<[CHAPTER 9]>
The Invisible Weight of Gold
•━
•━ ━
•━ ━ ━
In the world of The OtherWorld RPG, the most powerful sound was never the clash of steel. Nor was it a war cry or spells being cast… it was the silent sound of numbers rising.
Gold. Experience. Attributes.
All were values, and values were everything. It was a silent rule that everyone obeyed without question, especially when money was involved.
In the beginning, it seemed like a simple game.
Each player received 1,000G upon creating their account. An initial incentive, they said. A gesture of goodwill. A lie disguised as truth.
The lie has short legs, and the truth only came to light after the creator's death.
1 Gold was equivalent to 100,000 Kwanzas in the real world.
One rule, that single rule, was enough to distort everything to the point where the game ceased to be a game.
Suddenly, the game's popularity skyrocketed. Teenagers became investors, veterans predators, and beginners the hunted.
Everyone started playing The OtherWorld RPG more seriously; they began to see virtual currency like someone starving at food in a shop window, those who die of hunger for food.
But, like that shop window, there was a very cruel detail preventing them from achieving the right to convert it. To convert Gold into real money, it was necessary to reach level 100. This meant reaching Rank-SS, and to achieve this feat, it wasn't progression… it was survival.
Because in that world, leveling up didn't measure strength. It measured the value of existence. The silent rule of the ranking system. It dictated how to live within that world.
The Rank-F?
Besides being weak, they were disposable, risky workers. The freelancers, replaceable bodies. Shadows in society, living off scraps. Earning just enough to afford second-rate materials, cheap and degraded items.
And the SS?
While others smiled, these had the ability to buy cities, influence kingdoms, and simply determine the fate of others.
Their money followed this logic.
It was a perfect system.
A prison.
Golden.
[INITIALIZING AVATAR]
First came the darkness.
Then, a voice.
[Voice of the World] – NeuroLink connected. Adapting your story to the world. Analyzing the user's soul. Online Artificial Intelligence.
A pause.
– Every choice will be recorded… your memories used and lies will be detected.
Silence.
— "The information from your experience will be the thread in the tapestry of your new destiny. Don't lie to the system, the voice of the world sees through all things. Good luck!"
The voice echoed as before, but something was wrong. It wasn't exactly the same, and he realized it.
The creator's message.
He smiled as he heard it; it was comforting.
Then… the genetic configuration began.
– Say your character name.
"Krizuku"
– Chosen race
"Human"
– Story.
"._."
Silence. An error, a scanner blockage.
"Neverrrr!"
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• SOUL ANALYSIS
- Interference Detected
┈───╌╌───┈
The system hesitated, and it never happened.
– Inaccessible history… manifesting basic destiny. Do you wish to continue?
"Yes!"
– Soul analysis complete, the system recognized your existence.
His eyes closed, unconscious… everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes, he noticed the interior of a cabin. Straw, wood, dampness, a rough house, nothing special. But, it worked exactly as he wanted.
"Finally… hm…"
Lying on the straw bed, he analyzed it.
"That's better."
He sat up, for a few moments checking what was around him. He left the compartment, went to the bathroom, where he found a mirror and went to it.
"A simple peasant, but robust."
"Perfect!"
He spoke softly and carefully. He seemed to calculate each step. Looking in the mirror, he observed a common and mediocre body.
But his eyes were different.
He stared intently at the corner of his interface and his data appeared before his eyes.
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• WELCOME TO THE OTHERWORLD RPG
- A world where your destiny is yet to be written.
┈───╌╌───┈
– Starting review…
The review was quick, as well as disappointing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Krizuku]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Age: 25 years old
Height: 1.83 meters
Weight: 80 kilograms
Gender: Male
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ABILITIES]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Quick Strike (F)
• Resilience (F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[INVENTORY]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Brass Knuckles (F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP: 24
SP: 24
MP: 24
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ATTRIBUTES]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Resistance: 12
Perception: 12
Physical Aptitude: 12
Magical Aptitude: 12
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[INFO] [EXTRA]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Race: Human
Class: Beginner
Rank: F
Level: 0
XP: 0
PA: 48 pts
Gold: 1,000 G
━━━━━━━━━━━━
//////////////////////////
━━━━━━━━━━━━
It was so predictable that you didn't expect anything out of the ordinary anyway. Your analysis was emotionless, and so were your subsequent actions.
