After logging out for a bio break and some rest and more importantly food, Sam returned to the game, raring to go.
He spent some time stocking up on consumables, then did a tour of the properties he owned.
The warehouse was almost ready to open. Sam saw groups of workers going around the building setting up protections and putting on the finishing touches on the outside of the building.
His original plan called for getting a warehouse building refurbished with small and big units for people to store their non-valuable stuff (for the very valuable items, Sam didn’t even want to try competing with banks). Lucy went a little further with his idea.
She didn’t just have the building renovated, but thanks to game logic and more importantly magic, she had the builders excavate two basement levels under the building, thus tripling the available space.
There was a small office for the building administration where people could do their business. The biggest area was taken up by the identifying shop. Currently, their company had to hire an NPC identifier, which wasn’t that a big problem as most people hadn’t had anything drop that needed a proper expert to identify. Or if they had, they wouldn’t take it to a public shop where everyone could see it.
The rules of the AFK Warehouse were already displayed prominently on the side of the building on a plaque. Sam saw several players stopping and reading them. They either laughed at the absurdity or looked thoughtful.
These rules were the usual for a warehouse business, but the most important rule was the one that was at the bottom of the plaque.
In case of missing payment, the company retains the right to confiscate the items stored in the storage units.
Of course, it wasn’t that easy. The people renting the units would need to be late with their payments for over two weeks, and the company must send out warnings. But if all those come to pass, then the stuff in the units would become the company’s property. And thus, Sam’s.
It wouldn’t be the most profitable enterprise, but if they can expand and place at least one such warehouse in every major city, then just by the law of big numbers they would be raking in items and materials by the boatloads.
In his inherited memories there was a guild that created a warehouse service, but their terms were so predatory (late by a day, your stuff is gone) that several other guilds and player groups got together and burned the warehouses down.
Sam hoped to replicate their service with more reasonable terms and conditions. And even if it doesn’t work out, they could just do away with that part of their rules and simply raise their prices for unit rental and transition into a normal (and boring) rental business. Sam would leave that decision to Lucy.
He had tons of ideas, but he would freely admit that he had almost no idea how to realize most of those. Thus, delegation was the name of the game.
Sam also checked up on the ‘cheap’ accommodations set up for those who didn’t want to pay for the chance to enjoy luxury. Though in this case, the rooms that could be rented were secondary. The buildings he purchased were primarily designated as shopping malls, with a few rooms on top of it.
According to Lucy, they had several people lined up to operate restaurants as well as Journeyman crafters to operate their armor and weapon repair shops. She was also currently in discussion with the Merchant Association about supplying the shops there with their items.
Taking a quick look, he walked over to the luxury building.
The outside was done in the same style as the city, but there were absolutely no identification marks anywhere on the building. Even the entrance doors were made of wood and there were no windows on the street-facing side of the building. All the more to increase the mysteriousness of the building. He walked around the property and the other side, where the courtyard entrance was for animals and carriages, and after showing the serious-looking guard his company badge, he entered the construction site.
He did a quick walkthrough of the entire building, sneaking a peak at the apartments intended for fussy second-generation rich people, as well as watched as the staff of the building practiced under the merciless gaze of an old lady who held herself in a way that told Sam that she had been doing this for at least two centuries.
She threw him a glance when he walked by but didn’t stop her lecture aimed at the anxiously listening maids. Sam gave her a nod and smiled and continued his tour.
On top of the building, a garden was in the process of being built, with small gazebos being set up around the place to make sure that people could have nice views and discuss things securely and privately.
Overall, he was rather satisfied with the results of hiring Lucy. As he walked out of the building, he had one thought running through his head.
‘We really need to sit down and work out the real-life contract soon with Lucy!’
Thankfully, he had bought several shares in companies that would do the best after the announcement that the RMT would be starting in Magic Unbound. He even managed to snag a few shares for Future Unknown.
Even if he stopped playing the game right now, his financial future would be set. Sadly, the game would become so pervasive that it was almost impossible to exist without playing the game.
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With no immediate quest demanding his attention, he had time to grind a little. He wanted to get to at least Level 30 before the announcement. And for that, there were several quests that could be used.
Granted, Sam could have gone out just to one of the grinding spots that he knew about, but that would have been boring and not as profitable.
Thus, his feet took him to the Merchant Association, where they had a small board put up with jobs that people could take for payment. Sadly, it was first come first served, but several of the quests had level and reputation requirements. And with the Silvercrest recommendation, he had enough reputation to take several well-paying quests. Though, as he stepped up to the board and took one of the papers from it, and then stepped into one of the shorter lines, he had only eyes on one of them.
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A few minutes later, he stood at the counter and handed over the quest paper to the person sitting there. The man took a look at it, then at Sam. His eyes roamed over his body, but before he could sneer and send Sam away, he simply held out the document that Lord Silvercrest had given him.
The bureaucrat’s attitude immediately did a one-eighty and gave Sam an almost angelic smile.
“Thank you, sir, for helping out our Association. Would you be doing this task alone or with a team?”
Sam just nodded but didn’t smile.
“Alone.”
“Right, sir!” replied the man while writing furiously, probably sensing that he made a mistake. “I added your name to the task. You have a week to accomplish it, after that, we have the right to assign it to somebody else if you don’t have a compelling reason to prevent that. Any question about the task?”
“No, thank you,” said Sam and took the documents the man offered him after his answer.
“Then happy hunting, sir!” exclaimed the man with forced cheer.
Sam just nodded in thanks and left the building, leaving the man behind who was already being approached by a supervisor.
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As Sam and Lucky left the city at a leisurely speed, he looked over the documents he received. The quest itself was very simple.
