After the meeting, Finn was excused by the three gods, and he logged out for some much-needed rest.
Although he did sleep on the chair, he was still pretty tired after the last fight, where he did everything to win, so as soon as he logged out, he hit the sack.
When Finn had logged out it was dark outside and upon waking up, hearing the noisy birds outside his window, he noticed that it was almost noon.
It was also Saturday, which meant that once Monday arrived, Finn would have to go back to school since the spring break was only a week long.
Finn slept the entire time naked, so he first grabbed some clothes and then went down the stairs to the living room, hoping to find his mom there.
He noticed that his mom Helen was watching the cooking show Geniuschef, and so he decided to surprise her before she noticed that he had stopped playing Second Life.
Slowly tiptoeing towards the sofa so as not to make any noise, he jumped forward to grab his mom's shoulders.
RING RING RING
But before he could scare her, his phone suddenly started ringing.
He checked who was calling, and it was an unknown number, but when he looked up from the screen, he saw his mom smiling at him.
"Finn, why didn't you tell me you stopped playing? I would have made you lunch."
This sentence sounded normal and kind, but the way she was smiling at him made Finn feel like he was being watched by a dangerous predator.
"Oh, by the way, you weren't trying to do something stupid just now, right? Like scaring me?"
Finn audibly gulped and started shifting his eyes.
"Uhhh… No mom... I was…"
His phone kept ringing, so he quickly decided to use it as an excuse.
"Oh! I have to pick this up! It's important!"
After quickly retreating from the scene of the crime, he went to the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a single door, where he could still hear some parts of his mom's mumblings.
"I swear… He leaves the kitchen… I will…"
Not wanting to hear what exactly she was saying, he just picked up the phone, and an old man's voice sounded from the other side.
"Hello. Sir Finn, I presume?"
"Yes, that's right, but who is calling me?"
Finn was a little creeped out because he thought that one of his new fans stalked him and found out his phone number.
"Oh, my apologies for the late introduction. My name is Klaus, and my master has tasked me with finding out if you had forgotten to call him by any chance."
'Call him? And who is his master… Oh! Nina's father, right. I was busy with the tournament, so I forgot... Wait!'
Finn suddenly snapped out of his thoughts and frowned.
"How do you know my number, though? I remember that Nina's father had given me his number, but I never shared mine…"
"Not to worry, sir. We just looked it up in the police database."
"…"
'Not to worry, my ass! That is basically stalking, but even creepier!'
Finn didn't know if this was normal for rich people, so he just decided to ignore it and end the call.
"I see… Well, as I said before, I don't really need anything, and I only saved Nina because she was in danger, so we can just forget about it. Goodbye."
Beep
He quickly ended the call so that the person on the other side wouldn't even have a chance to talk him into something and decided to check his messages.
Leo, James, and Mia were all asking him if he was okay, and he quickly replied to each one of them.
He was a little sad to not see a message from Sophie, but then he remembered that she didn't have his number, so she couldn't message him even if she wanted to.
Mia probably asked Leo for Finn's number, but knowing Sophie, she probably couldn't be bothered to ask Mia for it.
Suddenly he heard a commotion at the front door, so he left the kitchen and went to take a look.
There he saw his father, Josh, still wearing his winter coat with a dark expression, and Helen was hugging him while crying.
Finn's heart skipped a beat.
He thought that even though he did his best to cure his father, the world decided to kill him in another way because he was supposed to die.
At least, that's what happened in a lot of the films that Finn had watched.
With slow steps, he approached his parents.
"Wh- What happened, dad?"
A shaky voice escaped his quivering lips, not wanting to accept that his parents were being forced to die one way or another.
"Finn, you are awake… well… how can I say this…"
The longer his father was taking, the faster Finn's heart started to beat.
"…It is my company. It is filing for bankruptcy."
When Finn heard this, he first released a sigh of relief from his lungs, knowing that as long as it wasn't another tumor seeking to take his father's life, there were ways to fix any issue.
'Money…'
Finn knew he would need money sooner or later, and he was pretty rich in Second Life, but he didn't have a stable income yet, neither a passive nor an active one.
He could exchange his gold coins for real money, but he would rather use them to get more coins instead.
There were some ways that he could get money by investing the thousand gold coins that he had, but those were long-term investments.
If the worst comes to the worst, he wouldn't mind abandoning his wealth to help his family, but that would be only a temporary solution.
Josh was the only person working in Finn's family. His mom was a stay-at-home mom, who cleaned the house and cooked meals. And Finn was still a high schooler, so his family depended solely on his father.
"Can't you just find another job at another company?"
Finn thought that since Josh was a programmer, he wouldn't have a problem getting another job.
"That's what I thought too… but those bastards!"
Finn's father suddenly started to grind his teeth, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
"Darling!"
His wife held his fist, and after a deep breath, he calmed down again. He then looked at Finn and began explaining what had happened.
