Chương 240: Chapter 231 - Interlude 22

Working in security, unless you wanted to be more than a standard-sized mook, was an exercise of patience and hurry-the-fuck-up. If you had the education, training and could string together a sentence with at least passable formality, then you would be tasked with jobs that were more complex than 'stand there and look mean'.

Over his life, he had worked for all sorts of companies, doing this and that in the security department, but it was only when he finally got his Level Three Cybersecurity certification that his career had taken off. He would finally be able to get jobs where he would do more than protect some random building. And that's exactly what he did. The moment the certification arrived, he sent off his CV to several companies and luckily, Future Unknown replied in a short order.

Thus, after jumping through the required hoops, he became part of a team responsible for the security of their flagship product, Magic Unbound. They were responsible for making sure that nobody infiltrated or attacked the building where most of the people worked. They also dealt with penetration attacks from enterprising individuals who were looking for information to sell about the game. They even worked with the firewall team, who protected the game in 'cyberspace'. They collaborated a lot.

Mostly by the cyber team pointing out targets and his team going after them in the real world. It was an amazing workplace, with no chance of getting bored. He loved almost every aspect of it. The unfortunate fact was that the game, Magic Unbound, was a game and product that revolutionized the market. As with most products that did that, they were created by very smart people. And those same very smart people were often very eccentric. Very, very eccentric…

This showed itself by having the security experts secure the coffee machine as one of the supervisors thought that their rival department head was hacking the machine to create decaf just when the supervisor was drinking from it. To have the main security AI have them run errands for her on account of lacking a proper body…

He was too old to ask questions, so when he got a message from the AI to make sure a package got delivered to somebody without it tripping any security check, he just logged the request in the system – and received instant approval for it – and started to work. A week later, he was holding one of the company tablets, front-loaded with the video taken from the building security system, in high-definition color and crispy surround sound. Never let it be said he didn't go the extra mile.

Following the route the AI gave him – realizing that he was doing a real-life quest – he navigated the labyrinthian corridors of the company building, heading for one of the computer rooms, where his target supposedly resided at the moment. After going through the mandatory security scans, proving his identity in seven different ways, he was finally granted access to the hallowed halls of the development team.

He took a moment to take in the walls, ceiling and every other available surface covered with monitors as people in leisurely clothing – opposite to his pristine security uniform – were dotted around the room, surrounded by even more monitors and devices that might as well been magic to an average person. Nobody looked up as he stepped into the room except the AI, whose face appeared on a nearby screen, and silently pointed at one of the people who was actually wearing a lab coat.

Coffee stained and oddly ragged, but still a lab coat. Making sure to hold the tablet in both of his hands, he walked up to the man and cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, sir?" Predictably, the man's eyes were fixated on one of the screens and his words were swallowed by the low murmur and whirring filling the room.

"Excuse me!" he repeated, louder. He had to do it a few more times before the man finally heard him. The lab coat-wearing man turned around and blinked at him with a confused gaze before looking at his clothing and finally, his eyes landed on the tablet in his hands.

"I-is t-that it?" He said nothing, just handed it over. The man in the lab coat reached out with trembling hands and took the tablet. The moment the man touched the screen it came alive and a video began to play. He watched as the man collapsed to his knees and began to openly weep. Glancing at the AI watching the proceedings he sent her a questioning look and thankfully he received a nod in response. Still staying silent he turned around and left the room post haste as the wailing turned into demented laughter.

As the door closed behind him, thankfully cutting off the disturbing sounds, he only had one thought going through his head.

'These people are fucking crazy…'

"So, what do you have for me today?" The people before him looked at each other awkwardly, and he could already feel his mood plummet. He let out a sigh and took a desperate sip of his coffee, hoping that the double dose of caffeine would make things better. It did not.

"What the fuck did that fucker do?" The people in front of him exchanged another glance. That just made him more worried.

"He…he started the evolution rituals."

"Right. What kind of ridiculous items did he get for it?"

"Er…nothing. He went with rare items but nothing special."

"What?"

"The ritual was also pretty simple."

