Might as Well

After dealing with the nitty-gritty details of the guild and listening to a riveting presentation from Lara about the state of the ruins she had found, Sam collected the condensed information in the form of a stack of documentation and then took a short trip to his room.

There, he took out a nice outfit from the wardrobe which contained several sets of clothing, prepared by Lucy in case he needed something more than his tried-and-true armor that he should be really updating.

Still, he made himself presentable, took the information packet received from his guildmates, and set off to visit one of his loudest allies.

The Silvercrest manor was still as stately as he left it last time, though Sam could spot several places where some renovation or upgrades had been done, showcasing their improved income now that several other families weren’t trying to suppress them. The income from the fractures also helped.

Guards stood to attention the moment he approached the door, and while he wasn’t let in immediately, one of the guards hurried away and came back with the stone-faced old butler.

“Master Samuel,” he greeted Sam with an elegant bow. “Lord Silvercrest is waiting for you. Please, follow me.”

Sam acquiesced with his own bow and as the butler turned around, he too began to walk toward the manor.

Inside, he was met with bustling maids and servants, all making sure that the manor was always spotless. Though the way some of them eyed him, he suspected those were guards, there to make sure nobody snuck in.

It didn’t take long for the duo to reach the familiar office door. The butler stepped forward, opened the door, and announced Sam.

“Master Samuel, adventurer.”

There was a brief laughter of joy that was probably heard around the city, and as Sam stepped forward – the butler closing the door behind him – he was met with the grinning face of the lord of the manor, Lord Silvercrest himself.

“My friend! Welcome! Welcome back!” came the boisterous greeting from the finely dressed man, whose muscles were straining against the no doubt expensive fabrics. Now that Sam met with Adam, he would have to admit that while the guild leader was taller than the lord, the noble’s muscles looked much more dangerous.

He bowed before answering. “Lord Silvercrest, it’s heartening to see you in good health. I hope there haven’t been any issues with the fractures?”

“None at all!” the giant man waved away his concern with a grin. “There have been a few troublemakers, but my darling daughter has been stepping up her efforts in leading a specialist group of soldiers.”

“Truly?” Sam asked, wondering how that happened. The other Sam had never heard about anything like that.

The man beamed proudly, puffed out his barrel-like chest, put his hands on his hips, and began to sing the praises of his daughter. “Yes! She has taken to directing people like a duck to water! Clearly, she had inherited her talent from her mother! I’m fiendishly proud!”

“Congratulations?” Sam spoke up hesitantly, still a little confused about an NPC-led task force. “What is the goal of this task force?”

“Task force? What a good expression!” exclaimed the noble, as if Sam had just shared divine wisdom with him. “I shall call it a task force from now on! Yes, what a splendid name!”

“And the goal?” Sam repeated himself, hoping he wouldn’t need to listen to the man’s loud voice too long. Even now, he had to use some extra mana around his ears to protect them.

“Yes! The goal!” came the roaring answer. The lord of the manor bade Sam to take a seat and he himself also sat down in his chair that looked more like a throne, mostly due to necessity because of the lord’s size. “My friend, the amount of criminals has simply skyrocketed in recent times. Thus, I have taken upon myself, or rather my adorable daughter has taken upon herself, to cleanse our beloved city and its surroundings of the criminal element wherever it reveals itself.”

“So, no hunting for them, just taking care of those that are… visible?” Sam asked.

“Yes, my friend! I’m glad you understand! Destroying crime is impossible for us. At least for now! But keeping the environment clean? Well! That we can do!”

Now it made sense. Players weren’t regulating themselves, at least here in the Emerald Kingdom, thus the system made sure that there was at least some manner of punishment for criminals. He nodded to himself and smiled at the man.

“Well, sir, it appears I just came at the right time.”

“Oh?” the noble inquired with a magnificent raised eyebrow. Sam was a little jealous of the other man’s talent.

Instead of asking for lessons, he reached into his inventory and pulled out the stack of documents that Lara – with the help of Lucy – had prepared for him. He handed it over and began to talk. “As I’m sure you know, we recently have founded a guild called Chrysalis.”

“Indeed! What a splendid name!”

“Thank you, but we did so because one of my acquaintances found something that would be perfect for a guild.”

“My friend! Don’t dangle interesting information in front of me! Quick! Tell me!” The man leaned forward, a grin still on his face.

“It’s in the documents…” Sam pointed with a coy smile at the papers in his hands the size of bin lids.

The man blinked, then sat back in his chair and began to read the documents with extreme vehemence.

A few minutes later, Lord Silvercrest looked up from his reading with a serious look on his face, his eyes boring into Sam’s.

“This… this is something else, my friend.” His boisterousness was nowhere to be heard, his voice was carrying deadly intent. “But you realize that founding a new city would carry with it some implications.”

Sam didn’t need the man to mention it. He had the memories of people in the future trying to settle in random places to create player cities. Their biggest obstacles weren’t nature, monsters, or other players, but the government of the area. The noble NPCs protected what they believed was theirs with greed and an adamantine fist. And swords. And arrows. And lots of mages.

