Vol. 1 - Chapter 2 - Money vanishing like ash

Mathias began his working day, bringing the cleaning cart in all the rooms he had to clean. Time passed, and the clock already showed that it was 11:50 AM.

After taking his break and eating what he prepared himself at home. In those moments of break time, in what seemed a dull moment in anyone's working life, his telephone suddenly started ringing with a number unknown to him, as if the person calling was from overseas.

Responding to the phone, while finishing his sandwich bite, he heard the voice of a woman with a weird English accent he had never heard before, greeting him, and starting to inform him about something rather important for him..

"Hello mister Mathias Dumitrescu. This is Yeon Baek from the S.A. Group calling you concerning your appliance for Beta Access.

Can you confirm that I am talking with the right person?"

Coughing a bit while listening to this Korean lady talk in English with him, he said to her in an English that had a slight bit of an Eastern European accent, or how most people call it the "Russian accent".

"Correct. This is Mathias Dumitrescu speaking with you."

"Understood. Sirl, we confirm your beta access application, but before that, to fully complete this step, you'll have to sign the contract we sent you in your email and also deposit the money for the V.R. equipment that we will send to your address in the following weeks."

"That's all? Yes?"

"Yes, that's all the users have to do."

"Mhm, I thought it would be a lot more.”

“A lot more? What do you mean, sir?”

“What do you call them in english? I got it on my tongue … Right, I thought there are a lot of steps in this whole registration ordeal. It seems I was worrying myself too much last night.”

“Hah? Sir, everything has been made so we cater to our customers' needs. Besides that, do you have any other questions with regard to the registrations? Everything is explained in the additional files I’ve added to your email, to guide you in the whole process of finalizing the registration process.”

"... Another question? I don’t know. Wait, wait, I think I have one. Do you guys receive internet calls since it's a slight problem for me to call overseas. Those thieves are taking too much money with the roaming option."

The lady behind the other line giggled a bit before saying to Mathias. "There's absolutely no problem, sir Dumitrescu. You are worrying over nothing, yet know that our program has been messy since this beta announcement, so probably there will be another colleague of mine taking over the customer service for Europe Region."

"You guys seem short-staffed. . Well, not part of my cake, so take care, miss."

"Thank you for your time, sir. Have a nice day." replied the woman with marks of tiredness in her voice.

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Ending the phone and looking at his clock that showed 12:05, he said to himself.

"Wait what? I only have 5 minutes of break."

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After taking the break, Mathias quickly went back to the restaurant of the hotel and began eying the clients who were at the tables with a bored expression.

‘It’s really boring here at the restaurant. Should I go what Vlad is doing? Nah, let’s not make trouble for that guy, since his situation with the management team isn’t so nice like myself.’

‘What now? I know! I should go see Lady Leonor and ask for more work."

Saying that Mathias walked calmly to where the manager room was, and after knocking on the door and receiving the okay of the manager lady, he entered and heard her say.

"What happened, Mathias? Are there any problems with the rooms?"

"No, madame. The rooms are all cleaned out, along with the windows on my designated part, I came wondering if there's anything else to be cleaned."

"Ahh, you already finished cleaning everything? You sure are fast. As for additional work? Just take a break, you’ve already finished your work." said Leonor while looking at Mathias who had an awkward smile.

"Do you mind if I say here? The connection to the WiFi is the best here, at least until I am summoned to clean a room?"

"Yea, why not. Better to have company when I have to calculate all these spendings and earnings.”

Saying that, she continued with her work, but a thought about the possibility that Mathias could join in the same ranks with her, as a manager hit her, and curiosity hit her.

“Mathias, do you know how to work on Excel?"

Raising his head from his cracked phone with a surprise face, he asked while pointing at himself.

"Excel? That calculation soft? Sounds familiar. Right, I got it. I was decent enough, I remember having an exam in that regard that I passed with full grades, but that was 4 years ago. Lady Leonor, if you tell me what I should do, I might be of help."

"Okay. I have a spare computer for you, where there's the data from one month ago, with wages of people, spendings and so on. What I want you to do is a total calculation of all the spendings, from staff wages, utilities, equipment spending, and other ones."

Mathias looked a bit surprised at this job change and moved slowly to a seat next to the manager lady, then looked at the laptop in front of him that seemed out of a science fiction movie to him.

"Are there any problems with the laptop?"

"No, it's just my first time actually seeing such a laptop." replied Mathias who was staring at the laptop in front of him as if it was the mothership from Star Wars.

Getting out of his trance, he shook his head and, using an attached wireless mouse, got to the folder that contained the file in question that required him to do the calculus.

'There's so much data here, can I do it? Aren't I going to mess something if I type something wrong?'

"Ahem, lady Leonor, are you sure, I am allowed to do this?"

"Yea, why not? There's a backup, just go play with those numbers."

