readytorunbook Chapter 154: The Real Winner
Chapter 154: The Real Winner
She wants Raze Dawg’s sword back... Yeah, that makes sense. He’s a strong player, and this sword is one of the two blades required for the Death Wheel. Keeping it for myself isn’t worth more than what I could earn by selling it.
[Emperoar: I’m interested. What’s your offer?]
[Victoria: $100,000.]
Martin’s eyes widened as his thoughts went blank.
He stared at the number in the chat window, half expecting one of the zeros to disappear if he looked at it long enough. His fingers hovered in the air, frozen before they could type a response.
That strange sense of déjà vu crept over him again, almost ridiculous in how familiar it felt, as yet another guild leader offered him an absurd amount of money for an item he hadn’t believed was worth nearly that much.
A hundred thousand dollars for a sword, for pixels inside a game.
His throat went dry.
But maybe it is worth that much?
The thought hit harder than he expected.
This wasn’t some random weapon from a lucky boss drop. It was one of the swords required for the Death Wheel, and Raze Dawg was not an average player. He was a guild leader with enough influence that losing this weapon could alter the direction of his entire build.
Martin saw the sword as a trophy, a bargaining chip, and a warning to Just Die. Victoria saw an opportunity.
His heart skipped again as the size of the offer sank in.
So much money...
It was far more than many people earned in a year. With that single offer, Martin could buy himself real time.
He could search for a new job without feeling as if every passing day tightened a rope around his neck. He could pay off problems before they turned into disasters, and he could even treat the game world less like a hobby and more like a possible source of income.
The idea scared him almost as much as it excited him.
A few days ago, that kind of thought would have sounded stupid. Delusional, even. People always talked about making money through games, but most of them made it sound easier than it was.
Martin knew better. There had to be risk, luck, pressure, and plenty of players trying to do the same thing.
Yet the number in front of him was real, and Victoria had not typed it as a joke. She had placed it on the table as if she expected him to seriously consider it.
Martin exhaled slowly and looked away from the window for a moment. His first instinct was not to celebrate or accept. Before anything else, he thought of the others.
Chaos especially had played a huge role in stopping Raze Dawg and buying him enough time. Without her, the fight could have spiraled in the wrong direction before Martin ever got his chance.
Ao Tenshin had been there too, carrying him through danger in her own adorable, stubborn way. Kuro A, Crimson Halo, Cassandra, and the whole group had been part of the chain that led to this result.
Martin did not need to debate it with himself. He would split the income.
Keeping everything for himself would leave a bad taste in his mouth, and worse, it would make this victory feel smaller.
His teammates had trusted him on the battlefield, and he wanted that trust to mean something outside of it too.
[Victoria: My offer stands for a week, and if you agree, we will conduct the transaction through the Auction House.]
[Emperoar: Auction House?]
[Victoria: In the Monster Hunter Academy of the Endless Rain, a guild called Storm gained access to an Auction House, which allows safe transactions within the academy and under its protection. I’ll cover the fees.]
Martin leaned closer to the window.
The number still rang in the back of his mind, but this new information cut through the noise. An Auction House meant safe transactions, and if a guild had unlocked one inside another academy, then the academies held far more than he had realized.
The revelation changed his understanding of the game world.
His own academy lacked the useful facilities normally found in other MMORPGs, and the few it did have were limited to common professions.
For a while, Martin had wondered whether that was simply how this game worked. Maybe the developers wanted players to struggle without a central marketplace. Maybe they wanted every academy to feel isolated, inconvenient, and incomplete.
But that was not the whole truth.
There were more facilities buried somewhere within the academies, and if he had to guess, they were hidden inside dungeons.
So there’s merit to exploring all dungeons, not just the highest-level ones, right?
Relief washed through him, followed by a sharp rush of adrenaline.
His path, his gameplay, his choices... none of them had been wrong.
All the time he had spent looking into strange places, chasing unusual hints, and treating the game like a world instead of a simple leveling route had not been wasted.
If anything, Victoria’s explanation proved that the game rewarded players who looked deeper. There were systems beneath systems, rewards hidden behind risks, and entire pieces of academy infrastructure waiting for someone stubborn enough to uncover them.
Martin’s lips slowly curled upward.
He still needed to be careful, and he still needed to talk to everyone, but the fear that he had been walking some foolish side path faded just a little.
[Emperoar: Thanks! I’ll speak with my teammates first and get back to you as soon as possible.]
—
In a secluded spot surrounded by towering trees, with a porcelain fountain perched in the middle, Victoria leaned against the bench’s handrail and stared at the system window.
