The event was now more than three days ago; today would finally be the day where the reconstruction would start. He had decided to throw everything out and change the room distribution of the store.
From the corner of his eye, he observed a homeless person sitting on the ground near his shop. When he looked closer, he noticed that the man seemed to be really hungry; he had probably not eaten in quite some time.
Lucien knew that he didn't have any time, but he also knew that he had some products left in the storage room of the store that would have been thrown away regardless. Finally, he approached the middle-aged man and asked him politely if he didn't want to come in; he explained that he had some food to share with him if he wanted some.
Lucien believed that if he was too direct, he would be misunderstood, despite the fact that he only wanted to help him. But, to his amazement, this concern was unnecessary, and the man immediately agreed; Lucien was happy and smiling brilliantly. He knew what it was like not to be able to eat for days, so he wanted to help wherever he could.
He prepared him some Ramen and gave him some warm water to drink before they sat down and talked briefly. He discovered that the man's name was Benjamin and that he had a wife and a daughter, but he was addicted to gambling, which caused him to lose all of their money. As a result, his wife and daughter went away; soon after that, he lost his job and the apartment where he resided.
Without anybody to support him, he struggled to find a job for a long time, but no one wanted to hire him. Eventually he ended up on the streets. He deeply regretted it, but it was already too late; he has not heard from his wife or daughter since. It has been more than six years, and he still misses them.
Lucien decided to give him another chance, telling him that he would hire him if he vowed to be serious and give it his all; if he accomplished this and was even presentable, he would give him that second chance. He handed him some money and urged him to look after himself until then, hoping that he would make the best option for himself and his family.
Lucien wasn't completely sure of what kind of person Benjamin was, but he had triggered a hidden mission, so he figured he would give it a shot. Since this was the content of a mission, he thought that he had nothing to lose but to gain. However, Lucien still hoped that Benjamin wouldn't gamble with the money that he gave him or waste it elsewhere.
Afterward, he led the construction workers into the store and gave them some last instructions on what they had to do before leaving.
He had a meeting with a business that would assist him in rebranding the store, as his convenience store required a new logo as well as some posters or other marketing produced.
Today, he also finally chose his store's slogan, which was "Discover the World, One Aisle at a Time." He felt that it best reflected the store's objective of providing customers with a worldwide shopping experience filled with various and unique products.
He hoped that the designs would end up good, he had described how he wanted it and had even looked at their works beforehand to make sure that they were skilled, so there shouldn't be any problems. He even guaranteed them a generous tip if he liked it and thought it was of high quality.
They even promised him that they wouldn't disappoint him, which Lucien hoped to be the case. He then went to a nearby estate company in search of another storage location for the products, given that the one in the store was too small.
He was going to change the previous storage room in the store into an office space and rent another storage unit as close to the store as possible.
The companies weren't far from each other, so Lucien walked to it. Suddenly a screen popped up; at first, he wanted to ignore it, but he threw a glance at it before he quickly began to run to the crossroads. There he saw a kid without looking running up to the street; the traffic light was red, and there was a truck approaching from the side at a fast pace.
Honk! Honk!
The truck fully pressed the brakes and began honking.
Lucien ran as quickly as he could, and luckily, just before they would have made contact, he managed to grab the kid and pull him into his arms, shielding him. Although the truck driver fully pressed the brakes and tried to stop it as best as he could, it had only given Lucien enough time to pull the kid onto the sidewalk.
Some surprised civilians screamed when they saw what happened, but were relieved to see that Lucien had managed to save the small child.
Lucien lay on the ground, with the young child on top of him. He sat up and examined the child to see if he was harmed anywhere. He appeared to be stunned for a while before clinging to Lucien and sobbing furiously. It appeared that what happened had scared him more than he had realized.
Just when the child calmed down a little, Lucien heard a woman calling for someone. When the young boy heard the voice, he quickly looked up in her direction. She was absolutely pale, with an intensely anxious expression on her face. The child appeared to have run away from her, so she was desperately searching for him.
When she spotted Lucien with the boy in his arms, she dashed up to him. The boy also wanted to be put down, so Lucien let him down. He had calmed down significantly, and Lucien, who had been shocked after nearly being hit by a truck, had also gradually calmed down his racing heart. When he spotted the truck, it felt like his legs gave out, yet he was luckily still able to reach the youngster before anything bad happened.
Waaaah!
"Why are you crying, Leo? Did something happen? Why did you run away without saying anything? I was so worried." She took him in her arms and asked him, but Leo couldn't calm down. He started crying uncontrollably again.
Lucien, who was next to them, responded, "The boy ran into the street without looking, but luckily I managed to pull him away before a truck would have hit him. I checked, and he should have no injuries; he just seems to be disturbed by what happened; it probably shocked him quite a bit."
"Huh, What?! Oh, no. How could that happen? Did not I advise you to always look before crossing the street? Why did you just run?!" She was now even paler, which Lucien noticed, and she began to berate Leo, causing him to cry even harder.
Lucien moved Leo away from her and promptly supported the middle-aged woman, noting that she appeared to have circulatory difficulties; she nearly passed out from the tension. Lucien told her to sit down, and other spectators stepped up to assist her.
Lucien had previously requested that the police be called; the truck driver intended to approach them as well, but other citizens were already berating him for driving dangerously and at excessive speeds, nearly hitting the youngster as a result. How he could do that and how it could have gone horribly wrong if Lucien had not been present.
