"Yow! Contractor!" A blue-skinned willowy humanoid character with a bizarre hooked nose and twig-like horns growing out of his forehead called out to me.

Or I assumed he was referring to me. I stopped my stroll among the stalls of various guilds. When I focused on him through the heavy crowds, the name 'Bonkakonb'—a word that had, no doubt, a special meaning to him—floated above his head. There was also a circular crest with an intricate map design that appeared beside his name—the icon of his guild, I surmised from other players around us.

The blue man, who I decided to call 'Bonk' for short, furiously waved at me to catch my attention. I pointed at myself and he nodded. I had no idea why he would call me 'Contractor', but I approached him.

"Heyo, Contractor buddy," Bonk said. "Are you the new guy sent by the bosses to explore the new lead at Squiggly-Diddly Swamp? They need people below level five for it, but you should already know—"

"Excuse me," I interrupted him. "I think you have the wrong—"

"You're not the swamp guy? Then you must be with the Dolbara squad. Not an enviable job. I was assigned to that dratted mission before and, let me tell you, we've combed pretty much the entire introduction and ain't got no rat's clue of an ass where that frigging ship is located on the World Map."

It clicked in my head what Bonk was talking about. He was a member of the Expeditionary Legion, the guild Enrico had mentioned that offered Victores Sors half a million warblers for the secret of their giants.

In my research, I found that they were one of the top guilds, not in terms of fighting capabilities, but information and wealth. Their main business was the trade of MCO secrets. Many of their members repeatedly remade characters to explore various parts of Hierakon. They also hired smaller guilds and individual players to pursue storylines and possible secrets, hence, the ‘Contracts’.

"Sorry, I meant I'm not a Contractor," I said. There was no point in lying to him. "I guess my name confused you? I just love exploring Hierakon, visiting the different starting points of various races."

"Oh, a tourist!" he said with a snap of his fingers. "I get it. Character Tourism is on the rise. Your name...' Test'. Doesn't sound like a tourist though, doesn't it? I assumed you were one of the Contractors I was waiting for. But since we’re here, are you interested in becoming one?"

"I've been offered that before,” I nonchalantly lied. “But I'm just not so sure of the terms so I refused it." I didn't even know what contract was this. An in-game one? Should I become a Contractor? That could entail rewards while I studied MCO and decide on which character to choose. It reminded me of the multitude of part-time jobs I've had.

"It's those scam rumors, isn't it?" said Bonk. "Just going to flat out say it, buddy, we're not scammers."

"That sounds like something a scammer would say," I said, leaning into the flow of the conversation.

He simply snorted at my reply. "Okay, okay, listen here. There's no shred of truth to that bullshit. The Expeditionary Legion honors our contracts. No nonsense loopholes, no double-cross, none of those fake hacks that can supposedly destroy contracts. You get the job done, you get paid. You bring us a secret, you get paid so much you'll be right back out there finding more secrets to sell to us."

"I'm not so sure..." I trailed off. I looked over my shoulder as if trying to get out of the conversation.

"Just a couple of minutes, let me pitch a contract to you," Bonk said. He put his arm over my shoulder as if we were best friends. Little did he know that my true best friend was Dunstan. "I'm sure my, ahem, esteemed colleagues in other cities have read to you our standard spiel, so let me try something different. Imagine you're me—"

"Sounds awful," I blurted out. My eyes widened. Did I say that out loud? Snarky comments usually floated around in my head, but I wasn't dumb enough to let them go out of my mouth. This probably had something to do with my brain connected to the AU-VR Helm. I should be more careful of my thoughts. "I'm sorry..." I began to say. But then, I realized that no one knew who I was in this game. Maybe this was the place to finally let loose the chaos in my head. "I'm sorry, but that sounds awful," I corrected myself.

Bonk paused, unsure of what to say next. He decided I was joking and laughed out loud. "Okay, you got me there, buddy! Instead of imagining you're me, think of yourself as a nondescript generic person, tired of all the bullshit of leveling up. And that's why you're a tourist, right? So what if you can travel while also earning?"

"That really sounds like a scam," I said with a snort. He basically offered what I was already thinking about.

