Unbeatable game a litrpg.., p.12
Unbeatable Game: A LitRPG System, page 12
I finally stopped him around dinner time and told him we should get something to eat. I asked him if he could gather everyone after dinner in the town square for a brief announcement. He shrugged and said that would be no problem and started off to pass the news around that there would be a meeting in about an hour. As he walked off, I took a quick look at the menus he mentioned to make sure I could find them and I understood how to use them. It seems that the penalties of the contracts if you violate them are enforced by the Great Game. This means that there should be very little chance of betrayal or mistakes if you word your contract correctly.
After dinner I went out to the town square and addressed the village.
“As your king I have a couple of things to announce. First here is a basic list of laws and rules for the kingdom. I pulled several prepared posters out of my inventory. Make sure that everyone knows them. Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for doing bad things. Next Edward is now appointed as the Kingdom’s Minister of Education. I have realized that he knows more about the Great Game than I do. I may know a lot about this planet and people, but I need good advice on the Great Game and the changes it brings. This makes Edward part of the new nobility and I shall gift him with 10,000 gold coins now and lands to be decided upon later. However, I guarantee that Hidden Valley Village will be part of his holdings.”
The look on Edward’s face was priceless. I continued on and let everyone know that there would be a ceremony in 1 months time to induct all new nobility and ministers and that I would assign the rest of Edward’s land at that time. After many well wishes from the villagers and thanks from Edward I let them know that I have to get back to the castle before dark. My return travel time to the castle was much slower as I was much more careful and on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. However, the return journey was uneventful.
The first thing I did when I got back was to lock the place up tight. I realized now that until I had guards and people of my own I needed to be extra careful. Especially at night when I was alone and sleeping. I have so much to do now that Edward has taught me about the job hiring system of the Great Game. First up will be a review of the job boards and some quick staffing hires. If I can fill all my needs without posting my own notice it would speed things up.
After going through several available notices I realized two things. First the wording and contracts were quite ambiguous on the Job Board. If I wanted to feel safe about who I hired I am going to have to create my own contract and conditions. Second was that I felt that most positions were woefully underpaid. For example, I could hire a palace maid for 25 silver a month plus room and board. That is equivalent to around $400 per month with room and board. Maybe it was the American in me but that seemed much to low.
I think that if I offer 3 to 4 times the going rate, even if I make really detailed job contracts I should have plenty of qualified job seekers applying. However, it will slow things down. I am going to have to post everything I need tonight on the job board and hopefully start interviewing and/or checking responses tomorrow. I am not quite sure how the Great Game handles that part. As I continued my explorations through the hiring system I started to realize that I had much much bigger problems.
I am going to need fully stocked and staffed safe areas for people to arrive back at. If I don’t they could be transported straight into danger on their return or to a place with little or no food due to the now limited transportation. The good news is that anything I can think of like basic housing, storehouses, walls, a city guard, shops, etc. can either be built by hand or ordered through the Great Game system. It is many times more expensive to order than have people build something, but the upside is that it is instantaneous.
I have a huge surplus of funds currently and this seems like the perfect way to use them. I also have a fantastic idea on how to generate some new funds. In fact if my new plan works out I could actually make more money than I spend which would be great.
Chapter 29: Want Ad
Now that I am secure in my locked room in the castle let’s take a more in depth look at this job hire section of the Great Game store. It looks kind of like a job board. I can either put up my requirements or look at “resumes” of people. The applicants can be from any Great Game world and seem to be bound by magic to their contracts. I need to be careful on who I hire. The contract needs to have severe enough penalties and good enough rewards that I will be able to hire the best. I am not lacking in resources currently and my new plan should make me and my kingdom insanely wealthy.
I remember that the Great Game said that existing currency could be exchanged for Great Game currency at a reduced rate until the Winter Solstice. After that it becomes worthless. Electronic wealth is useless because all electronics are now no longer accessible. However, hard currency is still available through banks, vaults, and store registers. All of the precious metals and gems in the jewelry shops has no current own either. I should be able to hire groups of mercenaries that are high enough level to stomp through everything in this week where everyone is gone and the monsters are still low enough level.
They will be my resource gathering group. I will offer them a flat fee and a percentage of what they recover with severe penalties if they try and steal. The Great Game will enforce the contract so there should be no shenanigans. First though I should start with guards and hired help for my castle and home base. I think that I will create my own postings for everything so I can control the circumstances, penalties and terms of service.
Wanted: Long Term Palace Guards 100 – 250 people
Minimum Level 20, Mixed Genders, Races, and Bloodlines Welcome
Minimum Length of Contract 5 years with resettlement rights granted at the end of the initial contract.
Contract will be extended in five year increments until 20 years or until one party declines renewal.
Contracted guards must have rank and support mechanisms in place.
Contractor will provide room, board, salary and bonuses dependent on negotiations.
Family units and followers are acceptable but shall be taken care of by contractees.
