Chapter 54: Dark Side of the Gold (1/2)
“What do you mean, my Karma Credit Score is in the red?!”
“Due to ‘chaotic behavior,’ ‘dishonorable combat maneuvers’ and ‘remorseless killing of thine own kind,’ your karma has moved towards a weak shade of chaotic evil,” Miel read him a report with a frown on her face. “Your new classes also do not inspire confidence.”
“That's ridiculous! I earned them saving baby dragons from raiders!”
“Adventurers whose job loss is indirectly your doing, and most of these dragons being dangerously destructive themselves. Opposing a fomor plot gave you a bonus, but not enough to offset the downward spiral. We will have to increase your subscription rate if you want to keep the benefits of your current insurance.”
Victor slammed his head against his mansion’s table. These thieves already took half of his SP at the end of each month!
“I’m sorry,” Miel tried to reassure him. “I am defending your case the best I can, but I have a lot of pressure from my higher-ups.”
“They’re blaming my score downgrade on you?”
Miel sighed, apparently as annoyed as him. “It is a hard job, regulations are strict, and my higher-ups want to avoid too many people undeserving of Heaven dodging their due karmic retribution. I would like the rules to relax a bit, but I do not make them.”
“Why don’t you strike on your own?” Victor suggested, massaging his forehead. “Free enterprise and all.”
“Like an infernal corporation?” Miel shivered. “That is not how Heaven works, and I would certainly fall.”
While he contested the evil part of his alignments, the more Victor heard, the more he thought chaos fit him a lot better than the alternative. “Heaven sounds like a huge, sticky bureaucracy.”
“It is.” Miel let out a sigh. “I wish I would spend more time relaxing than managing celestial red tape.”
“Maybe I could help you with the relaxing part. Maybe we can have a drink?”
“Dear client, are you making a pass at me?”
“I’m just saying, I’m high-level, rich…” As he said that, the ground shook, probably due to another one of Marbré’s rockets blowing up. The jelly tester had survived two of them so far. “And available.”
Charisma check…
Partial success!
Finally! Vainqueur was right, that rich line worked!
“This would be very unprofessional,” Miel replied, although she did sound like she was considering the offer. “Besides, you are already dating someone, are you not?”
“I haven’t committed to anything outside of a second date yet,” Victor pointed out.
“I must warn you that harems have a negative effect on your Karma Score, albeit not as much as a committed monogamous relationship with Chocolatine. My projections say your Karma will take a hard, hard dive downward if you go there. I cannot stress how much I discourage this course of action.”
“What can I get away with?”
“If you somehow convince Chocolatine to turn around towards good, you will get what we call the ‘RedemFinder Bonus,’ which is very appreciated up there. However, I highly suggest that you marry someone with a more positive alignment, such as Miss Bekele.”
“Okay, I’m drawing a line in the sand there, I’m not letting insurance dictate my love life,” Victor replied. “I already risk my life as it is.”
The angel let out a sigh. “For your offer, I would consider it if your karma moved to good. I do not want a fling with an evil mortal jeopardizing my career, and while my superiors are ambivalent about chaos, they are not about that part. Alas, you are drenched in sin...”
“Are you trying to guilt-trip me?”
“Heaven patented this approach,” she replied with a kind smile. “We will save your soul, no matter what.”
Yeah, right. Victor had the feeling she needed to loosen up a bit and tone down the holier-than-thou spiel but kept his mouth shut. At least she meant well, instead of filling her pockets, like Malfy. “How are sales going?”
“Excellent!” she replied too fast and with a grin too big for it to be true.
“Miel…”
“I don’t understand!” Her facade quickly cracked. “We cut the prices by seventy percent during our Feather Friday promotion, and clie—our lambs flocked to our rivals anyway!”
“Really?” Victor raised an eyebrow, although this didn’t surprise him all that much. “Maybe I should take a loo—”
“No, please!” she begged him, her sharp change of demeanor making him jump off his seat. “You are our star client! I will be fired if you cancel. I-I will be homeless, and I will die in the snow all alone!”
“We are in a desert, it never snows,” Victor pointed out.
Miel responded by looking at him with big, tearful eyes.
Another guilt-tripping attempt… but it worked. The things he did for pretty faces. “Look, I don’t promise anything,” the vizier said. “But I can look into it later. Maybe you just need to revise your marketing.”
After five minutes of reassuring the angel until her face dried up, Victor sent her on her way to focus on other matters.
A ghoul walked in to replace her. “Hi, Jules,” the vizier greeted the necromancer, who had now grown into a friend.
“Good morning, Victor,” the necromancer replied before taking a seat. “I hope you recovered from your last fight.”
“Don’t tell me.” Overall though, the adventure had ended much better than it could have. The survivor was kept in the castle’s dungeon and interrogated, but had little to say. Most of the items found at the adventurers’ base, including the Black Crest, had been confiscated and sealed in the vault. While Furibon’s escape was a mess, they had gained excellent loot out of the adventure, and even a new mount. “I was actually looking forward to discussing class progression with you. I like to talk my way out, but I have a recurring charisma problem.”
“That does not surprise me,” the necromancer replied. “[Monster Knight] and [Reaper] strike me as well-rounded classes without a particular focus. What other classes have you leveled in recently?”
“[Grand Vizier].”
“Oh, then you should be fine. The Vizier variant of [Noble] has a strong growth in charisma.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“You need a lot of charm to convince rulers to keep you employed in spite of obvious treacherous tendencies.”
Fair point.
“I heard they have very useful Perks, but Viziers are rare and poorly researched. I know for sure that they can hide most of their abilities and karma at a certain level, but otherwise, users of the class keep their cards close to the chest.”
Huh? Hiding your Karma?
Food for thought. “I also have levels in [Chaos Rider], and I’m not proud of saying it, [Assassin].”
“Mmm… [Chaos Rider] is a combat class with strong physical stats, but poor charisma. However, [Assassin] usually combines with the Noble-line class at some point, usually into rare combinations such as [Caligula], or [Kingmaker]. It is not guaranteed however.”