Might as Well - Chapter 404 (Patreon)

Sam was a bit lost.

He and Lucky were rushing through the plains of the south, never stopping and barely taking any breaks to make sure they fully got away from the Blood Army. Occasionally, Lucky would return to his shadows, and Sam would launch himself up into the air, using wind magic to prevent leaving behind tracks, before touching down and doing a bunch of work to remove any clue of his passing.

Maybe an hour later, he was in a small valley, filled with much more prosperous green life than outside, protected by the mountains around it, filled with a very stereotypical small river, a small forest, enough bushes to feed a small army of rodents, and the crumbling ruin of something that may have been a house, or maybe a manor.

Sam was currently at the mouth of the valley, looking for a spot where he could set up his camp and finally log out. The red warning had been flashing in the corner of his HUD, telling him that he was so close to reaching the allowed game time limit, and he was also very tired.

His Mana Sense swept over the small valley, but aside from the normal amount of wildlife and maybe the expected few magical anomalies one would expect from a secretive, mysterious valley, there was nothing sticking out.

Letting out a relieved breath, Sam headed deeper, Lucky walking next to him for a brief moment before he spotted an overly curious squirrel and was off. Sam just chuckled and watched as Lucky playfully snapped at the squirrel, who was terrified and trying to flee from the apex predator that had suddenly appeared.

Sam walked through the idyllic valley, looking around, gently probing the magical anomalies with his senses, but none of them seemed to be active threats. He had an idea that one of them might be a fracture portal, but for now, he was just focused on finding a safe spot.

“There…” he muttered as he spotted a small alcove next to a bunch of fallen rocks. It wasn't deep enough to be called a cave, but it was covered, the ground was dry, and it seemed far from any moving water. Most importantly, no animal or monster seemed to be making it their home.

In short order, Sam set up his camp with a tent and several artifacts that would either protect the camp from the elements, wildlife, and monsters, or hide him from every sense.

Before logging out, he sat down on an errant stump and spent a few minutes filling up the satiety bar of his character. Lucky spent the time running to the small river, taking a small lick of the water, then running back to him, grinning at him, then running back and drinking more. Naturally, that was interrupted by him getting distracted by the local wildlife: anything from beautiful butterflies to cheeky ravens.

Stepping out of the gaming pod, Sam spent a moment sitting on the edge before letting out a turbulent breath and then starting to walk toward the bathroom.

He needed a shower.

After getting clean, dressed, and finding some snacks, he hopped onto his couch, his leg up on the coffee table, the sun shining through his windows, as he turned his computer off. Surprisingly enough, the basic shape of the laptop had survived the ages. Granted, the technology inside was miles better than anything he had access to (or seen) in his previous life.

He took a bite of his sandwich, put it aside, and began working.

The personality of Maximilian Lupin the Seventh was something that he had come up with on the spot to hide his real identity, but now that the Blood Army would be looking for him, he wanted to make sure they would find him.

He set the recordings from the game pod to import to his home server, and while that was running, he began setting up new accounts, linking them to Tim at the same time to make sure his own people could support them. They would create backgrounds, make sure everything looked natural and not like something that had just popped up a few seconds ago. Granted, anyone with a bit of detective work would see through it, but Sam wanted them to do that.

Maximilian was an infiltrator, spy, and bona fide rascal. It was in character to set up a new account just to tweak the nose of his enemy.

He even started a Shadowland account just so that he could say he was accepting further jobs. It was exactly what a man like Maximilian would do, using this whole kerfuffle as a marketing event.

Finished with all that, he took the recordings and began to cut them up. He purposefully didn't use their own in-house editors. Editing was an art, and most artists had habits that were very recognizable after a few videos. He wanted this to look completely divorced from anything AFK or Solar would upload.

Thankfully, though, the modern editing software was rather high quality, especially the ones they had access to in AFK. The editors had already built several filters that he only had to activate to prevent people from seeing them.

He showed the infiltration of the small town, then the descent underground, where he didn't show his entry into the small office or flipping through the paperwork, just the fact that he had stolen several gallons of the potion. Then his trip through the corridors, snippets of the fight against the fleshy monstrosity (leaving out the fact that he was the one behind it), then his short fight with the Blood Army lieutenant, the destruction of the factory building without showing how he had done it, but making sure to showcase his grandstanding. Then he cut in a few seconds of him running away, explosions in the background, before cutting to him running through the caverns and finding the fracture portal.

Sam was giggling when he showed a close-up of the small stone mushrooms vanishing in his illusions, before doing a rough series of smash cuts of the fight that followed his flashbang, before finishing with the whole conversation through the clone.

The video was finished with a simple message on the screen: “Maximilian Lupin the Seventh is always up for a job! Call now!”

Funnily enough, he didn't leave any way to contact him aside from the Shadowland account. Watching the video, refining it a few times, and adding a catchy tune to it from their library, Sam then sent it over to Tim for the expert to check it over, including the account details for the Shadowland account.

It would be a perfect tool for the taciturn assassin to use, and an excellent cover for their guild if they ever needed it.

Chortling to himself, Sam spent the time waiting for Tim's reply looking for the perfect forum to display his little shenanigan. He first thought it would be hilarious to post it to a known Blood Army forum, but in the end, he decided that would be a bit too on the nose.