After some time sitting down and comforting Leo, who was now in Lucien's arms, they resumed their chat. This child's grandmother was a middle-aged woman named Eleanor Whitmore. She was babysitting the youngster because her daughter was busy, but when she turned around to get ice cream for them, she found that Leo had disappeared. She promptly began looking for him and calling his name, but she could not find him anywhere. When she saw Lucien on the ground with the weeping child, she realized it was Leo. She was relieved to have found him, but also angry at him for going away without saying anything.
Lucien shortly explained that he saw the young boy running, looking up, looking at something, seemingly not noticing the street in front of him.
Leo, who had finally calmed down, said that he saw a balloon fly through the sky and was following it. "I'm sorry, Grandma." He looked down and had tearful eyes, about to cry again.
Eleanor swiftly replied, "It's okay, sweetie. Everything is fine; you do not need to cry. I know you are sorry, but do not do it again, promise me." She stared at him with a forlorn gaze.
"I promise to never do it again." He responded with a firm tone. Afterward, they hugged tightly. Lucien looked from the side and found this to be heartwarming. He had never met his grandmother, so this was completely new to him, but he always imagined a grandmother like this.
She repeatedly thanked him and told him that she would reward him since he saved her precious grandson. But Lucien didn't want any reward; it felt wrong for him to do that, so he denied and rejected all the rewards that she wanted to give him.
In the end, she gave him a contact card and told him to call if he ever needed help with anything. This time Lucien couldn't simply refuse her and took the contact card; it wasn't like he would need to use it if there was no need for it.
The police had already come, and Lucien had given them his version of the story before ultimately moving on to the estate business. He quickly arrived in front of it and entered.
Inside, he saw that there was a group of employees chatting with each other, completely ignoring him and sneering at him. Lucien noticed this but didn't care; he just went up to another employee who hadn't noticed him. As soon as she saw him, she came up and introduced herself.
The other employees had looks full of contempt on their faces when they saw her greet him this politely, especially since Lucien looked like a little fish with no money, and his clothing was shabby and ripped at the knees.
Actually, when Lucien saved the boy, he got dirty and ripped his trousers at the knee, but he was quite disappointed to see that he would actually be disrespected by the employees because of this. Still, he couldn't really do anything against it, and honestly, he didn't even care that much, if no one had served him, he would have just gone somewhere else, in the end, it would be their loss, not his.
Why would it be their loss? since just as he was walking, he had gotten a system alert that there was a new mission; he had quickly taken a peek and then ran since the assignment stated that the accident was bound to happen and that he only had 3 minutes to prevent it.
Fortunately, he arrived on time and therefore finished the mission. This was also one of the reasons he did not want to gain any incentives from the grandma; if he did, he would feel horrible because he was essentially only helping the child because of the system; he was not sure if he would have done so if he had not gotten this mission. Did this make him a bad person? Probably. But he was also afraid of dying, especially after what had just happened, so a part of him felt terrible and did not believe he was selfless enough to accomplish it even without the assignment.
After everything was resolved, Lucien sat down and examined the mission in greater depth.
`Side Mission: Community Hero
Grade: Diamond
Objective:
Save a child from a car accident scene and ensure their safety until help arrives.
Rewards:
+60 Exp
Time Limit:
3 minutes
Bonus Objectives:
Provide first aid to the child if needed for an additional 20 Exp
Assist the police and provide a witness statement for an additional 20 Exp
Shield the child from harm to connect with an influential person
Accept Mission? [Yes] [No] ´
Not only had he finished the task, but he had also received all of the bonus awards; while he had not given the child any first aid, he believed it was because he helped the young boy calm down after nearly being hit by the truck.
Lucien had gotten a pretty big amount of Exp with this mission; he only needed 60 more to reach level 2. But what he was even more excited about was the Lootbox that he had in his inventory; it was even of the diamond grade. If he went by the kind of rating that was usually used in video games then after gold, it would normally be platinum and diamond grade would be the grade after that, so the reward had to be something good.
In the end, the reward exceeded his expectations; he almost choked when he saw it.
Lucien asked the employee, who introduced herself as Lara, to show him the best storage facilities near his shop, which she quickly searched for and described to him in great detail.
She was surprised when he asked that because she was new and did not have much experience. The other employees also frequently laughed at her when they saw her being so polite to customers who appeared poor, and most of the time they were correct because they would not even buy anything and would just look. But she did not mind; it was her policy not to discriminate against anyone based on what they had or how they seemed. She would be friendly to everyone, even if they did not have much money; she believed everybody deserved equal respect since they would have worked hard for what they had, even if it was not much.
She was from a poor background, so she understood their feelings and saw nothing wrong with it.
She continued to explain the details for each storage unit until she reached the last one. Even she was becoming confused; although Lucien was nodding, he never showed a satisfied expression, and he did not even appear to be surprised or shocked when he heard the rising prices.
After she finished explaining the last aspect, he glanced at her and said, "I like this one. Could you please proceed with the necessary steps? The faster the better, since I have something else to do after."
She stood there stunned, unsure whether she had heard him correctly. When she realized he meant what he said, she quickly excused herself and headed to her boss's office.
She returned shortly after with the manager, who asked who Mr. Lucien was, to which Lucien replied, but the manager ignored him, thinking he was joking. Lara, who saw this, had a frigtened expression on her face because her boss was so disrespectful.
When the manager noticed the strange expression on his employees' faces, he realized that the young man was not joking. He promptly turned to him and apologized for the late greeting and for failing to recognize him earlier.