"At least this time it didn't disappoint..."
The important detail: he was suspicious of everything, especially the system.
"...great, system. Remove skills and open the skill tree right after."
Because he knew how it was built, and without hesitation, his journey was only beginning.
– Command analyzed and accepted. Opening skill tree...
"Only (F), but that's okay, even among them there are useful skills."
He didn't want anything standard, nothing the system expected. He searched for a while and got tired, so he used voice search.
"Martial Art Boxing and Mystic Art Energy Manipulation... search and acquire!"
– Searching for the user's request.
The search processed for a few moments and then...
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• SKILL ACQUISITION
- Martial Art: Boxing
- Mystic Art: Mana Manipulation
┈───╌╌───┈
A slight smile escaped.
A silence, a pause.
Until…
"Combination!"
– Given the synergy of the user's skills, combination is possible, analyzing and creating a new skill. Processing…
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• SKILL ACQUISITION
- Energy Boxing (E)
┈───╌╌───┈
"Now that's the difference… hybrid damage, interesting."
The analysis was quick.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ABILITY]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
•Name: Energy Boxing
-Rank: E
-Type: Active
-Cost: 20 MP and SP
•Description:
- Coats the fists with energy, simultaneously inflicting both magical and physical damage.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Right away, without voice command. Just a fist bump activated the ability, his fists glowed with a purple aura, and he observed them for a few moments.
"Boring, but this little bit is enough to survive. After all, a beginner is always a beginner in this world."
"Open a potion shop and buy potions of the Perception, Resistance, Physical, and Magic attributes, one of each at Rank E… also two potions of random attributes at Rank F."
– Command accepted, executing user request.
He knew that power wasn't enough. It never was.
The potion shop opened.
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
「 POTIONS SHOP 」
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
• SELECTED CATEGORY ATTRIBUTES
- Resistance Potion (1)
~Cost: 200 G
- Perception Potion (1)
~Cost: 200 G
- Physical Potion (1)
~Cost: 200 G
- Magic Potion (1)
~Cost: 200 G
- Random Attribute Potion (2)
~Cost: 200 G
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
"Great, now it's all down the drain."
She looked at her reflection in the mirror, removed them one by one from her inventory and consumed them.
The sequence was important. Resistance, her body became robust and her musculature more apparent. Perception, it became sharper. Physical, she became more eager for bodily power. Magic, more refined.
Everything for that moment, she drank the random potions all at once simultaneously.
– Secret effect detected, performing convergence.
Her body began to glow, an energy emerged and the pressure began to manifest.
Panting, she sat on the floor in a lotus position.
"I need to absorb as much as I can."
With his eyes closed, these were his thoughts. Luminous energy formed a pillar of purple light around him, visible even to those outside the house.
There was no debris, simply pure mana being released. The pillar began to thicken at his command, becoming so thin it seemed nonexistent.
– Danger! NeuroLink overheating.
"Blocking reverse login forced"
– User request accepted. However, pushing your soul to the extreme may cause permanent damage.
"Thank you for the warning, but it hardly matters. However, with great risks come great rewards!"
The system voice fell silent, then the energy was contained and the notification appeared.
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• POTION EFFECT
- There was a +20 point increase in all attributes due to specific potions.
- There was a +10 point increase in Physical and Magical attributes due to random potions.
• SECRET EFFECT
- There was a +100 point increase in all attributes when converging potions.
- This achievement is for one-time use only; there will be no repetitions for this account.
┈───╌╌───┈
He soon got up from the floor, all sweaty, a black goo covering his entire body, and his tattoos gleamed brightly amidst the dirt and impurities.
He went to the shower. While the water ran down his body, washing away all the grime and sweat, he quickly checked his attributes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ATTRIBUTES]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Resistance: 12 -> 32 -> 132
Perception: 12 -> 32 -> 132
Physical Aptitude: 12 -> 32 -> 42 -> 142
Magical Aptitude: 12 -> 32 -> 42 -> 142
━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Now that's more like it... it seems functional to me."
