Might as Well

Never let it be said that he wasn’t capable of learning from his mistakes.

While the game, Magic Unbound, provided an endless potential for gains, as proved by countless enterprising individuals with a fraction of his own resources, he still had the handicap of not really understanding games or how gamers thought and acted.

But he learned. Oh, how he learned…

At first, he thought that simply using the same skills that made him and his family so successful would suffice. After all, one business was like any other. However, the nature of the gamers and the game quickly disabused him of that notion.

These…gamers, behaved much differently in-game than in real life. Sometimes, he could see some logic in their behavior but as he refused to play the game, most of the time he was left flabbergasted by their odd decisions.

Ohh, some of them made sense. He could understand how a superior piece of equipment would motivate them. But the fact they died to some monster and instead of giving up, they would just get back to it and try again and again and again, until they won, completely baffled him.

Why go after something that just lost them money, time, and even items?

Naturally, he knew that his own children played the game. He didn’t mind. They were children, and children played games.

It would provide some good outlet for Katherine’s more eccentric behaviors, while he could use David and his burgeoning leadership skills to set up a presence in the game and start building a foundation for the future.

By the time he realized that David wasn’t going against him, but simply operating with a different playbook that he refused to acknowledge as it went against anything he knew about business, his son was gone from the guild as in his disappointment he usurped everything his son had built.

Even he knew that bringing him back would be useless, as he had destroyed all of his credibility in his haste.

It was a lesson learned by losing a lot of money.

All thanks to the ‘friend’ his only daughter made.

His first action was to look into the man to see if they were a plant from a rival company, family, or even the government. Or maybe some lone grifter who wanted to sink his hooks into his family.

To his confusion, he found nothing.

A basic background like millions of other people. No relation to anybody famous or important. Practically no money. There was some connection to individuals who had criminal leanings, but according to the investigations, he dropped them months ago.

His investments were interesting and somewhat lucky, but nothing of consequence.

Then the information began to trickle in.

His in-game company brought in enough money from the player base to make his own look anemic. Naturally, he wanted it for himself. But he was realistic enough to know that people like that would never bend a knee. Thus, he sought to show him his superiority via the game. After all, there was no need to bring the conflict into the real world. So much more hassle than it was worth…

And his people failed.

Seasoned military veterans that he trusted to protect his family and interests failed to ‘kill’ one measly video game player.

Knowing the futility of repeating the same action and expecting different results, he instead put aside Katie’s ‘friend’ and instead focused more on building up the guild and trying to establish a foundation for the company in the game.

His analysts had reported that more and more companies were doing the same thing all over the world, with some governments even setting up special task forces for the same tasks. The in-game gold was just that valuable.

Plus, if he could believe the survey, the game was actually amazingly fun and entertaining…

He thought that would be it. The guy would be happy that he survived and go away. It was not like they could strike at him…

A big mistake…

He used his own daughter to strike back. His own DAUGHTER!

And he couldn’t even blame them. He was the one who set his people to spy on Katherine to divine information about her new boss and he was the one who decided to act on the gained information. It was his fault that he didn’t consider that his advisors weren’t as clear as to how the game worked as the players.

Not that he wouldn’t take his revenge if an opportunity showed.

Which just happened.

“A raid monster, you say?”

The man before him, holding a tablet, nodded. “Yes. We also have some rumors about very special drops perfect for guilds.”

“And Chrysalis is the one that found it?”

“Yes, sir.”

An opportunity to mess with the same person who caused enough damage to his finances that even his accountants winced.

“Show me!” he held out his hand for the tablet.

The man handed it over silently, and he began to read it. Slowly, a picture began to form in his mind.

“Have the guild continue with the Distortion. Send a few scouts to see what happens, but don’t interfere,” he declared softly.

Even though he felt this was the right decision, he still thought that something was missing.

His employee blinked in surprise. “B-but, sir! What about the loot? This is the first open-world raid boss!”

“Exactly. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, this game is different. Let others experiment with the first one. Plus, there are too many guilds aiming for the same thing. If the loot is not worth it, then it’s a waste to go for it.”

The man visibly didn’t agree with him, but in the end, he was the boss, so he was the one who made the decisions.

