“Your pay?” Quin asked puzzled.

“Yes. I have committed the ultimate sin as a working professional. Even worse than working overtime. I've just worked.. FOR FREE!”

Quin blinks a few times in surprise. “I see... I didn't realize that the religion you follow bans working at a charity.”

“The sacred programmer text contains many commandments. Including things such as 'thou shalt not offer to build a friend's totally unique NFT idea,' or 'thou shalt not write code without documenting it.'”

“Wait, I didn't see you write any documentation..”

“Commandments, convenient things I made up, it's all the same to summer interns. Although calling this charity work, that feels wrong somehow...”

“Well, whatever you want while you're here, ask, and I can make it yours. How about some additional monitors?” With a wave of her hand, my desk had two additional monitors now standing on top of it, each flanking my laptop.

“Do you use this same strategy for Father's Day? Most people don't want to get gifted work equipment. It's basically an insult. It's like telling someone 'thanks for all the work you do, here's something that'll help you do more of it.'”

“Alright, let me just take those back...”

“NO! NO. No.” I wrapped my arms around each monitor, hugging them both. “That won't be necessary. You can consider them 'mandatory work equipment.'”

Quin seemed taken aback by my sudden movement. “Fine. What else do you want then?”

“Well, to be honest, I guess I could have just given myself additional monitors. After all...” I mimicked Quin's hand wave and an eight inch anime figurine appeared in my hand. “I can do this.” I inspected the figurine closely, observing it from all angles. In life she stood in front of the entrance to my apartment, greeting me as I returned home. Her blue hair and radiant smile always filled me with joy. In death, she... must have been worst girl according to Quin's expression. My manager has trash taste...

“How did you do that?!” Quin yelled.

“The same way you did?”

“Ohhhh!!” Quin started pulling on her hair. “I gave you the wrong level of permissions!”

“Well that's alright. Even if I didn't have this ability, I'm not sure if there's much you can offer me here.”

“If that's so, then please let me show you how to revoke your access to...”

“No thanks.”

“Aaahh!” She grabbed hold of my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Is it my body you want?!” The bloodshot eyes were doing great for her 'I've lost my mind,' look. A faint aroma wafted from her body.

“No you smelly woman!” I instinctively pushed her off. “I just want to be paid with things I can use in Proda.”

Quin was silent for a moment before shaking her head. “I don't think I can give you any more than you've already received.”

“I don't understand. Why not?”

“If I favored you in this way, it would be unfair to others in the world. What I provided you with already made me nervous. Anymore and..”

“The world was already unfair to begin with. Are you telling me that before we implemented this experience system, you managed to give everyone the experience they were supposed to be getting from killing monsters?”

Quin averted her eyes. “That and this is different. In that case, there was just no way around it. With no system in place, it was up to me to give it out, and I did the best that I could.” Quin felt incredibly small as she continued speaking. “Giving you special bonuses is actively supporting imbalance. What I had been doing before...was closer to incompetence rather than purposely causing harm.”

“Sigh. Look, I'm- I'm not asking you to give me the ability to kill every single monster in one hit. Or to max out every class after three levels. Honestly, what I am asking for is enough support to actually do the job which you hired me for.”

“What more support would you need? Even if I hadn't accidentally given you the ability to create things, if you had just asked it would be simple for me to provide anything.”

“Again, I am not talking about supporting me here. I am talking about receiving support in Proda.” I paused for a brief moment, but with Quin saying nothing I continued. “We have no way of verifying the situation down there from here unless we use the lighthouse, but even that only provides us with so much information. It sounded like based on your reaction, the issues I found were a surprise for you. I don't know how long it would have taken us to discover the problems if we had both just stayed up here, it might have been DAYS before we found anything.”

“If we need somebody to go investigate or test things in Proda, I could always go...”

“Quin, what happens if we discover a bug regarding high level monsters? Like a dragon or something? If I tried to fight one I'd be eviscerated on the spot. If you go.. isn't that an even worse outcome than giving me stuff? A goddess just descending to the world and doing as she pleases?”

Quin bit her lip and remained silent for a while. Finally, she spoke. “The reason I am doing this. I told you before that I lost my previous job to an AI. That wasn't a joke. I used to greet reincarnators. Like you. And was in charge of giving them skills in their next chance at life. They all seemed so excited.” She smiled. “To finally get the second chance they thought they'd never have. But after many gods, including myself, granted abilities or items which eventually resulted in catastrophic outcomes in those worlds, we were stripped of our duties. An intelligent system was designed to take over those responsibilities, and ensure that the balance of these worlds is never upset in such a way again. That's why I was told to “Learn to Code”. Because they couldn't automate building worlds yet, so that's where they pushed us towards. That's why, when you ask me to give you that sort of reward, I can't help but think of what led me here in the first place.”

