Things were not going as expected. At first, it had been going great! Cutting the square poles was easy but took the better part of my day. So when I finished all the prep work I decided that it was time for my beauty nap

That night in bed, listening to the pattering rain om my window, I had realized something. I was hammering wood into the ground and letting it face the real climate in- and outside of the clay. Stamping it into the ground with little thought would not end well. I needed to coat it with something.

So the next day I had gone to the shed to look around, and to the surprise of no one, not even myself, came back empty-handed. I needed to buy the coating. Making it easy, the green paper clipboard listed a bunch. Basic paints, varnishes, and wax, all including their own description on the how’s, the why’s and the how much.

If I this understood correct, then the least I needed was varnish. So I choose basic varnish with no color, saving a few dollars. I was all ready to start the tiresome job of painting the eighty square poles still waiting on me. But before I could start something unexpected happened. Little human came from my blind spot and for the first time gave me a piece of its own mind.

“Sorry for interrupting your immersion Old Bastard. I have one or two vital pieces of information I could share about the undertaking you are about to start. T.E.A.M gives us AI permission for small tutorial interruptions if the player so wishes. Would you like me to share my knowledge with you?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I had never been a real handyman, but I had done fine until now. This was the first time Little human had come out though. It made me curious on what it had to say. “Go ahead then,” I said while nodding my head like the good lord I was.

This seemed to make the little computer brain happy as it went straight to the point.

“You are correct that you will need to varnish these wooden poles if they are to be of any long-term use. But can I suggest you use the strengthened variant of the Spar varnish? It is more expensive but not much if you consider the long-term effects. Having to redo this job every six months with your current varnish or every two years with the suggested. It is only twenty-five dollars a can and I predict you will only need to apply it once on all poles. All poles will take around fifteen cans. The other varnish will need two layers and is ten dollars. It will need twenty-eight cans to get satisfactory results for this one.”

Goddamn realism. I was glad little human had warned me even if I was crying my eyes out on the loss of my savings. Three hundred seventy-five dollars for fucking varnish. That was over half what I had saved up by now... to prevent rot from absorbing my hard work. Little human didn't bother with my musings as it continued its fucky news outlet.

“And then there is something else besides the table saw you will need to rent. A sander to sand the wood into a condition where you can varnish it. Also, don't forget to cut a pointy end on the two-meter poles to get them into the ground with less resistance. Buy or rent a sledgehammer, wooden, to get the poles into the ground. Outside friendly, waterproof glue to stick the poles together. Either nails or screws to secure them in place and their corresponding tools to get them in. It would also be better if in every corner of the field were the two poles could meet like the tops of an ‘M’ coming together." It didn't even come up for air as it was bursting my bubble and destroying my dreams with hard facts.

"One final remark. The structural soundness would improve by placing a diagonal piece of wood in every ‘T’ corner. So it has better resilience against people sitting or hanging on it. Adding concrete to the base of every pole would be ideal as well. Rather expensive, but far better then not adding it, if we are talking stability. Keep in mind, that this might provide extra difficulties when changing the design or location of the current structure." I was dying inside. Word by word.

"Ow, final, final remark. I would also recommend buying a few paintbrushes.” as little human rattled off his last words I stood there, gaping at it. How had my simple plan to build a wooden fence turned into a multi-layered, money sink?

“Fuck” I cursed into the cooling air. I had planned to spend the better part of the night working. Now I needed to think on a schedule in which I could still make money during the construction. Not that there were a lot of options. It would be a split between making the fence and old fashioned chopping and making planks.

“Ooow, sorry, final, final, final remark. There are building blueprints that can help you plan your construction. Even outsource it once you have enough funds. These blueprints vary in quality and building materials. Most are inexpensive for the functions they provide. For example, showing the blueprint to a hired AI helper will make it understand what you need and what it needs. A well thought out plan of your own will also work in most cases. For any basic building the blueprints are free, the needed level of the AI helper minimal. The fence is not a basic blueprint. Thus you do not have enough funds for this function yet but keep working hard Old Bastard and I’m sure you will someday!” Little human finished and went back into my blind spot. He left me hurting. The information dump gave me a headache. The unending realm of possibilities in this world did the same but gave me an idea as well.

Helper AI huh, like the illegals we used to hire when we needed something done but didn’t want to pay full price. Or later on when we didn’t want to pay full price for worker robots and thus hired human craftsman. Not getting tired and being precise made them expensive compared to human workers. But now, inside this world, if I could hire someone to cut trees and saw them into planks… I could stay profitable…

With a smile on my face, I jogged to the shed. I could run in this world, but It felt too weird to run in here and only wobble in the real, so I preferred not to. Jogging felt fast enough.

When I arrived at the shed, I looked through the pages on the green paged clipboard. I came to the last view pages and saw a list of hire-able AI units. There it was, "Lumberjack. Specialty: Chopping. Speed: 2 trees per hour. Cost: five dollars an hour. Working hours: Ten. Hours of free time: Fourteen” and underneath it read “Lumberjack. Specialty: Sawing. Speed: Ten planks an hour. Cost: seven dollars an hour, Working hours: Ten. Hours of free time: Fourteen”.

Thank God. The smile on my face became bigger as I calculated how profitable the two were. Twelve dollars times ten would be a cost of one hundred and twenty dollars. While the saw table brought along another fifty in the red. But one hundred planks in ten hours gave me two hundred dollars. So thirty dollars per pair of workers. Not much, but it was a start and I could always do extra work myself when needed. If I had done this from the start, I would have made a lot more than I was sporting in my piss-poor wallet right now.

Not wanting to wait any longer I selected them both. The moment I checked the accept box, two contracts appeared on the wall, a rusty nail holding them in place and my autograph underneath each. I frowned, how had they gotten my autograph? but before long two persons joined me in the small shed. They looked so real I almost wanted to touch their face to check how they felt. But that would be rude. Right?

The persons were both males. Both sporting massive blond beards, long blond hair, and blue eyes. They wore lumberjack patterned red jackets, blue jeans, light brown worker boots, light brown working gloves and to finish it all off, a red beanie. Looking at me, they both smiled before saying the same thing “Thank you for selecting me Old Bastard! I promise to work hard.”

This was hilarious. I laughed and gave each of them a firm handshake before leading them to the place where they had to work.

When I was about to leave, getting back to my money sink, one of them shouted, “Scuuse me, sir. But where can I find an Ax?” Fuck, fifteen dollars for an Ax every four days would mean less profit. Ow well. I gave him mine. After looking at it with no small amount of scorn he went to work. His twin brother took one of the tree trunks lying around on his shoulder and walked towards the table saw. Like it was a goddamn walk in the park.

I thought of my desperate efforts to drag the trunks towards the table saw. A hint of shame shining through my happy face.

When I tried turning around for the second time the other shouted in my general direction. A tree still on his shoulder, like a boombox, “Scuuse me sir, but where can my brother and I sleep when we finish our work?”

Ow, this was getting real fucky, real fast… I hesitated, before saying “Will the shed be enough?”

He looked at the shed, then at me, there was more humanity in those eyes than I expected. Indecision and awkwardness coming from behind his beard. Then he shrugged and nodded, “Sure, for now. But please provide us with proper housing within two weeks or we will quit this assignment and return. I am assuming you also have no facilities for food or drink. So our rates will go up with fifty cents an hour to provide it ourselves.”

Once done, I felt flabbergasted once more. Twenty dollars a day instead of thirty and two new buildings. This was good old-fashioned horse shit. Fuck you realism and fuck your friends.

With a belly full of anger I went back to the shed. I had to rent a goddamn sander to sand some goddamn wood.