VRMMORPG: Dragomancer Reborn

As Arthur finished writing all this down, it was already time for lunch.

Grumble~

His stomach cried, asking him for sustenance.

"Guess it\'s time for a break."Arthur said to himself while stretching.

His back made a popping sound, sending waves of comfort down his body. Pushing the chair back, he stood up and wore his hoodie. 

"What should I get today?" Arthur wondered. 

He had eaten instant noodles with an egg the last time, thus reckoned he should get something more. Of course with the limited funds he had, the options were limited as well.

"I\'ll need to solve the issue with funds soon… or I\'ll starve." Arthur muttered to himself.

It wasn\'t that he didn\'t have a method to get a lot of money even now. But it was a method that would hurt him in the long term and make him lose out on a higher profit margin.

\'The Grand Nexus Forums should already be flooding with the initial reports from the game launch.\' Arthur thought as he opened a site on his smartphone.

The cracked screen made it a bit of a pain to read, but by now he was used to it. 

"Eh, I should just use the Dream Pod for this back at home." Arthur reckoned.

The Dream Pod had several functions than just playing games and assisting in sleep after all. If one wanted to, they could very easily use it as a normal computer. Browsing the internet, watching videos and stuff was very basic for it to do.

The only difference was that one didn\'t need any peripherals like a mouse or keyboard to use it. All one needed was their mind!

Still, that was something Arthur would do upon returning thus for now he just decided to scroll on his phone while he reached the Convenience store nearby. 

<Stupid Lama: Online is totally immersive to the point where I can feel pain!>

<Broken Nail111: It really is! I tried to backflip and managed to do it perfectly!>

<Floweriness23: Aren\'t you the guy who failed miserably when the game launched? I remember seeing you at the fountain.>

<Ihatemugs: Totally! I got a video of that too!>

<Stupid Lama: Share! Share! I wanna see that>

<Broken Nail111: Lies! Fake news! I totally did a back flip>

<Ihatemugs: Epic backflip fail.mp4>

<Stupid Lama: Hahaha! So dumb! You think you can\'t backflip while being that fat!?>

<Broken Nail111 has changed their name to IhateIhatemugs>

<Ihateihatemugs: Fuck you!>

As Arthur read the inane banter on the forums, he couldn\'t help but chuckle.

"Guess some things never change." Arthur laughed before looking at the road.

The streets were mostly empty at this time, since everyone would be at work. A majority of the people living in this area were too poor to afford to live in the better districts, but still worked there. 

They would commute and thus it wasn\'t unusual to see the streets deserted for the most part. One wouldn\'t even see cars here other than a few taxis and buses that passed by. These were the outdated public transport, as the main city and other commercial districts had E-vehicles that transported people.

In such other areas of the city, they wouldn\'t even want to upgrade the transport system.

Arthur\'s eyes lingered on the empty streets for a bit as he recalled the changes that would be happening.

\'The Redevelopment might be a good chance for investment too… I know Boyd became filthy rich after selling off his building.\' Arthur could still recall the time. 

Though he knew that buying the relatively bad land here would still be an expensive affair. 

\'If I recall correctly, even the building I live in cost Boyd 2 million UC to buy. And he had bought it in a trashed condition too. By now th price should have risen by quite a lot. And once the redevelopment starts it\'ll be multiplied by a lot.\' Arthur pondered on his options.

Though at the same time, it felt ironic to Arthur.

He who barely had a handfulof UC was thinking of buying multi million UC worth property. 

"Sigh… Once step at a time Arthur, one step at a time…" he said to himself as the chime of a door opening was heard.

Lifting his head, Arthur was already at the convenience store and some had just left through its door. 

"Fuck… Vadim." Arthur cursed his luck.

Arthur watched as the man walked towards him, his expression looking pissed. His anxiety rose as the man got closer, but just when he was in front of him, he was surprised. 

"Ptui~ Watch where you walk!" Vadim while continuing to walk.

The man didn\'t bother him and simply continued on.

"Huh… that\'s new…" Arthur was genuinely surprised. "Did he wake up on the right side of the bed? Usually he\'s more violent." He wondered.