But still weak.
"It's time to acquire some capital."
"Open the events and missions table!"
There was a lot of information, but he filtered it down to the essentials at that moment. The most popular world event and the most suitable mission available in the region.
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• WORLD EVENT
- The Daimyo's Treasure
Objective: Destroy the error! Whoever manages to find the creator's avatar and defeat him will receive everything.
• FIELD MISSIONS
- Suburb Cleanup
Objective: Help eliminate the atrocious rat infestation that the suburbs of Starting City are facing.
Conclusion: Eliminating Five Rats
Reward: 50 XP and 20 G
┈───╌╌───┈
"Easy! With this… I'll earn some money."
While others wait for fate to bring opportunity, he intended to create his own.
The cold shower ended, he left the bathroom, grabbed clean clothes, put them on, and then went to the kitchen to start making a stew.
The food was cooking on the fire in a huge pot; it was late and a rainy night.
KNOCK KNOCK
While sitting in the chair in front of the fireplace, someone knocked on the door.
"Who could it be at this hour?"
I thought to myself, getting up and walking towards the entrance of the house to open the door.
When I did so,
I found five adventurers. Well-equipped and seemingly strong. At the very least, they were Rank-B.
His armor was refined, his weapon seemingly enchanted. And he possessed an overwhelming aura. Their leader looked at me; we were the same height, but for a moment he seemed taller.
"Hey, peasant! It's raining and the inn is far away, so how about letting me and my group spend the night at your house? Is that alright?"
I understood instantly, not by the equipment, but by their posture.
They were very suspicious.
"Predators… I'm sure of it. In the worst case scenario, we'll set the house on fire and run away in panic."
I thought.
"One condition: I want a toll to match. I even have hot food for you adventurers; you can come in if you accept the terms. My house, my rules!"
I said, smiling subtly.
"Alright. If you have any liquor, I'll even pay a little more… here!"
–"Just confirm my suspicions and that money will be back in my hands, especially since the dead don't need it anyway, haha."
Thought the leader of the adventurers.
"Relax. I have the best liquor around here, the only one even, hahaha… but enough joking, come in, guests."
As they entered, I checked the coins in the bag given by the leader. A total of 1,000 G.
–"Exactly, there's one hundred gold per person and another five hundred for you to get that liquor you mentioned for each of us."
"Okay. Sit at the table and wait with your group, I'll bring everything to you, dear guests."
I put the money in my inventory, depositing it into my character account. Moments later, I was in front of the pantry; it was empty, without a single bottle of alcohol.
The only solution was to resort to the system.
"Open market… potion shop!"
The system executed the mental command. Within that category of store, I browsed looking for something of interest to me that was for sale.
("I found it… I'll want to buy: five bottles of the cheapest liqueur, a special sleeping liqueur, and an aphrodisiac.")
The purchase was successfully completed.
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
「 POTIONS SHOP 」
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
• SELECTED CATEGORY MISCELLANEOUS
- Alcoholic Potion (5)
~Cost: 250 G
- Sleeping Potion (1)
~Cost: 200 G
- Aphrodisiac Potion (1)
~Cost: 50 G
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
They were the first NPCs of their kind I'd encountered on that journey, so they deserved special treatment. Without hesitation, the chance would be seized, and everything that happened from then on wouldn't be driven by impulse, but by cold calculation.
"Here you have…"
The five bottles of liquor were of cheap quality, but that was fine for them. The special liquor, a sleeping potion specifically chosen for its potent effect on men.
–"Really… it's good wine!"
–"Let's get drunk, everyone!"
"Excuse me, I'll go get the plates of food."
–"Please, I'm starving!"
"Perfect! A stew coming up especially for you, miss…"
Everything ready. Bottles on the table, all of them drinking. Even the adventurer.
In the kitchen.
