Might as Well

Lucy watched from a comfortable distance as the latest group of people moved into their suite and smiled. They were paying through their noses for the service, but based on the satisfied superior look on their faces as the maids and manservants bowed silently before them, she suspected they didn’t mind the price.

She stayed near, just in case they found something unsatisfactory, but apparently, they found everything acceptable. Soon, servants and maids were rushing out to deliver their items to the in-house staff for maintenance, while others went to fetch a proper meal for their guests.

Nodding at the head maid who was also standing nearby, scrutinizing every move of the maids with a furrowed brow, she walked away, back to her office.

She had a mountain’s worth of documents to go through, and the day wasn’t endless. Not that she was complaining, as she lived for things like these. Going through the figures, seeing as the numbers grew or fell and as the business prospered. That is why she was attracted to business and kingdom-building games.

Or as the internet put it succinctly: “Numbers going brrrrr makes my brain release the good juices.”

Plus, watching all those fops, several of whom she recognized after rejecting her for their guild, pay out an insane amount of gold to her, also made her feel warm and fuzzy. Not to mention the amount of information they gained.

Every maid, servant, janitor, or person who worked in the building was instructed to write down everything they overheard their guests speaking. There were several people in an office a floor down from hers, that had the job to go through every report and filter out the important bits.

In the beginning, she was worried that one of the NPCs would rat them out, but the guests in true blue-blood fashion proved to be so unlikeable that the servants reported everything gleefully. Now she only needed to worry about spies.

As she settled in her very comfortable (and expensive) office chair, she made a mental note to ask Sam if he had any idea how to create an intelligence branch for the company, because usually when she needed one of those in another game, she just clicked a button and it was done. Magic Unbound was a little more complicated than that.

And while she had a lot of questions about Sam and how he accomplished things, she had to admit he was rather effective.

After setting a reminder to email him, she finally turned to the paperwork that had been meticulously piled high on her desk and began to go over it, one by one.

The next day, she met up with Sarah in the game.

Her friend was dressed in repurposed worker’s clothing, with a jumpsuit dotted with countless pockets, filled with who knows what. Her long hair was pulled up in a bunch and hidden under a knitted cap. On her forehead were goggles with tinted glasses adding to the steampunk vibe. And on Sarah’s back was a giant hammer affixed to her with a complicated leather strap.

She also had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder, and Lucy could see that it was filled to the brim.

“Hey!”

Sarah, who was admiring the architecture of a nearby building, turned toward her and smiled.

“Hey, girl!”

The moment Lucy got closer, they hugged, and after separating, Lucy began leading them toward one of the restaurants in the city. True, they could have met at the company building and eaten the lunch prepared by her chefs, but Lucy was informed by her secretary that it wasn’t healthy to be holed up in her office twenty-four-seven, so here she was.

They walked in amicable silence for a while, cutting through the crowd until Sarah spoke up.

“Any new projects that need my expertise?”

“Why? Are you not enjoying smashing in the faces of monsters with your giant tool?” replied Lucy with a playful look.

Sarah snorted and shook her head.

“You know it’s not the same. I want to build. To design and to create!” she finished her sentence almost yelling, thrusting her hands in the air. Several people glanced at them, but after nothing followed up the yell, their interest vanished.

“I get you…”

Sarah just snorted.

“It’s easy for you! You got that awesome business…”

“You’re part of the business, Sarah,” came Lucy’s dry reply.

“Pssh, as an employee.” Sarah dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “It’s not the same.”

Lucy looked at her friend and saw she wasn’t really angry or hurt, just as always, she was bored.

“Well… I was planning on expanding our warehouse, so…”

Instantly, her friend’s eyes lit up, and began to walk faster. Thankfully, they were practically in front of the virtual restaurant they arranged to meet, so instead of saying anything, Lucy let Sarah drag her in.