“Look, Quin, I'm sorry to hear that happened. But I think you're moving from one extreme to another. Even if it's indirectly, when we built this experience system, we changed the world. Whether it's handing out those abilities or inadvertently creating bugs, we cannot escape the influence we will have on Proda. I don't know what sort of things you provided reincarnators with that caused those catastrophic outcomes, but surely it wasn't anything like the starter equipment you provided me with?”

Quin sighed. “I suppose..”

“If you are uncomfortable with giving out special items or unique abilities or whatever that's fine. I had only been planning on asking for money and perhaps more skill points. Maybe a mix of both. You did start me out with some gear which I'm grateful for, but right now I'm flat broke. I have no money outside the little I made from killing a few rats. I'd like to at least have some buffer to work with while I figure things out. I'm still not sure how finding a party will work if I'm disappearing off to up here randomly.

“Skill points are kind of...”

“Well I don't fully understand all the systems in place still, so I don't know how absurd it is to ask for additional points.”

“You receive a set amount when you level up. You can occasionally obtain extra skill points when defeating a monster, but the chance is low for the majority of creatures. When using abilities they naturally level up through use over time, though it can be a bit slow.”

“I suppose then they're a bit difficult for most people to obtain. Then I'm just fine with being paid in money for now.”

“How much are you thinking?” Quin asked.

“Hmm... I haven't had the chance to learn to much about how the world's economy is structured.... Say, how much is one of those health potions you started me off with?”

“Minor health potions... their price can vary depending on the location. I would say on average they go for around.... one silver?” I raised an eyebrow. “One hundred copper.”

And killing those rats only netted me twenty copper...guh. Well, this is the negotiation stage of the job. Time to aim high. “I'd like to ask for one hundred silver.”

“Rejected.”

“Bueh.” So fast!

“Ten thousand copper.” Quin's eyes narrowed. “Do you realize how much money you received for each rat you killed?”

“Yes.”

“And you know how much copper one silver is worth?”

“A hundred it seems.”

“And how much silver one gold is worth?”

“Probably a hundred as well?”

“So you are asking for the equivalent of one gold when you had just started out as an adventurer?”

“Yes.”

“...Do you think that, had you not spent the time programming the experience system, you would have been able to earn one gold in that time frame.”

“No. But that's not what I'm basing my price off of. I know that the experience system is helpful to you. All I am doing is converting some of that value into the currency used in Proda. Besides, I can't imagine that amount of money will provide me with some kind of supreme advantage over others. Rather, it will just give me a nice buffer of time to get my self sorted out.”

Quin silently thought for a while. “Sigh.” She tapped her foot impatiently. “Fifty Silv-”

“Accepted!”

“Ahh, mouuu! Fine, your pay is fifty silver. But this reward comes with a few stipulations.”

My eyes narrowed. “What are the requirements?”

“First of all, I wish for you to continue to help support the development of Proda.”

Huh? “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“When you first arrived you seemed hesitant to work for me and asked what I would like if I could only get one thing. I am now asking to formalize your continued employment here at 'Super Isekai Systems Incorporatedⁿ'.”

“Oh, I did say that. Well, I still hate the acronym...” My eyes briefly glanced at the company logo 'SISCOⁿ' plastered upon her desk. “But I think I've decided to stay after all. The work is definitely more interesting than what I used to do. And if I continue to get paid for the code, then staying here might leave me in a better position than if I got sent to some other fantasy world.” I paused. “Wait, I'll still keep getting paid, right?”

“Hah. Well, I don't think you'd accept otherwise.”

“Of course.”

“Second, hopefully this was obvious, you cannot mention the things that we discuss or do here to ANYONE.”

I scratched my head. “Darn, and here I was excited to run up and down the street tossing red and blue pills at people like peanuts.” Quin smacked me atop my head. “Joking. Sorry.”

“And the third condition-”

“There's more?!”

“...I-can-add-any-additional-conditions-at-any-,” she quickly spoke.

“Rejected.”

“Bueh.” this time she was the one to keel over.

“So when will I get the money?”

Quin sighed. “I'll send it over... It should be there soon after you go back down.”

“Perfect. Then I'll be heading down to check up on our changes.”

“Before you go, please sign this form relinquishing your rights to...”

“I'll see you soon!” Despite Quin's protests, the light enveloped me once more as I jumped through the doorway to return to Proda.