“Everything has been entered into the system. Here’s the schedule.” The receptionist handed me two slips of paper. One of them was for Eris and the other mine. The time and location for our events were listed and it acted as our receipt.
I offered her my gratitude and received a gracious bow in kind, then turned to our assistant on standby.
“Great, if you have any questions feel free to ask as we make our way to the suite.” Rachel took the lead making sure to stay close in case we had any questions. The first thing I noticed was her platinum blonde hair that set past her shoulders, followed by her enchanting sky-tinted eyes that met mine whenever she spoke to me.
“How long have you worked here for?” I opted for some small talk to get to know her more.
“I’m coming up to the four-year mark next month.” Rachel casually replied.
“Does that mean you enjoy the work or is it simply the best option currently?”
“I did at the start, there was always something new but lately it feels like things are becoming stale.” It was surprising to hear her honest feelings, even if it was a minor bashing against her workplace.
“Oh?”
“The pay is nothing to complain home to and definitely makes up for it.” I thought about her personality and how it may relate to being able to do well with her work. She was easy to talk with and made things feel relatable.
“If you don’t mind how much do you get paid during a single month?” I wanted to see how far I could push my questions, to test the waters in a way.
“It varies depending on the clients.” Rachel mulled in thought. “Roughly two to three emerald coins, give or take some change.”
I remembered back when I almost handed out ten emerald coins to everyone after the monster raid at our warehouse. Only after Lily’s advice did I lower it to four. Putting it into perspective, she would be able to purchase one slave by saving an entire month’s pay. The amount of money she made easily placed her above the middle class.
My sense of money became skewed ever since we started monster hunting in Avalon. I was beyond poor compared to her before I moved here. I only managed to save up ten gold coins and some silver, over the course of doing menial labor for two years. The thing that made it even worse was more than half of it was left by my uncle as an emergency fund. I shook my train of thought to something else as I began to sink into unwanted memories of my time with Arisa.
“Wow, that’s great for you!” It may have come across as forced but part of me was truly impressed by the amount. It was probably best to not bring up Lily or Alexa’s salary and how much I paid them for the amazing work they do in my stead.
I got to know her pretty well by the time we left the events center and crossed a large lobby filled with people. We were already stepping into an elevator that ran up along the edge of the structure disappearing up into the higher floors that weren’t viewable from below.
Eris asked if there was a place to relax at, and went with the proposed idea of a hot spring. I saw Selka immediately shake her head and I told her if she went with Eris everything would be fine. Her magic getting out of control wouldn't be an issue if she was inside of a forcefield.
She ended up making excuses, saying that she didn’t want to be a bother to Eris and would rather get a pedi and manicure or the like at a beauty salon. Rachel wasn’t joking when she said they had anything you could think of here.
Just as I was thinking about Jade, a chime from my ring went off. I accepted the call and Jade notified me to let me know her research into the betting that took place for the events was finished. I told her someone would meet her near the receptionist counter we were at before, to show her to our location. Rachel assured me she would handle it and immediately used a ring to get hold of extra personnel.
I told Jade about everyone's plans for the evening before my fight at 8PM. And to think about what she wanted to do once she relayed all the info she had for me once she got here in person. I ended the call on that note and we finally reached a large key card protected door.
Rachel swiped a card across the sensor on the wall beside the door frame. The door separated open for us to enter and she handed me a set of four cards to use, one for each person. She offered to sync her ring so that I could call on her at any time and I did so by using my watch instead. Ever since I got my watch, I've been adding people to it over using the ring as my main communications device.
She said she would remain nearby and urged me to contact her if I wanted to leave the suite for any reason. It seemed like she wasn’t going to leave until there was an agreement on my end, so I eased her mind by telling her okay.
Eris told Rachel to give her directions to the hot springs before she left. It was almost like everyone had their own personal assistant from all the extra personnel that was called on. Rachel focused on me as she made sure everyone else was squared away with a guide. Before long Eris and Selka were out the door heading to different locations, being led by their own helper.
“Thanks, that’s pretty helpful.” I was happy that she took the time to treat the others as people instead of slaves like the receptionist and everyone else usually did.
“Remember, call me once you’re ready to explore.” She checked in with me a second time, almost to the point that it could be considered nagging.
“Got it.” I showed no mind to her behavior as I was used to it from the others.
Rachel ran into Jade as she left the suite and they both bowed their head as they passed each other. I randomly sat in one of the fancy-looking sets of furniture to listen about everything Jade learned for my request. I told her to take a seat and the mood was something akin to a parent getting ready to scold a child or at least that was what I thought it could relate to.
“First off, any points obtained are untradeable between other people. The only way to obtain points from others is to beat them in a fighting event with the reward being their points on the line.” Jade took a breath to continue her analysis.
“The other downside is that you aren’t able to place a winning bet on yourself.” She went on to explain the buy-in. “Newcomers are allowed a one-time buy-in to acquire an allocation of points, which costs an emerald coin for fifty thousand points.” She explained to me that after the first buy-in if someone lost all of their points, each buy-in after became increasingly more pricey. It jumped from an emerald coin to a ruby coin for the same amount of points for the second time around.
“It sounds like there’s no point to betting in conjunction with fighting in events... Unless you enjoy gambling on other people.” I sighed. “Let’s do it this way, you’ll place the bets on me and use the winnings yourself to buy the things we want from the prize pool.” She promptly agreed with my decision and moved onto another topic.
I stopped her from any further attempts at trying to explain the betting process and how the odds worked. My mind blanked the moment probabilities and fractions were mentioned. It was something I either needed to take proper classes for or have a Lily on hand, to even make heads or tails of the convoluted system.
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