I suppressed a grimace at the obvious doubt in his voice. Damien looked unperturbed by the lack of enthusiasm. “Very well then, Mr. Shadow. We look forward to our cooperation. Please reach out to us with an expected start date after you have obtained the necessary permits for the dungeon space as well as when your new marketing plan is ready. In the meantime, Basil will get to work on filling out the details of his dungeon concept so that when we next meet to sign the contract he should be able to pitch you his idea. From there it will just be a matter of preparing the materials, the cost of which will be born by you as we discussed prior to this meeting.”

Jacques waved his hand. “Yes, yes that hasn’t changed. It’ll be in the contract. All in all, assuming your dungeon concept is acceptable when we meet again in two weeks, we'll plan on completing construction a month after that.”

Damien looked to me for confirmation and I nodded. “A month will be fine.” I agreed. If I couldn’t figure out at least a basic idea of how to create mana rich water by that point then we’d just have to give up on the project.

Jacques stood and we followed suit, taking the cue that the meeting had come to an end. “Gentleman, I look forward to seeing you in two weeks. My secretary will be waiting for you on the way out. She should have prepared non-disclosure agreements for you to sign. After all, we wouldn’t want our competitors getting word of what we intend to do.”

Damien smiled and nodded, unsurprised, though I for one was a bit taken aback. But I suppose it made sense. I just hadn’t really thought about having to sign a document before we’d even completed the main deal.

He led us out of the room where there was indeed a secretary awaiting us. Jacques gave him a nod of approval as he saw the man was holding papers that were, presumably, the NDAs. He shook hands with us again and extracted a promise from Damien to get an appointment on the books for a month from now before walking off at a brisk pace.

Damien briefly conversed with the secretary regarding dates and times a month later before settling on an 11:00 AM meeting. If all went well we could have lunch after to celebrate our successful deal.

The secretary then handed us the NDAs. I thumbed through it, relieved to see it was only a short two pages. The language was relatively straightforward, if a little broad, but there weren’t any hidden pitfalls in it that I could see. After confirming with Damien I went ahead and signed.

Jacques’ secretary collected the documents before walking off to make copies. I found it interesting that this document was in paper form rather than being a system contract. I mentioned it to Damien while we waited. He shook his head. “The contract system through Janus only works for tasks, or missions basically. Something like an NDA just doesn’t exist in the system. I’m not sure why, but that’s the way it is. It doesn’t make a difference though. At the end of the day they could still sue us in court if we breach this agreement.”

Damien seemed content to just take it as one of the many quirks of the world we lived in, but I couldn’t help considering more. Given the little I knew of Janus based on stories and my own limited interactions with him through system prompts, I thought it might just be that Janus found contracts that didn’t do anything, or contracts that only existed to cover people’s butts, tedious. I could imagine him saying something like, “Really? You really need something like this? Couldn’t you just kill the other party if they told and take all their stuff?”

As these thoughts ran through my head a screen popped up in front of me.

“Congratulations! You have understood the mind of your lord and savior Janus! You have received the title ‘Teacher’s Pet’.”

I stared at the notification incredulously. “I seriously got a title just for that?” I muttered to myself under my breath. I pulled up the title, curious about the effect. But the description left me speechless.

Title: Teacher’s Pet

Effect: As a teacher’s pet, you are particularly adept at knowing what will please others. While this title is equipped you will be better able to perceive the mood of others. However, no one likes a teacher’s pet. While this title is equipped you will receive more hostile treatment from all other beings of human-like intelligence.

What sort of title was this? Perceiving someone’s mood was useful, but it also basically guaranteed people would be hostile toward me. If that was the case did I even need to wear the title to know what people were feeling? I shook my head and dismissed the screen.

After we received the copies from the secretary we made our way out of the building and hailed a cab back towards my dormitory. We spoke very little on the way there, mindful of the sensitive nature of the project and not wanting to worry about prying ears or eyes.

When we got back to my dormitory Damien looked around again, taking in the shabby surroundings. “If all goes well, you’ll be able to move out of this place soon.”

I shook my head. “Even if it doesn’t go well, I’ll have to move out. They don’t let us stay in these dorms perpetually you know?”

He nodded before falling silent for a moment. When he finally spoke his voice was quiet, but calm. “Are you sure about this?”

I shook my head again. “I’m not sure about anything. You were the one who convinced me to do this in the first place.”

