He may have overestimated his own resistance to this wheeling and dealing business or underestimated the nobles’ greed.
The ‘short’ meeting that he expected, sadly, never came to fruition. As soon as they were finished discussing the major points of contentions, the nobles, proving they were greedier than any dragon, began to delve into the minor points and fine print.
Hell, they even critiqued the way the initial contract was formatted.
If there was a point that would lead to some manner of profit, and seeing the topic of the discussion, almost ninety percent of points were like that, they wanted to discuss it. Mostly to decrease the gains of the AFK company and increase their share, but thankfully, Lucy stood steadfastly against their frankly demonic ways of manipulating the law and rules.
The supposed representative had to step in a few times with their ‘subtle’ warning as Sam was close to declaring the entire thing a lost cause, thanks to the man’s attitude. He wouldn’t do that for real, as too much gold was at stake, but in that moment, he just wanted the entire meeting to end. Damn the consequences.
The nobles, or more like their representatives – as what noble would deign to sit at the same table as two commoners – were probably sensing his mounting frustration based on the wary glances they sent his way, thus by the time they reached the last few points, they practically gave them up for free.
Despite all that unpleasantness, they all left the meeting with smiles on their faces – probably fake on all sides – secure in the knowledge that they got one over the other group. Time and history would reveal who was right and who was the true sucker.
The person from Nowhere, if Sam was right, left the room last, giving Sam a respectful nod, then smiling at Lucy.
Leaving the room to Tim; Lucy and Sam quickly returned to her office.
Lucy sagged into her super comfortable enchanted office chair, with her raven instantly flying to her shoulder and beginning to gently rub its face on hers. Meanwhile, Sam simply plopped down on the no doubt expensive carpet, summoned Lucky, and burrowed his face into the wolf’s silky-smooth fur.
The animal was confused for a second, but then he realized that Sam was hugging him, so he just grinned while his tail began thumping on the ground.
They spent a few minutes enjoying the ministration of their familiars before Sam broke the silence.
“I still don’t understand why I had to be present…” he mumbled, still resting his face on Lucky’s fur-covered body.
Lucy let out a long-suffering sigh. “Because, you moron, you went and made yourself important enough that if you didn’t show they would’ve taken it as an insult!”
“Really?”
“Really. Especially with that seal you got us for the capital…”
“The one for buying properties?”
“Yeah…”
“So that’s what they meant about suffering from success…”
“Very funny. Anyway, any word about that mysterious organization?” she asked with a slightly hurt voice.
Sam could understand why. Usually, he was pretty free with information like that.
He looked up from enjoying Lucky’s nature-given gifts and smiled at his friend.
“Don’t worry. I talked to them. I can’t tell you much, but they’re the type that will ‘get in contact’ with you,” he explained.
Lucy nodded in understanding, a relieved smile appearing on her face.
“Time scale?”
Sam just shrugged. “Apparently, they have to observe you first…”
“Fantastic…” she responded in a somewhat sarcastic manner. “Just to change the subject, check this out,” she said while offering to share something with him. “This entire thing was excellent for my skills. I gained almost ten levels and a new skill!”
Sam accepted the request and began to read it.
[Lord’s Shield: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) You are your lord’s shield. It doesn’t matter what battlefield, you protect them. Increase the effectiveness of skills when you are protecting your lord’s interests and holdings. Additionally, the skill grants you the Physical and Magical Resistance skills.]
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Are you going to call me lord, then?”
Lucy just snorted. “You wish… But the skills… They’re bonkers, Sam!”
Sam had to agree with her.
Plus, he actually knew this skill. A few years after the start of the game, the players managed to tease out most of the details. The lord in the name of the skill was the leader of the group or guild that was acknowledged by at least three parties, one of them NPC-controlled. Then the individual had to act in the interest and defense of the ‘lord’ several times against many different enemies.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
This usually meant a tank-type player with some supporting skills. Thus, usually, the players who gained these skills were the bodyguards of powerful people. Naturally, betraying the lord would make them lose the skill and gain something else, but having the skill was an excellent mark of loyalty.
Sadly, only one person could get it in one group.
However, from what the other Sam learned – after this information was publicized by the research guild – it was always combat-oriented people who got it. The fact that Lucy, who was very much not combat-oriented, got this skill made him want to break into evil laughter.
As the skill description said all skills, not just combat skills, meant that Lucy’s skills affecting politics (or being affected by it), which were always in effect in one way or another, would be improved by the Lord's Shield skill.
“It’s brilliant!” he exclaimed with a grin and a thumbs up.
“What about next? We finished the contract so we can continue with the construction. Adam will handle the fights, and Dan wants to hang around Lara a little more,” she asked after shaking her head at Sam’s declaration.
“I’ve reached Level 99, so I’m thinking of going for that ‘Race to the Top’ event…”
Lucy had to blink at that. “You want those models so much?”
