karami92

Author's Corner: Friendly reminder that I have a Patreon, and every bit of support helps! Also a discord, where you can poke me if I forget to post chapters like this again...

I hummed to myself as I reclined in a chair, looking out the window. Ever since the situation with Sanctum, everything had been relatively slow. There weren’t any world-ending crises, and I was able to make quite a decent income simply letting the money flow in from property sales. This was quite likely the largest digital landscape that could be monetized, so it was a natural business opportunity.

In the end, Jessie and her two friends each received a quarter of the income, me personally sticking to the ten percent I had initially requested. As for the final fifteen percent, it was set to automatically deposit the funds into the account of the divine being whose digital ‘land’ had been purchased. Admittedly, Aurivy was surprised when she started getting random deposits, but she accepted the whole thing after it was explained.

Gasper Holdings also made a formal apology for the rude behavior of their accountant, relieving him of his duties. I don’t know if he found another job, but he was still being banned from entering Sanctum. However, since his former employers took action, I reset the prices for their people to smooth things over.

Now, I was watching a projection from my terminal, showcasing a large black bear clashing with a pair of dragons. These were the three stars of my collection, which I had purchased and enhanced using the income from property sales. Granted, it took me a while to find a combination that would result in a dragon familiar, but they were quite powerful when properly utilized.

As for why I was watching them from the physical world, while they were in the digital one, that was quite easy… I’m not suicidal. Deckan sells a device which lets you upload summoned pets into a virtual environment to train, which I regularly use for these three to hone their skills. However, me personally entering this program is another matter.

I was fully aware of my own limitations. If I were to allow them to train at full power in my presence, it was very likely that I’d end up dying from splash damage. It’s fine to summon them in combat when the enemy will all be in one direction, but once they start having to move around and change angles… it wouldn’t be pretty.

Naturally, these were not the only members of what I had taken to calling ‘Sun’s Zoo’, but they were by far the strongest. My other creatures were more designed to be a flood to overwhelm opponents, with these three existing as the big bosses.

As I was watching the three fighting on the screen, I felt a brief mental ping. Furrowing my brow, I paused the training simulation and ejected their cards before entering my terminal. Now that I was able to afford my own place, it was a lot easier to come and go as I pleased.

The mental ping had come from my office in the Sky Citadel, so I rushed over with one of my bookmarks to see what the problem was. When I arrived, I saw a file sitting on my desk. I walked over and sat down, opening the file and reading through it.

Julius Kyles has been identified as a hostile entity attempting to brainwash the general population of several worlds through the use of modified text in his upcoming release. Julius Kyles… that was Jessie’s employer, right? That fake God of Games that can’t even make a decent game himself? This information has been brought to our attention by an informant from the ninja clan, with a promise that another informant would be directly visiting the Goddess of Light, Tsubaki.

Eh, they were going to visit Tsubaki personally? I can only say that they’re really brave… people don’t tend to try to make surprise appointments with someone like her. Those that do don’t usually have good intentions, so they don’t last very long.

Still, I placed this file in the inbox so that Tsubaki might see it before she gets her surprise visit. Maybe with a bit of warning, she’d be more amiable? Well, she came from the ninjas herself in the past, though she’s severed her ties with them long before I was even born.

Just as I was thinking that and preparing to return to the task of training my lovely little pets, I felt another ping, this one from an incoming call. Lifting a brow, I checked the caller, only to discover that it was Jessie. I answered the call while blinking, projecting the video feed in front of me.

Ever since the Sanctum incident, Jessie had been in a rather good mood. Now that she had a stable income, she no longer had to be frugal between commissions. Thus, seeing her with an exasperated expression felt somewhat refreshing. “Hey, Sun. Remember a while back, the comment about finding me some job offers?”

Did I say that…? Ah! Right, yeah. I quickly nodded my head. “I take it the company went under?”

“It will soon. Someone’s targeting my boss, and they seem to have some really amazing methods. Disguise techniques that can fool mana identifiers and round-the-clock video surveillance. They’re even brazen enough to leave their logo on the camera feed, though it didn’t lead anywhere… the image was too general, and a lot of businesses use something similar.”

Those are the ninjas, alright… though, most of those businesses using that logo are probably connected to them. I thought it best not to immediately tell her that. “Well, I’m surprised you even need a new job. Aren’t you making enough now to basically retire?”

When I asked that, Jessie let out a soft snort. “Yeah, probably. But I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing. If I don’t keep myself busy, I feel like I’ll waste away. So, what do you say? Know anyone that I might be able to work for?”

“There’s… definitely someone you could get a job with as internet security. I’m just not sure how much you’d want to do so.” I gave a wry chuckle as I said that, Jessie’s brow lifting inquisitively.

“What, you want to set me up with a bad guy or something?” I tried not to be offended by that remark, even if she wasn’t entirely wrong. They certainly crossed some moral gray areas.