I grabbed the Aphrodisiac along with some spices from the cupboard. I put the spices in the stew, directly into the bowls to disguise them, and in the adventurer's wooden bowl I subtly placed the potion. I mixed it well, and as I put the utensils in, I sprinkled aromatic spices on top to disguise it, and returned to the table in the center of the house, handing them to their respective owners.
"Enjoy… I hope the food is to your liking."
–"And you, aren't you going to eat?"
"Yes, but first I intend to make your beds."
–"This wine is good, drink it and let it… hick…"
Said the leader.
I left them eating and drinking.
The enjoyment was perceptible in their faces, a very close-knit group indeed.
They were having fun while I spread a mat for each of them on the floor near the fireplace; the beds were made and ready for use.
I returned to them after getting some stew to eat, keeping them company, and the only liquid I drank was water.
("Eat, eat… prey needs energy to escape predators.")
I thought, for that night they would be my prey.
"But, tell me what they do in the suburbs!?"
"We came for a cleanup; there have been many sightings of atrocious rats around here, so the adventurers' guild sent some groups to help eliminate these monsters."
"I understand… this life of adventure must be fun; in my case, digging in the bushes is boring, but who knows, maybe I'll become an adventurer someday too…"
HAHAHA
The laughter echoed through the dining room.
–"Who knows, sorry, but the last one who tried ended up like the meat in this stew… dead! The world is cruel, peasant, be content with your own work, where will we sleep?"
"I understand, sorry for the inconvenience… but, they said others will come, are you by any chance the first group to arrive?"
–"Yes, why?"
"Nothing in particular, it's just that I simply thought that if I were, you would be fighting the monsters to be ahead of the others at this point, at least that's what I would do."
–"Funny… but, look at him teaching me how to do my job, that's why you're not adventurous. Rest is also essential and with this rain the terrain will be against us, as well as at night, the aggressiveness of the monsters is much greater so hunting during the day is best."
"Really, this isn't the life for me, there's so much to know... Okay, you slept in the living room by the fireplace, I've already made up your beds, I can see you're tired so I won't bother you anymore, my room is right next door if you need anything."
I grabbed a glass of water and ended up taking a pitcher of the same to drink during the night. They barely laid their heads on the pillow, falling asleep like rocks, except for the adventurous one. She was restless; the effect of the aphrodisiac was starting to become visible, her body warmed up.
And it wasn't the fireplace that was making her sweat so much, nor was she covering her body with a blanket. She started touching herself without realizing it, and when she did, she was all wet down there.
"What am I doing? I'm going to get caught… although they're so drunk they won't wake up until tomorrow, and that's a problem. I think simply touching my private parts will solve it. I need one."
She heard a door closing; it was the bathroom door. Someone was inside urinating. That someone was me, making noise on purpose so she would notice my presence.
"The farmer, he might be able to help me!"
She got up, heard the toilet flush, I left the bathroom right after and came face to face with her at my door.
"Do you need anything, adventurous lady?"
I asked, pretending not to notice.
"At that time, you said that if anything happened, just call… was it really anything?"
"Yes, what's happening… do you have a fever? Did the stew agree with you? Excuse me, I'll get you something to help with your fever; you're red and seem to be burning with fever from sweating so much."
I said, touching her forehead with one hand and her waist with the other, disguising my real intentions. She became very embarrassed and pushed me away.
"It's not that, let's go inside to talk better…"
She opened the bedroom door behind her and went in, with me following her.
Some time later, inside the room.
What I could see was her kneeling on the bed, me standing, what I was doing, what you're thinking, you dirty mind.
She was in her underwear, sucking my cock, me naked, happy as can be, what do you think? She sucked deeply with enormous pleasure, I grabbed her blonde hair by the nape of her neck and started thrusting hard and fast, deeper and deeper, I soon ejaculated, it felt so good.
–"Cough… Damn… you're crazy, but now I want your cock eating my pussy!"
She turned around, got on all fours, I grabbed her ass with both hands and slapped each of her buttocks simultaneously, they jiggled deliciously.
I grabbed some body oil from the counter and rubbed it on her, her shiny ass excited my cock a lot, she was very curvy and my penis was throbbing to penetrate her.
