It was already late in the evening when I left the place.

After guiding me out of the dungeon, the Zagros Unit turned back into a simple device instead of the gateway into the mysterious world of Rise of Babel.

The dungeon raid had taken far longer than I had thought.

In a park close to the dungeon, I leaned back on a bench under the shade of a tree against the setting crimson son and dragged my hand from the top.

“Hey! Pass the ball!”

“Dragon kick!!”

The sounds of children playing football near the sandbox filled my ears as I navigated the apps on the Zagros. Augmented Reality was indeed something else. I needed no screen or hologram. The entire world was part of the device.

A window opened in the air right in front of me, a web browser was at the ready.

I quickly navigated my way to RoB’s official site and logged into my account through a quick authentication check and opened the marketplace.

Though I couldn’t log into the game, all the other aspects of Rise of Babel were still accessible to me.

The marketplace, streaming center and video sharing, development modules, forums, and chatrooms, RoB’s extensive player base let it expand into a lot of stuff, including real estate.

Many people were even buying property to turn it into a base just for their activities in the game. The front page of the site even showcased images of giant facilities that the top guilds were utilizing.

All of that just pointed at what I could earn down the line with this game. The possibilities were endless.

Some of the top items in the marketplace were even going for two to three million dollars.

I held in my excitement and went through the items that were in my inventory before the Generals did me in.

About 30 rare items, 45 if I counted the hats along with a whole bunch of Uncommon and Common items.

It was great that I had descended the fourth floor and climbed back up as a Heart General to destroy the Spades instead of climbing up right away.

I rubbed my chin and crossed my legs while staring at the items.

Similar items were going for a fairly good price, but those held level requirements much higher than mine.

There were groups of players that did not want to focus on leveling up and instead just focus on their hobbies in Rise of Babel. For them, danger was fairly high and they would know the value of such items.

Moreover, with a player base expanding every day, there were bound to be rich players that would want to purchase cheat codes from the beginning. ‘Overgeared’ as they were called.

Packaging all of this was of utmost importance.

After a lot of thought and looking at some guides, I decided on a sale strategy.

First, I sold the ones with the highest durability left as individual items for a high price, thus setting a standard for them.

Then, for the ones with lower durability, I made a package of sales. Rare-grade Musket went with a heart knife to make a Bayonet, rare-grade Gunpowder with Musket, and another ‘Beginner’s Heart Package’ with all three of them, all sold at prices higher than single weapons but none more than double their cost.

I did the same with Spade items and made similar packages. The durability of Spade Items was high, so more of them were ready to go as singular items rather than as packages.

Just to see if it would work, I also listed some of the hats. Fewer of them since there was a chance I could sell it as a fairly rare item if someone was foolish enough to buy it for kicks. Or if people figured out how to use it. It deserved that treatment too, since not a single one of those was dropped on the fourth floor.

Everything was set up.

With a slightly wavering heart, I sighed and pressed the post button.

[Would you like to set a posting name or post anonymously?]

There was a posting name?

My eyes fell on the field. The default was my display name Noir, but I could also change it or post anonymously.

The marketplace was going to become my main source of income.

And very few people ever posted anonymously. It helped create a brand identity, after all.

Just as I was about to post, a voice lingered in my mind.

[What? I can’t hire the son of a criminal!]

[You’re that bastard’s child? Get out, you’ll ruin my entire business.

[Fucking criminal son, lying about his age. If you’re so eager to go to jail, why not turn yourself in? They’ll take you in for being that guy’s child alone.]

My heart cooled down.

Brand identity, huh?

I raised my hand and tapped on the ‘post anonymously’ option.

All of that could go in the drain.

In a single go, I closed all the applications on the Zagros and leaned back on the bench.

“Bye bye! Come back again tomorrow!”

“Yeah! See ya later!”

The sun had disappeared, leaving only faint traces of indigo in the skies.

A small ball rolled over onto my foot and hit it.

When I looked down, a young child almost half my height was standing a few paces from me. The rest of the park was entirely empty.

I stood up and picked up the ball.

“Here you go,” I said, tossing it over to him.

The child grabbed the ball and hugged it tight.

“Hey brother...” he said. “Do you wanna play for a bit?”

“Football?”

“Yes!”

Hm.

“Why not?” I said and stood up.

The child stepped back and kicked the ball toward me. Though I said football, it seemed he only knew how to pass the ball back and forth.

That was fine, too.

Until the dark of the night replaced the indigo from the skies, I played like that with the kid for a little while.

Not long after, a lady came running from the street and stopped in front of the park. The child widened his eyes and rushed toward her.

“Mom!”

“Sorry, did you wait long?”

She seemed to have run here straight from work. The lady gave me a slight smile and asked her son to wave at me. I waved him bye in return as they left from the park.

Stretching my hands above my head, I suppressed a yawn.

It had been a long day. A very long day.

Almost instinctively, I waved my hands as the Zagros opened me to the marketplace once more.

Well, just a few hours in weren’t going to get me any sales.

With a smile, I removed the lenses and placed them back in the custom case. Clenching it tight, I set off from the park and toward home.

I could that afford that thing for a while now.

“Let’s get her that ice cream today...”