“Yes, sir…”

They were lucky to be in Ironwood when they got the report that a mountain exploded and revealed a giant raid monster.

Abyss Vipers may have been situated in the marshes and swamps, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t recruit in other places.

This time they were recruiting as well as resupplying for another run at the Valley of Distortion while the B team held their place in the valley.

He looked over at the idiot who gave him the info.

“Giant spider, you say?”

“Yeah… the Chrysalis assholes found it, but the rest are also heading there…”

“Light bulbs?”

“Already gathering.”

“The fancy pants?”

“For some reason, they are not reacting…”

That caused him a grin. ‘So, that’s how it is going to be….’

“Gather everyone. We’re going hunting!”

A great roar was his answer as the people resting in the tavern they had taken over started to get up.

With the Steel Lions missing, they would be able to take out the Eternal Light as they had been preparing some extra effective poison spells exactly for that purpose. The rest of the riff-raff would be taken care of with a few area-of-effect spells.

Most of the common players didn’t really focus on poison resistance. Which was really lucky for them…

Plus, it was a spider monster, he was pretty sure it would drop something extremely compatible with their guild.

Serving Calon was, most of the time, pretty chill.

Damien could do whatever he wanted and go wherever he wanted. He mostly spent his time playing with his friends, trying to level up and gather enough money so that he could officially say that he made his living by playing video games.

His Death Knight build was going strong with a specialization in curses that allowed his group to take care of fractures way above their level.

They were pretty happy with that, and Damien enjoyed the adulation of his peers. Hell, even some people in school had heard of his exploits and asked his group for help.

To his surprise, he even managed to talk with a girl for more than five minutes. Granted, it was about the strategy for the fracture they were in, but he counted that as a win. She didn’t even grimace when she looked at him.

His friends were so jealous!

Other times, Calon was a very demanding master.

Like right now, as he stood in front of one of the cult leaders, listening to the man covered in a hooded cape talk.

“…do you understand?”

Damien nodded, even though he stopped listening after the first minute. “Yes. Go to the quarry and kill the giant spider.”

The man looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded with a quiet sigh. Probably relieved that his comprehension was this high.

“Go and bring honor to Calon’s name!”

Infiltrating the groups heading toward the titanic monster that could be seen from miles away was surprisingly easy. One would think that a death knight decked out in black armor decorated by skulls and sharp spikes and several necromancers surrounded by skeletons would stand out in a crowd, but there were so many players with so many styles they simply blended in.

It took a while before they crested the last hill, and they laid their eyes on the proper battlefield. It was chaos in its purest form.

Damien looked at his friends through his helmet and nodded.

They then joined the throng of people charging forward, intent on dealing with the titanic monster and making their demonic patron proud. Mostly for the loot, but they have been looking for some promotion quests in the cult.

Damien watched as the giant spider moved around, red lightning striking everywhere, incinerating at least one person per second, dust clouds blanketing almost the entire area, and grinned.

‘Now, this is a real fight!”

He surged forward, greatsword held high, aiming for the nearest monster, uncaring of whom he went through, ignoring all the yells of his fellow players as they were being slowly destroyed by his cursed dark aura.

He watched his counter for the Bloodmarks slowly tick upward as both monsters and players fell to his blade, his friends providing support around him while doing their very best to deal damage to the raid boss.

Then the sound of several major spells being fired rolled over the quarry, echoing off from the nearby mountains that were not on the back of a giant spider.

Damien’s head snapped up and watched as beams of concentrated magic slammed into the remaining legs of the monsters and for a long moment, everything just hung in the air. Then reality reasserted itself, and Damien watched as the monster sans its legs that supported its high-altitude existence began to descend.

A lot of people continued to fight, not even noticing what was happening over their heads in the cacophony of the battle, but Damien was better than that. He instantly turned around and saw to his horror the throngs of people still rushing into the quarry.

No matter how many people tried to turn around, the greater whole was moving forward. Even at a glance, he saw several fights breaking out as people tried to make way for themselves. He even saw several people trying to jump over other players’ heads only to be sniped by somebody.

Then the corpse was on them and he only saw darkness.