Hearing her reply, his facial expression turned as if saying 'It is what it is' and then began typing on the keyboard like some possessed demon, like he was playing some shooter game or a MOBA game, which made the manager look a bit at him, only to notice his focused expression that looked around the data on his screen.

'He seems to know what he is doing. Maybe I should have a discussion with him proposing a job change turning him into an office worker. There will be a 6 months course that he should join paid by the directors, but is not something that would break you up.'

Taking his time, and also breaking once in a while to ponder in front of the screen, before continuing, in about 30 minutes, Mathias stopped from typing and asked Leonor for her supervision.

"Lady Leonor, I finished what you asked of me. Can you check to see if I didn't make a fool out of myself?"

Leonor stopped from her work and got up from her chair, moving closer to Mathias. Taking the mouse in her hand, she began checking on the mathematical formulas used on the equations.

As she checked Mathias' work, she tapped on his shoulder and said while pointing at a big string of equations.

"See this? While it is indeed the correct answer to the problem, you could have used the shortcuts and cut from your workload here. That's the reason why you were typing like some fool?"

Looking a bit embarrassed, he replied to her comment with a weak voice.

"I forgot those shortcuts."

"Don't worry too much. These problems were easy anyway. I'm just lazy and flooded with work from the bosses. Thanks for the work, Mathias, surprisingly, you did well on your first try." said Leonor after chuckling for a bit, turning the atmosphere more open, unlike your traditional manager-worker relation.

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Getting up from the seat, he excused himself, walked out of the office, and walked to a bench inside the hotel, where he sat there alone, taking his old smartphone and opening the browser using the hotel's Wi-Fi.

"Those faces? Aren't they the neighbors upstairs?" asked Mathias while scrolling some news sites on the internet.

"Damn, those guys are really messed up. The article says they are part of an infamous gang that traffics people, drugs, and even have a prostitution chain. It says here, those 3 might face 15 to 20 years of jail time. Don't tell me I can finally sleep peacefully at night without someone to disturb me with that music?"

"A miracle. There is goodness in this world. Hah, jokes aside, I can finally relax without having to listen to music all the time. Now that I also brought this VR technology, my writing references should be boosted even more.

My humble readers, those annoying jerks will for sure love this new change I will bring to my story. Still, I need to do some research on the next plot. I hope this game is really, as they say, with a realistic middle-aged era, that contains an intricate system of the world trades, politics, mercantilism, even the gaming elements."

In such manner, Mathias spent a little break before he was asked to clean a room that wasn't on his designation. He did it without much fuss, taking his cleaning equipment that had some weight on it. He started cleaning until his working shift ended.

After the work was done, he changed his cleaner clothing into his walking clothes and began his journey back home. It was something dull that happened almost every day, except Saturdays and Sundays that were free days.

Once home, he noticed the floor's silent atmosphere along with the upper floor where his noisy neighbours would be wasting their life on useless things.

"I can't believe this. There's this feeling I get that it will not last for long." mentioned Mathias as he took his good clothes and arranged them in a clean, orderly manner, at which he later moved to take a shower to clean his sweaty body.

With his head under the mild temperature running water of the shower, he thought to himself about the contract the VR game company possibly sent him in the mail.

There's no need to hurry, this is still the beta access, and from the terms of the agreement, I don't have to pay the subscription fee until the game enters the live phase. There's also not much information outside the talks discussing the trailer.'

As soon as he got done with the shower and changed into some comfortable clothing, he moved to his old laptop and pressed the boot button. Later once he heard an annoying sound to his ears, he moved to his tiny kitchen.

"Perfect. I still have some of the food, mother sent me last month. Good, until the laptop finishes booting, I can eat mom's food." (A/N: Sterilized food is a process of keeping the food taste better for a longer period of time)

Taking a glass jar from his fridge that had some stew on it, he moved to a small induction stove and began heating up the food contained in the jar on a cooking pot. Finished with the process of heating the already cooked food, he took a seat on a wooden chair at a soviet styled wood table, and taking some white bread from a corner of the table, he began wolfing the food down with a satisfied face.

"This food is unmatched by anything even after all this time."

Once done eating the food and cleaning his cooking pot and plate, he moved to the laptop that seemed to just now be finished with the system booting.

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"Come old pall, we have a business to attend to. Don't crash on me or give me that stupid blue screen error of yours, okay?" said Mathias in a sarcastic tone to the old laptop as he got on his chair at the table and began to open the browser that ate most of the laptop rams.

After another waiting time, whenever he would open the browser on the laptop, it would feel like someone came to strangle the poor old man that was his laptop, finishing his days to come.

"At last. Let's see what's on my email and start reading that contract and the bank info for the transfer."

Entering his email, he spotted one new update on his recipes from the "S.A Group - Satisfy". Clicking on it, he took note of a lengthy letter in English that mainly congratulated him and assured him of the company's commitment to guaranteeing a quality experience for their users.

However, he didn't linger too much on that and downloaded the files attached to the email, at which he later started calmly to read them. It contained the first parts of the contract, which seemed to be filled by the company with the signature of the executive director Yoon Sangmin.

