Thief
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Fast forward to 3 months after Legendary Age was released
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Feducia POV
“FUCCKKKKKKK” Shurki cried. Really, I also wanted to vent my frustration by yelling profanities at a stone wall. But, I held back, after all, yelling did nothing to help me in this situation. I really have to give my admiration to whoever designed this trap, it was inescapable. There wasn’t a single weakness in our cage that we could exploit.
In fact, even our last resort, suicide was denied. We were trapped in a zone where no damage could be inflicted, a safe zone, and our satiety never went down. Now that by itself is a blessing, but combined with being stuck in an inescapable trap, not even the might of god would be able to help us.
So, now you understand why Shurki was so frustrated, but shhh. Something’s different. What is it? Then it hit me, Shurki had stopped brawling. Instead he had a sinister smile that struck fear into my hearts. As I gaze into his eyes, I remember a memory so painful that I had sealed it away to the darkest recesses of my brain. But you should understand our story from the start. No no no, not my start, but Shurki’s. I’ll let him take over now.
---------Flashback----------------------------
Shurki POV
“Father please!” I cried. I was getting desperate, I had asked him for money to finance my new plan yet my stingy dad just would not give it to me. I was already embarrassed at having to ask him for money but his tenacity in refusing me struck up my indignation. As I stomped away in stormy silence, I resolved to wrestle the money from him, one way or another.
The next day, I went to his office and in front of the entire staff, I prostrated in front of him. But he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he hid behind his dark maple desk and motioned for the open-mouthed guards to take me away.
That was just too much, I had embarrassed myself in public, in front of his freakin staff and he still doesn’t relent. I started to question whether he was human.
But would I just give up after being humiliated? No, of course not. Now that I knew that father would not easily give me money, it was time to make a plan.
I should probably introduce myself first. My name is Shurki Dunbar, age 22, blood type AB. Currently it’s the summer break after my graduation from college. For the summer and possibly further, I decided to go back home and look for opportunities.
At this point you might be wondering why I’m so eager to get money out of father and father alone. Well the thing is, father owns a large company that has potential to grow even larger. His new product, Legendary Age is bound to take his company, Ace to the top. The thing is, he hasn’t set his successor yet. Which means that I need to prove to him that I am capable of handling the company or else he might leave the company to some outsider and content himself with some shares. So in order to prove myself, I decided to become the top player in Legendary Age. But in order to do that, I needed some advantages.
First of all, I needed connections. But that was easily accomplished since I was the son of the CEO of Ace. In just one week, I had talked to the chief programmer of Legendary Age and various department heads. From the talks, I was able to glean valuable information about Legendary Age. Then I realized what I needed to do.
I needed manpower. Not like 1 or 2 people to help me lift things, but rather I needed a small army that would be able to solve most of my difficulties in game. I decided that I needed at least 200 people. Now then, I had to balance my men, I required the services of different types of people. For examples, I needed thieves as well as merchants.
To get the manpower, I needed money. Not chump change like a couple thousand dollars, rather I needed about 10 million dollars. And so, I had thought I could bum the money off from my father, I mean, it is a good plan, right? And the rest is the failed history of one stubborn dad.
So, I decided to use a more roundabout way of getting the money. I first went to mother and cried my heart out, saying that I needed to become independent and wanted to prove myself by sponsoring a company. My mother of course agreed to this, after all, it wasn’t her money and a couple million meant nothing to our family. So, I asked her to put in a couple words for me to father.
Then I went back to father’s building. But instead of pleading with him, I went straight to the Marketing director’s office. Why? Because he knows more about the game than most people at the company. After to talking to various department heads, I realized that the Marketing director knows much more about the game than even the programmers that developed the game. After all, the programmers focused on a small aspect of the game rather than the whole game itself. That and they weren’t allowed to share any code/insights with anyone, in fact they were banned from playing the game.
Immediately after I knocked on the Marketing director’s office, he came to the door. With his ever-present smile, he obviously anticipated me coming. After some standard greetings, I cut to the chase.