After the waiter directed them to sit at a private table (the company may be new, but they were making enough money, that those who paid attention to these kinds of things knew her), finally Sarah spoke.

“Spill, girl! What do you want to do?”

As they began talking, Lucy fully relaxed in the presence of her best friend.

Sadly, neither of them noticed the hooded figure who followed them through the streets of Ironwood, and who stood across the restaurant well hidden in a small alleyway.

The city of Brightgarden was beautiful. Lush gardens wherever the eyes could see. A picturesque lake next to the city, where people who lived there spent their lazy weekends, either fishing or just leisurely resting at its shores.

Their guild has settled in well, and Stephen could proudly say that they were on their way to becoming one of the pillars of the community.

They patrolled the forests around the city; they helped with the gardens with several of their people going for druid-like builds; they tracked down missing people as well as criminals. Hell, one of the new guys who were adamant about slime supremacy was hailed as a local hero after he went through the sewers and cleaned out the trash monster that had been there since time immemorial.

The organization of their guild, now proudly bearing the name of Fauna Ark (Animal Ark was suggested at first but it was shot down immediately), was also going splendidly. They had groups with clear leaders and there was a pretty good board in their guildhall that had a set schedule for every task that needed to be done.

Feeding so many animals was not an easy task!

Thankfully, they managed to gather several people who had no desire to fight anything more dangerous than boredom, and they were hard at work turning the barren fields gifted to them by the thankful city (or bought) into fertile fields of produce.

Although everything was going splendidly, Stephen couldn’t help but feel that something was missing.

So, he sat down with his friends (the founders) and the people who had risen through the ranks to be group leaders and had a nice long meeting in the garden of their guild. Naturally, he spent the meeting enjoying the strong fur of Slathy, while the monster munched on some unfortunate being’s corpse.

In the end, they all agreed that none of them were big on bureaucracy, so they needed someone who could help them out with it. Otherwise, the guild wouldn’t last long.

Luckily, somebody had access to the site Shadowland, and the people there were usually trustworthy, provided they paid the required amount.

Thus, after everyone agreed, they put up a wanted ad for personnel and sat back and waited.

It took almost no time to receive their first reply, which was predictably somebody trying to scam them.

After several days of suffering, they finally managed to get into contact with one of the information brokers who connected them with a person who was looking for work in the administration field.

Stephen, as the de facto leader of the guild, decided to greet the person who answered their ad on his own. He didn’t want to scare them away with the usual antics of the guild.

Sitting in the middle of one of the squares of Brightgarden, next to the fountain, while Slathy lay on the ground calmly with small children climbing all over him, he kept his head on swivel.

Soon, he heard a throat being cleared behind him. “Cactus, I presume?”

He spun around with a smile on his face. “How did you know?” he asked while he took in the person who approached him.

She was a rather small girl. Maybe five feet five if she stood on her the tip of her feet. She also had shockingly bright blue hair with streaks of white, that fell on her shoulder in waves. Despite her eccentric hair, she wore a generic blue-colored mage robe, straight out of any fantasy novel. In her hand was a staff with a glowing blue orb as its headpiece.

“Your reputation precedes you,” came the deadpan answer.

Stephen couldn’t help but feel proud. People knew about him!

“Really?”

“No. I recognized the rabbit.”

“Ohh…” Now he felt like a fool. Then he glanced at the woman who was still looking at him, stone-faced, and shook himself. “Alrighty then… I assume you are AzureTiger?”

“Yes,” she answered with a nod.

Seeing as she wasn’t big on words, he also nodded and then whistled so that Slathy would know they were leaving.

The giant rabbit slowly stood up, making sure the kids on his back could safely land, then began lumbering after the duo as Stephen began leading AzureTiger toward the mansion where their guild had set up.

The woman with the small stature only took one step into the room they collectively decided to use as the guild office and immediately stiffened. Stephen took a look around but didn’t step over the threshold as the room was overflowing with documents of all types all over the desk, cabinets, shelves, and floor.

