they already started and were pushing the skill books. ‘Well, one more thing to deal with…’

He had no plans to stop them as the chaos they would cause would be great for opportunities, especially if he managed to set up a guild that only had people who didn’t have the skill or had defenses against blood magic.

Plus, it would be glorious and he wanted to sit on the sidelines and watch the entire thing unfold while eating popcorn.

Having an idea, he bought one of the cheapest books and put it away. It would come in handy later.

Sadly, he didn’t really find anything interesting, though the information that the Blood Brothers were active was interesting in itself. For a brief moment he played with the idea of recruiting the brothers, but then he threw the idea away. They did a lot of interviews after the event wound down, and they were very clear about their chaotic neutral nature. They lived to cause chaos and belonging to any guild would only slow them down.

Still, maybe in his information broker persona, he could approach them… That would give him an insight into their actions. ‘Yeah, that sounds right.’ He declared to himself and left the Auction Hall behind, heading toward the Training Hall.

The crowd was even bigger at the Training Hall, which looked similar to the one in Ironwood, but it was, as with everything else in the capital, much bigger. There was a clear line snaking through the street. He considered just waiting out the line, but then he just shrugged and headed directly to the double doors.

There were some calls, some curses about being a line cutter, and more than a few people laughed at him, undoubtedly expecting him to be thrown out.

Dodging around the grumbling people in the line, he entered the hall and was immediately hit by the smell of hundreds of people exercising. It was horrible.

He instantly used his wind mana to direct the smelly air away from himself and looked around.

Spotting a counter that had several buff women in medieval exercise clothing standing and dealing with the players who wanted to get some training.

Spotting one of them who was just observing the masses and not dealing with players, he headed for her.

The players around naturally noticed this.

“Look at the noob!”

“He is going for the queen! Can’t wait to see him shot down!”

“Man, I did that yesterday. So much burn!”

“Haha, what a loser!”

“A silver on him getting kicked in the head!”

“Nah, it’s going to be a punch!”

Sam just ignored them and locked eyes with the impressive woman, her muscles clearly showing that she took exercise seriously. She raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t react.

Hidden from the watchers in the line, he took out the letter and flashed the symbol on it to the woman. She nodded and beckoned him to get closer.

The chorus of disappointed groans around him was music to his ears.