It had been an… interesting few weeks for Axton after Thomas left. Due to the fact that he had used the in-game cash shop, which, in case you had forgotten, allowed for real-world money to be transformed into in-game money and vice versa, Axton had more than enough in his bank account to provide for all his immediate wants. Now it was far simpler for him to stay in his home and not go outside. With the sizable buffer in his account keeping him from needing to seek employment, he had time to do other things.

One of said things was browsing Reddit and other forums, which allowed him to gauge the response people had to the Beta. Of course, the rich were all very much inclined to spread their story across the internet, and those who were not as wealthy were certainly interested in hearing everything that they could from those who played the game. Axton simply lurked. He had no intention to tell of the things he did in-game.

After all, what would it matter, anyway? The threats made by that marketing employee were just one of the reasons that he refused to share his story. Another was because he was dead certain that his old boss was somewhere in the forums as well and would be livid if he were to see Axton talking about his time in-game. If Donovan found out that his little surprise had not achieved what he likely thought it would…. Well, there was almost certain to be a bounty placed on his head, either in real life, in-game, or both if the truth ever got out.

Speaking of which, Axton had to make sure that he prepared for the inevitable conflict that was sure to arise. He had a decent buffer of expendable funds that he could use, so he invested in a backup power generator, water supply, and some decent security features for his apartment. Having the modifications done would only take a few days, what with the proficiency of the modern machine workforce, and he could rest much easier when he knew that he had a few extra layers of protection.

In the face of a determined hitman, they wouldn’t be that much, but against the average mook they would hopefully buy him enough time for Thomas’ own employees to swoop in and lend a hand. If it happened enough times, he was going to need to think about moving in with his multi-trillionaire friend. At least then he wouldn’t be in as much danger. Still, he wanted to live as independently as humanly possible, so it was a choice that he would not make lightly.

Days would move on by, with the release date of the full release of Heavy Metal Dawn creeping ever closer.

…

It was only a matter of a week until the game I had so intensely wanted to play the Beta of, Heavy Metal Dawn, dropped. Regretfully, the raffle that I had put so much faith in had failed me, and one of my damn employees had somehow managed to steal what was rightfully mine from right under my nose. I, being the magnanimous person that I was, entered his cramped little shithole of a home and tried to show him that he had no right to what was mi9ne. For some reason, probably because of his own careless pleb hand, the Pod refused me and then trapped him in a week of pitch-black nothingness.

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I knew full well that, if he reported such a thing, those with the right connections could very easily have made me pay more than a few million to him as a consolation for the mental damage. As such, I bid a hasty strategic withdrawal and then used my money to prepare for the incoming legal issue. He must have been more scared of me than he was greedy for my money, as no lawsuit came. This was acceptable, and I tried to think of a way to avoid dealing with any fallout of the situation I most certainly was in no way responsible for.

I imagined that he would try and weasel some of my money away from me, and yet, quite bafflingly, that pleb remained quiet. I assumed he was just a coward, but then…

Then I got a message from one of my cronies. He showed me something that, in all honesty, caused me no small amount of discomfort. That damn bastard! Now I understood why he terminated his own employment with my company! That damn rat had, without any regard for my own mental wellbeing, fooled me! His ‘week in nothingness’ was obviously a sham, and now he was almost certainly in some kind of contract with those fools over at Mr. Bellwood’s company!

I did the necessary digging, of course. After seeing that man’s ugly, plebian mug on my screen I simply had to find out everything. How had he managed to get around the potential trap that I had insisted that Mr. Bellwood add into what was to be my starting zone?! Well, I quickly found out that he had no small amount of help from some… less than acceptable programs. Thankfully, all his hard work was gone. That planet and all on it was no longer around, even in the currently evolving code that did exist. All that remained right now was the void itself, along with everything in it. All the planets, moons, space stations, and more had all been scoured of all data, all holdovers from that Beta.

But I was not about to let that dumb little microcephalic oaf get off so easy. I wrote up an offer and had it sent over to the Bellwood estate. With the connections that my family had with them and the fact that the dumbass pleb had not signed a contract with them being known to both of us, it was simple enough to add a bit to the currently evolving code of the game. When I finally got to play, I would be in just the right place and have just the right connections and assets to hunt the commoner down and make him suffer to no end.

Even if I couldn’t find him myself, I made sure to have the Bellwood family add a little… surprise for that simpleton to discover upon the next time he entered the game. He had killed an asset that belonged both to me and to a massive in-game faction. I would not allow a ‘clean slate’ to simply allow him to escape my righteous justice. The next time he entered, he would have a sizable bounty on his filthy little serf head. And, if I could get to him fast enough, things would only get worse for him from there. I must admit; it is good to be rich.