[New quest acquired!]
[The mountains sometimes do sing!]
[The Merchant Association sometimes moves products over several mountain paths. Nowadays, their caravans have been assaulted by mysterious attacks when going through those routes. Go to the location and figure out what or who is behind the attacks before the next caravan is planned to go through there.]
[Penalty: Decreased reputation with the Merchant Association. Possible death.]
[Reward: The agreed amount of money.]
The rest of the documents told Sam about the nature of attacks, which consisted of giant boulders launched at the merchant caravans, not unlike avalanches. Though avalanches weren’t known to be accompanied by distinct roars of monsters.
Said documents also contained a simple map and coordinates for the last attack.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what the monsters were.
Golems. Specifically, naturally occurring golems that were created from the magic and the overwhelming elemental nature of the mountain. With their simplistic minds, they probably thought that the caravans were trying to muscle in on their territories. And if the caravans were transporting metals or ores, then the golems would definitely sense those and could have misunderstood it as theft…
Maybe…
All he knew about the quest from his inherited memories was that it involved primitive naturally occurring earth golems that were easy to out-think and their drops were worth a lot. Plus, they gave a good chunk of EXP.
The standard tactic for golems was ‘distract-and-smash’ which required at least two people as golem minds were so simplistic that they didn’t even acknowledge illusions as they contained no life. However, with Lucky’s help, it would be child’s play to deal with them.
So, without wasting any more time, he called Lucky out of his shadow and mounted him. He was big enough to ride on already, but it wasn’t the most comfortable ride. Even so, Sam only needed the help of his trusty pet until he reached the mountain. After that, it would be much safer on his two feet and with Lucky in his shadow.
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Reaching the part of the mountain where the attacks occurred took a few hours, but it was largely uneventful. Mostly because the same guards who made sure that the mining sites around the city of Ironwood were secure also made sure that nobody used the path through the mountain without authorization.
When he showed them the authorization document he received from the Association, they let him through without even a blink.
The trip after that was done on two feet as he really wanted Lucky to watch his back. While the guards were good, players loved to circumvent things like blockades and enter forbidden areas. Not to mention the chance of bandit groups setting up in such areas.
Thankfully, none of them found Sam, so either they weren’t there or he got lucky. And with his trusty pet at his side, Sam’s money was on getting lucky.
He found the scene of the latest attack quite easily.
The mountain path was filled with different sizes of rocks as well as remains of the carts that were used by caravans and were consequently crushed by said rocks.
He spent a few minutes snooping around, but ultimately he found nothing but more debris and a few odds and ends that fell off the carts.
Finished with his examination, he turned his attention towards the mountainside. Apparently, the golems hadn’t noticed him yet, so activating his protective spells and unsheathing his sword, he began to bound upwards on the side of the mountain with great jumps.
After a few seconds, he arrived on a plateau jutting out from the mountainside that was suspiciously missing rocks in several places.
Landing on the ground, he was immediately greeted by a roar. One of the boulders that looked just like the other boulders unfurled and he was met by a mid-sized stone golem.
It had a dumpy head with two small indentations marking the place of his eyes and a big hole that was continuously moving up and down as if trying to chomp down on air. The body was misshapen; great lumps of stone glued together with nothing but magic and wishes. The arms were also lumpy and awkward. Instead of fingers, the golem’s hand ended in a giant ball of stone, probably to smash things more efficiently.
It was the perfect representation of the naturally occurring golems. ‘Though, this is better than elementals.’ Sam thought as he took in his newest enemy. ‘However, it is kinda weird I’m fighting against so many golems…’
“Lucky!” he spoke out loud. Lucky’s head surfaced from his shadow and, with a curious tilt of his head, fixed his eyes on Sam. “Same strategy. Go behind and jump when I signal.”
Lucky nodded slightly, then dove back into the unfathomable darkness of Sam’s shadow. Trusting his adorable and loyal pet, he fixed his attention on the golem, who began slowly lumbering towards him, releasing a roar with every second step.
Sam could see several other boulders beginning to move in the background. He smiled as that would make his grinding easier and if what he suspected was true, then even his quest would become easier to complete.
With a casual wave of his sword, Moonlight, he released a barrage of Wind Blades at the golem and watched as they carved thin and shallow grooves on the surface of its body. But doing damage wasn’t his goal. It was to enrage the golem. And based on the roar, it let out it was super effective.
Funnily, thanks to the wonky build of the golem, even if it wanted to charge fast at Sam, it couldn’t as it didn’t really have the proper joints for that.
Sam waited until the golem reached striking distance and called out, still calm as a cucumber.
“Lucky, now!”
The shadow wolf instantly appeared from the shadow cast by the mountain and simply pounced at the back of the golem, just like back in the ruins.
This golem was definitely built much worse than the golem back in the ancient ruins, so it fell on its face with a great thud before it even finished its newest roar.
‘Soooo dumb…’ Sam thought as he watched the golem flail around and roar face-first into the ground.
He casually walked up to the golem, charged up his sword with Wind Drill and Mana Strike, and struck with all his strength. The blade, enhanced with all his power, went through the body of the golem without any trouble.
The golem struggled for a second, then it went still.
[Congratulations! You killed Rudimentary Earth Golem!]
Sam checked the drops and was happy to discover that the first mob dropped a bunch of small silvery-looking ores. He pocketed them and began eyeing the next golem.
The golem stared at him, despite lacking eyes, and once again roared which the nearby mountains dutifully echoed back, thus multiplying the cacophony.
Sam’s answering smile would have sent a smarter enemy running for… well for the mountains.