He was about to offer up some excuse, but the bluette beat him to it.

“I’ll take the job. Now get out!” she exclaimed, practically vibrating on the spot.

She almost dove into the sea of papers, letting Stephen close the door with a queer look on his face.

Slowly, he ambled out, only to find his friends staring into the room that he had just left behind. He joined them and took a curious look.

Inside, AzureTiger was rushing about like a whirlwind, while small blue sprite-like things followed her around, holding documents somehow. Stephen suspected magic.

“We need to get her a blue tiger or cat…” spoke up somebody from the crowd.

Stephen only heard the murmur of agreement.

‘Apparently, it was a good decision to hire her! Go me!’ he smiled a little, then turned around in confusion. “Guys, where is Slathy?”

Liz found out that while she was indeed comfortable with her current income, moving to a different city was altogether a different story. Unfortunately, she had decided and told her insufferable mother and if she couldn’t achieve the move, then she didn’t even want to think about what kind of face her mother would make.

For a few days, she hemmed and hawed but it came down to selling something to get a quick injection of cash. The question was: what to sell?

The most logical thing to sell was her creations in the game. The RMT service was live and while the gold-to-money ratio fluctuated every hour, Liz was pretty sure her creations would sell for enough gold that would allow her to move.

Sitting in front of her computer, she stared impotently at the screen. Deciding to sell her precious creations was one thing, but how to make sure she wouldn’t get scammed?

Either she could go through an official auction site, but that would take time and they took outrageous percentages from the final price from first-time sellers. Or she could sell to a private citizen. However, that required even more time and effort as she had to personally advertise her creations.

Unless she contacted a broker.

Luckily, she knew one of the best information brokers.

Unfortunately, she already owed them three favors. And they had been suspiciously silent on claiming them.

For a few minutes, she just stared unseeingly at the screen, then sighed.

“What’s the worst that can happen? They say no, right?” she murmured and began to type in a message.

After sending the message, Liz didn’t wait to see if they would reply, she immediately dove into the game intent on ignoring the real world in favor of creating more marvels out of crystals.

At first, when she got the spells for crystal shaping she thought it would be a temporary thing. A ‘class’ she would divest herself of when she came across something better. However, nowadays she couldn’t even imagine not using her creations. Mostly because the small cute drones became her calling cards on stream, but also because she genuinely enjoyed building things.

Upon login, she appeared in her temporary workshop, rented from the local town at a very nice price after she saved a kid in the forest when she was en route towards it. Instantly, half a dozen small maintenance drones rose from the positions to greet her. Their little hands and eye modules emulating waves and smiling faces.

Several of them even flew close enough that they could nuzzle her face. She giggled a little, and she could feel the stress melting away.

Liz spent a few minutes just playing with the cute drones, trying to teach them tricks (mostly fetch) and trying to take a winning picture. As they counted as minions, she planned to enter the competition that the company started. As a streamer, it was practically mandatory.

Satisfied with playing with the drones, she reached for her improved control bracelet and opened the holographic screen.

Instantly, she was greeted with a deluge of information about the tasks that the drones did, while she was offline. Granted, she couldn’t have them do anything complicated, but basic maintenance was exactly the type of work she could set up before logging out.

After reading through it, she nodded then took out one of her tools and lowered her goggles. She had some work to do on her crystal bike.

The only reason the monster died and not the kid, when she ran them over, was because of the air cushion that the vehicle projected under it. It was what allowed her to ride over the ground pretty comfortably. And it was also what pushed the kid into a conveniently placed bush and the monster menacing said kid onto a sharp rock, killing it instantly.

Predictably, the stream loved it.

As stupid as it looked, she rather enjoyed the videos they made of the event. And of course, the increase in fame that came with it.

However, in the end, what the event showed her, was that her vehicle wasn’t the safest, and if she wanted to operate it among people, she needed to add a few safety precautions.

