Chương 282: Chapter 271 - Interlude 27.1

1

"Must we do this?" he asked – and not whined as some would point out later – at his girlfriend. Lara just smiled at him and reached up to do something with his collar. He didn't know what, and at this point, he didn't really care.

"Must? I suppose not," came the response from his lovely girlfriend, who was sporting some nice-looking dress from last year's collection. According to her, that would make everybody wonder if she lost her money or if she was disinherited, thus fueling another barrage of increasingly crazy rumors. Dan sometimes suspected that Lara spent too much time with Sam. Funnily enough, he had no fear of her cheating, but the thought of her and Sam just getting up to… shenanigans. Well, that scared him to the core.

"Look, I know you don't like going there, but I have friends there and I want to meet them," she continued as she leaned down to put on her shoes, causing his eyes to wander a little. Or maybe a lot.

"So just relax and enjoy this small gathering. They are fresh out of school and want to show off their shiny new jobs and stuff. Hell, we could even play a game of who can spot more escorts hired to pretend to be girlfriends," she finished with a saucy wink. Dan just let out a sigh.

"I still don't understand why we have to go to a gathering organized by our yearmates. The school has barely been over by a few months." Lara just shrugged.

"That's how it is. At least be happy I'm not dragging you to my family gatherings. Those are actual torture with how boring they are…"

"And I thank you every day for that mercy," he replied drily while holding out the jacket for her to slip into.

"But you know, they're going to brag about Magic Unbound stuff. And they know I'm in AFK." She looked back at him with a look that suggested he was particularly dense. He looked back, wondering if he had forgotten something, then he facepalmed.

"This is something that you and Sam planned?" She smirked at him, then turned around and opened the door to their apartment.

"Not really…" came the response, causing Dan to let out a relieved sigh.

"But I raided Lucy's stupid rumor collection."

"The what?"

"It's a bunch of information, data, rumors, gossip we can use to confuse people. If you're afraid that you're going to be overheard, then you can use one and see who acts on the false information. Most of it was made by Sam, so there is always a small kernel of truth. Which means that even if people know that we are blowing smoke, they will still try to go after the information," she explained as they entered the lift.

"Pretty simple, but diabolical." Dan just looked up at the ceiling in exasperation.

"How many backup plans does that man have?" Lara just patted his shoulder, then entwined her hand with his.

"A lot. Though, look on the bright side, honey. He is on our side. Well, we're on his side, but you know what I mean. Imagine how horrible it must be on the other side." He let out another sigh.

"Based on the amount of posts on the forums, the other side is basically everyone who is not in our guild." She laughed a little, the sound causing his heartbeat to speed up a little.

"Honestly, I have seen the estimation about the bounty out for his head. Sometimes, even I get tempted…"

"That much?" She stood on her tiptoes and whispered into his ears, causing his eyes to go wide.

"Wow… That's… That's a lot."

"Yep!" she smirked again, then continued.

"Want to collect?" Dan looked back at her as the lift door dinged and opened, trying to figure out if she was real, then he saw the sparkle in her eyes, and relaxed.

"Only if he keeps throwing stupid quests at me…" She chuckled, then as they headed toward the car that would take them to the restaurant where the gathering was going to take place, she spoke up, her voice filled with enough mischievousness that caused the small hairs on the back of his neck to stand up.

"Well, if you really want to do something, Lucy gave me a piece of information that she wants me to spread…"

"Do we really want to piss off Sam?"

"Lucy pinky swore to take the blame."

"I'm in."

"Never doubted it." They spent a few minutes getting comfortable in the hired car before the lull of the gentle vibration of the vehicle caused the both of them to let out a sigh of relief. Dan then finally mustered the courage to ask one important question.

"What does Lucy want us to share?" Lara let out a laugh as she laid her perfectly done hair on his shoulder and looked up at him with eyes shining with mirth.

"The fact that the Church of First Drop was Sam's fault…" Dan opened his mouth to answer, then closed it as he found nothing to say to that. A moment later he broke into laughter. Twenty or so minutes later, after they disembarked the car, both of them entered the restaurant in a good mood and maybe a little tousled hair. The people there greeted them warmly, and within minutes, both of them were greeting old friends and new acquaintances.

"How is the balance?"

"The church is setting up bases around the new fractures, and we managed to figure out a way to have the players think of it as a small limited-time event."

"Thank the gods for that."

"Thank Selene instead. Much more useful."

"I will thank her when she gives up her stupid vampire idea."

"I mean…"

"No. We all agreed that vampires are going to be a legendary rare race. Marketing agreed, legal agreed, the writers agreed, hell, even HR agreed, and they love those moody motherfuckers." There was a small cough, and he shook his head.

