Finn somehow managed to zigzag through the crowd and run home.
After getting home, he noticed that both of his parents were sitting down, watching TV, and as soon as he entered the house, they turned their heads towards him.
"Finn."
His mom, Helen, called him and patted the spot on the sofa next to her, so Finn nodded and went to sit down.
"We already read an email that was sent to all parents, so we know about the changes that were made within your school, and because I don't want to be a nagging parent, I am not going to comment on you going to school late because of Second Life."
Helen smiled and rubbed Finn's shoulder.
"Also, your father really wants to play Second Life already, but because you told us to wait, he keeps complaining, so can you please do something about it?"
Finn's father, Josh, who was watching the TV, flinched and turned to look at Helen with a surprised expression.
"Huh?! I never said that! You were the one who said that you enjoyed breathing in the fresh smell of the forest, and you also kept telling me about the beauty of the bustling city, so why am I the one being accused?"
Helen ignored her husband and continued.
"Anyway, when will you have time, Finn?"
Josh was looking at Finn like he was telling him to back him up, but Finn knew better than to go against his own mother, so he ignored his dad and began telling them what to do.
Finn wanted his mom to open a restaurant because he knew it would be a hit, and she also wanted to try cooking with otherworldly ingredients, so she agreed.
One thing Finn didn't know was that Josh was also really good at cooking, but because Helen was always the one cooking, Josh never had the chance to show his skills off.
Finn also told his parents about different NPCs that would give quests about cooking.
The quests he told his parents about were all really profitable, and some were even hidden behind boring-looking quests, so he was sure that his parents would reach level five in a jiffy.
For them to open a restaurant, Finn needed them to both be level 5 so that they could choose the chef class, and then he needed to buy them a building for it, but he had a plan on how to make money after his guild would get created, so he had that covered.
---
After logging in, Finn looked around and noticed that the area around the mansion looked a lot nicer.
The lawn was now cut, statues were repaired, and the road leading to the mansion didn't have any holes in it.
The mansion itself had a new color that replaced the previous bleak one, and all the previously shattered windows were changed for new ones.
Finn spent only a few hours outside Second Life, but for Sophie and Rex it was twice the time because of the time difference in the game compared to real life.
Also, since Rex was able to manipulate non-living objects around the mansion, the time they had to put into repairing the mansion shortened a lot.
Finn then entered the mansion and noticed that the interior had new furniture. The walls and the floor were clean, and just looking around, he felt very proud of Sophie and Rex.
Suddenly he saw Sophie walking down the stairs with a frown, while Rex was floating and following behind her.
Rex was looking at Finn with eyes that were filled with pity.
"Finn…"
Finn was about to shout his thanks at Sophie, but he stopped himself when he heard her bone-chilling voice.
"Y- Yes Sophie?"
"How do you like the mansion?"
Her voice was very calm, and she didn't sound that angry, so Finn thought that he was in the clear and started praising her work.
"It's very beautiful! I like it a lot! You have done a great job in renovating it!"
He gave her a thumbs up as he continued telling her how great the new mansion looked, but his body froze up when Sophie's stare turned into a glare as if she were a predator eyeing her prey.
"Yes. I cut the lawn, fixed the road and the outside statues, bought materials, threw old things out, bought new furniture, helped Rex decorate the mansion because he had no sense of style, cleaned all the trash I found that was left after the previous owners, and you…"
Slowly walking down the stairs without having Finn leave her eyesight, Sophie narrowed her eyes.
"...What did you do to help, Finn?"
Feeling a lump in his throat, Finn didn't know what to say.
He loved teasing Sophie and making jokes, but if he were to say something like, "I flirted with my classmates," then that wouldn't be him joking anymore. That would be him signing his death certificate.
So he slowly opened his mouth and clamped his hands in front of his face.
"I am so sorry, Sophie!"
"Hmm."
She nodded, and Finn thought that she was accepting his apology, so he started running towards her with a smile.
"Sophie!"
"Sorry won't cut it, Finn. I am really pissed off, and I need to relieve my anger. So, clench your teeth."
She started raising her right hand and clenching it into a fist, so Finn immediately stopped and started waving his hands.
"W- Wait Sophie! How about this! You get to name our guild! That sounds like a great deal, no? I think it does!"
Sophie stopped preparing her strike and thought about it.
After a few seconds, she eased up her fist and immediately thought of a name for their new guild.
"Alright. Then the name should be Jumping Dogs."
"…"
"…"
Both Rex and Finn looked at her with dumbfounded expressions.
There was no way in hell that Finn would let his guild be called that, so he tried his best to convince her to change it.
"S- Sophie. Can you please pick a different name?"
"Hmm? You said that I would be the one picking the name."
She tilted her head and began to frown.
"Yeah, but Jumping Dogs is a little…"
"Shit."
Rex finished Finn's sentence from the side, but after receiving a cold glare from Sophie, he instantly regretted it.
"N- No, I mean, it's… uhh… unique! Yeah, it sure is a unique name!"
He began waving his hands around, not wanting to incur the wrath of Sophie.
"Then tell me some ideas, and I will pick one from them."
Sophie knew that they didn't like the name, so she wanted to know what they thought were some nice names.
"Godslaying Immortal Heroes!"
Finn suddenly shouted, and both Rex and Sophie looked at him like they were unsure if he was a dumbass or not.
"No. Rejected. Next."
Sophie immediately denied Finn's idea, which sounded like something a ten-year-old would come up with.