Damien nodded. “I know. But if you really aren’t confident I can go back and make up some excuse. I could also just ask for more time. I don’t want you to feel overly pressured. It’s just that if we do this, well it’ll be big for us. We’ll probably get on the radar of a number of large corporations which will help us get more clients.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Corporations like the Rust Corporation?”

He sighed and nodded.

“I thought you said they probably wouldn’t notice us at first.” I said doubtfully.

“If we kept a low profile they likely wouldn’t. I’m confident I’ve managed to keep myself off their radar. But once we go ahead with this we’ll be in the headlines. The people at Rust will definitely look into us, and once they do they’ll figure out who I am. There’s no telling how they’ll react at that point.” His voice had a slight tremor to it as he spoke the last sentence.

I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it tightly. I waited until he lifted his gaze to mine to speak. “You’re not alone in this. I won’t stand aside if Rust wants to take you. Of course, it won’t take them long to kill me and put my corpse out as an example, but hey that’s life as a Dungeon Maker for you.”

He let out a snort of humor. “That’s what life is like for a cowardly combat Class, too.” He shook his head. “Really though, we need to consider how we’re going to handle it when they find out about me being in this company. We have to go ahead with this plan. There’s no doubt about that, but we need to be prepared. Even if they don’t go so far as to ruin us or leave us dead in a ditch somewhere…” He paused here and looked at me. “Which I wouldn’t rule out as just a joke. You don’t know what my family is capable of.”

I felt a slight chill crawl up my spine and let out an involuntary shiver. He nodded in satisfaction and continued. “Even if they don’t go that far, they’ll definitely have some response. We need to prepare for it.”

I sat down in a chair at the kitchen table and leaned back on its hindlegs, thinking. “You know,” I said thoughtfully. “There’s another side to this that you haven’t considered. It’s true that the publicity from working with Grainola will probably put us on Rust’s radar. But it will also make us more visible in the public eye. We do still live in a world of law and order after all. If something were to actually happen to us, with all that visibility there would have to be an investigation. Now, I’m sure Rust could find a way out of any trouble they might get in, but still it would take more effort than just wiping us out or kidnapping you away when were unknown.”

Damien considered my words. “You’re on the right track with that thinking. The pressure from the public for killing us or kidnapping me, frankly, wouldn’t mean anything to them to be honest. But it’s not like they don’t have enemies. There are other large corporations out there as well as political figures with grudges against the company. If my family really made a move against us, even if the pressure from the public didn’t really affect them, their competitors would likely use it as a chance to strike at them. Those with money and power could do a lot of damage to the Rust Corporation with an opportunity like that. Maybe that will be enough to deter my family from taking more drastic steps. At least, I don’t think my grandfather would allow it even if my parents wanted to.”

I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, but it made sense. The more powerful you were the more powerful your enemies would be. The Rust Corporation was at the top of the food chain, so naturally its enemies would be heavy hitters.

We talked for another hour or so, as I explained in more detail my basic concept for a fire and water dungeon. I still wasn’t sure how I would go about arranging it so that the water produced would be mana rich, but Damien didn’t seem worried. As he got up to leave he offered me some words of encouragement. “You’ll think of something. You don’t give yourself enough credit. Your ideas are innovative and you know more about dungeons than anyone I’ve ever talked to, even my tutors as a kid, and one of them was a higher up in the company’s Dungeon Making department. If you would just stop doubting yourself, I think you’d become someone great.”

He didn’t give me time to think of a reply before walking out, calling out a goodbye as he went. I shook my head. I knew I had more knowledge than most Dungeon Makers. However, I still wasn’t confident when it came to things like this. Everything I was doing was innovative, which meant there really wasn’t pre-existing knowledge of a lot of this to work from. I had to synthesize my knowledge, combining and experimenting with different theories, in order to advance even a single step forward.

What we were taking on here wasn’t just a single step, but a massive leap. I wasn’t confident at all. But the cards had been dealt and I had to play the hand I’d been given. I couldn’t afford to fold. Though I longed to lie down in my bed and get some sleep I forced myself to grab a book from my shelves and settle in for the first of what I expected would be many late nights in the month to come. I forced my eyes open and began to pour over the book in front of me, in the hopes that something would spark an idea for me. It was several hours before I finally admitted defeat, staggering to bed.

Darkness took me as my head hit the pillow and I fell into the deep, dreamless sleep of the exhausted.