It was a name unknown to him, but after doing some search on this person, he is one of the lead scientists that worked along with the CEO of the company Lim Cheolho, at developing the supercomputer Morpheus that would control the game system.

"Seems this is no scam and actually genuine people. Should I fill it or not? If I start thinking more about it I am sure I will drop this chance and be a nobody."

Opening the file, while the iron was still hot, he began completing the contract in a careful way, and only stopping when reaching the signature part. He pulled an already signed signature that he needed to use for other contracts he had to sign online, later moving to complete his bank information. Nevertheless, he stopped once again when he saw a number.

[6.500 € RECEIPT]

"Isn't this the amount of money one would spend for their cars? I don't even know, that's how much a car cost? I don't have one, nor do I care. ARGHH, what should I do?? Step back? No."

"I should think of this as an investment. The market price of this game will increase along with the time, so if I keep being patient, this will be a good investment."

Moralizing himself, he did the last touches to the bank details, and doing two more checks on the entire information, he confirmed the transfer of money from his bank account.

When the notification on his old phone put to his attention about the transaction, he pushed them away, not trying to think negatively about what he just did, almost believing in his guts that this was the future and rise of a new technological era.

Simple people would in the future call this the Industry 5.0, or for simpler terms, the Fifth Industrial Revolution.

"You only live once. I'm still young, the period in time where money can be made easily back. Those financial influencers even mention about the fact you need to invest your money on some assets, so I did. This should make me feel better, but it doesn't feel nice at all. My money went caput."

After this, he went to a new forum recently created by some people who smelled like Mathias, a chance at a great future. Moving around different posts of people, which seemed to be excited about the game, he felt a bit in his heart, not having to feel bad about such an expensive purchase.

Suddenly his phone ran next to him with a foreigner number, which looked like the one that called him at 12:00. Picking up and responding to the call, he heard the voice of the Korean lady he talked to not too long.

"Mister Mathias Dumitrescu, this is S.A Group Customer Service. We are calling to confirm that your transfer of money reached us."

"That's all, miss?" said Mathias in English, feeling a bit weird when thinking about the large sum of money he spent after being reminded by this call.

"Is there any problem sir? You sound upset." asked Yeon Baek, who from her slightly small office room, picked that Mathias's tone was a bit down.

"All good. It's just that I don't have the stupid habit of spending my money over things which still seem a bit skeptical."

"Sir, you worry too much, I assure you, since the game developed by Sir Lim Cheolho along with the team of scientists is something legit. Haven't you watched the game showcase posted today on our official site?" asked Yeon Baek in a professional manner?

Mathias felt a bit weird and didn't respond for some seconds while he was accessing the site, on the News section, and while speaking in Romanian, he commented on his overlook.

"That's something to behold."

Going back to the phone, he replied to the Korean representative of the company. "I haven't seen the news. However, I will do it after this call since it seems quite long. Take care, and thank you for your patience."

"Likewise, sir. Likewise. Thank you for choosing S.A. Group."

Ending the call, Mathias smiled a bit and played the video of the game showcase, while on the other side of the world, on the small office of the fledgling company S.A Group, a decent looking Korean girl that had black hair and light make-up on her face, who seemed to be in her mid-twenties took a breath and relaxed a bit on her chair.

Looking at the time on her phone, which indicated 22:45, she heard one of her colleagues saying to her a bit jokingly.

"So how was your talk with your client Yeon? I heard he is from Europe. Did you manage to talk with him?"

"To my surprise, it went pretty good. I didn't have trouble understanding him and giving off the wrong message to him. He wasn't a problem like those guys from China or USA."

"Right, those arrogant guys, don't bother with them too much, Yeon. Do you have your report about the people you talked to and who would join the Beta stage for lady Yoon Nahee?"

"I still have a bit until 23:20 when she is expecting them. There shouldn't be problems, right?" asked Yeon Baek.

"I doubt we only just started the operations. Yet, don't forget to make it because I have a feeling we will go on overclock soon." replied one of her female colleagues, with a tired expression.

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On the other part of the world, Mathias, who had a pen and notebook in his hand, seemed to note down some information while he was watching the 35 minutes video that showcased some footage from inside the game, where 4 guys played the game.

A group formed by three developers and the leader of this project, Lim Cheolho, who had a fisher hat on his character, looked like his own real counterpart.

He watched without taking a break as those 4 moved around a city that made Mathias mesmerized by the architecture and vibe of the settings.

"That's what I was looking for. I see, these NPC's of the game seem to also have realistic settings and dialogues. Are they random, or is there another system implemented for the characters?"

After watching everything, and finished drawing out a game plan for his future beta access. With a grin, he said to himself.

"Titan, here I go. I wonder how the empire looks like. My story will progress so fast that I can't even fathom."

Moving back to the other part of his daily life, he went to his project writing a novel and began filling his chapters from where he left last night.