605 Chapter 605 - Do you wish to be a good guy? (1/2)
”Manpower is an issue.” Young Master Han nodded in agreement, before turning his gaze on the others. ”Do any of you have any trustworthy friends whom we can get to join us?”
These men exchanged glances. It was Sword Demon who finally spoke. ”This business venture is quite the money-maker, so it's going to be really easy to find people to help out, but the problem is that we're dealing with a lot of money here! Just look at this afternoon alone; were it not for those guys lowering the price once more, how long do you think we would be busy? Honestly, I'm not interested in spending all my time just making money.”
”Yeah. Making money isn't our main reason for playing this game.” The two other players, whose hands were jelly from collecting money, bemoaned this as well.
”No way. It's really interesting!” Eternal Dominion made his stance known by speaking out against the prevailing sentiment.
”Can the two kung fu practitioners head to another corner and converse with themselves? Don't come here and speak to us.” Young Master Han waved his hand dismissively.
War Without Wounds shot Young Master Han a hard glare, meaning to tell him not to drag the others into the water with his flippant words. Meanwhile, Royal God Call already happily sought to pull Gu Fei into the conversation. ”Miles, what are your thoughts on this?”
”I don't have any desire for money.” Gu Fei was in an even more enlightened state than the three. The three men merely expressed that they had no wish to spend all their time making money, while Gu Fei immediately came out saying that he had no such desires to begin with.
”If you don't have any desire for it, why are you so enthusiastic about it?” everyone wondered aloud.
Gu Fei let loose a heavy sigh. Where should he begin? After giving it a moment of thought, he said, ”I can't be bothered to explain it. Do you guys want my sword to do the talking, instead?”
”I feel that what Sword Demon said makes a lot of sense. We're not playing this game to make money.” The topic changed too quickly, making it seem as if no one had spoken to Gu Fei.
Sword Demon nodded solemnly, waving his hand to Gu Fei at the same time. ”I'll return your money in a bit.” The heavy burden he had been carrying all this while could finally be lifted. Although no one said anything about the money allocation for today's session, since Sword Demon was among the three collecting fees, he had a good idea about their earnings. He believed that no matter how the money was split, as long as he was included in the count, the portion he would receive should be more than enough to clear his debts.
”Since everyone is so enlightened and doesn't wish to use money to measure their worth, why don't we stop right here?” Young Master Han asked.
”NO, DON'T!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds vehemently disagreed.
Gu Fei was completely unconcerned, so he did not make a sound. As for Sword Demon, he knew Young Master Han's nature too well. He would be too much of a failure if he became flustered just from hearing this. Eternal Dominion, meanwhile, completely believed that the man was being honest, but he was hardly anxious. Instead, he was thinking far ahead. Oh? You guys don't want to do this? How troublesome. I'll have to search for others to help out, then. I wonder if Brother Assist is still interested in this…
It was obvious from Eternal Dominion's contemplative look that he was thinking about contacting new partners. This time, it was Young Master Han's expression that changed ever so slightly, as things would be troublesome if a key source like Eternal Dominion was to slip out of his palms; Eternal Dominion did not see any value in having him as part of the operation. Meanwhile, War Without Wounds and Royal God Call had already stepped closer to Eternal Dominion's side.
”Brother Eternal, don't listen to the ravings of this mad man,” War Without Wounds coaxed.
”That's right!” Royal God Call nodded. During such crucial moments, both men even dared to do something as dangerous as deride Young Master Han.
”Look; it's not that we're unwilling to do it, but you can tell what the crux of the matter is; The main reason we play this game is to relax and enjoy ourselves online after a hard day's work. We're only looking to earn a little extra here in Parallel World for us to spend. Isn't it too much for us to work so hard on it like it's an actual job even in-game?”
”Yeah!” Royal God Call agreed.
Too shameless! Even someone as considerate as Sword Demon could not stand the two any longer and used both his middle fingers to express his disdain for the two. These two who spent all their time submerged in the game actually dared to say that they had a hard time working the whole day. Especially Royal God Call, he was not even sure if the boy was of age to work yet.
