The setting sun shone dully in through the room's dusty window. The figure sat at a table full of neatly stacked pages of paper. Fingers with irregularly cut fingernails ran thoughtfully through greasy hair.

The man dipped his quill into the inkwell and held it over the paper. His eyes ran down a long column of numbers. Without hesitation, he wrote down the sum underneath.

His raspy voice was quiet, but his secretary immediately straightened her long rabbit ears: "It's not enough."

Jezebel put down the dumbbells she had been working out with and walked over to him. She glanced at the papers and compared the result of the expected income page the necromancer-priest had just finished with the sum of expected expenses. She nodded, "If we want to stay at the top of the guilds, we need top equipment, masters and skill crystals. The Most_Elite and the Kingsmen have already hired master craftsmen to optimize their equipment. The Elites have someone who makes leather armor, the Kingsmen have a swordsmith."

"Without an artifact mage and the necessary magic crystals, skins and monster hearts, masterful gear gives them little advantage. But it attracts high-level heroes. We'll have a hard time getting good members."

"Didn't you put enough real money into this game to buy three other guilds?"

"There are limits to how much Nemesis will let me invest. No matter how much their owners whine and moan, Nemesis will not accept any threat to the balance of the game. Wealth must be acquired in-game. I've already reached my limit and bought equipment for our next group of contenders. We'll get noobs no problem, but it takes time to level them up."

"The problem becomes attracting top players. I mean, if you even have to take that traitor..."

The necromancer-priest waved him off: "OrcSlayer is predictable. I always knew exactly when he would betray me. He is also quite capable of imagining how angry I would be if he betrayed me again. This time he also knows who I am in the real world."

"What's your plan to get gold? Send noobs to a mine?"

"Mining works identically to working in the real world. Use a pickaxe, hammer and chisel to hammer away at stones. Magic provides proper lighting and protection from dust. A powerful psychic can see a few meters through the stone to locate the veins of ore. But it's still dirty and above all monotonous work. No player will do it for more than a few days."

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"Then what?"

The necromancer stood up. As he straightened up, his vertebrae cracked. Jezebel suppressed a visible shudder. He went to the window, wiping away the dust in a wide swath. Jezebel stepped next to him and looked out. They looked down at a large group of people huddled together in the large square behind the gate through the rampart fortress. City guardsmen surrounded the group, while only groups of three or four were let out at a time.

Jezebel frowned: "Refugees? Are you going to sell them as slaves to the orcs?"

Umbramar gave a snide grunt: "Of course not. That could never be kept secret. The united kingdoms forbid slavery. Instead, we will offer these poor outcast refugees of an unjust war shelter and free food. All they have to do is work a little for us."

"A little?"

"About 14 hours a day. All kinds of professions are represented. Heroes don't just need weapons and armor. They also need normal clothing, food, tools and countless other things. I have converted several warehouses into factories. Mass production is still rare here. In the north of the city, a few noobs are currently converting a mill into a hammer forge. The swords that will soon be forged there are ugly and of inferior quality, but they are better than no weapon at all. The army and the new noobs will snatch them out of our hands."

"A good quarter of the refugees are children. That should reduce the winning rate. I would recommend limiting the offer to families without or with a maximum of one child."

"Children can work too. As long as they do it voluntarily, Nemesis will not intervene. The parents sign a contract completely without coercion, and that's that. They'll read free board and lodging and ignore the service charges in the small print. The food in the accommodation is free, but no one will point out to them, that lunch in the canteen at their workplace is not included and very expensive. As are the drinks there. In a week, they are so indebted that they have nowhere else to stay. This world is completely clueless when it comes to contract law. I, on the other hand, also brought a lawyer, bought him the first five levels and then had a group of heroes powerlevel him. After three rounds through a beginner dungeon, he is now a scribe at level 7. Scribes usually live a quiet life. Reaching more than level 5 is practically unheard of. A few appearances in court cases have transferred his legal lore from our world to this one. Markus Tullius is now one of the few in the game world with a master skill in law and writing. He has written the contracts that his assistants are about to distribute."

The two watched as a few well-dressed men approached the guards downstairs and were let through after a brief discussion. They spread out in the crowd and quickly gathered an audience around them. It took a while, then they took out small clipboards and parchments. The refugees crowded around them to sign as quickly as possible.

Long unused muscles contorted Umbramar's face into a satisfied smile. Jezebel saw it and involuntarily took a step back. "Wouldn't that have been a job for OrcSlayer?"

"Of course. He's a gifted orator. That's why I sent him to a few orphanages further north."