“Hardly,” Sam snorted in derision. “But my name was added to it automatically. People are going to be hunting me. Better to vanish somewhere while the leveling fever lasts.”
“What about the crazy twins?”
“Just have them help Adam. Katie still needs to learn how to work in a group better. It will do her some good working under someone like Adam…”
Lucy sent him a dubious look but, in the end, she nodded.
“If you think so…”
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Back in the real world, after some nice relaxation and good food, Sam sat in front of his computer, ready to do some work and research.
Naturally, the biggest news, at least in their corner of the game world, was the appearance of the titan, its subsequent defeat, and the metric tons of salt from the guilds, groups, and players who perished thanks to gravity or Sam’s guild.
Shadowland was abuzz with people wanting to find more titans, but this time he refused any inquiry. He had no way of knowing about the rest of them, thus he could only claim ignorance. Not that he said that to the people who approached his account. He simply said that somebody paid a good amount of money for his silence.
Thankfully, by this time, people knew that he never broke his word, though it still didn’t stop some people from offering him some ludicrous amount of money for even one set of coordinates.
Ignoring that site for a spell, he turned his attention to the site that held the ‘Race to the Top’ event announced by Future Unknown.
The rules were simple. The first to reach the barrier – Level 100 was never mentioned anywhere on the site, Sam checked – would be declared the winner. Then the next nine would be counted from the second place to the tenth.
As he read the attached forum post, he saw that his great jump in level had infuriated a lot of people. After it happened, most of the pages were filled with people calling him a cheater and urging the company to ban him. Fortunately, his forum account linked to his name was set to private, so he wasn’t filled with messages.
He looked over the names in the top fifty, trying to place them using his inherited memories.
Surprisingly, there were a few that he recognized just from what he saw on the internet after being transmigrated into this world.
“Let’s see… Solo level grinder… solo streamer, speedrunner, rich kid, rich kid…” he mumbled as he went through the names he remembered, either from this life or from his inherited memories.
Most of the people who were on the list dedicatedtheir entire lives to be the first to reach the highest level. Their builds were probably utter chaos, which would decrease in efficiency and effectiveness after reaching the first barrier.
Sam just shrugged.
“Well…not my problem…”
----------------------------------------
True to his words, after he returned to the game, he made sure there were no emergencies going on and after assuring the disappointed Katie that he wasn’t getting rid of her, he left the headquarters of the company disguised as one of the guards.
The disguise was lost in the first alley he could step in, putting on the face of a random person he saw when he met the Eternal Light people. Best to confuse those watchers…
He idly glanced at one of the ravens that was staring at him, nodded, and he was off toward his target.
Getting enough experience to reach Level 101 would be stupid hard as a solo player unless he planned to grind away endlessly every available second he could spend in the game.
Which is what he planned to pretend to do. His target was in an area where he had never gone in this life (nor in the last, but the other Sam knew about it), but he knew through the forums that it was a place that was filled with strong monsters that were incredibly hard to solo and their drops weren’t the greatest. Even though the experience point gain was good, people still avoided the area.
Loot was indeed the king!
----------------------------------------
After leaving the city, he spent an hour wandering around, changing his looks and doing everything to throw off his pursuers. And after he sensed the last one disappear – and not knowing what to do about those he couldn’t sense – he finally reverted to his original look, jumped on Lucky’s back, and rushed toward his goal.
Once again, he ventured deep into the mountain range bordering the Emerald Kingdom.
Thanks to Lucky’s increase in levels having improved his endurance, they only had to stop once for the great wolf to rest.
The sun was over its zenith by the time they arrived in a very hilly area covered in trees and all other manner of flora. And all through the area were bears with deer antlers wandering through.
Despite being herbivores, sustaining themselves off the local bushes and grass, the males were aggressive, aggroing on anything that dared to look at the herd.
As he looked over the area, he could see the male monsters standing on the hills and looking vigilantly over all their herds.
That’s where the problems started.
Usually, one would just bait one of them, kill it, and go for the next one. However, the very first skill they used, through their antlers was a warning spell that alerted ALL the nearby monsters of the enemy’s presence. Including all the other male bear deers. Which caused a bit of a chain reaction…
It was not an enjoyable experience for anyone involved.
Thankfully, he had a plan…
Which was not targeting the antlers with his first strike. A lot of people tried it and it didn’t work as the antler was the most magical part of the monster and destroying it lowered the loot value which was already very low, and created a small explosion of pure mana that had enough flavor of the monster to alert the others.
He did his best to create a very silent bubble of wind barrier around himself to make sure that no smell would be able to give him away and began to slink toward the nearest bear deer.
The monster looked slightly agitated, as if sensing that something was afoot, but didn’t react otherwise.
Sam reached toward his magic and prepared his first two spells with a smile.
‘Once more unto the breach…’