Feeling like he was lucky today, Arthur got a pep in his walk as he entered the convenience store. 

"A sale?" the first thing that caught his eye was a large sign board written in bad handwriting.

"Hey! Arthur!" A gruff voice laced with the smell of cigarettes could be heard.

"Hey Carl!" Arthur waved his hand at the middle aged man with yellowed teeth. "You\'re putting up a sale? That\'s new." 

"Haha, yeah… I have to." Carl replied. 

"Why? I\'ve never seen you do a sale before." Arthur asked.

He knew that doing a sale for a convenience store that already had small margins was a painful thing. Arthur had worked in enough stores like this to know it perfectly. 

"Yeah… I kinda am forced to do it." Carl replied, his expression uneasy. "The franchise is raising leasing costs." 

"Already?" Arthur raised his brows. "Didn\'t they do it six months ago too?" he said with surprise.

"They sure did. But the greedy bastards up at corporate still want more I guess. Something about phasing out low performing stores." Carl replied anger visible on his face.

"I see… Tough luck. Sorry for you man." Arthur replied, taking a mental note to take a look into it.

Arthur talked with the store owner for a couple more minutes before he recalled what he was here for.

"Ah yeah! Since you got a sale, do you have fresh produce too?" Arthur asked.

"Of course. I need to finish that first." Carl replied. "I don\'t think I\'ll be restocking it after this." 

"Alright." Arthur nodded his head and walked along the fresh produce aisle, getting a few greens and vegetables to diversify his diet. \'Guess Doctor Furial\'s words are now manifesting.\' He thought to himself.

Having gotten the veggies along with a couple of eggs, Arthur came to the counter.

"That\'ll be Four UC." Carl rang him up and gave the discounted total.

"Perfect!" Arthur paid for the groceries.

He now had just a single UC left in his account, which wasn\'t even something he could spend on anything. 

\'This\'ll tide me over for a couple days at least.\' Arthur thought to himself.

"Come again… Or maybe not." Carl said as Arthur left the store.

Returning to his apartment, Arthur wondered what else was it that he had missed.

\'Carl did shut down his store in my last life too. But it happened a month later.\' Arthur tried to recall it further.

It was something that wasn\'t really associated with him, thus Arthur barely remembered it. Then there was also the fact that he simply hadn\'t seen a lot of it. For example, the fact that the leasing costs had risen.

Arthur simply didn\'t know this in his last life.

\'If the corporate is already raising the lease, they probably know about the redevelopment plans already… or at least have some rumors.\' Arthur guessed.

This sparked a bit of an alarm in him, as he knew if the higher ups were already moving at this time, it would get tougher for him later.

"Wait a second… Didn\'t Carl shut down the store after it burned down!?" Arthur suddenly recalled some grave information.

It was something that hadn\'t even appeared on the news and Arthur wasn\'t there to witness it either. In fact, back then Arthur had been working in another district and had not come home for an entire week. Sleeping over at the workplace had become common for him after a while considering the dead end jobs he did.

"No wonder I didn\'t remember much about it." His workload had plagued parts of his memories clogging them with things that would be useless now.

"Sigh… guess I\'ll have to deal with it when the time comes. At most I\'ll warn Carl or something… though I don\'t know if I should do that." Arthur didn\'t know how much it would change the future if he warned the man.

But after thinking for a bit, he decided against it. 

\'Carl didn\'t get hurt and still got the insurance, so it shouldn\'t be a problem.\' Arthur reckoned.

~DING~

He had reached his apartment building while thinking all this and was stopped by the ringing of a door.

"Who?" Arthur looked at an unfamiliar person ringing the bell at the first apartment near the entrance. 

"Do you know where the person who lives here is?" A woman asked. 

She looked to be in her early thirties and was black haired. But Arthur noticed that she wasn\'t entirely well, a few bruise marks hidden on her neck and arms.

"Boyd?" Arthur inquired.

"Yes! Boyd!" The woman nodded making Arthur feel like there was something strange.

The first apartment of the building was where Boyd lived, and it was also the biggest one. But it was seldom that he got guests.