I grabbed it and brought it close enough, placed my right leg on the bed and pointed my penis towards her vaginal opening, I slid it in provocatively, I inserted it gently, she couldn't stand the intense arousal and took it all in, moving like crazy.
"Stop playing with my pussy and start fucking."
So I did as she wished, without hesitation I held her waist with my left hand and began to move, it was incredible, even though her vagina was super wet, it was so tight.
A massage that my penis was very grateful for, thrust after thrust she moaned loudly with pleasure, ejaculation was near and a powerful jet came out.
However, I didn't let myself be defeated, I pulled out, the liquid spilled out along with the female ejaculation, she smiled, I laid her down with her ass at the edge of the bed, and started again, once more thrust after thrust, she moaned, trembled, passed out and went crazy, I ejaculated with her at her climax.
"Damn... seriously."
She said, threw me on the bed, and even with a hard-on, I could see the anger and insane pleasure on her face. She sat on top of me and started riding me wildly.
"Honestly, I like this pussy."
That was my thought, faced with such intensity. She went up and down like crazy.
Until she was satisfied, I didn't let her go. I kept going and started moving, fucking her again and again. She tried to break free, but it was too late. The squirt came, she had multiple orgasms, became uncontrollable, and fell onto the bed.
"Now, go see if I'm around the corner, bye."
I didn't complain. I left her in my room, sleeping.
And outside the room, I went to the bathroom to take a shower. The rest of her group was sleeping helplessly like babies.
("Great… now that I'm relieved, I'll execute my main plan. What my father always said was true: money doesn't create monsters, it reveals who we've always been. That old man was crazy, but a wise man who taught me to play with the same intensity. I'm weak, and there are only enemies in this world, without exception!")
The unusual alcohol, a sedative for men. The manipulated food, the woman a resource. Without desire, without emotion, I simply use her. She wasn't seduced, she was manipulated, and when it was all over, I didn't even think about her anymore.
I was thinking about the next step.
Wandering through the dark night of the house, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the sharpest knife I had.
The knife in my hand didn't tremble.
I reached the living room where the adventurers slept, one by one, I cut their throats with precision.
One, two, three clean and precise executions. There was no guilt or hesitation. For me, this wasn't murder. It was investment, but a mistake came on the fourth execution.
The leader of them woke up. The one who caused this was the tramp who came out of the room screaming when she saw what I was doing.
–"Aaah… murderer!"
I eliminated her easily; she was drunk and exhausted. The knife hit her neck, and the hit was critical.
–"Damn it, what are you doing?"
I had left him for last, a mistake that would cost me my life. With him still sleepy, I quickly broke his neck, succeeding.
(Finally…)
Phew!
I thought and sighed in relief.
Everything was over with that death. I stood up and walked towards the woman's body to confirm her death.
"Hey… who do you work for?"
The leader stood up, regenerated.
"Oh, still alive… I was really bored too, I never thought the S.M.I.L.E. members would be so easy to eliminate."
The information hit me like a knife to the heart.
"How did you find out?"
"Does it matter now? Anyway… when I try to pretend to be an adventurer next time."
"Wait! There won't be a next time. But he doesn't know that, hahaha…")
"Hide the mark of your organization that you have stamped on your shoulder better. But that's not what gave you away… I recognize you guys just like that."
He held his left shoulder and smiled.
His calm expression vanished, then he held the axe on his back and removed it.
–"You're right, even though I'm just an insignificant scumbag in the organization, I'll take your head to our leader!"
"Are you talking about Kaito? That bastard is just a puppet, Stephanie Smile is the hidden leader, not the slut I'm going to ejaculate inside before killing her!"
–"Kaito… how do you know our leader's name? You're a nobody, and who is this Stephanie Smile?"
"Poor soul…"
As soon as he uttered the forbidden name of that woman, his mark on his shoulder reacted, his body began to contort and then collapsed, falling to the ground dead.
When the forbidden name was spoken. It wasn't the system that responded, it was something above it.
"…so it still works like that."
I simply observed. The silence was beautiful.
It was confirmation, the game was never a game.