"What?"

"He is a Rune Master, but he didn't get one of the high-level circles for the evolution. He just used the same one as last time," explained one of them.

"I mean, he did modify it a little and use his Illusionary Runes," added the other one. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and took another fortifying sip of his drink.

"And, what happened?" He was getting concerned at the amount of eye contact his employees were exchanging. Instead of waiting for them to spit it out, he went for the faster but more headache-inducing solution.

"Selene, be a dear and show me what that fucker did. And order more glitter…" The AI winked at him and the screens in front of him went black for a fraction of a second before he saw the interior of a ritual room that was very familiar. Mostly because it contained the digital animal whose plush copy became his daughter's favorite toy. They watched the entire ritual in fast-forward as several auxiliary screens showed the numbers as things moved around in the background.

The video slowed down as Lucky's impressive form solidified on the screen. The various people around the room watched as their boss closed his eyes, placed his cup of coffee on the table next to him, then bit into his fist as he silently screamed. That lasted for exactly twenty-three-point-eighty-nine seconds. Selene displayed the counter on one of the screens so that the betting table could be updated.

Also, recently somebody had set up a fantasy league using the various bosses around the company, using their reactions to different things as statistics. This one would definitely make somebody rich… Finally, he let go of his fist and opened his eyes again. Flinched a little when he saw the still video on the screen. He turned to Selene, who was watching everything very smugly.

"Do I even want to know what happened to the skills?" Selene, the traitorous AI, instantly displayed the gained skills. He spent a few minutes reading, then re-reading the skills gained by Lucky's new form. Then came the analysis by the smart people from the statistics department who calculated the effects of the skills on the fucker's own skills.

"Well, I hate this, but this is actually not the worst…" he admitted as he processed the information. He then became aware as one of his employees suddenly sucked in some air. Slowly, he turned around and looked at her. The woman refused to meet his eyes.

"Yes?"

"Heactuallyhelpedhisteamtodothesameritual!" she spoke fast enough that he could barely understand a few words. However, before he could ask for clarification, Selene helpfully changed the screens and he was face to face with four more evolved familiars. Under them was a small summary of the changes and the new skills. In the back of the room, two people watched as the sound meter showcased the decibel of the despairing scream coming from their boss. They looked at each other and added the measurements to the table.

"Can we change the familiar system?"

"Why would we?"

"Have you seen what that f… I mean what that man did?"

"Yes. Pretty creative…" He closed his eyes and said a prayer in the hope that the decision-makers would finally understand what this would do to the balance of the game. But nooooo… They just saw that engagement numbers went up as a result and simply celebrated. Never mind that the engagement numbers meant that a lot more people called that fucker a cheater and complained to the company. The customer support even had to create a process to deal with complaints and questions related to that fucker.

It was a rumor, but he heard that one of the customer support team leaders had contacted a witch to curse the fucker. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. He hoped it would work.

"What exactly do you want us to do? We have found – repeatedly I remind you – that he isn't cheating. That's still true, right?" He hated to say it, but he had to.

"Yes, he is still not cheating."

"Well…"

"According to those investigations!" he yelled, interrupting the other man.

"But I'm sure if we did ano…" Now he was interrupted.

"No. No more investigations. He is under surveillance, so if he steps even one toe out of line we can act, but for now, even with the extra costs due to all the private investigators, he brings in enough money." He winced a little. Just the sales of the Lucky plushies were enough to fund some impressive things. It was really hard to argue against making money at this age.

"Can't we just punish him? A curse? A tiny little curse? Just teeny-tiny one?" The other man gave him a sad look.

"Just go home and sleep on it, all right? I will make sure your department knows you're resting." Stephen sat down in AzureTiger's office and ignored the giant octopus hugging the girl from behind. There were just things in life that one wasn't meant to know. The petite girl spent a few seconds arranging the documents arrayed in front of her before looking at him with a smile.

"Well, it seems it worked."

"The mayor is happy?" She shrugged.

