Chapter 27: Why not?
After coming home from his daily dungeon raid Mark took a shower. With his hair still wet he comfortably sank into the couch.
The living room looked more and more like a workshop, with the essence stones, his automaton, and the provisional equipment Mark made lying around.
'The tool use is almost done. Its movements just need a little bit more fluidity and I can start making the advanced commands.' he thought looking at the golem parts.
"Alright, let´s finish this.'
His phone suddenly started ringing on the table.
*Bzzn*Bzzn*
"Well, who is it this time?" he asked.
He looked on the phone and saw that it was an unknown number. After some inner turmoil, Mark took the call because 'What if it was something important?'
"Hello?" he said to the phone.
"Hi, this is Lucy Wright." she introduced herself.
"The girl from the bus stop?"
"...sure you can say that. Anyway, where are you right now?"
"Home"
"I´d appreciate it if you were a little bit more descriptive. I don´t wanna talk about this on the phone."
'I still don´t have a clue what you want from me, though.' Mark thought to himself.
"Why are you calling me if I may ask?"
"I have an offer for you, but I´d rather talk through that in person. Don´t worry. I´m not trying to scam you. Hear me out and if you don´t like it just say no.
"Sure, why not?"
"So where do you wanna meet up? I have a cafe in mind if you don´t know."
"No, I don´t want to bother with going out today. I´ll just give you my address."
"Oh, inside your house? Okay, I´ll be there in like an hour."
"Ring at the door with my name on it." he ended the call and then send her a text with his address.
'I should clean this wasteland at least a little.' he thought looking over the apartment.
He started organizing the essence stones he had into different drawers, putting the dirty dishes away into the dishwasher, cleaning up the automaton and after half an hour the apartment was presentable.
It didn´t take long for Lucy to arrive. Hearing the bell ring Mark opened the door.
"Hi" she said with a smile.
"Come in. Oh and leave your shoes here."
"You don´t have to tell me that."
"I know a maniac who sometimes sleeps with his shoes on so just in case."
She chuckled and followed Mark into the living room.
"Take a seat" he prompted her.
They both sat down at the dining table and Mark asked. "So what offer are we talking about?"
"It´s quite simple. I want you to make a guild."
"Yeah, I´m not sure I follow. Why should I make a guild?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, I´m not a hunter. I can´t make one. However, if you make the guild then I can be the vice-guild master and manage it."
"That´s nice, but I don´t see the benefit there. What would you gain from managing a guild with just me? What would I even gain from being in that guild?"
"Tell me, what do you want?"
"I´m pretty hungry. Probably lunch."
"Not right now, like what do you want in life. Prestige? Fame? Money? Girls?" she winked. "It can be a lot of things. I´m sure you have something like that."
"Are you asking so you can talk me into accepting your offer?"
"Yes," she said in all honesty and with a smile on her face.
Mark laughed a little and got right to the point. "Alright then, I want rights to higher-ranking gates."
"Okay, those are not hard to get. Guilds have precedence in reserving dungeons. After you make one there should be no problem."
"You can say that all you want, but doing so is not cheap, especially here in New York."
"Actually when you go further from the center they get cheaper. If you are smart you can get the rights for about 5k or even as low as 3k. Guilds prefer gates that are easy to get to. When one appears somewhere in a forest or a mountain they won´t fight you for it."
"I get that you know a lot about this stuff. How can I trust you, though? I met you once. There is no benefit for you and all of this sounds shady as hell. Why would you do this?"
"Ok, I know this doesn´t sound very safe, but I have a pretty good reason for it. Basically my dad..."
[Quarter an hour later]
"Let me get this straight. You think you can manage a guild because you saw your dad do it a few times. I can´t even manage myself properly."
"No, I also helped him out when he didn´t have time and I´ll only get better with time. You said yourself that it won´t cost anything."
"I´ll have to pay you a salary, though. Also if you have some major fuck-up, then that money also comes out of my pocket."
"You can always make more money. I´ve seen your raid history and you alone have enough income to support a family of ten. I would take a little part and you´ll make much more in higher ranking gates."
Silence filled the room for a moment.
"You know what, why not? I´ll make that guild. I can always just have it disbanded anyway."
"YES!" cheered Lucy. "I promise you won´t regret it."
Mark stood up from his seat and asked. "Do you want something to drink? I´m getting thirsty after all this time."
"Water would be great."
'I hope I won´t regret this.'
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