Contracted Palace guards must submit to initial oaths of loyalty and secrecy enforceable by the Great Game.
Contracted Guards must submit to truth magic semi-annually to test for loyalty.
Reasonable outfitting and replacement of equipment will be provided by the contractor.
Those with vendettas or attitudes against specific Races or Bloodlines need not apply.
This will be my basic post that I will modify as needed for other positions. I think I will post one for 25 palace maids, 15 groundskeepers, 10 cooks, and 10 general help.
I think that each Resource Ranger Team who will go out and retrieve cash and jewels will be 1 week contracts with a flat rate of 100 gold per person + 10% of the value of the currency brought back after it has been exchanged into Great Game currency. 25 people per team should be able to move quickly yet have enough people to deal with any situation that might occur. 10 teams and hire for speed as well as level.
As my territory grows I will have to designate areas for people to meet and live while providing them basic supplies to start out with. I think that any city over 500,000 in population before the Great Game change over will be designated as a HUB CITY. Any city above 100,000 but below 500,000 will be designated a Satellite City. Finally, any city over 10,000 but less than 100,000 in population will be designated as a Town. Anything smaller than that is just a village.
Each Hub City will start with basic housing for 250,000 people, granaries with enough food for a month, shops, walls, 1,000 to 1,500 guard force to start with, and a castle for the eventual sub ruler of the area. Each of my satellite cities in the kingdom are going to get basic housing for 100,000 people, granaries with enough food for a month, shops, and walls with a guard force of 500-1,000. Every town gets basic housing for 10,000, granaries with food for a month, shops, walls, and a guard force of 100-250 to start with.
With a little math I get a figure of 10 million gold pieces per Hub City, around 4 million gold pieces per satellite city and close to 1 million gold pieces per town. This is just basic services. I saw an option for a teleportation network that started at 25 million gold with 5 destinations with a discounted price of 3 million more gold pieces per destination after the start up that I need. Without communication and transportation my kingdom will collapse in no time flat.
I can purchase academies, upgrades, prebuilt adventure guilds, etc. The only limiting factor is money. I want to have a fully functioning kingdom set up to help ease the transition for as many people as I can by the end of the week when they return. I have a feeling that the numbers returning will not be as high as what the Great Game suggested. Our society has become out of touch with basic survival skills. That is not a bad thing in normal society, but in this situation can turn deadly. I think we will be lucky to have a 50% survival rate of all tutorial people. Many probably overestimated themselves and selected harder levels. Many might not be able to survive a day let alone a week, and I hate to even imagine what will happen to those with medical problems or that are already at an advanced age.
The more I think about how much the Great Game is literally killing a significant portion of the population that our ethics and society have decided to help stay alive the angrier I get. Why is it fair that younger healthier people have a better chance at survival. We need people like Stephen Hawking and others to help us figure things out in the changed world. However, reality dictates that under the limitations that the Great Game set forth the chance of them surviving is almost nil.
I need to stop this negative spiral of thoughts. I can’t dwell on the individuals. I need to do what I can to look at the big picture. If I do not have a good system of support in place when people return I expect another 50% of survivors would die off in another month. We are so dependent on transportation and electricity for food and other basic items we need to survive that even when people return we could have wide spread famine and disease, along with monster attacks.
I have to get things as prepared as I can.
Chapter 30: Money Troubles
Alright, I have posted all my want ads and will start interviewing or something tomorrow morning. I still don’t know how that will work. However, I have consulted my road maps and have decided that I am going to have to have more Hub Cities than I first thought. The satellite city list is also growing. I need more money fast. I have not even started on my town list and I already need close to 200 million gold pieces just for basic set ups. If I include towns and teleportation networks the cost becomes staggering. I mean I have not even added basic sewers to the package, which would inflate each city price by at least 500,000 to 1 million gold pieces.
It looks like I will need a minimum of 500 million gold pieces to set up just the basics or close to 1 billion gold pieces to do it right. I only have around the equivalent of 200 million gold pieces in all denominations and gems right now. I thought that would be plenty. I can either scale back my plans and leave thousands upon thousands of people to die, or I can get more cash quick.
I may have been optimistic on my new plan to get wealth. The Great Game after fees and transferring requires about 2,000 U.S. dollars per gold piece. This means I need to collect 100 Billion dollars in U.S. currency or its equivalent in precious metals and gems in less than a week just to reach the basic level. I will need to double that amount to do it right and triple it to have some sort of treasury for emergencies. Most small town banks only keep between $10,000 and $20,000 dollars on hand. ATM’s can have $3,000 dollars. The average mall size jewelry store has between $200,000 and 1 million dollars worth of inventory. Major retailers have between $10,000 and $20,000 cash in the store.
