“He said for now he booked out a local Holten hotel. As well as a local store’s parking lot, so we’d have enough space.” Bradley nodded, “Let’s get us some rest on Earth. It’s about damn time.” They walked back towards the vehicles where they found the regional USDC soldiers harassing Squad 0 of the convoy.
“This is a little kid, my son’s older than him. Get the hell out of the vehicle or we’ll gun you all down.” Bradley could see Joel seething, trying to behave. “I bet you're a dirty fallen brat that snuck onto a USDC truck and pleaded for help. You guys disgust me.”
Bradley walked up to the soldiers, and ripped their guns out of their hands and deposited them into his inventory. “May I ask why lowly regional branch soldiers are pointing guns at the savior squad of USDC’s Returnee branch?” The soldier tried to attack Bradley but he pushed him back and knocked him to the ground and another soldier began to argue, “That’s a kid, how did he do anything? And that girl looks like she could barely lift a pin, let alone a weapon.”
Bradley got real close to the soldier, “That girl is our savior, a healer class that can heal almost any wound, and that boy was the sole survivor of the sacking of WcDonwalds. His mother brought him into work as an intern, and he watched her die. After he swore vengeance and came to USDC to be trained. That boy could kill more monsters in a single day than you could in your entire life. Now fuck off before we take action. Withdraw 1!” Bradley pulled out his magic gun and loaded it, “Do we have an understanding, grunts?” The soldier on the ground scrambled away, “Yes sir!”
HM began laughing, “You handled that real well. I appreciate your defense of our higher branch. It really shows your USDC spirit.” Bradley rolled his eyes, “Let’s get the hell out of here. I just didn’t want Joel to bloody our nice vehicles I built.”
With that they were stationed at the hotel for a few weeks as their first branch was being built near Detroit. During that time HM was contacted by the US Army and contracted for a test crate of magic ammo, and a test crate of anti-tank artillery. For what was an afternoon of work for Bradley was worth millions to the US Military. Bradley’s Magic Weapon spell had reached level 5, making objects as small as bullets last for months, and something the size of the anti-tank shots last for an entire week before deterioration of the extra damage.
After closing the deal and getting the payments HM smiled gleefully, “About the only thing we need to pay for is either so cheap now it doesn’t matter or wages for those who get the other supplies. It’s like free money!” HM began spazzing out in his hotel room, as Bradley, Kathy, and Devin looked on, “Head Manager, calm the fuck down,” Bradley said, trying to figure out how much they made. “There was no cost to shipping, or to the supplies we were upgrading. The biggest cost is time since your mana is running low and isn’t refilling quickly. Depending on how those weapons work, they seemed interested in purchasing some Goblin Swords for their few classless returnees.”
Bradley nodded, “What’s the value they discussed with you?” HM returned quickly, “They said Goblin swords were worth around $1 Million for a set of 500.” Bradley nodded, “They’re underestimating the value of the goblin sword and overestimating the value of magically enhanced equipment. It makes sense since they’re trained with guns, but I even switched over to my wrist arrows when a big enemy shows up. They just work better than bullets.” HM nodded, “We’re new to the market right now, so it’s gonna be a while before they figure out exactly how much things are really worth, but either way, a single day's work and we made about $10 million for just those two crates.”
Devin smiled and Kathy spoke up, “So it seems we already have a working model and a customer, what’s next?” Devin laughed, “My guess is it's to collect more goblin corpses knowing Bradley.” Bradley snorted, “Damn man, you saw through me. Yea, we need more corpses, not just for the flesh and bone, but for the spell crystals. Those things start out at least partially full, and those areas probably have the best mana regeneration in the world right now. Our next market is for awakening rich people who can pay enough, since I’d imagine we wouldn’t have any returnees either vying to work for us or pay us to train them just yet.”
Bradley looked over at HM, “Send out an announcement saying we’ll pay 1000 for mostly intact goblin corpses. The better the quality, the higher the pay and vice versa,” Bradley glanced over to Kathy, “I want you to look into other sectors that got swapped out and figure out what their small fry are, and figure out if they hold any value to weapon building. I think they said that there were a few goblin zones in the US and Mexico right now.”
