The man, despite being high on life, with two lovely ladies on each of his sides, surrounded by like-minded friends, looked suspiciously at Sam, who in his disguise looked rather untrustworthy. At least to people like the scumbag who exploited his friend to make himself richer.
The hangers-on tensed, ready to throw him out if their ‘boss’ said so, and the man in charge scowled.
“Who the hell are you?”
Sam just grinned roguishly at them. “Name’s George… when I’m here…”
The girls tittered hearing that, and the people sitting around the table relaxed a little. Sam mentally made a note to add a little bonus for their performance.
“I just saw you gentlemen having a ruckus and thought I would join you on my lonesome. After all, having fun alone is not fun at all!” he declared while raising his glass that looked like it contained something alcoholic while it was a simple virgin cocktail.
The man across from him thought for a moment and then shrugged. Raising his own cup, he exclaimed. “All right! Let’s have some more fun!” The rest of the group joined quickly, following his cues, but they still cast suspicious gazes at him while outwardly grinning and cheering.
‘They think I want to join in on a good thing and mooch off the idiot…’ he mused as he kept up the grin on his face.
“Very well! Then let’s drink on our new friendship!” Sam motioned for the nearest scantily dressed waitresses who instantly hurried close to them.
“Yes, sir?”
“A round for my new friends!”
A resounding cheer was his answer. Getting totally drunk in the game wasn’t really possible, but the game recreated every taste and feeling with a great amount of fidelity, so drinking good alcohol felt good.
“Hell yes!”
“To Greg!”
“Isn’t he Gabe?”
“No, it was Gabriella!”
“No, it was Grug!”
Sam just smiled, while inwardly deadpanning at their stupidity.
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Sam spent an hour just plying them with drinks and inane stories to lower their suspiciousness as well as garner some measure of trust. The girls did their best to distract everyone, either by their smiles or other body parts.
Soon, however, Sam had to shepherd the conversation in a specific direction.
“…and then he said it would be a hundred gold! I just threw a bag at him! HAHAHA!” One of the lackeys finished his story about financially abusing some poor craftsman and the rest of the group broke out in cheers. Sam chuckled along good-naturedly while the girls continued to titter as if it was the funniest thing they ever heard.
“Alas, my fortune is not the same as yours…” Sam lamented dramatically while letting out an equally dramatic sigh. “Recently, my businesses all went up in flames thanks to…”
“The AFK company?” the scumbag in front of him asked with a knowing look. Sam simply nodded in response.
“Exactly. They seem to be everywhere. No matter what I try, they’re always there first. And if not, their contacts are better, so I can only watch my sources dry off.”
One of the guys sitting next to him reached over and patted his shoulder sympathetically.
“They are scum!” his target spat with vehemence. “We are only lucky that we set up shop in this city. We are far enough from their interests that they only had the resources for a few buildings…”
Sam didn’t have the heart to tell the guy that they didn’t do more in Gladerest because there was nothing and nobody important there.
“Ahh, but doesn’t that mean you don’t have anything to do business with…”
The man just grinned at Sam and tapped the side of his nose.
“You should see our income!” one of the hangers-on bragged. “We are raking it in!”
“Oh, really?” Sam asked with an interested look on his face.
“Oh, yes! The boss has this guy… He is a genius! He does all the work and we just enjoy the rewards!”
The leader of the bunch quickly hid a wince on his face, but Sam noticed. Inwardly smiling gleefully, he turned back to his target. Ready to reel in the bait.
“My…what an efficient enterprise…” he spoke up with a smirk of his own. “But rather admirable. After all, some people are just that better at leading than doing. Am I right?”
Naturally, this just spoke to the other guy’s ego. He returned the smirk and nodded. “Naturally.” He took a sip of his drink while the girls giggled around him and looked back at Sam. “I was lucky that I found him. He is very dedicated to every task. And cheap too! It is, after all, thanks to him that we can enjoy this bounty!” he declared while leering down at the giggling girls.
“““To Adam!””” the rest of the group cheered, raising their cups high in the air.
Sam hummed thoughtfully before asking a question. “If he is so… talented, as you say, might I inquire how much it would take to borrow his stated talents? After all, with how my business is going, I’m open to any possibility.”
“So, how would I go about hiring this… Adam?” he asked, projecting curiosity and, most of all, an all-encompassing greed befitting a try-hard businessman.
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Naturally, his ‘opponent’ instantly noticed this. Say what you will about the man, and Sam had some very specific opinions about him, but he knew when he saw a good opportunity.
“Weeeell, that depends on how much you can pay…” the scumbag grinned and then leaned back his chair, drawing the girls closer to himself, sure that he had reeled in a big money bag.
Sam nodded and began the ‘negotiations’.
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Another hour later, he left the much happier, and theoretically richer, group to themselves, citing the need to gather the gold together. They let him leave with their well wishes and congratulations about the business. Nobody talked about Adam’s opinion or brought up asking him if he wanted to do this. To these people, he was just a commodity to barter with.
Shaking himself, Sam dropped the greedy grin and headed toward one of the exits of the establishment. On the way, he stopped the waitress who served their table and cleared his own tab, leaving the woman a hefty tip for his sleazy behavior and another bag of coins for the two girls who helped him out.
“My compliments to them,” he told the bewildered waitress, then walked out of the building, and within seconds, he melded into the crowd, becoming just another uninteresting face among the masses.
He quickly returned to the room they set up for him at the supermarket and logged out.
After taking a quick shower to get rid of the greasy feeling that clung to him after participating in that discussion with those scumbags, he sat back down in front of his computer and brought up his VR recordings.