"…I can't leave the company because of a contract that I have signed. Normally it would be just a basic employment contract, but because the company suddenly went into bankruptcy, it is now refusing to pay their employees, and they are forcing us to work because if we don't, we will be breaking the terms of that contract and will go to jail."
Finn was bewildered by such a crazy situation. Not even in his previous life had he heard about such a thing.
"That sounds extremely illegal! Let's just go to the police!"
"That's the first thing we did, but it seems that the boss of our company has some connections in the police department, and we were just ignored."
Josh shook his head with a bitter expression.
"We also thought about contacting a lawyer, but he told us that the contract we had signed was basically a ticking time bomb, and he too is powerless."
The more he heard, the more confused Finn became.
A company that doesn't have enough money to keep running but has enough money to pay off the police? Something wasn't quite right.
'Could it be that the bankruptcy is just a ploy to force their employees to work like slaves? Then what am I supposed to do... Beat them up in Second Life? HA! ha…'
He clenched his teeth in anger.
'Damn! I might have become famous in the game, but it will take some time for the game to influence the real world, so as of right now, I can just powerlessly watch by…'
Finn was also starting to become depressed, and now the entire Graham family was standing with disheartened expressions in their entrance hall.
'If you aren't powerful yourself, why not just ask someone who is?'
Loki was starting to get bored of the gloomy atmosphere, so he decided to help Finn out.
'Like who? A god? Should I start praying right here and maybe a bag of cash will drop from the sky?'
Finn sarcastically thought, but there was a much simpler solution that he didn't see.
'No. I mean that old man you met when you saved that human girl. I don't really know what someone powerful looks like, but if they have a personal helicopter and a dozen bodyguards at their beck and call, they must have some sort of status, right?'
Suddenly Finn's face recovered its lost color, and a smile bloomed on his face.
'You are right! Why didn't I think of that? He wants to thank me for saving his daughter, so he might help me with this situation!'
Finn quickly looked at his parents with a happy expression.
"Mom. Dad. I have a rich friend that might help us, so I will go ask him, okay?"
"A rich friend? Finn, we are in a bad situation, but we don't want to live our lives in debt."
Josh looked up at Finn, but then he quickly shook his head, refusing to become indebted to some rich kid that might say he owns them if they beg him for help.
If worst comes to worst Josh planned to slave away the last two years that he had on his contract and try to find a second job.
"Don't worry! He owes me one so he will do it for free!"
"If you say so… Just make sure not to sign any weird contracts like I had done."
Grabbing a jacket, Finn quickly left the house and called the number he had previously hung up on.
It didn't even start ringing and was immediately picked up, as if the person on the other side was waiting for Finn to call him.
"I'm glad to hear from you again, Sir Finn."
The same voice that previously introduced itself as "Klaus" said.
"Yes, and I'm sorry for hanging up on you like that."
Finn apologetically responded.
"No need, sir Finn. I understand how my master forced his gratitude on you. If you are calling me, does it mean that you have changed your mind?"
"Yes! I have decided to meet Nina and her father because I have something to talk about."
"Great! Well, then, have a safe journey."
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Finn looked stunned at the phone that just had its call ended by that Klaus person.
"What does he mean by safe journey… I don't even know where I am supposed to go."
Not understanding the situation, Finn wanted to call Klaus again, but before he could press the call button, he heard something above his head.
A loud sound of wind being cut echoed throughout the entire street.
Looking up, he saw a helicopter that was slowly descending towards him.
'Don't tell me that he had already sent a helicopter to pick me up because he knew I would accept…'
The helicopter then slowly landed on the road, and Finn's neighbors all came outside their houses to look at what was happening.
The sliding door of the helicopter opened, and six men in black suits came out.
One of them then walked up to Finn with an expressionless face.
"Sir Finn, correct? Please get on, we shall depart immediately."
"Uhhh… Yeah, I'm Finn. Won't it be a problem that you are using a helicopter to transport me? What if you need it for something urgent?"
Finn thought that they might send someone to pick him up, but he would never have guessed that they would send a helicopter with a bodyguard team.
"No sir. This is only one of the many helicopters that the family owns."
'One of many…? Just how rich is Nina's father actually?'
He had more questions, but he decided to keep them to himself and just get inside the helicopter.
All the neighbors started taking pictures, and even Finn's parents came out.
When Finn had said that he had a rich friend, they didn't expect a "helicopter pickup" rich friend.
Before the sliding door of the helicopter closed, Finn peeked out and waved at his parents.
"Bye mom! Bye dad! I will be back after I fix that situation!"
With that, the helicopter slowly took off and began to fly away.
The villa wasn't far from the city, so after ten minutes of flying in one direction, Finn was finally able to see the house that he would be meeting Nina and her father in.
He knew that it would probably be a big villa but after finally seeing it, he felt like Nina's family lived in a completely different world than his own.
Finn was so shocked that he forgot to close his mouth, which made some of the stone-faced bodyguards chuckle.
But that wasn't the most shocking thing he would see today. Not by a long shot.