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Kathy nodded, “I’ll get right on that,” and pulled out her old laptop from her days as secretary and got to work. Bradley smiled, “Don’t stay up too late, let’s get Squad 0 together for tomorrow and announce to the rest of the Squads to enjoy their time here and to not get rowdy or they’d have to one on one you or get kicked out…,” Bradley paused, “Ohh shit, how much are we paying these people?”
HM laughed, “You aren’t one to miss something so big, I discussed it with Devin and he decided a salary based on class and level. So a classless level 1 is paid 30k a year with on-site housing, someone like Devin who’s a level 10 melee class is worth 150k a year plus on-site housing, and someone as special as Kathy at level 10 is worth 400k a year.”
Bradley nodded, “It incentivizes leveling while also allowing people to survive. What’s their contracts entail? How many missions per yearly period?” HM thought about it, “We haven’t finalized it, but we were thinking two or three a month.” Bradley thought for a moment, “The value of a spell crystal plus the value of the corpse is pretty high, I’d say as long as squads make quota they receive their general salary, and if they exceed give them a bonus of 20% the going rate of corpses per corpse split between the squad.”
Bradley began leaving the room, “Kathy, I wouldn’t stay with that old creep too much longer, head to your room.” HM wanted to argue but just gave up and sat on his bed. Kathy and Devin followed him out.
The next morning Kathy knocked on Bradley’s door. Bradley got up and opened it, only to get shoved out of the way. “You won’t believe this. There are already three goblin zones in America, and two in Mexico. The goblin zones in Mexico are close to the border, so we might be able to do business there if we have to, while in America the other two are in Orlando, Florida and Seattle, Washington. The zone wasn’t big enough to eat the entire city, but was instead smack dab center, meaning any work done there will be appreciated more than anywhere else. There’s also a few mountain zones that have these weird lizard people, here’s a picture.” Kathy flashed Bradley the picture, “No idea what that is, let me go grab Ben, wait here.”
Bradley and Ben returned quickly, “Show him the picture please.” Ben took one glance, “Holy shit, that’s a Kobold. I imagine its bones are way better than a goblin’s.” Bradley interjected, “Where are those at?” Kathy glanced over at the two of them, “There is one close to Cleveland, and the other is centered on Denver, but the big news now is that places that have had returnees have an inflow of more monsters each day.”
Bradley held back a smile, “So the more places that are cleared, or probably wiped out and failed the mission will endanger the public even more.” Kathy nodded her head, “The government has begun to put values on the heads of different types of monsters. Goblins are apparently worth $3000 if the ears are clipped and submitted to the proper authorities.” Bradley smiled, “That means that maintaining the perimeter of danger zones will be worth more than just their parts and a flat rate. Good. Have you found anything about the value of spell crystals?” Kathy shook her head, “I can’t even find the search term. It seems your class instincts are the only reason you decided to cut open the and dig for it.”
“Good, we can maintain our body purchase price for now,” Bradley looked over to Ben who looked a bit nervous, “Is something wrong Ben?” Ben shook his head, “I just feel a bit sick from sensory overload. I got a new skill after leveling my perception skill so much.” Bradley cocked his head, “What did you get?”
Ben sighed, “I can see people’s status page including all the other side tabs.” Bradley hugged Ben, “I know you feel like shit, but we can finally objectively judge people and pay them what they are valued.” Ben put on a smile, “Yea, I was trying to level it up this morning, but it's a bit too much. I’ll deactivate it now.”
Bradley jumped up as he realized something, “My Magic Infusion has definitely leveled up, let me check if its description has changed any.” Bradley quickly fumbled and swiped over to his skill page, “If any person within a range of 3 meters uses a spell or skill that relies on mana after the usage of this spell, the crystal used will receive that spell or skill.” Bradley paused for a moment, “We can now scout out new prospects, maintain watch on current members, and even make sure they aren’t holding out on us on corpses in hopes of reselling them for a better value.”
Kathy laughed, “Oh dang, you guys were going to try to run a business on trust. Thank god, otherwise we’d be screwed,” she continued laughing until Bradley interrupted her, “I was planning on using higher level users to test newbies, and have them withdraw 1 until their inventory was empty. This just streamlines the process.” Kathy paused, then kept laughing, “That wastes so much time. You dumbass.”
Bradley sighed, “It was the best I could think of, luckily we don’t have to. Kathy just keep looking for valuable dungeons and Ben, stick with her to figure out the best targets and what squads can deal with what. We know the goblin zone, but not much else.”