Might as Well

The registration for purchasing a property in the city of Ironwood went relatively painlessly after the woman, Julia, ascertained that the recommendation was actually real and valid. He, of course, had to fill out several forms as the bureaucracy was well and thriving, but after that, they went through the available locations on paper, and now they stood across from a rundown, two-story house.

“This is the first item on our list, Mr. Sam. Two-story, no back taxes, and in need of repair, though at a medium good location,” said the woman as she checked her papers.

Sam looked at the house, making sure that the location matched up with his inherited memories, and then nodded.

“I’ll take it.”

The woman looked a little taken aback, but eventually, she returned the nod.

“Alright, then let us return to my office.”

“Why?”

“To finalize the deal?” came the confused answer.

Sam just smiled.

“What if I want to buy more than one property?”

It took Julia a moment to parse the reply, but then her business smile was back on her face.

“Of course, sir. If you’ll follow me for the next one?”

In the end, Sam managed to snatch a good half dozen properties, several of them at bargain prices. And thanks to his future knowledge, all of them were at places where their value in a year would soar to the heavens. And that was just the value of the property. The business he planned to run in them was something else.

He would have preferred to buy more properties as prices would surely be rising with the continuous rise of the player numbers, but he had to retain some capital for his plans.

One property would be used as a generic warehouse service, with lots being able to be rented out to players. And how would he make money on it?

Simple. If the players didn’t have enough money to pay, their stored items would be confiscated after a certain time. Which he would pair with an office in the same building that would do item identification.

It definitely wouldn’t become a big moneymaker, but it would give him the excuse to apply for a private security license. Plus, the information he would be able to glean from the identification service would be also valuable.

Three of the lots he purchased would become cheap temporary housing for transient adventurers with several shops on the lower levels that catered to their needs. Cheap food that lasted long, armor and weapon cleaning, and servicing stations and shops where they could refill their rations.

One would also be turned into housing, but much more luxurious, for those with taste or money. It would boast a twenty-four-seven maid service, in-house maintenance staff and so much more. For the right amount of money.

People liked exclusivity and he might as well make use of it and separate their money from them for it.

It was a win-win for everyone!

The last land would be used to house his employees, their offices, and a small warehouse for the items needed to run his business. Sam also planned to have a small apartment in the last building, which he could call his own.

It wasn’t a permanent base because Ironwood was a little small time for that. He had bigger plans for his permanent base. Which, as he was now, was a little hard to accomplish. But even with the changes that were happening to the world of Magic Unbound, he still had time.

Hopefully…

Now only a few more steps.

‘Ugh, I want to fight monsters, not deal with paperwork…’

His next step was founding a company for future use.

After an intense thinking session, that is, five minutes staring at nothing while the receptionist continued to read her romance novel, he decided to name his in-game company AFK, mostly to play on the popular term. But for him, it would always mean ‘Approximate Future Knowledge’.

As he signed the paperwork, Sam couldn’t help but feel proud.

‘Truly, my naming sense is outstanding!’

After squaring away the nitty-gritty detail of the founding of a company, he spent a little more money to have a contract drawn up with very specific details, then went out hunting.

He had a person to find.

It was a pretty basic gaming drama.

She had talent and knowledge, but nobody wanted to pay for it without gaining anything immediately. So, she spent her time moping around Ironwood, collecting information, and observing the markets, both players and NPC, while developing her skills and connections.

But in the end, it was for naught.

Most top guilds that could utilize her talents were filled with ‘gamers’ who either thought that girls shouldn’t game or that all they needed was the power to crush their enemies.

Then, one ‘visionary’ guild leader from a middling guild decided to take a chance with her. Meaning, she was hot, so he seduced her with promises of position, money, and the chance to use her talents.

Surprisingly, it worked.

She quickly rose to a leading position in the guild as people realized that when they learned in history lessons about the logistics of old armies, that wasn’t a coincidence. An army marched on their stomach.

Thus, it came to that the middling guild was purchased by a bigger guild, whose leader was friends with the first one’s leader.

She was instantly transferred to the new guild, along with the contract she had signed while being head over heels for her guild leader. Which came as a surprise to her, as the guild leaders conducted the sale in utmost secrecy. Apparently, her guild leader grew jealous of her talent and wanted to ‘punish’ her for daring to ‘dream big’ and ‘reach beyond her station’.