"He is always happy when he doesn't have to pay for something. And with the eradication of those exploders, he doesn't have to pay for more repairs. Of course, he is happy." Stephen smiled at that. The battle was hard, but they managed to send those damned elemental exploders packing. With the help of a seal given to them by the elementals, they even managed to seal their abilities to summon elementals. The rage of those players on the forums still brought warmth to his soul.

"What about the reward?"

"The Higher Elemental gave us some really good elemental reagents."

"I can see…" he told her as he eyed the octopus behind her as it made tea and poured it out for them silently and impressively elegant. The girl nodded and continued.

"You know the ritual we used?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know where we got it?" He scratched his head. There was something in his memories, but as he was mostly occupied with defeating those assholes and making sure he maintained his relationship with Kim, he couldn't really remember.

"I think…we got it somewhere, right?" AzureTiger, or Diana, let out an exasperated sigh.

"We bought it from the AFK Company." He hit his palm with his fist.

"Right. We bought it for very cheap, now I remember." Then he froze.

"Was there some problem with it?" She shook her head.

"No. It worked perfectly. But they contacted us again." He relaxed and accepted a cookie from the octopus. It was still warm.

"Yes?"

"They wanted to know what we thought about the ritual…" Well, that was a simple answer.

"We love it. Have you seen Slathy?" he asked proudly.

"Hard not to," came the answer from the petite girl as she glanced out of the window that was covered in very silky fur.

"Anyway, I said the same thing. So they offered us an exclusive supply contract." Now that sounded great, but he wasn't economically inclined. He left that to Diana and the rest of the brain trust.

"That's great…or is it?" She hummed thoughtfully.

"The contract itself is very good. Guaranteed cheap prices and access to everything they can supply." Stephen swallowed at hearing that. There was very little that the AFK Company couldn't acquire in their neck of the woods. Rumors were that some richy-rich guy who stayed at Heavenly Forest made up a 'game' of asking for ridiculous things. According to the posts on their account, the concierge nodded after every request and returned in an hour with the item.

The last item they asked for was a Transformation Tree Seed that was sold in rare auctions. The concierge just showed up with one like nothing happened. It was the last item because after it the guy's parents saw how much he was spending and made him stop.

"Do we get access to Heavenly Forest?" he asked hopefully. He always wanted to see it with his own eyes. Diana shook her head.

"Excluded from the contract."

"Bummer…" he said softly.

"But you're worried…" She nodded.

"I'm afraid this is just the start of a plan of having us under their control…" Stephen nodded and leaned back in his chair, missing the time when Slathy was chair-sized.

"Would that be that bad?"

"Huh?" Diana's eyes were wide open at hearing that.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… AFK is pretty strong… They have Solar and his team. We're just a simple pet guild. None of us are at the top… If we join them, then we can be part of something greater." Diana hummed as the octopus combed her hair. Before she could speak up, Stephen leaned forward and smirked at the smaller girl.

"Of course, that doesn't mean we couldn't bleed them dry before we are…" Diana's eyes widened again and sent him a look he couldn't really decipher.

"Tell me more…" she whispered huskily. Suddenly the room felt a lot hotter, and he desperately wished he had Slathy with him.

"Father, would you mind elucidating about the reason for the invite?" Clad in one of her insanely expensive summer dresses – wishing that she could be wearing her armor from the game – Katie looked at her father. Her brother, probably wisely, just kept looking at his food, which was excellent as always, but Katie couldn't muster the enthusiasm to enjoy it. Instead, she continued to glare at her father. Elegantly, of course. Said person continued to eat, taking small bites of the meal before him before answering.

He swallowed, dabbed his mouth with the cloth napkin, then folded it and placed it on the table before sighing.

"Katherine. He is… your friend. It behooves me as a father to make your…friend an… acquaintance." She wanted to cry bullshit, but with a tremendous effort, she stopped herself.

"Certainly not because he caused you monetary losses, thus you wish to humiliate him in an environment where he is unfamiliar?" she asked innocently. The glower from her father was totally worth it to remind him of his short-sightedness and failure.

