"What if the quest fails?"

"Well, you made your job difficult for no reason."

Baldie sighs, scratching his temple.

"You better finish it though. Beginners often mess up, so we try to help them, but you're special."

"Then why the scare? This doesn't sound that terrible."

"Again, your case is worse than usual."

He scoffs.

"This is for crime prevention, not 'yanking idiots out of jail'. If the Chief wants to find something on you, he will. And pissing off Annie was a genius idea, they're the two people who can make or break your future."

His words stab like a dagger.

Yes, thanks to his education and the Girl's help, the Old Fox couldn't get his way.

This doesn't mean he can't do it later too.

Who knows what he's planning now that he took his day off, while the pissed-off Aspirant's in his office?

That slip of a tongue was stupid and uncalled for.

The Girl had no reason to help, yet she was a lifesaver.

Baldie couldn't bring up the program without her, so this was no way to treat Annie.

They can change their minds at any moment.

The thick smell of the wood care oil will make me throw up.

"I didn't do anything."

This claim comes late and sounds hollow.

There's no reason to be so defensive, but here we go.

"This whole program is so weird with these premium headsets. There's no way the government can afford this, and you even mentioned a quota."

"Aren't you a sharp one?"

He leans over his desk, twirling his mustache.

"We made a deal with the manufacturer. We want you off the streets, and they want cheap labor. Think of yourself as a beta tester for Deep Dive, and the affiliated gaming companies."

"Cheap labor? They pay for this?"

"You didn't read your contract, did you?"

He's losing his patience, but he's not wrong.

There's no helping it at this point. The heart rate's going up too, ever since he mentioned Old Fox and the investigation.

Why rely on a contract's small prints rather than saying it to my face?

"They pay two credit tenths for each hour logged in. We subtract the food, of course."

He explains a day too late.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You get a decent meal and a credit for the basic quota, and they count overtime too. The max is three and a half for the entire day."

"Wait, for real?"

That could pay for a pack of cigarettes.

Unless their rations are the same second-grade shit the Boss wanted to steal, this isn't even bad.

"You said nothing about the money. And there was no food yesterday that's why I had to buy it myself."

"First off this is a lie, and you can do better."

He rolls his eyes, leaning back.

"Second, you get paid after the fact, not in advance. You already fucked up the first ten credits, so you can guess why. Once you finish the twelve hours, we deliver your rations the next day."

"Yesterday was too short..."

"That's fine, the logs show you played as much as possible. Still, to think you'd fuck up this bad?"

There are no excuses, only some vague plans for the future.

"It'll be tough without Premium, but you need to get your shit together."

"Figures. What are these for anyway?"

"Smartasses would log in to sleep with the headset, then claim their money. This doesn't provide data for the companies and they could pull the plug."

He explains, drumming on his desk with all ten fingers.

"These are to motivate actual gameplay."

With a mental note about sleeping in the controller, let's focus on the problem first.

He says he checked the logs already. He saw the playtime, so what's this investigation about?

They already track everything with the new phone and the headset.

"Well, there was actual gameplay, you saw the logs."

There sure was an attempt, failing hard, then punching trees for no reason.

"Isn't it what you investigate?"

"The Chief Inspector will tear apart your home before looking at the logs."

He claims, and yeah, that seems likely.

"In most cases, we ask our players how can we help. Sometimes all it takes is a training session and they won't fail quests again. But there can be other circumstances."

"L-like what?"

"How deep do you want to get into it?"

He takes a breath, standing up from his desk, and my stomach cramps.

"When they want to keep it a secret from a family who'd bug them, or there's an issue with the housing, we can intervene."

Let's not tell him about the big red container, floating twelve meters high.

And since Mom died, there's no bugging either.

Dad's only home on paper, during an investigation, this could be all kinds of bad.

"If the Chief saw a notification that you failed, your headset has a tracker. He'd follow the GPS coordinates, and, well. You don't want him to take you to a shelter."

People mutter about those in the Park, calling them concentration camps.

They shouldn't allow minors though.

"B-but it's the slums."

"Yeah, that's the issue. He would find a thousand reasons to kick you out and only needs one."

He shakes his head, and the cramps get worse.

"So sure, it's no big deal to fail. Not in normal circumstances anyway, but do you want to take those chances?"

"W-what if he kicks me out?"

"What do you think? Suspected burglary, and pissing off the Aspirant."

He points it out. Yeah, this is a disaster.

"There's a possible jail sentence, and the headset would need an expensive reset. If you already spent the Premium money on shit, it's unlikely you could afford it."

"It's a bit... Sounds like blackmail or slavery, rather than crime prevention."

The complaints flood, making him shake his head with a 'you did this to yourself' look. He's not wrong.

"That's rich, a criminal complaining about getting a second chance off the prison. Nobody forced you to join, and helping you could cost my job."

He points it out, his words stabbing even deeper.

"Oh, by the way. Have your dad sign the contract and bring back a sample."

"D-does he needs to hear about this?"

"You want to keep it a secret?" He's off the mark since Dad's out of the picture, but it's better not to correct him.

He takes the silence wrong.

"Well, don't fail. Then we'll have no reason to investigate. Is he abusing or neglecting you? In case the program isn't enough..."

"He's not. He would worry too much, so don't want to scare him."

"In that case, you didn't hear this from me. You can sign in his name and we'd never know, as long as we don't have a reason to look."

He shrugs, moving some papers around.

"You should read it though, and don't mess it up again. Do that mission as if your life depended on it."