The fallout wasn’t pretty.

Because she was in a leading position in two very prominent guilds, she naturally had access to their secrets and other dirty dealings.

The release of that information was the talk of the game for months.

Sam remembered the other Sam watching with avid interest, feeling a little schadenfreude about the situation.

Sadly, the story didn’t end there.

After basically ruining two guilds, she left the game and sued her guild leader for basically selling her like a slave.

They found her body hanging from a lamppost near her house. Nothing ever came from the investigation and nobody was ever charged, but it was clear to everyone who was responsible for it.

The only reason the gaming community knew about all of this was she prepared for the worst-case scenario and arranged several deaddrops in case something happened to her.

And as Sam stood in a side alley, hidden by his skills, hood, and his Chameleon mask, watching (admittedly, creepily) the woman in his thoughts, sitting on the patio of a rather expensive café and reading some kind of book, he had to admit: she was pretty.

Long brown hair, with small curls here and there, delicate features, and beautiful blue eyes. Beauty and talent, the full package.

Sam grinned. He couldn’t wait to give her the means to take over the world!

After making sure he was presentable, and his paperwork was in order, he shed his hooded cloak, canceled the mask’s effect and headed directly to the café.

The greeter seemed to have a sixth sense for money because the moment Sam stepped up to the hostess desk, the woman, dressed in a crisp white shirt with a black vest and skirt, immediately bowed to him ignoring several grumbling guests that were already there.

“How can we help you today, sir?”

Sam gave her a small smile.

“I’m here to talk to a friend. Brown hair, always reading?”

The hostess’ left eye twitched a minute, obviously twigging onto the fact that he didn’t actually know the woman, but she was professional enough not to mention it.

“Of course, sir. She is out on the patio. Would you like anything to drink while you talk to her?”

“Yes! An apple juice, please.” The woman’s eye twitched again. “Also, put her bill on my tab. I’ll take care of it after I’m finished.”

“Naturally, sir.” The woman bowed her head, and as Sam began walking towards his target, he saw her making a few hand gestures at the man at the bar before turning towards the next guest with a true customer service smile.

Sam navigated between the tables until he arrived next to the one where she was reading, immersed in her book while on the table was the remnant of a tea and some appropriate tea cakes surrounding her notes.

Sam cleared his throat and then spoke up.

“Is this seat taken?”

The woman jumped a little in fright, then looked at him, her eyes squinting in annoyance while throwing a glare at the empty tables not far from them.

Before she could open her mouth to tell him where exactly he could go, Sam continued.

“I heard about what you want. I’m here with an offer.”

She blinked several times at him, but then nodded, motioned towards the chair across from her and began to tidy up her notes while placing the book, closed, on the table. Sam nodded with a small smile, then took the proffered seat.

For a moment she said nothing, just stared at Sam, but before she could open her mouth, a waitress appeared holding his drink.

“Your drink, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said while accepting the glass of high-quality apple juice.

The waitress then turned to the woman opposite him.

“Anything for you, miss?”

“Nothing for now. Thank you,” she said quietly with a small shake of her head.

The waitress nodded.

“Alright. Please, don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything.” And with that, she turned around and left back to the café.

Sam returned his attention to the woman.

“My name is Solar. For the NPCs it’s Sam.”

There were a few seconds of silence, but then she sighed.

“LogiQueen, but I use the name Lucy here. What do you want?”

Sam smiled. “I heard that you’re looking for work, but the guilds are not biting…”

She just scoffed while crossing her arms. “Fools the lot of them.”

“I agree. That’s why I’m here.”

“Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t have any guild symbol on you.”

“Because I’m not from a guild. I have a company, though.”

“Ohh?” Another eyebrow joined the previous one, and Sam could see she was beginning to get interested.

“Yes. And I want to hire you to lead it.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Why?”

Sam just gave her an indulgent smile. “Don’t act stupid. Doesn’t look good on you.”

Lucy scoffed again. “What’s the goal of the company?”

Here Sam’s smile turned into something that was not dissimilar to a shark’s. “To take away as much money from the guilds as possible!”

“And how would you do that?” came the biting reply, but Sam could see in her eyes that she was interested.