[You have died.]

[You lost 147 Bloodmarks!]

[You have been afflicted by Calon’s Curse!]

[Calon’s Curse: You have been cursed by Calon for failure. Your…]

The Shadowed One was very crafty.

Most of the time.

They would be sent on nonsense missions doing nonsense things and they would only realize weeks later what they did.

Thus, while the people working for the Silent Step and The Shadowed One often grumbled, they still did their work dutifully. Like going all around the country and sometimes outside, assassinating people, planting evidence or even removing it.

Quite honestly it was an amazing experience.

Usually, they just set up an assassin guild in any game they played and made their money that way. But over time it became stale and boring. It was always the same. Some rich asshole decided to take offense to somebody who didn’t even know they existed and hired Silent Step to teach them a ‘lesson’.

Then spent weeks gleefully gloating about how ‘they managed to take out’ the ‘offending’ party.

Or guilds used them to sabotage the other guilds, who in turn hired them to sabotage the first one.

But now…

They had a ‘master’. A very cunning and mysterious demon who delighted in their chosen profession.

And now he was on one such mission.

His level was around 70 so he was not in the competition for the first Level 100 spot, but his skills in skulking around were second to none.

‘Maybe Tim… the traitor…’ he grumbled good-naturedly. While Tim’s betrayal was surprising, nobody really begrudged him for the decisions. They operated an assassination business, but they all understood that first and foremost this was a game and if somebody didn’t enjoy it then there wasn’t much point playing it.

They still made fun of him through the group chat they had been using for more than a decade and made every attempt to get information out of him, but even Tim knew that was just part of the game.

Rushing through the black portal opened by a ritual performed by their guild under the instructions of one of the NPCs at the cult, he found himself in a dark cavern filled with ruins.

Instead of looking around, trying to figure out what happened, he simply began to head deeper into the ruins. He had a time limit, as the portal couldn’t be held open indefinitely, and a task to accomplish.

The carved stories on the walls were interesting, but he simply sped past, following the demon’s vague directions.

Soon, he stood before a crumbling wall and the gate that led through it.

Inside the darkness, negated by his Dark Vision skill, was a boulder in the middle of the room.

Happy that he found his target, he crouched down and retrieved an ornate wooden box from his inventory and after making sure his gloves covered every square millimeter, he carefully opened it and reverently lifted the black crystal out of it.

The crystal itself was created by another ritual where they actually had to sacrifice several NPCs for their dark god, whose malevolent intent was thus crystallized in material form.

Carefully gripping the crystal, he walked forward silently, not wanting to spook his target, and when he finally stood above the mound of stone, with one decisive move he brought the crystal down, stabbing it in the middle of it.

Then he was off, only pausing for a moment to pick up the box – no sense in leaving behind evidence – using every skill he had to charge toward the rapidly shrinking dark portal.

He barely managed to clear the portal, which still managed to snip a small part of his cloak off as it collapsed behind him.

Looking around, he saw his guild members lying on the ground exhausted as one of the Shadowed One’s priests was standing at the edge of the ritual, their grin visible through the shadow concealing their face.

[Task completed!]

[The Shadowed One is very satisfied with your performance.]

[You receive the following rewards for your exemplary actions:…]

Hours later he was still in his office, reviewing documents that had recently come in from one of the businesses when he heard the rapid patter of his daughter’s feet as she ran toward his office.

He carefully placed the document to the side, schooled his face, and waited for the door to slam open.

A year ago, it would have been opened gently while she entered, but nowadays Katharine’s participation in the game, plus time spent with her new ‘friends’ had caused her past exuberance to resurface again.

BAMM

“Father!” she exclaimed with a grin on her face as her hair floated behind her, the inertia of her run moving it around.

“Daughter,” he returned the greeting in a much more subdued manner, hoping that she would get the hint. “How can I help you?”

Her grin, if possible, grew even bigger.

“I’m just here to forward a message!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Sam says thanks for the help!” she told him, then turned around and flounced out of the room.

For a minute he sat there in silence trying to comprehend what his only daughter told him. Then he just sighed and stood up and headed for his bar. He needed a drink…