"I thought we're already over that scam part," spoke Bonk. "The best way to show we're not scamming nobody's ass is to take a contract, just a minor one, and then you'll see that we're legit." He held up his finger as I opened my mouth to respond. "Wait a second before you continue. I know you're gonna say that's how scammers reel you in. But just try it out. If you don't like the deal, then forget about us."

"I'll think about it," I said, scratching my chin. I wanted to research more before dipping my toes into the Expeditionary Legion's business.

"Just take the Dolbara mission. I mean you have already remade your character several times. What if you earned Artas and other items on the side? Hundreds of people take that contract. I know, I know, it's not an in-game Contract, but the dozens of completed deals should be proof of our good faith."

"What do we do there again? Try to explore the ship? But the Dalkanus won't let us."

"That's the point. You try everything you can think of, and if you find new information that isn't on the current list, you get paid once you have chosen a character. You can even pick those pain-in-the-ass races that still aren't connected to the Gate System after all this time—the Aviarii and Mardukryon. We have agents there to fulfill the contract. We’re not scamming anyone.”

The Legion was looking for the location of the Dolbara? What do they want with the golden anus?

Perhaps the true story of Mother Core Online? The secrets of the titanic alien spacecraft? Imagine the possibilities if one could break into the Dalkanus' ship and download the data from all the creatures there. Or was there more to it?

There must be a reason for the lengthy flight from the top of the crater, touring the cliffs, before going to the Dolbara and meeting the Dalkanus. Otherwise, a new player could've just spawned right in front of the Dalkanus and choose a new character instead of all that flying around.

The cliffs didn't need to have that many details—the ruins, the remains of gigantic monsters, the mysterious forest—if there was nothing to them. Designing those costs a whole lot of money. That was reason enough to assume that they held secrets.

Bonk continued, "If you do pick those two races, you can take on more contracts for us. Pick Aviarii though because, between you and me, I think Mardukryons are a lost cause. It's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Complete a Dolbara mission contract, and then join the exploration of the Aviarii race. I heard rumors there were multiple leads in progressing their storyline."

"Do you get a commission for a contract?"

"Not gonna lie to you, buddy. I do get compensation for it. Plus if they’re in-game contracts, I can progress my own Diplomacy Ocadules. But that doesn't mean I'm taking advantage of you."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, sliding away from him. "I'll explore Amberkeld first because that's my main goal coming here."

"You do that, and then think about my offer, alright? Come back later here."

"I will," I answered with no intention of doing so.

For about a half-hour, with no specific aim, I continued exploring Amberkeld Town to learn more about how MCO worked. And also to simply take in the atmosphere of a fantasy world.

I talked to NPCs and busied myself completing random quests like: delivering a break-up letter to a soon-to-be-single woman, a storyline I didn’t continue because the NPC tasked me with collecting ingredients to make a poisonous concoction; digging medicinal roots by the river to cure a stomach ache of a child who ate a basket-full of stale food, the roots also worked on my upset [Mild Upset Stomach] status; and inviting people to attend a birthday party of a mandrake.

If only MCO had existed back then…

I still couldn’t get out the feeling of failure in my mind. If others knew about my worry, they’d shrug it off as inconsequential.

People fail all the time, they’d probably say. There’d be someone who’d point out, it’s just a game, it doesn’t matter.

And they’d be right.

People did fail in a lot of things, and that included me. Not everything I set out to do was met with success. As for Nornyr Online, it was indeed just a game. So was Mother Core Online.

“However, I am Herald Stone!” I declared to the world. A couple of elves in the middle of trading with each other jolted in surprise at my outburst. They gave me weird looks and shuffled away, dismissing me as a crazy newbie.

It didn’t matter that failure was normal.

It didn’t matter that my Goal was related to games.

All that mattered was that every Goal on the List had to be completed, and it irked me to no end that Goal #1 was the lone stain on Herald Stone.

I balled my hands. Calm down, I told myself while looking at my fist. I was reminded of something that I wanted to try earlier. It sounded stupid, but I was curious about its consequences. I was exploring MCO after all. And it just might be stupid enough to get me out of my rut thinking about failure.

I marched to the parish.