"Sorry. I meant to say that they love those moody melodramatics."

"Maybe just a little vampire? They are after all connected to blood magic." He shook his head as he took a sip of his drink.

"No. This is a player-controlled event. Adding one of the moody theater rejects would just shift everyone's focus from the blood mages to it. Not good for engagement and from a gameplay perspective. Let the players figure out how to solve this issue. Much more rewarding and the hype will save us tons of money in advertisement." The other man looked back at him and nodded before a confused look filled his face.

"Then why is Selene so obsessed with them?" Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He took another sip and leaned back in his chair, enjoying that for a moment he wasn't in the mission room, dealing with whatever stupid stuff the fucker managed to do, and answered the question.

"Mostly because it annoys me. But also because she genuinely likes the lore behind vampires. I've seen her plans and concepts. Pretty great, but with how deep she went, it would work more like a standalone game. Not our focus currently…"

"Different magic?"

"No. Same base magic, but used in a different system."

"Why not have them cross over from another dimension thanks to the fractures?"

"That's for later, you know the Festival of Thousand Worlds. I think they planned that for the third anniversary or something," he replied while letting out an exasperated sigh.

"And with the way that fucker is fucking things up, I don't even know if it's possible anymore."

"The factory?" came the worried question. He looked down into his cup, noted that it was almost empty, which sadly meant that his self-mandated rest period was almost over, then answered the two-word question.

"Yes. The math nerds are still trying to figure out the possible futures, but I just know it's going to be a cluster fuck…"

"I don't know if you know, sir, but I read in a report that one of them was designing a spaceship."

"I know, I know. Thank the fuck we designed whole-ass other planets." Before he could receive an answer to that, a device turned on and projected Selene's beautiful but mischievous form in front of them.

"Reporting from Fucker Observation Team Alpha! He did it again, sir!"

"Alright people, report! What did the fucker do again?" as he stormed into the mission room, the lights from the countless monitors and other devices casting a ghoulish light on his stubbled face.

"Did he find that thing? Or the other thing? Don't tell me he figured out the fractures?" Another person ran up to him and handed him a tablet device, filled with information and data.

"No, sir. It's something else…" The group assigned for the area where the fucker worked all watched with bated breath as their boss – who was usually a tad eccentric but rather brilliant game designer but would completely lose his mind over one particular player – read the collected information.

"HOW THE FUCK DID HE FIGURE THAT ONE OUT?" Nobody answered. Well, nobody with a biological body. Selene just giggled.

"As always, sheer talent and accident."

"Did anyone leak the particulars for that magic?" he asked, rather agitated, as his grip on the tablet device tightened, and looked around with bloodshot eyes.

"Did you guys do it?" Selene just shook her digital head.

"Nobody leaked it. Security already did a sweep."

"Damn. I don't know if I should feel impressed or horrified."

"Well, sir, it is a rather impressive thing to achieve…"

"I decided. I'm horrified," he stated, then went to take a sip of his drink, only to realize that in his hurry he left the cup back in his office. Swearing slightly, he called.

"Somebody get me a cup of coffee – none of the decaff stuff – and somebody else get me the recordings. I want to see it with my own eyes!" People immediately sprang into action, handing him a freshly brewed decaf coffee that somebody made sure that it tasted like normal coffee and the main screen began playing the scene of their most watched player playing around with magic.

However, while regular observers would have seen Sam, in the middle of the training ground focusing and looking a little constipated, the people in the missions room saw much more. They had heat maps for the local mana movements, statistics for everything and dozens of graphs providing information about the situation. He watched it for a while, then let out a sigh.

"Damn, that is impressive…" The people around him let out a relieved sigh, which instantly turned to horror as their boss stepped forward and raised his fist at the player's picture on the big screen.

"But I'm not giving up, you hear? I am going to figure out how you are doing that you fucker!" he exclaimed while shaking his fist at the frozen face of Sam as he was celebrating his success with his new magic. Selene, behind him, turned to one of the people watching awkwardly and whispered.

"And he called my vampire school of magic stupid…"

"What do we do now?" Cynthia asked her friends as they witnessed carnage beyond the knowledge of mortal men.

"Well, we can't go to their fancy secret fracture anymore, that's for sure…" Dani replied sarcastically while motioning toward where there were a few furrows in the ground, reminding them of what happened a few minutes ago.

"We could look for it?" Anna suggested while idly playing with her staff.

"I doubt it is that hidden…" Cynthia considered that, but before they could come to a decision they were interrupted by an NPC.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" came from an older man, dressed in plain but good quality clothes as they were coming from the village.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" Smelling something juicy, Cynthia called out.

