On the day of the website launching, we were quite expectant.
Of course, who wouldn't be?
But days went by, as we checked the website during our stay in the club room, there's still nothing.
That was understandable. Because we didn't market it. Wr just let it stay there, and have people search for it on their own.
Which also mean, I'm currently trying to minimize my spending on the system shop.
The upgrade and the patch alone ate it all up.
Until on a Friday, as the four of us were just sitting on our chair with no club activity, a notification popped up on Sarah's computer.
"Hey guy, check this out." She called us all to watch her monitor screen.
"Is this website legit? Because if it is, I would like to inquire about something." Cynthia read the message on it.
"Respond to it, this must be our future client." I said excitedly, even though I was trying to hide it.
"Babe, try asking what that person needs." Gino said leaning forward towards Sarah, their cheeks pressing against each other.
Sarah typed a response and asked what the person was inquiring about.
Moments later there was a steady flow of back and forth coming from both sides until the person inquiring agreed on meeting us in person at our store.
The timing was quite perfect since tomorrow's a Saturday. Our first official opening.
The next day, we were busy preparing to display the items I bought from the system shop. For now, there's not much varieties but all useful.
By 10 am, the door opened with a man stepping inside with such curiosity. Then his gaze landed on us with quite the expression of someone thinking he was in the wrong place.
"Good morning, how may we helo you?" I walked forward with a smile.
"Is..this the store for ParaSystem?" The man looked at us, still quite doubtful.
Can't blame him, since we claim to deal with paranormal activities during his inquiry but all he was seeing was 4 young adults running the store.
"Yes, this is ParaSystem's physical store and office. Are you perhaps Mr. Joel Perez?" Sarah asked with a smile.
The man nodded and his face turned serious.
"I've got no time for such pranks. Are you the people I was talking with through the website chat yesterday?" He asked with a hint of anger in his voice.
"Everything we said was true." I said briefly.
Then the man turned around, and was about to leave. And I saw a dark aura coming out him.
The rest wasn't able to see it. They can only see the entities but not the energy they emit.
"You....have done something that angered a creature that can't be seen." I said, narrowing my eyes to check the dark energy around him.
The man stopped and slowly turned around to face us.
"How did you....no, was everything you said during our chatting?" The man's expression changed now.
From doubtful to desperate in a blink..
"It was. Why don't we continue our conversation in the office?" I gestured for him to walk with us towards the consultation room..
He nodded and followed me. His steps echoed quite loudly in a very unnatural way.
The items around the shop was reacting to the energy and was slowly fading away from the man's body.
[DARK ENERGY HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY PURGED OUT]
As the man sat on the chair across mine, he let out a very deep sigh. Something of relief.
"This place...is quite special isn't it?" He said with a weak, tired smile.
"You felt lighter. And you brought something in our store that our items reacted immediately." I said, with a bit of advertising for our items.
"Those items we passed by? They have this effect?" He asked now totally hooked.
"Yes, but it depends on what's needed to be dealt with. For now, why don't we talk about the creature you offended. It's angry. Very angry." I looked at him quite seriously now.
"That....oh god, wait. Let me breathe for a bit. I've never felt this light since...since that day." He leaned forward running his hand on his hair.
"Take your time. But just so we're clear, an hour of consultation is 1000 pesos." I said bluntly.
I need the money to exchange for points. 1000 pesos was only 10 points. Which was barely even buying anything.
Then Cynthia moved quickly and handed Joel the list of our services offered and payment methods with a smile.
Like she just offered a chocolate instead of the ridiculously expensive charges we put together.
Joel took it and was surprised to see it at first then recovered closing the folder after nodding.
"Okay, I'm ready to tall about it fully." He said seriously.
"Okay, before that let us introduce ourselves formally. I am Anthony Magsaysay, the leader of this group, to my right are Sarah Estrera, Gino Uy, and to my left is Cynthia Bartolome. These people are the current members of my team."
The three of them shook his hand one by one as he was our very first client to our official opening day.
"Good to know you all, so I'll get straight to the point. I don't know how you were able to tell something already, Anthony, and I'll hold your word for it that this store is legit." He said tossing away his reluctance regarding our youth.
"Tell us the details and so we will know how to deal with your problem moving forward." Gino said, adjusting his laptop.
Joel cleared his throat and started detailing out what happened.
"My daughter has been very ill for a month with no findings from the hospital at all. And she's getting weaker and weaker. No matter what medicine she took, she wasn't recovering, even the slightest. So, we went to a healer from a province and told us that my daughter was being stalked by a kapre, wanting to take her away from us. That creature was in love with my daughter, and lived at the big tree beside our house. And I paid someone to cut it off." Joel said clasping his hands together.
[TEAM TASK ACQUIRED: ELIMINATE THE KAPRE THAT'S TARGETING JOEL PEREZ'S DAUGHTER]
Now, this client's now officially our first customer.
The system has already made it a task. And we're absolutely going to deal with it.