So I need to rob, I mean liberate either 7 million ATM’s, 2.5 million small town banks or stores, or 100,000 Jewelry Stores. That number is ridiculous. I do not know if there is even that much available. I did not get everything from the mints, or the bullion depositories so that should help out tremendously. The diamond exchange in New York and Philadelphia are supposed to have over 1 billion in jewels at any time. My main problem is time. If I had a year, I could dig out money from mines and everywhere else. But I will be down to five and ½ days after interviews.
My resource teams are going to have to be able to fly or teleport or something. I will have to advertise for transportation service short contracts now as well. Well there is nothing else I can do except loot everything I can locally while I wait to start interviewing and sending out the resource teams. I will travel to Asheville NC and see how much I can get by myself tonight if I work through the night. That should give me an estimate of how much each team should be able to find in similar sized towns.
After 2 hours of traveling I arrive at my first bank in Asheville. I hit every bank in the small towns on the way and a couple of big box stores, supermarkets, and jewelry stores. Already I have realized a couple of problems I am going to run into. First how are people from other areas of the Great Game going to even recognize or know what buildings to go into. Next even if I teach them where to go they are sure to miss quite a bit. This means the efficiency by my teams are going to be very low. In just over 2 hours of smash and grab through smaller towns I was able to accumulate around 1 million dollars in inventory which translated into 500 gold pieces. This means each team should accumulate around 3,000 gold pieces in scavenging each day if they can scavenge for 12 hours. While this sounds impressive it means I would need 34,000 scavenging teams in order to hit my goal in time. That’s not going to happen.
I hope that a larger town will increase the efficiency of the looting. I already noticed that I need to set priorities. Jewelry stores first, banks second, and finally large stores. This will maximize what I can get. I need to keep brainstorming. There has to be a way to at least get close to my goal. The more safety spots I create the greater the survival rate. I feel like I am missing some large piece of the puzzle. I hope whatever it is occurs to me soon.
As I work my way through Asheville I realize how the change over has influenced my thinking and priorities. I am the greatest thief of all time, no one will probably care, or at least they will think that it is a good thing because it could save lives. My morals seem more flexible. As long as the ends justify the means, and the “greater good” is served, I do not seem to have a problem with many activities that I would never have tried before. Maybe I could implement a reimbursement plan for locals who can prove their ownership of anything I liberate.
This is starting to get monotonous. Travel down road, look for stores, break into the stores safe, have money converted. I have been doing this for hours. Asheville has only a population of 80,000 but it is taking forever. If only there was a way to just teleport where I wanted to go. Wait, teleport, I was thinking about that earlier. What if my resource teams can teleport? I know that teleportation is a thing in the Great Game, I saw it as an option to add teleport stations to my cities I am going to build.
I wonder if there is a way for me to learn teleportation quickly? Does it have to be to another portal? I need to stop and process this. I will finish up the next bank and check the Great Game. I quickly run towards the Bank of America sign down the road. I quickly perform what has become routine. I use the Warhammer to crack the teller drawers and just walk into the safe. Most of the safes in the banks have been left open because no one cared enough to close them before teleporting away. It has definitely made collecting the money easier. I have also randomly been opening up a few safety deposit boxes. I have not found much and to open them all in every bank would take forever, but it is kind of fun and lightens the monotony of what I am doing.
I stack a couple of desks in front of the vault and sit down inside for a quick review of the Great Game store and help system. Help on.
“Help can anyone operate a teleportation portal or does it require specific magic knowledge?”
“To use a teleport portal an organism only needs to transfer mana and think of the destination portal.”
“Help, Is there a common method of teleportation without portal networks?”
“Yes.”
OK, bad question.
“Help, what is the most common method of teleportation used without portals?”
“Scrolls of teleportation”
I quickly search through the Great Game store. Yep, there they are. The description reads:
Scroll of Teleportation: Comes in 100 mile (50 gold), 500 mile (250 gold), 1,000 mile (500 gold) and 10,000 mile (1,000 gold) versions. User must have a clear vision of destination for the magic to work. Discounts for bulk purchases.
This seems like it is definitely a luxury item. I have more than enough gold to purchase what I need, but I need to make sure that the payoff is more than the expenditure. That shouldn’t be too difficult. Even with what I took out of the mints, bullion depositories and mines from my earlier wealth redistribution trip there should be more than enough left to justify the expense of teleporting to those sites again to clean out the rest. I can even add a few more that were too high profile before. No one will ever know unless I tell them.
I will still send out the scavenging teams, but I will have to hope that I can make some large scores quickly in order to come close to my goal. I first check on the bulk discount before buying. 25 scrolls at a time gets you 10% off. So if I buy a bundle of 1,000 mile scrolls and a bundle of 10,000 mile scrolls it will save me several thousand gold. I have several places I need to scavenge both inside the United States and around the world. This should be perfect. I can hit the U.S. sites today, interview or hire tomorrow morning, and start a world-wide blitzkrieg of areas that afternoon with a goal of returning and buying everything I need on the last day before the arrival of the tutorial people.