“You must have noticed that this game is not like other games.” She nodded hesitantly. “There is no point in rushing for the highest level. You need a pretty good foundation to even achieve anything, right?”

“Yes, and?”

“We will provide that foundation. Temporary housing in an area. Food and ration service. Armor cleaning and weapon maintenance at the same place. And for those who have money? A concierge service. Luxury apartments. Delivery of orders. Everything that is ‘tedious’ for a power player. We will do everything for them until they can’t function without us.”

By the end of the small speech, Lucy’s eyes were big enough that she was closer to an anime girl than a real one. But then she shook herself and gave him a small glare.

“Lofty plans, I admit. But we’d need more than ideas and dreams to accomplish this.”

Sam smiled a little at her use of we, then simply retrieved a lone piece of paper and slid it across the table. He waited until she glanced at it and her eyes bugged out once again.

“The amount of money in the company account.”

“How the… No. I don’t want to know,” she mumbled as she raised the paper in front of her to better read through it. “Are you some second-gen rich guy?”

Sam snorted. “All legitimately acquired in the game, no worries. Even have a recommendation from one of the nobles.”

Lucy slowly placed the paper down on the table and looked him in the eyes. “Who? The Greens? Or the Singh? I heard the Blackmarsh family sell their recommendation for silvers. I made sure to research it, as I wanted to create my own company. Who gave you yours?”

“Silvercrest.”

Lucy’s mouth hung open for a moment, and then she exclaimed.

“How the hell did you get them to write one? According to the records I managed to access they haven’t given one out for at least a decade.”

“Quest~~” he answered in a sing-song voice.

She closed her eyes and then took a deep breath. “Alright, we established you have the money, connection–“

“And properties,” he interrupted in a cheerful voice while sliding over several more papers for her to peruse.

“And apparently properties.” She silently began reading the documents in front of her, then looked up at him with a weird expression. “What the hell have you been doing?”

“Ohh, you know. This and that…” he replied with a small smirk.

Sam let her think for a few minutes while he sipped his admittedly very good apple juice. Then, as she put down the last paper, he spoke up again.

“I prepared a contract. Want to see it?”

In the end, after half an hour back and forth, they agreed that Lucy would review the contract with the agreed-upon modifications and would get back to him soon.

Not wanting to go far from the city or get embroiled in another long quest, Sam simply left the café, leaving a thoughtful Lucy (of course, he paid his and her bill) and a lightly glaring hostess and directly headed to the library.

The old Librarian greeted him with a smile and after Sam spent a few minutes talking with her, asking about her day and anything interesting, he continued his education in languages.

By the time he received a message from Lucy deep into the evening, he managed to level up the Dark Elven Language and started on a small skill, Cryptography. Thanks to the Librarian’s help he managed to quickly gather the books that taught the basics of the skill.

[Congratulations, you gained the skill, Basic Cryptography!]

[Basic Cryptography: Level 0/10 (0%) (Passive) Allows you to spot patterns and codes, and you have the basic knowledge to begin breaking or solving them.]

At the moment, it wasn’t a very useful skill, as at most it could only help at codes on the level of a basic child puzzle. But in the later stages of the game where they were delving into ruins that were thousands of years old, locked behind some of the most frustrating codes and puzzles, it would pay dividends.

Plus, a lot of runic carvings were encrypted by their creators, so the skill would synergize well with his Runecarver profession.

Leaving the library, he was met by Lucy in front of the café, clutching her book, notes and documents, including her contract, in her arms, as if shielding herself from something.

He approached her slowly, then stood across from her and looked into her blue eyes.

“Your decision?”

“I’ll be the leader of the company?”

“Yes. I’m going to provide the directions, but you’re driving the car.”

“And you’ll listen to me?”

“If you explain it properly, then yes.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it out.

“Alright. I’m in.”

Sam grinned and held out a hand for her. She grabbed it and pumped it up and down a few times.

“Welcome to AFK. Hope you enjoy your stay!”

[Congratulations, you founded a company and acquired your first employee!]

[You are granted the Founder title!]

[Founder: You founded a company (AFK), and this comes with a certain amount of respect. Employee loyalty will increase by 5%.]

He read his notification, then glanced at Lucy, who seemed to be reading her own notifications with a weird look on her face. Finally, she was finished and looked back at Sam.

“Now what?”

“Now I show you where the office will be.”