"Naturally, a man such as myself is above such behavior," he replied neutrally.

"I simply wish to take a measure of a man who has become a part of my daughter's life." Katie once again had to stop herself from sneering. This always happened. She would make a friend, her father would invite them to some event, make a fool of them, threaten them or find some other way to make them not want to hang out with her. She knew at least five different occasions where he simply bribed them to go away. Thankfully, she doubted her father was willing to fork out enough money to bribe Sam to go away.

Not that she thought Sam would do it. Maybe he would accept it and then use it to fuck with her father… She had dreams about Lucy and Sam buying her father's company and booting him from the board… Katie had to fight to hold back her smile that threatened to break out on her face. Her father expected a bumbling upstart to come to his fancy event, but Katie knew that Sam was much more than that.

Plus, he already told the team his plan, and she conservatively laughed for at least ten minutes straight after hearing it. Her father probably expected Sam to invite Katie – who already had a date for the event – or one of the other guild members. Which was not wrong… However, her father probably expected it to be Lucy, the second in command of the guild. Sam once again defied expectations and asked Lara to escort him. Just a short search showed that while her family was rich, Lara's family was richer.

Once again, Sam was several steps ahead of her father. She couldn't wait to stand next to Isabella and watch the fireworks. The two of them decided when they were younger that they would attend these soirees as each other's date to avoid dealing with overly amorous suitors and creeps. Out of curiosity, she approached Dan to ask what he felt when he found out his girlfriend was going to escort Sam. Poor guy was just happy that he didn't have to schmooze with all those rich people.

Katie was quite envious of their relationship and trust in each other.

'One day I'm going to have the same!'

"As you wish, father," she finally spoke up, giving a measured nod to her father, who instantly began to eye her suspiciously.

"I have complete faith in my friend's ability to comport himself with the appropriate decorum."

"You do, huh…" She maintained eye contact with her father while she saw from the corner of her eyes as her brother looked away, also fighting against his facial muscles. After a minute of silence, he finally let out another sigh.

"Katherine, please be sure to remind your…friend about the appropriate behavior at such an event."

"Of course, father. I'm also going to ask him if he has anything to donate to the charity auction…"

"Make sure he gets back to you before next Mon–""Got it," she called out as she put away her phone.

"He will donate the figurine he got for reaching Level 101 to the auction." She allowed herself to give her father a smug look. He eyed her, his eyes occasionally glancing at David, who was either choking or trying not to laugh.

"Fabulous…" School was school. She studied because that was what was expected of her. Her sister, bless her heart, was not really big on studying and instead of suffering, she simply dropped it and went with something that she was competent at. Thankfully, studying came easy for her, so she could fulfill their parents' dream and become a doctor or something similar. She hadn't found an area she was really interested in yet.

But thanks to her sister's job, she only had to study and didn't have to worry about where the next meal would come from. Then, naturally, Magic Unbound came out and her sister joined just as expected. At first she, like everyone else, treated it like every other game. Then something changed. The first time she and their parents noticed the change was when the money started flowing in more consistently. Usually, her sister sent them money when she got a paying gig, but now every week it came like clockwork.

After some needling, they managed to get the reason for it out of her. She managed to land a contract with a mysterious person who was paying big money for her sister's talents. Naturally, she first thought that her romantically useless sister managed to land a sugar daddy, but after some time it turned out no, the curse was not broken and her sister was actually really working for somebody in the game. Their mother spent a lot of time looking out of the window forlornly that day…

But due to some paperwork needing to be filled out, some good ol'fashioned snooping around, she managed to get the ID of the second in command of the guild where her sister worked. Luckily, they were cool. Thus she managed to sneak around her sister's tight-fisted control. Soon – with the blessing of her parents – she had her own gaming pod. Her parents even bought a pair of helmets just to check the game out. Her father wanted to see if he could raise horses and her mother wanted to be a fantasy mixologist.

Weirdos… Just to be sure, before she started her journey in the world of Magic Unbound, she wrote a message to Clarissa's boss. According to every forum article, he was one of the top players in their country, if not in the world. She hoped she would maybe get some basic advice and such, but as soon as they started talking, he began asking questions about her plans and what kind of character she wanted to be.