"The Strongest Dragons of the Infinite Cosmos!"
"No."
"Invincible Godly Existences!"
"Nope."
"Undefeatable Spirit Dominators!"
"Just stop."
Sophie stopped Finn and looked at Rex in the hopes that he might have a better idea.
"Uhhh… I don't really know. I'm not good at this stuff…"
Rex stopped and thought about it for a bit.
After a minute, he finally opened his mouth.
"How about Forsaken Rebels? It means that we were forsaken by fate, but we rebel against it in our everyday lives."
"…That is a good name. Let's go with that."
Sophie nodded, and Finn, who tried to sneak the word "godly" in there, was firmly rejected.
Finn then opened the system and made a guild. He chose the mansion as the guild's headquarters and made Sophie its vice leader right away.
As Rex wasn't a player, he couldn't join but he didn't mind because he felt happy that they used the name he thought of.
[You have created a guild called Forsaken Rebels]
[Your guild headquarters are currently level 3, but can be upgraded up to level 12]
[Your guild headquarters come with two facilities: a kitchen and a library]
[…]
So many new messages popped up in front of Finn, and after reading them, he flicked them all away.
He then invited his friends into his new guild, and they all happily agreed to join.
After that, he promoted them to officers, which was a rank between a normal member and a vice leader.
Remembering that he also leveled up after finishing Rex's quest, he opened his status screen.
Name: Chained_Trickster
Guild: Forsaken Rebels (Guild master)
Class: Moonlight Swordsman (9%)
Level: 11 (0/6000)
Skills: Stealth (50%), Vital hit (20%), Shadow jump (12%), Limit break (3%)
Attributes(+3): Strength 26, Intelligence 19, Endurance 12, Agility 22
Titles: Loki's blessed, Owner of the black feather, Push through adversity
'Not bad.'
Finn put his attribute points into agility because he wanted his agility to be higher than his strength, and after that he would start to raise his endurance.
Remembering how easily Sophie broke his finger made him want to raise it so that his body would become a little tougher, but that could wait for now.
He also noticed that he now had a decent mastery of some of his skills, so he checked to see what had changed.
Sneak went from hiding his noise by 10% to 50%.
Vital hit went from boosting the attack up to 200% to boosting it up to 300%.
Shadow jump increased his travel distance from five meters to ten meters, and Limit break didn't really change because he only had 3% on it so far.
Finn knew that he would also get new skills every 25% of his class mastery, but he still needed quite a lot to reach there.
If Finn had a common class, then at this point he would have it at 80-100% mastery, but because he chose the most overpowered and also the hardest to master class in the game, he only had 9%.
He didn't care, though, because if he didn't have this class, he wouldn't have been able to win the tournament or help Rex, so he was happy that he had it, even if it was a pain to master.
Closing the status screen, he looked at Sophie with a smirk.
"Now that we have a guild, we can start making money!"
"How?"
She asked him because Finn had never talked to her about this.
"Easy. We use my fame and our mansion to advertise our guild. This will make everyone want to join us, and we will accept everyone for a fee. Then we will use that fee to buy buildings from Blue Whale and rent them out to other guilds!"
Sophie had to think about the plan for a second and then realize how genius and evil it was, but she frowned right after.
"If we let everyone join, then a lot of bad people will join too, and if they then use our guild's name when they do something bad, then our reputation will hit rock bottom."
"Every guild has this problem, though. We can't fix everything, but if we make sure to always kick the bad people out and promote the good ones, then our guild will soar."
"Wait. Who in the world would have time to kick people out all day? That sounds like the most boring job to… Finn, why are you looking at me like that?"
Finn was looking at Sophie with a smile, but she knew that whenever he looked at her like that, he would then ask for something right after.
"Sophie-"
"No! I want to enjoy the game! I do want to help you with the guild, but I am not going to sit in an office all day checking if a player from my guild is behaving himself."
Before Finn could even start speaking, Sophie firmly rejected his stupid idea.
"No, that's not what I wanted to say."
But Finn shook his head.
"Then?"
Sophie looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You just have to hire some people that will do it for you. There are a lot of people that play this game, but they don't want to fight, and they will do this boring job if you pay them well."
"I see."
She realized that she was seeing the worst-case scenario possible, but Finn never planned on working Sophie to the bone. He loved her and wanted her to do things she liked to do and not sit in an office all day.
"The first week will be hectic, but we can get through it together!"
After hyping himself up, Finn opened the Second Life website to write a post.
He was surprised to see that he had a small golden #1 next to his name, which probably meant that he had won the tournament.
'This will help.'
He then began writing his recruitment article.
"Hello everyone,
I have created my own guild, Forsaken Rebels, and I would love to invite you all to join it.
Do you want to find friends to play with? Join my guild.
Are you already a member of a guild? Mine is better, so leave yours and join mine.
I welcome everyone.
If you are someone who isn't battle-oriented, then don't fret. I am also looking for people like you.
So everyone who wants to join should just write me a short description of who they are, what their strengths are, and what they would like to do when they join my guild.
There is a small fee to join, but it is only a single gold coin.
See you all in my guild!
Sincerely,
Chained_Trickster.
PS: This is the picture of our guild headquarters."
After signing it and adding a picture of the mansion they were currently in, he posted it, and within minutes it became the number one trading post.
Everyone in the comments was talking about how they wanted to join the guild, and Finn had a wide smile because he was already imagining how rich they would become.