“Pst! Greg!”

“Huh?” Greg grumbled, shaking his head groggily.

“Greg! Get up,”

“Uh… 10 more minutes…” Greg mumbled.

“There’s a staff meeting starting now,”

Greg shot up from the bag of crisps he had been using as a pillow.

“Staff meeting, Shit. Who fucked up this time?” Greg cursed.

He looked up to see that it was Ann who had woken him up. She was a young-looking woman of an undisclosed age with short brown hair and a lip piercing.

Greg liked Ann because she hadn’t made fun of his weird hair and eyes since he had gotten them a couple of weeks ago. That and she liked to bake and would sometimes bring cookies and cakes she had made into work.

Mainly that second one.

Scrambling up out of his bed of crisps in the back of the storage locker, Greg’s blood ran cold when he heard Ann’s response.

“Big Mike has come up with a new work plan that will stop paid overtime,” she said grimly.

His head snapped around, staring at Ann feverishly, “What why? Did someone fill his coffee thermos with cat food again?”

“You’ll find out why during the meeting,” Ann said, spinning on her heels and walking across the storage locker into the breakroom.

Greg dashed through the leaning towers of boxes filled with energy drinks, and chocolate and through the strange new area of the storage locker that had replaced pet food. He wasn’t sure what was in these steel boxes but he didn’t like the look of them.

When he finally entered the breakroom, everyone else had already gathered there. After he had closed the door behind him, Big Mike clapped sharply, signalling the start of the meeting.

He coughed and began to speak.

“As you all know, the nearby park has been closed for the past few weeks following a drastic increase in mutated animal sightings,”

Everyone nodded like children listening to their teacher talk.

Greg in particular had been inconvenienced by this because he now had to walk all the way around the park instead of cutting through it to get home.

Big Mike smiled like a shark that had smelled blood before continuing.

“I have it on good authority that this was no coincidence. In fact, the rise in mutated animals was caused by numerous ether wells opening up inside the park.”

The breakroom was filled with murmurs as everyone processed this information.

“But what does this have to do with us losing paid overtime?” Paul asked plainly.

Big Mike’s grin grew wider if that was even possible,

“But you see, that has everything to do with it.

This shop is near the park. The park has become prime real estate to open a hunting ground, and some experts have even predicted that a dungeon might open there.

And who goes to hunting grounds?” Big Mike asked, his excitement almost feverish.

“Hunters?” Greg replied, still a little puzzled.

“And what do hunters have lots of?” Big Mike asked smugly.

“Balls?” Paul asked.

“Yes! Money… Wait what?” Big Mike asked, he looked like a punctured balloon after having his thunder stolen.

Paul shrugged, “I mean, you need a big pair of balls to be a hunter right? I don’t think I could fight monsters for a living, no matter how much you paid me,”

Big Mike nodded thoughtfully and yet that did little to disguise how angry he was.

Greg had noticed this was something Big Mike did. The more annoyed he was, the more he tried to bottle it up, resulting in the massive outbursts he occasionally had over extremely insignificant things.

“No Paul, whether or not they have big balls is none of my concern. I only care about the fact that hunters have a lot of money, and they will need somewhere to spend it,” Big Mike said, his voice was calm and yet quivered slightly, on the brink of shouting.

“But what do we have that hunters want?” Greg asked quickly, trying to distract Big Mike.

At this, Big Mike smirked with a self-pleased look that would put a child who had just learned how to swear to shame. “Follow me,” He whispered doing an enticing motion with his finger that for some reason put the fear of God in Greg.

The group filed out of the breakroom into the Storage locker and came to a stop in front of a tower of steel boxes that were piled together in a section labelled pet food.

“Wait here!” Shouted Big Mike as he ran off into his office in the corner of the storage locker.

A few seconds later he came back, his forehead slick with sweat, making his greasy combover stick to his head in a way that Greg hated more than he could explain with words.

In Big Mike’s hands were a crowbar and a new sign.

He used these two items in tandem.

First, ripping down the old ‘Pet-Food’ Sign that was nailed into the wall and replacing it with the new sign.

‘Weapons and Armour’ Greg mumbled as he read the sign aloud.

“Exactly! When hunters need to buy new gear after theirs is damaged they will come here,” Big Mike exclaimed proudly.

Greg raised his hand tentatively.

“Oh, does the anime character have a question?” Big Mike snorted.

“I’m not an…” Greg gritted his teeth, not wanting to start something with Big Mike who thrived off conflict,

“I just wanted to ask, why anyone would come to ‘Mike’s Convenience,’ For weapons. It doesn’t exactly strike confidence in me is all I’m saying,”

Big Mike frowned, “What’s wrong with the name of my shop?”

Everyone was quiet, nobody willing to speak up and take the brunt of Big Mike’s anger.

Finally, Ann offered her opinion, “It’s just, Mike’s convenience sounds like the name of a hardware store, not somewhere you would buy quality weapons.”

“What’s wrong with my weapons? I bought them from a trustworthy black-market dealer.” Big Mike asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Greg doubted whether there were any, ‘Trustworthy’ Black-market dealers but didn’t say this aloud. Instead, he said this.

“All Ann is saying is that maybe, if you want to change the product we sell, you might want to think about rebranding the shop itself. For instance, pick a name that inspires awe and wonder in the customers.”

Big Mike frowned, mulling over the words like he was chewing on something he didn’t like. But eventually, he nodded affirmatively.

“I’ll consider it, Any other questions?”

Ann raised her hand this time.

“Yes, What does this have to do with unpaid overtime?”

Everyone nodded in agreement, as this was all that they really cared about.

Big Mike went back to smiling and explained with a weirdly satisfied look on his narrow face.

“I have decided that instead of overtime, you will be paid a percentage of your sales of the new merchandise,” He said with finality.

This time, it was everyone else’s turn to frown. This change could mean a lot of things. Either they could get paid way more for selling more, or nobody would buy weapons here and they were losing out on vital income they needed.

Before anyone could complain, Big Mike left the room in a hurry, dashing back out to the shop floor. Presumably worried that somebody was stealing from him.

“Hey, Greg!” Paul shouted from the entrance to the breakroom, catching Greg’s attention.

“What’s up?” Greg asked glumly, still worried about what the change to the shop would mean for him and his sisters’ livelihood.

Paul gestured for Greg to come into the breakroom and soon, he found out why.

Recently, Big Mike added a whiteboard to the breakroom where he would write complaints about lazy workers or people leaving the fridge open for all to see.

Paul had rubbed out whatever message had been there, replacing it with a chart he had titled.

[New shop name Ideas:]

Idea 1: Mike’s Mighty Weapons Votes: 1