Opening her big book of crystal creations, she turned to the page that contained a technical drawing of something that looked like a distance sensor to her and began to study it.

A few minutes later she nodded, put the book on the nearby table, and reached for the materials.

It would be finicky but if she added the distance sensor and linked it to another module…

Soon, the only thing that could be heard in the workshop was the quiet buzzing of the drones and the sounds of crafting in progress.

A few hours later, with the new module added to her pretty cool crystal bike, Liz stood outside of the town where she was currently staying. She made a few last checks on her gear and made sure her armor was on properly. Several drones were hidden around her to watch out for stream snipers or regular PKers (and monsters), while a few more were standing by holding tools like her own little (and very cute) pit-stop team.

One of them floated over, holding a mirror and she checked her hair, now containing a blue streak to represent the crystal magic she was now famous for. At least, she liked to think she was famous for it.

Satisfied that she was looking great, Liz patted the mirror-holding drone on its head, then with a swift motion turned on the steam.

“Hello everyone!” she greeted the viewers with a beaming smile, making sure that her crystal bike was in view, as well as the pit-stop team. One eye glanced at the viewer count that kept climbing and her smile became a little more genuine. “Today, we are going to crash into things!”

She paused for a moment, watching as the chat went crazy, then her own smile turned a little crazier.

“FOR SCIENCE!”

“How is the SRS system doing?”

“According to the data we gathered it seems to be working where it was implemented. We are seeing a general decrease in stress in players who were affected by the system. However, for those who do not have any medium through which the system could work, the decrease is much less.”

“How did the event affect it?”

The first person just waved their hand. “So-so… We didn’t add any rewards aside from ‘fame’ so most players don’t really care…”

He nodded in understanding while making a few notes.

“Keep me appraised about the SRS. If we see more decrease, I want to petition to roll it out game-wide, not just selectively.”

Then he took a look at the next point on the agenda.

“Alright, what about that red flag that was raised about… a… what was it? Ah, yes a familiar evolution. What’s wrong with it?”

The other person nodded and spent a few minutes clicking around their screen before humming a little.

“The player was once already flagged by suspicious behavior. Manual review found him simply lucky. Then another flag. Another manual review. This time he did his research. They found footage of him researching in the library,” the guy explained as he slowly read through the information, while he listened intently. “So he was cleared, again. That was followed by a third-party review to make sure the reviewer wasn’t bought or otherwise in cahoots with the guy. Nothing found.”

“So why was the evolution flagged?”

“Because so many previous flags had been raised, the system automatically assigned a higher priority to the issue.”

“We need to adjust the system for that,” he interjected and the guy reporting nodded.

“The issue is already at the appropriate team.”

“Great. What about the event? Was it fraudulent?”

The other guy let out a sigh.

“No. It was luck, research, and even more luck.”

He looked back intently. “Are you sure?”

“We are. So are two other teams.”

He hummed in response and took another look at the file. Finally reading the name of the pet down around the middle of the text he couldn’t help but blink in surprise.

“Wait, is this Lucky?”

The other guy sounded surprised.

“You know the pet?”

He just chuckled and showed the guy his screensaver featuring Lucky, sitting on his haunches with his head tilted to the side cutely and tongue lolled out.

“Huh… small world.”

He put away his phone and nodded. “Indeed.” He spent a few minutes scrutinizing the file before making a decision.

“Do deeper research on the player. It is suspicious how good he is. His magic control stats are off the charts.” The other guy nodded, making notes. “Lucky is bound to be famous so if he is cheating I want to eliminate him before the public starts to pay attention to him.”

“Understood,” came the reply. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Do you have any good pictures of the new evolution?”

The game was good, that was certain.

The graphics were excellent, and the skill system, while initially a midge confusing, was also good enough to keep the game engaging.

He immediately went ahead and got the best gear to play the game. After all, he was the best gamer in his circle of friends, and he wanted to keep that advantage.