He stood up and took out his map of the area and spread it over the desk. Then, as the lord watched him, he began pointing at things. “As you can see here and here, the ruin is close enough that we can call it an outpost for Ironwood. If you support and send a… representative while the mayor’s office also sends one, then we avoid the whole issue.”

“A representative, you say?” the other man asked, rubbing his chin as he beheld the map. “Maybe… my daughter?”

Sam nodded emphatically while smiling. “Good experience for a talented, young noble. They can learn so much while leading a small outpost,” he said leadingly.

The lord of the manor considered the map and the documents before him for a little more, then looked back at Sam, his eyes shining with respect.

“An excellent idea, my friend! I can already see my darling daughter leading your outpost to a glorious future!”

There was a distinct scream of happiness from outside the door leading to the office that all three men in the room nobly ignored.

“Then the question is: are you in, sir?” Sam asked, standing up and holding out his hand.

There was no hesitation. The muscled noble slapped his lid-sized hands into Sam’s and vigorously shook it.

“It will be my pleasure!” he grinned.

“Then, let’s talk about details…”

Sam left the Silvercrest manor satisfied and relatively unmolested by the young lady of the family. On the way out, Lucrecia managed to catch him, and regale him breathlessly about her accomplishments. He only managed to extricate himself from the conversation by promising that he would spend more time with the young woman when their ‘outpost’ was up and running. Which practically conjured flames of passion in her eyes and before Sam could blink, he was watching as the young woman was rushing away, followed by a group of exasperated maids that sent pitying looks at him.

Shrugging and putting the mysteries of NPCs and young ladies behind himself, he headed back to the headquarters to update Lucy about the Silvercrest family.

Then he would be hunting for new armor.

“Any good armor crafter in our employ?”

Lucy looked up from the documents he returned with and thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Liz can do heavy armor, but you need light, right?”

“I can do light or medium, and well, technically even heavy, but I would prefer light.”

“Then we don’t really have anybody outstanding. A few have started enchanting what they do, but I haven’t heard about any successes…” she said.

“Hmm, where can I find the highest-leveled armor crafter?”

Before approaching the crafter, he made sure to take a quick trip to the Auction House to check if they had anything. The Auction House was bustling with people as always, with even more guild representatives – one even from Chrysalis – and merchants trying to find the thing that would make them the most money.

Sam could have pointed out dozens of materials, heaps of ‘junk’ items that one could buy up and flip for a massive profit later, sadly the system was too good for him to take advantage of them. Though, in his free time, he was trying to brainstorm how to ‘find out’ about opportunities like that.

He took a seat and opened the interface.

As always, he checked the skillbooks first. He saw several other passive blood magic skills going for crazy prices and just shook his head while making a note to see if Adam kept to his ban on the skill type. Soon he would need to ‘find’ the cleansing ritual for those who had the Life of Blood and other blood magic skills, but for now, they were okay. He hadn’t seen any indication that the Blood Brothers were up to something.

Quickly scrolling through, he saw a skill book for a surprisingly cheap price. Shadow Control for a measly amount of gold. ‘Huh, weird…’ he immediately bought the item, learned it, and took to the forums to see what the issue was.

[Shadow Control: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Increases your ability to control your shadows by 1% for each skill level.]

A simple but excellent skill for somebody like him.

The forums were full of people complaining that the available shadow skills were either lame or not strong enough, while the known stronger spells were practically impossible to get unless one got extremely lucky during fractures. According to a site that tracked auction statistics for those kinds of skillbooks, no one has ever sold one at the Auction House. This made the skill off-meta according to several popular theorycrafters.

This meant the general populace followed their words as gospel and instead focused their attention on elemental spells that were much more available for the common man.

No doubt, the bigger guilds didn’t much care for that kind of thinking, and Sam only got lucky with acquiring it. Shadow skills were pretty popular for guild execution squads and scouts.

Aside from that, he didn’t find anything else amongst the deluge of skillbooks.

His foray into the armor section only yielded a great amount of shoddily manufactured and haphazardly enchanted armor, placed there so that the crafter could recoup some of their costs.

‘Well, bespoke is always better…’

He found the workshop that Lucy told him about in one of the supermarkets operated by their guild. It was out of the way, with few people around, but he trusted Lucy’s evaluation.

Entering the shop, he was greeted with nicely crafted pieces of armor. He could see everything from leather pieces to chain mail and scale mail on mannequins standing around, gleaming in the light provided by the magical artifacts that Liz created.

There was a small tinkling sound and the curtain separating the shop from the workshop was pulled to the side and a man stepped out. He was as tall as Sam, wiry, and wearing a leather apron that had some small pockets on the front, stuffed full with tools and whatnot.

“Hello, sir! Can I help you?”

Sam nodded with a polite smile on his face. “Indeed. I need a new light armor.”

“Reinforced?”

Sam thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “If it isn’t too restrictive.”

“Enchanted?”

“The best you have…”

The craftsman looked over him, taking his old and rather bedraggled armor, then raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Sam didn’t let him voice his doubt. Instead, he took out the company token and waved it in front of the man. The craftsman immediately perked up.

“Oh, why didn’t you say you were from the company?” He bowed his head a little and motioned toward the curtain. “Please, this way. Let’s see what we can find for you, okay?”

Sam grinned and followed the man. ‘Being rich is indeed a superpower…’