"Excuse me, sir! What's the problem? Anything we could help with?" The man stopped, as if just noticing them, then looked them over, his eyes lingering on the nature mage in the group more than the others.

"Yes, yes! It's horrible! One of our hunters just came back with the news that the forest has been devastated! Some manner of monster has trampled a large part of it! It's our livelihood, thus I was off to hire a druid to put it back. But as I see, one of you young ladies is a nature mage, if my eyes don't deceive me."

"That's correct!" Cynthia agreed while pushing Anna forward.

"She is the best!"

"H-hi?" Anna squeaked out now that she was in the spotlight. The NPC spent a second observing her, before nodding.

"Excellent! Our problems are solved! Thank the heavens for sending us this blessing!" he exclaimed, raising his hand upwards and closing his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and turned to the three girls watching him with a queer look on their faces.

"Come with me! I will give you guys the seeds and you can take care of the forest. If you can hunt down the monster, then I shall add some extra rewards!" An hour later they stood in the exact same spot where Sam demonstrated the strength of his new sword, looking as a hunter cried a river of tears upon the sight of such devastation. They shared a glance, and as one, they agreed to never mention their involvement.

"So, I will be working with you?" Darell asked as a woman in overalls with an entourage of tiny golems – famous enough that even he had a plushie made in their image – entered the room. She looked pretty, though not really one of those shake the heavens beauties, but there was enough to make him think. His mother was always after him about getting a girlfriend (and thus, a wife), it wouldn't hurt to shoot his shot with somebody who seemed to move in the same circles as him. She smiled at him and he returned it.

"Yes! Hello, my name is SummerRose, but you can call me Liz,""Well, hello Liz! Shall we get started?" he offered with his best approximation of a suave smile. It didn't seem to be effective as Liz just made a motion and her adorable drones spread out and began to move things around in the cavernous workshop that was given to them for this project that he still had no idea about.

In the end, she brought a big block of something out with the help of a giant drone buzzing rather deeply and plopped it down on the middle of one of the desks.

"Tada!" she exclaimed while doing the jazz hands. Funnily enough, the drones did it with her.

"What's that?" he asked as he stepped closer and began to examine the curious items, his skills going into overdrive. It was definitely magical and intricate beyond most regular artifacts, but he couldn't divine what its function was. Liz simply watched him go over it and when it became obvious he had no idea, she simply pushed a button set flush with the surface and the entire thing lit up, projecting a screen with a simple line of text. OS v0. 531. 8. 00.

8 Then it vanished and he was greeted by a very conventional and familiar login screen. His jaw dropped.

"How the hell did you do that?" She grinned and thrust her chest out, proudly.

"Got some skills for myself, but I'm not an engineer, so I hoped you could take a look at it." He blinked, tore his gaze away from her chest, and nodded absently, his mind already going over the possibilities.

'This will make my project so much easier…' he thought with a grin. Then he turned to her and grinned while giving her a thumbs up.

"Let's get to work! Show me how this baby works!"

"Gladly!" The drones began to cheer and dance around them, with one of them playing some kind of energetic melody. He dropped down on the sofa in their new accommodation in Ferabor and let out a sigh.

"Man, that girl is hard to flirt with…" Brad, sitting at his desk, doing the usual paperwork, just looked at him quizzically.

"Which girl? And flirt? I didn't know you knew how to do it…"

"Har…har…," he replied sarcastically while Brad just grinned.

"It's that Liz girl who was assigned to work with me. I tried everything, man, but it was like water on glass…" Brad looked down at his paperwork, then back at him and sighed.

"Well, for once, I can say it wasn't your non-existent flirting skills."

"Hey! I have a respectable set of flirting skills! I even have pickup lines…"

"That girl at the bar last time thought you were having a stroke."

"Yes, but–""The one before that gave you directions to the nearest cinema."

"That's uncalled for!"

"And remember Cindy?"

"Shut up! We promised never to talk about it!"

"You promised…" came the dry reply from his traitorous friend.

"Fine. The answer to your 'riddle' is that I spent some time getting to know our new overlords, and heard some juicy gossip on the way."

"And that's helpful how?"

"Well, one of the rumors is that Liz and several other women are part of the same harem!"

"For Solar?"

"No!" Brad grinned.

"That's the best part. According to a very helpful receptionist, it's one of Solar's assistants. Remember that guy with the glasses and bowtie?"

"You are joking!" Brad laughed.

"I mean I thought the receptionist was joking, but several other people confirmed it. But that isn't even the best part." Darell let out a sigh.

"Then what it is?"

"The guy doesn't even know that he has a harem!" Brad declared while almost laughing himself silly.

"It's like live-action anime… Hilarious!"

"So… that means I have a chance?"