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“Is there anything that I should look out for in Legendary Age?”
“Hmm, I’m honored that you’re here Shurki, but there are some things that I cannot do. I’m very sorry.”
“I’m sorry that I asked the impossible. Instead, I came here today to ask for your opinion on the price of in-game Mina, will it rise or drop?”
“Well, that sort of question is less probing but it still gives vital hints about Legendary Age, so I’m sorry. But I can say that there is an Easter Egg in the spawn that requires Mina to activate and since players are not able to earn in-game currency outside of the game, the early Mina is technically priceless.”
“Thank you so very much.”
With that and another few pleasantries, I left the Marketing Director’s office. My next stop was the Chief Programmer, Mr. Brouts. Armed with the discovery of the Easter Egg, I knew that I could potentially strong arm the programmer into helping me.
“Mr.Brouts, could you please help me with a couple of questions that I have for Legendary Age?”
“Sure my boy, ask away!”
“Alright thanks. What do you think will happen to the price of in game currency in particular Mina over the next month as more and more people start playing Legendary Age?”
“Now that’s a good question and you sure asked the right person, my boy. Now do you know the minimum wage right now?”
“I believe it’s around 10 dollars per hour and varies per state.”
“My boy, you sure are a genius. You’re completely right. Now, each hour in real-life is about 4 in Legendary Age right? You would also need about 10 hours of minimum wage working to get 100 dollars or 1 Mina right? So 10 times 4 equals 40 hours which would be how long you need to play in the game to make that much. By the way, there are other ways to make money besides killing monsters so keep your eyes peeled my boy.”
“Thanks a lot! Also, how much Mina would the login Easter Egg require?”
Suddenly, Mr.Brouts straightened. I was startled by his sudden movement. He had been slouching with his eyes half closed before but now all that was gone, replaced by a interrogating look. I held my breath, thinking that the worst was about to befall me. But...
“So you know about the login Easter Egg eh?”
“Umm, yeah. Sorry?”
“On the contrary, congratulations my boy! I never expected you to have already known about that. How much does the Easter Egg cost eh? Sorry my boy, but trust me, you’re gonna need quite a bit of Mina.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“My boy, if you have any more questions feel free to ask them. In fact here you go, this packet will be able to give you an edge in this new world called Legendary Age.”
“Thanks, Mr. Brouts!”
By the end of the talk, Mr. Brouts was positively beaming, but his sudden movement when he realized that I knew about the Easter Egg still haunted me.
With that I left his office, I now had a full arsenal, complete with the knowledge of a special Easter Egg at the start of the game that required Minato activate and the huge packet that was tucked under my arm.
It was time to get that money.
---------2 days later------------
Is my dad even remotely human? After a constant bombardment from me and mom, he still hasn’t cracked. That is, given me money. At this point, I’m running out of options, Legendary Age comes out in 3 days and I still have not secured funding for my plan.
But I could not find it. At that point, I realized that I was out of options. I have 20,000 dollars on hand. That by no means is a small amount, but I had been saving my allowance for over a year, along with doing favors for my rich friends such as getting them drinks etc. Basically, I lived as a frugal slave the last year in order to save this amount. But still, there was no way for me to be able to get 10 million dollars from selling my stuff. So I needed to make a new plan.
My new plan? I have no idea what it is yet. Guess I'll just be one of those solo players trying to solo monsters. Of course this method isn't as effective as my original plan but it may be my only choice now.
Lily POV
Should I call him? Should I ask my dad about him? Or should I go to his house? But if I do that what should I say to him? Should I accuse him of not talking to me or should I feign ignorance of his return? Ugh my head is going to explode.
Oh, how I wish that I could return to my high school years. I used to guard his locker after school, twirling my hair while I combed the halls to find his shadow. Then when he gave me his kind smile, my heart would beat so fast that I thought I would have gotten a heart attack.
Ugh, I was so much braver those days, maybe I should be courageous and go to his house, or maybe not…