In any case, Eternal Dominion understood that they meant; it was evident that they placed enjoyment as their priority in Parallel World; money was merely a supplement to their enjoyment. Getting them to treat this business as a part-time job was possible, but for them to develop this venture from the ground up like this was simply too much. They had expressed their misgivings to the idea given how it would most likely occupy a lot of their time once things got busy if they were not too careful with their time management.
In the end, the most reliable person was still Sword Demon, who considered the issue thoughtfully before saying, ”If you truly want to form a steady, long-term partnership for this venture. I feel that your best bet is a workshop.”
”Workshop?” Young Master Han chuckled. ”That is indeed the best choice; unfortunately, if you cooperate with a workshop, they will only require Miles and Eternal Dominion; what can you miscellaneous men do? Collect fees? Run errands? Deliver mails? Whatever you guys can do, there are plenty of workshop members that can replace you. Why should they split any part of their profits to you guys?”
”Hmm… We can always negotiate it right from the start!” Royal God Call suggested.
”Okay, then that will require Miles and Eternal Dominion to go make contact. The general idea is for these two men to hire the workshop for all the menial labor, and everyone will share the profits together, but there's a catch; it's where you useless bums will be reared for nothing. M*th*rf*ck*r. Do you guys even have any semblance of pride?” Young Master Han reprimanded.
”Sword Demon, what sort of lousy suggestion did you give?!” Royal God Call and War Without Wounds were quick to turn sides.
Furthermore, after hearing Young Master Han described this in detail, Sword Demon could feel just how unbearable his suggestion was. He was a good-to-honest apex expert, after all. There was really no way he could stand becoming a freeloader that depended on his relations.
”It's impossible to work with a workshop, anyway. Besides the issue of face that I previously detailed, workshops have scale, resources, and organization; they are a disciplined operation. Working with them means surrendering your ability to make decisions to their hands. Although Miles and Eternal Dominion possess the critical skill for this business venture, intentionally burning bridges after making the crossing is one such method people utilized during the early stages of businesses that are highly reliant on skilled talents. Thus, working together with workshops isn't exactly a good idea.” In the end, it was still Young Master Han who had given a more severe analysis of the matter.
”So what do you think is the best recourse?” Royal God Call asked.
”That's easy; set up our own workshop,” Young Master Han replied.
”F*CK!” The three men all expressed their contempt at this answer. A workshop was totally nothing about gaming anymore but a company, of which the sole purpose was to earn money in games, instead, and this was something Sword Demon and the others would definitely not do.
”Please, can all of your brains put in a little more work? If we set up a workshop, we'll be the boss. Tell me; which workshop has their boss farming gold out there?” Young Master Han asked.
”Yes, there are. Take Almond Workshop—”
”Can you shut up?” Young Master Han glared at Royal God Call for pulling out a contrarian example.
Thus, Royal God Call kept his mouth shut. Honestly, the example he had raised was a unique outlier. There was no end of strangeness in the world, so there was no way to say for sure that there was no boss out there who would have the pastime of being the chauffeur or bodyguard, but it was not inaccurate to assert that the vast majority of bosses out there would definitely not be found doing the most menial labor in their companies.
Thus, Young Master Han continued to elaborate on his plan. ”Pull out all your names and set up a workshop. You should still have some measure of star power within the MMO community, right? So take in a few professional gamers, specifically to work on this business. Oh, god. I can't help but commend myself for this amazing idea of mine.”
”Hey, hey, hey!” Gu Fei called the four men who had long since forgotten about his and Eternal Dominion's presence. The four mercenaries turned to look, only to hear him casually say, ”There's no need for things to get so complicated. Eternal Dominion and I have discussed the matter on our end, and we'll just randomly find a workshop to cooperate on this.”
War Without Wounds and Royal God Call screeched; they were already rushing right to Gu Fei to condemn him for his lack of loyalty. Sword Demon was still maintaining his composure, as he did not believe that Gu Fei would be so disloyal and act so unbrotherly. Young Master Han was similarly holding back his words; he too was aware that Gu Fei would not act in such a manner, but for the man to blurt this out while he was commending his idea moments ago, his words acted like a splash of cold water whether Gu Fei was being serious or otherwise.
”Alright, alright. Let's all get serious! Ahem!” Gu Fei was solemn as he continued. ”I do think that this workshop idea is good. Eternal Dominion, what do you think?”