It was a safe area reserved for those with influence inside the Mountain Risen Monster Hunter Academy.
The battle was over, but its ripples continued to spread through her chats. Messages arrived one after another.
Some guild members asked for orders. Others apologized, complained, cursed their luck, or tried to explain their failures before anyone could blame them. A few praised Raze Dawg for lasting as long as he had, while others whispered about the weapon he had lost.
Victoria read all of it without changing expression.
Her face remained smooth, calm, and unreadable as she replied to each message with the right amount of pressure, reassurance, or cold instruction.
No answer was wasted. No word left her without a purpose.
Even when she replied to Raze Dawg, whose gaming path had now been completely twisted, she did not allow sympathy to soften her tone.
The man had done exactly what she had expected of him. More importantly, he had confirmed that the evolution path toward the Beastslayers was indeed possible, and that alone thrilled her.
Raze Dawg saw today as a loss, and most players would have seen it the same way.
He had lost a legendary weapon, momentum, pride, and the certainty that brute force could carry him through everything.
Victoria saw proof instead.
A dangerous path had opened, which made the result more valuable than a clean victory.
She closed all chats and scrolled down to the log-out button. Beside it, there was also a tab for switching characters.
[Cassandra Selfmore Lv. 1]
[Kill Clause Lv. 44]
Victoria’s eyes lingered on the names.
To most players, those names belonged to different people, different factions, and different stories. To her, they were assets, masks, and tools.
The leak had not come from some nervous guild member bought by an enemy. It had not come from a careless officer, a hidden spy, or a foolish player bragging in the wrong chat.
The traitor was their guild leader herself.
Cassandra Selfmore.
The same woman who also had another character with a top guild at her command.
A faint smile almost touched her lips, but she suppressed it before it could fully form.
It was a common tactic she had used in her other businesses. Owning two companies in related fields and turning them into competitors gave her far more control over the market.
From the outside, it looked like rivalry. From the inside, it was a game board, and Cassandra was the only one who could see both sides at once.
That structure let her make aggressive moves others could not risk. One side could suffer a setback while the other gained strength.
People could be removed from one company, brought into the other under a different name, and made to feel as if they had been rescued instead of transferred.
Pressure, fear, safety, and opportunity never had to be wasted as long as she controlled where each piece landed.
That meant Cassandra had no way of losing today.
No matter how the battle ended, something valuable would land in her hands.
If Night Espresso lost the territory, Just Die would take it.
If Just Die lost, Night Espresso would prove itself more capable and take the territory instead.
Raze Dawg’s success would have confirmed one result, while his failure had confirmed another.
And now that he had lost his legendary weapon, she could easily offer Martin a generous bonus for his performance.
Everything had gone exactly as a woman like her should have wanted. The outcome was clean, profitable, and completely under her control.
Yet Cassandra kept staring at the system window for a few seconds longer than necessary.
She wasn’t known as the Cold Businesswoman simply because she could keep her face stone-cold under pressure.
That title had followed her because she knew how to separate emotions from decisions. She knew how to smile without warmth, praise without attachment, and sacrifice people without letting guilt slow her hand.
Lately, however, one flaw had begun slipping through every mask she wore, whether she was Cassandra Selfmore, Kill Clause, or Victoria.
Martin.
Her finger hovered near the log-out button.
I couldn’t stop myself from mentioning the lore behind the Auction House because I knew it would make you happy, Martin.
The realization bothered her more than it should have.
The information itself was not dangerous. It was not some great secret that would ruin her plans.
She could justify it easily. Giving Martin more knowledge would motivate him, build trust, and make him more receptive to future offers. From a business perspective, it was not a mistake.
But that was not why she had done it.
She had done it because she had imagined his reaction. His eyes would widen, his thoughts would race, and that sincere excitement of his would appear the moment he realized the world was bigger than he had believed.
Cassandra closed her eyes for a moment.
That was the problem: Martin drew out reactions she did not plan in advance.
Now she wondered if she would be able to keep her face straight when she had to log out and meet him as Kill Clause.
He would surely talk about the offer, and knowing him, he would not even think of keeping the full amount for himself. He would offer to split it.
He would look at them as teammates first and profit second, as though that kind of sincerity was the most natural thing in the world.
Just like Crimson Halo had said one day, Martin brought out a lot from them.
Perhaps too much.
For the first time in her life, Cassandra considered taking a man for herself, not as a little brother, manager, worker, useful asset, or convenient piece on her board, but as a man.