“It’s the group going after your boss… apparently, he’s in some secret brainwashing business? It was brought to my attention just a few minutes ago. They’re not strictly the bad guys, but they are incredibly paranoid and secretive. Guys like that typically have a whole army of security personnel, so I know you’d be able to get the job.”

Jessie’s brow only raised further up, high enough that I was sure she was manipulating the video feed. “What group is it? I mean, it’s too late to warn my boss anyway, he’s left the building and gone off the grid already.”

“It’s the ninjas.” I answered with a small sigh, Jessie’s eyes going wide. Although they were not active in the light much in recent years, people still knew of them. After all, they had once been a legendary group backed by the Goddess Terra, accompanied with an ancient prophecy that they would help the world in its time of need. Furthermore, their legend became even stronger due to the origins of Tsubaki. Now, even if they did nothing, people would eventually learn about them as part of basic history.

“Why would they--ah, right, the brainwashing deal. I’ve never heard anything about Mister Kyles doing anything like that, so… is their information reliable?”

I gave a faint laugh when I heard that, nodding my head. “Oh yeah… they’ve got eyes everywhere. I’d honestly be surprised if you haven’t met some of their people yourself, and just didn’t know it. Anyone that gets a certain amount of fame and power will attract their attention, trust me. And they never make reports like this unless they’re absolutely sure. I don’t know how they caught him, or what he was doing in detail, but the report said it had something to do with his game release.”

Jessie looked like she was deep in thought at that, but ultimately shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t seen anything. Though, he didn’t exactly look like an innocent man when he left, so I think they’re probably right. Anyways, if you can put me in touch with them, it would be appreciated.”

Looking at the screen projected in front of me, I gave a knowing smile. “It looks like I don’t have to… they’re already getting in touch with you.”

“Huh?” She blinked in confusion, turning around. “What do you mean? Wait, how did you--?” She jumped, shocked to discover a man standing patiently against the wall behind her.

“Apologies for the sudden intrusion, Miss Jessie.” The figure said, offering a faint bow. His face was black and featureless, likely using a disguise program. “We wanted to approach you earlier, but you were unfortunately behind your server defenses. Now that you have come out like this, we naturally wanted to take the opportunity to greet you.”

“You’re from the clan?” Jessie asked, swallowing thickly. She glanced nervously towards me, and kept the call going. It was clear she wanted a witness in case this figure tried to do something to her. With that witness being one of the Sky Citadel’s digital staff, the deterrent was extra powerful.

“That’s correct. We wanted to commend you on a job well done.” The figure nodded his head. “The security gate you implemented was a large enough challenge that we were forced to use a physical means of entering your company. Originally, we had only wanted to sneak in through the server node and delete the necessary files, but your expertise made that impossible without detection. I do hope that you appreciated the business card we left you?”

As he asked that, he held up one hand, showing a hovering image of an eye with a vertical slit down the center. “We normally would not leave such clues behind, but… when we saw your level of skill, we decided it would be nice to give you an invitation. Naturally, this icon has now been deleted from the camera footage.”

Jessie steadied herself, doing her best to relax in front of the stranger. “What would you be wanting me to do if I said yes?”

“It’s quite simple.” The man spoke, a smile in his tone that wasn’t conveyed in his featureless face. “We would have you assist in the security of our key businesses, shoring up their online defenses. If we encounter a problem in the future, such as an unexpected breach, we may call on you just as your former employer had done. Do not fear, you will not be involved in any offensive or legally compromising actions.”

Yeah, because you guys wouldn’t let freelancers like her see stuff like that. I rolled my eyes at the hidden meaning behind his words, keeping myself silent. If the other party was truly a representative of the ninjas, he would have programs that could shut down this call in seconds, maybe even loop the video feed to make her think nothing had happened. The fact that he wasn’t doing so was purely a show of goodwill.

Jessie thought it over for a long moment, before shaking her head. “I’ll need some time to think about it. Could you… leave me some way of contacting you?”

The man released a low chuckle. “You won’t be able to trace us that easily. However…” He flicked his wrist, a program flying out from his black sleeve and landing in Jessie’s hand. “This program will serve as an omnidirectional beacon when activated. Once we pick up its signal, we will visit again. In the meantime, I wish you both the best. It’s a pleasure seeing you again, Sun.”

“You too, Tommy. See you next week?” I said with a knowing grin, the man flinching slightly. While observing the call, I had been employing decryption programs to counter his masked voice. I couldn’t do the same with his appearance without being there, but his voice itself was another matter. What really surprised me was the fact that I recognized the voice once the decryption was done, though he was speaking in a completely different accent than normal.

The figure simply clicked his tongue, turning and vanishing from the room. Jessie looked around to make sure that he was gone, before slumping down in a nearby chair. “...That’s the scariest job offer I’ve ever gotten.”

“You should have been there when I got my job with the Citadel.” I grinned in response, shaking my head. At least this all ended peacefully, right?