Instead, he sought out a small forum where players mostly posted about hilarious moments and talked about how to get more “aura” for their characters. Tim and his people would make sure that his video would be picked up by other forums and social algorithms. They couldn't make it go viral, but they could make sure the people who needed to see it would see it.

Occasionally, during his search, he spent some time just browsing the internet, looking at things. The war was heating up, and everyone had an opinion on the whole situation. There were hundreds of opinion pieces on the net, countless videos about people speculating on the outcomes of the battles and the war, and so many more.

He tagged a few for viewing later, but otherwise, he just scrolled around, waiting for Tim to finally reply.

After almost an hour of idle doomscrolling, his messaging app finally buzzed with the awaited message.

Clicking on it, he snorted.

Tim: You’re a menace. Cut out several parts that were too big of a giveaway, but otherwise, fun.

Tim: Please, once again, remind me if we ever become enemies.

Sam gave a thumbs-up, downloaded the new film, checked the timestamps that were taken out, nodded happily, then ran the video through an application that would anonymize it, before using software created by Tim that would scramble the metadata during uploading, so as to prevent even the chance of being tracked back.

He made sure everything was alright, then turned off the laptop and started to prepare. He had a date with Lucy, and if he wanted to arrive on time, he needed to start preparing.

Returning from the date with a smile on their faces, Lucy and Sam walked into the apartment and fell onto the couch, both of them letting out a happy sigh.

“I’m so full…” Lucy groaned, holding both hands over her stomach. “I knew it was a bad idea to order thirds, but it was sooo good…” she whined.

Sam could barely nod. “Completely agree. Thirds was a horrible idea. But I think ordering dessert after that was the one that did us in.”

Lucy groaned in acknowledgment. “Darn them for having such good-looking food…”

“And curse them for making it also tasty…”

Lucy slid down the couch until her head rested on Sam’s shoulder. “I think I’m going to stay here until the heat death of the universe…” She began to snuggle into his side as Sam reached out with his hand.

He picked up the laptop on the other end of the couch and slowly pulled it toward him.

Lucy just groaned. “What fresh hell did you unleash now?”

Sam giggled a little. “Let me show you… You’re going to love it.”

“I doubt it…” Lucy replied, but she made no move to get up.

After a few seconds of clicking, Sam maneuvered to the original site where he had posted his video, where the entire comment section seemed to be melting down, and clicked to play the video.

Ten minutes later, Lucy was giggling, and Sam was chortling as they read the outraged comments under the video.

User #2131: I know that spell! How the hell did a no-name nobody get the Shadow Clone spell?

User #16546: Why are they standing there? Don’t they know you should never let the enemy monologue?

User #326567: He has style, but I still want to punch him in the face!

User #1111345: Same.

User #7347563: Was I the only one who noticed the Fairy Ring? This dude is EVIL. Fae don’t f around in this game…

User #179823: We all noticed it. But we simply pretend we didn’t see it. I’m outside of the game and I’m still afraid the fey will get me…

User #2222456: agreed. Had a quest with fae involved. I ended up on a different continent in the nest of some kind of mutated hawk. Never again.

User #11115667: The worst part is that the fae noticed the illusion spell. They ALLOWED this dude to cast it on the mushroom. Shivers…

User #457657: lol the conch prices already rose at least 400%, guy single-handedly created a new industry

User #4838329: yeah but now everyone knows about it so its useless

User #32577: is this Solar? Because this is something that Solar would do. The asshole probably has a contract with the fae…

User #1124124: well-earned paranoia, my friend, but this time Solar was observed in Ironwood at the exact same time (it was a lot of people’s first thought)

User #32577: so a new guy doing incredible infiltration? Yay?

The two of them read over several pages' worth of speculation, cursing, wonderment, and many more emotions before Lucy let out a yawn.

Sam soon followed along. He slowly closed down the laptop, putting it aside, while slowly getting up from the couch, groaning all the while.

He reached down and grabbed Lucy's hands. “Come on, slowpoke… Let’s go to sleep…”

Lucy let herself be pulled into a standing position before falling forward into Sam’s embrace. She hugged his neck and pulled herself up a little, kissing him on the cheek. “That was funny, but if you ever do anything like that before telling me, I’m going to do things to you…” she whispered, then into his ear, causing a shiver to go down Sam’s spine.

“Good things?” he asked hopefully as the two of them walked slowly toward the bedroom.

Lucy snorted. “You wish… Do you know how much work you created for me?”

Sam grimaced a little. “Sorry. Didn’t think about that part…” He perked up a little. “If you want, I can take out one of your political enemies in exchange…” he offered.

She swatted at his jest playfully. “Shush, before I take you up on it…” she laughed a little. “Honestly, there are a few NPCs that it would be worth taking out…”

“Well, I’m at your service, my lady…” he said in an exaggerated tone.

“The only service I want from you today is being a pillow…” Lucy replied, hugging him.

Sam returned the hug, and the pair resumed their trek toward the bedroom, hopefully to sleep off the major food coma they had found themselves in.

A/N: Romance! Food! Plotting political assassination! What more could a relationship need?Also... for a few minutes I thought about uploading a chapter that just said: "Chapter not found." :)