Apparently Artha had turned cocky after being declared an completely neutral and assesst to be cossested, oops, assest to be guarded in the meeting. So when the said meeting ended and people were departing on ones and two, chatting, he snuck out and without any detour, entered the inn. He was nearing his nook (after all he had worked hard to get permission to use that dim and cramped space) when he was stopped. It was the first time Artha was accosted, that too within the inn. Traditionally, all NPC places were considered neutral to the extreme, thus not many brought player related issues there. Artha had never been assassinated before, so he had no idea of precautions to be taken and where they were paramount. He had assumed that a very high quality black cloak hid his identity very well. True it did. But this lady had other ways to find him and if she wanted to kill, it was so easy.
Bring bullied in real life meant he could feel the hatred and focus of a bully, not the monitoring of an assassin. Assassins had no feeling towards the walking dead guys. The killing intent, may or may not be present. Artha was not profient enough to pick those up. So, just like that, he was accosted near his nook.
He sighed and sat in his nook again. He just had few minutes before he could log off.
"Look, I don't know who you are, what you want and why you need to 'talk with me '. But, please talk fast as I'll log off in two minutes."
"You can call me Freezy."
"Hi, Freezy." Yep. Today's meeting was a total brain drain.
"In the meeting today, you promised you will not join any guild."
" How do you know about the meeting? But yes, I don't want to join any guild. I am happy to be an indie."
" You know, there is only two recourse in mind of guild people when they see useful people - use them personally or destroy them personally. Why do you think they gave you leeway?"
"Because I am not that useful?" Artha replied doubtfully, hesitantly. He had guessed it previously. Even if he was thick skinned and shameless, he could never rival the old coots in the guilds who had seen and destroyed soany players before.
"Bingo! Your usefulness is limited. So they will use you and discard you. Don't you want to know why your usefulness is limited?"
"I am more interested in why you want to tell that to me, Freezy but go on. I have just 1 minute and counting to listen to you before I leave. It's time to log off. "
"Give me your real life contact, I'll explain in detail then."
"Honey, every payment I receive is through escrow account, though I have to pay through the nose for it. You think I did that and yet give you my info? You have my IGN, mail me the details and I promise you I will read it carefully. You can even call me later to check if I have read it. Bye now, toodles."
It's true, foolish never fear the unknown. Artha was talking to one of the dreaded killers, yet he was so breezy, instead of being freezy.(Pun not intended).
But Artha had capital to be breezy. His gave face was default one. His name, obviously made up one. The only link to his real life was the money from the bank but it was rerouted from the game's eschrow account. He was practically a seperate entity from the real life deals. He could totally play however he wished without worrying about it affecting his real life.
And this special snowflake just comes in and orders him to share that detail? Fat chance. Even if he was killed to level 0 and left to rot there, it would not alter much of his real life other than losing a lucky and unexpected source of income. He had made money. He had finished his obligations and contracts. He had nothing holding him back.
It was his good fortune that Freezy was interested in him. But, he didn't want that fortune. What to do?( Author can just shrug. And move on.)
Artha gave usual high marks to his village and completely logged off.
In real life, it was morning. Atharva woke up, completed his daily routine. As part of routine , he also checked his bank balance again. It was fat enough, inspite of paying so much miscellaneous fees to others. Even after paying tax, he would be able to pay a big chunk of school fees.
Not many knew of his daring scheme. Mrs Briggs knew it now, don't know how many she had told but even then, not many would have noticed it.
There was a fixed fee for every student in Saint Augustine. For boarding, for food and expenses, just for joining the college. In addition, apart from school credits/ academic credits, students had to pay money to study. How much you study, you pay that much. Ala carte style payment, no buffet or wholesome payment. Beleive it or not, this type was payment was made just for ease of poor students, or else they would have to pay millions of credits even if they studied simplest and shortest course.
But Atharva had taken the risky step. If completed, his returns would be enormous.
There was only 1 day to find the results. The merriment would be extreme today. In the night, all would be inside the game, so the revelry would happen in the morning and afternoon.
Whatever happened, he would not step out of his loft. He just pulled some eatables from vending machine and decided to be homebody today.
After settling, he pondered about what that Freezy said, his usefulness was limited. He knew. He showed only limited capability to gather that impression. To continue it, he had even given up serious money making via the order lists given by Bloody Rose and Dragon Slayers. He had fulfilled the list only partly and he would handover the material tonight. All to show that he was a harmless bunny.
A low level potion seller would become useless sooner or later. The grand declarations he had made which scamming his tier 1 customers to sign the contract could be pushed away as boasting. Anyways, they already had what they had paid for and anything else was just pure extra, icing on the cake.
But would he be useless so soon? From what he had heard, apprentice had huge overhead costs. The potions they made were very costly due to their low efficiency and the speed of their making was also low. So why would he become useless so soon?