"So, this rat infestation was probably created and released by S.M.I.L.E… I better prepare myself, I probably have until dawn to get stronger."
"She'll probably send one of her rats to verify this death, judging by the pronunciation of her name, and that's what I'm counting on."
"Let's farm!"
From the kitchen, I used all the flammable liquid I had, started spreading it generously around the house, and checked the loot left by the deaths.
"All items nearing (B). Powerful, but unnecessary for me right now. Open a shop and sell all items above (F)."
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
「MARKET」
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
• SELL!
- Axe (B)
~Cost: 500 G
- Armor (B)
~Cost: 500 G
- Sword (D)
~Cost: 300 G
- Magic Sword (B)
~Cost: 500 G
- Bloody Whip (A)
~Cost: 600 G
- Gauntlets (D)
~Cost: 300 G
- Light Armor (C)
~Cost: 400 G
- Heavy Armor (A+)
~Cost: 700 G
⊰⊱━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊰⊱
"Those guys had a good amount of money for bandits, 7,800 G in total and another 3,800 G from sales." That makes a total of 11,600 G.
After removing all the belongings of the dead and selling the unnecessary items at the system's store, I set fire to the house and left with it burning behind me.
I didn't look back for a moment.
("Gold doesn't create monsters... it only reveals them.")
I walked in the ceasing rain.
In that neighborhood in the lower part of the starting city, Starting City.
Even the creatures were exploited even after death; besides being cruel, it was simply because it was cheaper to replace them than to care for them, and the same went for slaves.
"Really, the way a people treats their animals reveals how much a life is worth when money enters the equation, and after those deaths, money is no problem."
("They didn't look like it, but they were at least a Rank B group; by now, only their ashes must be left...")
"Now let's see, everything I've achieved, system, show my character's information!"
┈───╌╌───┈
[Notification]
┈───╌╌───┈
• EXPERIENCE GAIN
- Gained a total of 1500 XP from kills.
• LEVEL UP
- Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up… Leveled up!
• GAINS PER LEVEL UP
- Gained a total of 136 attribute points (AP) to distribute.
┈───╌╌───┈
"I understand… I'll put half in physical form and the other half in magical form."
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Krizuku]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Age: 25 years old
Height: 1.83 meters
Weight: 80 kilograms
Gender: Male
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SKILLS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Energy Boxing (E)
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[INVENTORY]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Brass Knuckles (F)
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP: 274 -> 684
SP: 264
MP: 342
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ATTRIBUTES]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Resistance: 132
Perception: 132
Physical Aptitude: 142 -> 210
Magical Aptitude: 142 -> 210
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[INF. EXTRA]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Race: Human
Class: Beginner
Rank: F -> E
Level: 0 -> 6
XP: 0 -> 1500 XP
PA: 48 pts -> 598 -> 734 -> 870
Gold: 1000 G
━━━━━━━━━━━━
//////////////////////////
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Was the system perfect or too cruel? The game's creator, a man whose name no one dared speak today, was not only a genius but also one of the top two hundred richest people in the real world, and even worse, within the game, his character possessed billions of gold. The most curious thing is that this virtual fortune was still small compared to his real wealth.
IF HE ALREADY HAS EVERYTHING, WHY DID HE CREATE A GAME WHERE EVERYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT?
"That's the phrase that changed everything; it's been circulating in the game's fandom for ages. That old man made history when he answered that question."
The answer came with blood.
[THE DAIMYO'S TREASURE HUNT]
A hidden event that became visible as soon as its creator died. Besides being officially announced and listed in the menus, it was whispered among S-Rank and above. A sequence of tests, hidden clues, forbidden areas to be uncovered, and in the end, no one knew how to reach the treasure or its guardian.
This was an event that no one ignored. The Daimyo's treasure, the event, the madness, the legacy to which the creator had left everything.
Real money, virtual fortune, absolute power. Everything. But that wasn't what scared me. It was the challenge.
"Defeating your avatar?"
I smiled, for the first time genuinely in that game.
"Father…"
That word came out as an almost nonexistent whisper.
"...I'm going to break your game."
Because unlike others, I wasn't there for the money.