Sam didn’t really need to edit what he recorded, simply just cut it out, put it in a consumable format, and set it so that he could send it easily. Though he made sure to go through the recording to see if it would be enough, just the negotiations were nasty enough that he could help Adam realize what a scumbag he had for a friend.
‘Now comes the second part…’ he mused to himself and began getting ready for the bed. Tomorrow would be a big day.
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Returning to the game, he spent some time playing with Lucky, going over a few reports that Lucy sent over, mostly instructions to check out the local scene and see if there was anything they could improve or take advantage of. He was also discreetly told to check what kind of boss was leading the supermarket.
‘I have never been an undercover boss… kinda cool!’ he mused as he wrote down things he noticed. Then he met up with the old man at the head of the supermarket to see if he had anything to report or had any questions, then after receiving a negative answer, he left the building through the back door.
He was dressed in his usual armor, and the face was his own.
Full honesty was needed if Sam wanted to recruit Adam after revealing the treachery that surrounded him.
Cyclical Circle was easy to find, they didn’t really hide their headquarters. Later in the game, a guild headquarters, due to vaults being full of valuable items, would be one of the biggest secrets a guild could have. Naturally, that would require having the talent or money to set up teleportation gates, but for now, most guilds were content enough with guards and some enchantments.
That’s why he was looking forward to meeting SilentTomb. That woman practically pioneered the maze teleportation traps. Well, it was revolutionary for the people in this dimension for some reason. Sam had been dealing with them since the first handheld gaming consoles came out decades ago in his original dimension. It was fascinating to see that so many normal things in games that he took as given, were either non-existent in this dimension or people took them for revolutionary ideas.
‘Not that I’m complaining… it makes my life much easier…’ he mused as he approached the building that housed the guild that Adam led.
Entering the building was pretty easy. The NPC guards took one look at him, making sure he wasn’t there to cause trouble, and he was immediately let in.
Inside was full of bustling guild members, NPCs, and other players. There wasn’t much decoration, as most guilds currently focused on logistics and becoming the dominant guild in their area.
He approached the NPC secretary with a modest smile.
“Hello there!”
The pretty NPC returned the smile and greeting. “Hello, sir. How can the Cyclical Circle help you today?”
“I would like to set up a meeting with the guild leader,” he stated a little loudly. Knowing that the guild leader returned to the guild around this time, thanks to the reports he got, he wanted to get his attention.
“Nature of meeting?”
“Business.”
“Very well, sir. It seems we have an opening for… tomorrow afternoon?” she told him after looking through the giant book in front of her.
However, before he could confirm his acceptance, his luck held true.
“Belay that!” came the order from behind him.
Turning around, he beheld a tall man, black-haired with a square jaw that made him classically handsome (Lucy’s words) and enough muscles that Dan looked positively tiny next to him.
Apparently, when Adam hyper-focused, he hyper-focused hard.
He was the classic example of a man who started lifting and never stopped. Adam wore a simple but sturdy armor that looked unenchanted, but despite the attempts to hide it, Sam’s Mana Sense told him that it was enchanted well enough that he was feeling a little self-conscious.
‘Maybe time to get a better armor?’ he mused, glancing at his own leather armor.
Reaching Sam, the giant man gave him an awkward smile and spoke up. “Nancy, thank you, but since I’m here, I’ll take this meeting.”
The NPC instantly nodded and began writing. “Understood, my lord. I’m going to pencil the guest for the next… half an hour?” she finished with a questioning tone, looking at Adam.
The man in question glanced at Sam, who nodded.
“Half an hour will be enough, thank you.” He turned to Sam. “Please, follow me.”
In silence, they headed deeper into the building while Sam took the time to look around. It was fascinating to see which guild members greeted the guild leader with genuine joy or which were there, pretending to respect the man.
Sadly, there were more of the second type than the first.
Reaching the office took only a few minutes, then a few seconds of getting situated, and Sam was sitting before the giant man, who practically dwarfed the small and cheap-looking desk with his giant frame.
“So…how can I help you today? Something about business?” Adam spoke up with a much more awkward smile. “I’m afraid my business partner is out today, but I can take notes and he will get back to you…”
Sam simply shook his head.
“That’s all right. I wanted to talk to you…”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I have something to show you…”
As Adam looked back at him with interest, Sam sent a request so that he could share a screen.
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The results weren't pretty.
Listening and watching the recording, Adam’s face was totally blank, but Sam could see the aura of misery starting to envelop him.
Finishing with the recording, Sam closed the screen and waited. He felt a little scummy doing this, but honestly, he had no idea how to do this without ripping the bandage off.
Finally, after staring at nothing in particular, Adam spoke up. “W-why are you showing me this?”
“Originally, I heard about your organizational skills and wanted to hire-slash-buy your guild to head my own with some support from my company. But before that, I had to do my due diligence. That was when I found this,” he explained, indicating the recording. “As a person who had less than ideal friends in the past, I felt that sharing what I’ve found would be the right thing to do…”
Adam blinked at him, still not completely processing the information.
“This could be fake… right? He…he has been my friend since we were children…”
Sam gently smiled at him. “You tell me… You know him the best, right?”
“I-I thought I did, but if this is true…then…” he devolved into mumbling to himself until Sam cleared his throat.
Adam’s head snapped up as if he forgot that Sam was present. “Right… err… what was your name again?”
“Solar, but that doesn’t matter.” He sent over a simple message. “Here are my details. Send me a message if you want to talk. Or if you need the full recording.”
Adam nodded, then turned back to his own screens.
Sam smiled sadly and left the room, leaving the giant man to his thoughts.
‘Let’s see what happens next…’