However, after playing for a while and getting together with his friends, they realized the realism of the game had a pretty big drawback.

The maintenance of the gear, the food, and everything else.

They just wanted to play and not deal with things that were usually the job of the servants to deal with.

That’s why when one of his acquaintances told him that there was actually a service dedicated to providing luxury accommodations for respectable people, he immediately ordered one of his people to look it up.

The information he received was pretty encouraging.

Thus, after a small discussion with his friends, they decided to buy the gold, and rent one of the suites of the appropriately named Heavenly Forest.

The inside of the building was pretty minimalistic, yet at the same time, it radiated a sort of understated sophistication that in his experience a lot of people tried to show, but rarely managed.

The staff was helpful, not too chatty while also being fast and efficient.

Seconds after he mentioned to his friend he was feeling a little peckish, a maid was already waiting with a tray of snacks and an elegantly designed menu to order from.

The rooms were designed in the same style, but the quality of the furniture was unquestionable. They had a safe to store valuables, a small but well-stocked bar, with fresh fruits to snack on as well as a small library that contained a map of the city with everything important marked on it.

There was also a small booklet that contained the rules and regulations of the service, but he didn’t care much for it. Places like these could usually be pacified by offering more money. He was much more interested in the other booklet that contained a comprehensive list of services.

Naturally, there were no prices shown, because if you needed to ask for a price in this kind of establishment then you didn’t belong.

There was only one simple line at the beginning of the booklet.

‘Services not contained in the contract are billed monthly.’

He just shrugged. The last time he checked the RMT market wasn’t about to run out of gold, so if he needed more he could just send someone to buy it.

Taking a measure of the bed in the bedroom, he was about to jump on it, when he heard a knock on the door.

“Yes?” he called out.

His friend’s voice greeted him, slightly muffled by the door.

“Hey, Kevin, they have a rooftop restaurant. We are going to check it out. Do you want to come?”

Kevin took a stock of the items thrown around and nodded. “Sure, I could eat…”

He left the room, closed the door, which locked automatically behind him, pocketed the key, and began walking with his friend while they discussed the accommodations.

The request was nothing special.

Kill a guy who pissed off their client.

Why or how they pissed off the client didn’t matter.

Silent Step didn’t make a name for themselves as the premier assassination gaming group in countless games by asking too many questions.

As long as their client could pay the price named, they would follow through,

Though, apparently, this time they may have asked for a too-low price.

Magic Unbound was a new game, so they didn’t know enough about how the system worked to use it in their favor. They had to prepare for the assassination in an old-fashioned way.

Investigate the target.

Set the scene.

And go for the kill.

Unfortunately, they were stymied at the first step. Finding their target.

Apparently, while their identity wasn’t exactly a secret, somehow they still managed to move around without being noticed by any of their scouts.

It was preposterous!

So, they had to revert to observing secondary targets to find the primary target.

And the universe once again proved that they had something against him, and his team was assigned to the area where Ironwood city could be found.

The only person their primary target regularly talked with was a workaholic who rarely left their office. An office that seemed to have been protected against intrusion and remote spying by the best.

And as the game had just begun, none of them had any skills, artifacts, or even contacts to circumvent said protection.

Quite honestly, the wait was practically killing him. Plus, his boss was getting quite annoyed with their client’s incessant whining about why the guy wasn’t dead yet.

But, his secondary target decided to leave their fortified office and he finally had someone he could follow.

Hopefully, the woman would lead him to the primary target.

And if not, at least he could maybe overhear something that he could sell to their information broker. Or better, maybe he could learn something that could be used to blackmail her, which in turn would allow them to insert a few agents in their staff at Heavenly Forest. The building was basically the wet dream of an information broker with all those rich people in one place.

‘A guy can dream…’ he mused as he settled down in an alley to figure out how to approach the restaurant to sneak in.

After all, everything started with a silent step…