"Follow me!" Verm ordered.
"Y-Yes, sir." the female was obviously stressed out, her boss was back and one of the events he was looking forward to was now gone.
'This will affect all of the employees.' she sighed and followed behind him.
After a few moments, they both finished watching a short video prepared by the operators.
"I see, so that's how it is," Verm said heavily.
"Put this individual on the list of irregulars and watch him closely."
"Is it necessary sir? Maybe it was just a stroke of newbie luck?" she asked, hoping to change his mind. An irregular on the list means nonstop monitoring and detailed reports, she would have to find another workforce to do so.
"Leaving the fact that he managed to receive Unique Achievement that allows him to create unique skills, and the fact that he already managed to combine it with a basic bow skill to create a skill on almost broken level, there is an additional reason," Verm said while shaking his head.
"I can see, no I can feel it! The way he moves, he has very particular control over his body. With such control, he will be able to skip many game mechanics, for example, Werewolf leap..,"
"I understood" she replied.
"Also prepare the next planned update."
"Already?! Sir, isn't it too fast? The game is out barely for 3 days, shouldn't we wait a little bit?" she pled for him to change his mind. An update would require an additional workforce, she could already feel the overtime hours.
"The next update was just basic features such as Internet access in the game, Friend list, Private messages, and Guilds. I don't see any problem with releasing it earlier".
"But internet access means that Aoi would proceed with the self-awarned much faster, the world progression, especially the NPC and monsters intelligence would be rapidly increased." she knew what that means, another work...
Verm looked at her and smiled.
"Don't think I don't know what you are thinking about, always whining about the amount of work" he laughed.
"But don't worry, I have my reasons. The game's popularity already exceeded our expectations. Big stockholders are looking for the smallest impact to buy as much as they can, every large and intelligent company could already tell, that even if we release the technology for a common market, the game will remain as most of the power aspect, all depends on the updates we can provide, as long as they are large they will profit from it." Verm looked in her eyes.
'He has such nice eyes' she thought.
Then she realized what she was thinking and blushed.
*Cough*
"I will prepare an update for tomorrow," she said and hastily left the room.
Verm looked at the screen with paused video for a few more seconds, then he pressed replay and watched it once again.
***
Ikky followed the guard to their captain. To his surprise, the captain's house was not far away from the training field, he was surprised that nobody came to help deal with the Werewolf.
However, when he entered he understood. The walls were soundproof, probably because of all the noise that was usually coming from the Training field, they made them this way.
"Please wait here, we will notify our captain first," asked one of the guards when they arrived at the large doors.
"Sure." Ikky noded.
Two guards disappeared behind large doors, while the last one was left outside. All of sudden, the guard felt uneasy being left behind with an unknown youngster. In the end, he decided to lean against the wall several meters away trying to not look at him.
After a moment doors opened again and two guards left the room.
"You can enter now," one of them said.
"We need to return now, Captain ordered to form a team and check Underground armory. Thank you very much for saving us back there," he said while bowing.
"Thank you!" said the other guard and bowed as well, the third one followed.
All three of them left afterward, Ikky was looking at their back when a voice came from the open doors.
"Please enter."
Ikky went inside and closed the doors behind him. In front of him was a man in his mid-forties, he still had some muscles, but because of his position of age, they already degraded from what they used to be.
"Please sit down" he pointed to one of the chairs while sitting behind the desk.
When Ikky sat down, he began.
"My name is Xarus Kardin, I'm captain of town guards, and I heard from my man what happened," then he stood up again and bowed.
"Thank you very much for cleaning the underground armory, and for saving town people from that monster." silence followed.
"It was my pleasure," Ikky answered then hesitated, in the end, he decided to ask.
"I don't want to sound rude, but why did you not ask higher-ups to clean the underground armory? As I saw, Werewolf broke doors on the first layer quite easily, what made you believe that he would stay inside forever?"
"Sigh~" Captain signed and closed his eyes.
After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes again and looked straight into the Ikkys eyes.
"You met guard at the 1st layer doors right?" he asked.
"Yes, unfortunately, he did not survive the Werewolf breakout," Ikky answered with sadness in his voice. Even if it was only an NPC, it was a very lively one and he felt as if the guard was alive.
"To tell you the truth, I knew the Werewolf would not leave the underground armory as long as he was standing there as a guard." he looked outside of the window and continued.
"Before the Werewolf turned into a monster, it was previously one of my men, and it was actually that guard partner. When the accident happened, Werewolf could have fled away, but he decided to only break the bottom floor doors and free other monsters while staying at the arena making it its den."
Ikky was listening, then he understood, that even if Werewolf turned into a monster, it must have kept some of the feelings of his old partner and it didn't want to go close to him due to fear of killing him.
"But in the end, it fled, and killed his old partner in the process," Ikky said.
"Yes, it was probably my fault asking others to clear the underground armory. I should have either call up higher-ups or left him alone, but I was hoping that somebody would somehow someday fix my problem..."
"Well, that day came, but was it worth the cost?" Ikky couldn't resist asking.
"..." captain didn't answer.
"Anyway, I believe that your bravery requires a reward," he said ignoring the previous question.
[Quest - Bottom layers (hidden) completed]
-Due to the difficulty of the quest, the additional reward will be received
[Experience gained 12000]
[You have leveled up 6 -> 7]
[You have leveled up 7 -> 8]
[Gained 12 stat points]
[Gained 1 gold]
[Gained Medal of Honor]
-Allow accessing some areas restricted to normal citizens even to low-ranked nobles.
[Gained Recommendation letter]
-Deliver this letter to High Paladin in Reld city, it's recommended not to break the seal on the letter.
[Gained Unique Title
-Your fame exceeds your name, effect +100 fame
"Well, I would like to talk to you for a bit longer, but after many years I finally have a chance to clear the underground armory," said Captain and stood up again.
Ikky also stood up. Xarus then stretched his hand forward.
"Let me thank you for the last time,"
Ikky shakked hands with Captain and said his farwell.
***
After leaving the Training center, Ikky noticed it was already daytime. When he looked at the in-game clock, he realized that 12 hours already passed by, even if the game was a bit faster it should be around 9 hours in the real world. He continued to play since 7 pm, so it should be around 6 am the next day.
With everything that happened today, Ikky didn't wish for anything else than a short break, so he looked for the nearest Inn and logged off.
******************