When she described her ideal skill setup, based on long nights of internet research, he helped her to refine it and then dumped several books worth of information on her with the stipulation that she kept it to herself. After giving it a read, she looked some of the information up on the net to see how legit the guy was really. She couldn't find anything. Nothing. Nada.

As she was preparing with her friends and classmates to enter the game, she was tempted to share some of it, but she knew very well she only got it because of her sister and no matter how much she complained about Clarissa, she didn't want to cause trouble. Instead, she swallowed her words and simply nodded along as her friends shared whatever info they got from the net. Some of them, who had more money, also bought some guides.

Sadly, most of them said almost the complete opposite of what Clarissa's boss had given her. They spent the first few minutes getting used to the game, cutting through the crowd in the beginner village, while she sent a message to Clarissa's boss about her location. Then, following his advice she pulled her friends with her to the local government office to get their identifications.

"Name?"

"Cintee. With an i and two e," she answered, using her nickname as a character name. The official made some notes and then looked over some more documents.

"Everything seems to be in order," she finally declared.

"Please, give me a moment to retrieve the completed document." And with that, the elderly lady stood up and left the room where the process happened. Cynthia spent a minute or two humming to herself before the elderly official returned with a bundle of documents and a wooden box. The documents were the first ones handed over.

"First, your documentation. Please, don't lose it, deary." She took it and immediately placed it in her inventory. Then the old lady continued.

"And here is a box that was sent here for you," she explained as she handed over the box.

"Came straight from Ironwood, it did, dear."

"Thank you!" she said with a smile as the box found its way into her inventory. It was probably the support package Solar sent her. She spent a few moments thanking the old lady – following Solar's instruction about NPC relationships- and left the room with a lemony candy in her palm. They regrouped in one of the private rooms in the tavern, using their meager amount of gold to rent it for an hour or two. Five people were in the room, including her.

Her best friend, another friend from the school, and three girls that friend knew who also wanted to start the game with a group. There were plenty of guys who 'offered' to join them and help but as the nominal leader of the group, she refused them. There was no need for that kind of drama…

"So, Cynthia, why did we have to spend our money to get this room?" One of the girls asked. Brittany or something. Cynthia expected that she would soon jump ship as soon as she found a better group to support her. Her friends would follow her, no doubt. As they were very pretty, she expected it would happen as soon as they stepped out of the beginner village. But for now, she would deal with them. Who knows, maybe she was just prejudiced and they would become best friends.

"For this!" she exclaimed as she dramatically slammed the box down on the table. The others gathered around it with a curious look as she opened it. There was no fanfare, mysterious lights, or smoke. Instead, she spied a bag obviously filled with coins and a few books. Skillbooks, she realized a moment later. Based on the gasps going around the room, the rest of the girls did, too.

"How much money is that?" One of them reached over and opened the bag.

"I mean, with the current gold price, this is…

"Oh, look, those are skillbooks!"

"What kind?" Cynthia gingerly reached forward and began to read the titles.

"Let's see… we have five Mana Body Enhancement, several basic elemental spells, and some healing ones. We also got five Clean spells."

"Wow… Cynthia, who is your friend?" She made sure to distribute the skillbooks to the others, keeping silent about the few books she took from the box that were just for her. According to Solar, there was a limit to how much he could interfere within the beginner village due to the newbie protection, but giving them a little money and some skillbooks they could also easily get with a little work wouldn't be opposed by the system. It would just make their start more comfortable.

The greatest treasure he could give her were the mana control and other magic manuals. They would be instrumental in fulfilling her goal... As soon as everybody learned the skillbooks, they broke up and went their way. Their plan called for everyone to start alone and get as many experience points as possible. Then, when they reached Level 10, they would tackle some things that required teamwork. She waited until her friends left the room and, claiming she had to talk to her sister a little, she stayed back.

The moment the door closed, she sat down and closed her eyes. Time to see if the manual really worked…