27 House (2/2)
”I see,” Hayden nodded his head. He dropped the matter anymore as he was a bit afraid that the firm owner would abruptly jack up the price.
If the firm owner hears his thoughts, she would definitely want to pummel Hayden. What do you think of our freaking company? We're not scammers for goodness sake!
Satisfied, Hayden decided to take it. There was nothing else he could ask for a house to be honest, this could be said to be his dream house! From 2:00 to 5:00, Hayden signed the contracts, finished all the paperwork, paid, acquired the deed to the land, and got the keys to the house.
A sense of accomplishment welled up within Hayden's heart. In a mere six months, he has his own house, in a foreign country to boot. Another matter popped up in his mind.
”I should also buy a house in the Philippines,” Hayden shook his head. The house they were living in was fairly old and was unbefitting of his status, though it was not really that bad there. ”Well, I wouldn't want to sell that house anyways as I grew up there, made many memories in it. That's also where I awakened, I guess, in a way, it's kind of my birthplace…”
Hayden nodded, deciding to instead buy a high-rise apartment and live on the penthouse on top of it instead of buying a new house. ”A few renovations to that house would suffice…”
Finishing his business in the company, Hayden returned to the hotel, checked out, and took his parents to first buy a car. He bought two cars, one for himself, and one for his parents to use. His parents were first opposed to this, but ultimately relented with Hayden's convincement.
His reason? That this was going to be a family car and can be shipped back in the Philippines. Only with his assurance did his parents agree to buying an SUV priced at 130,000 credits.
The SUV was red in color, had a self-driving function, can drive on off-road terrain, has the standard, patented, absolute stability system that makes people on the inside feel as if they're on perfectly even terrain even when they're not, and was overall beautiful. It was a perfect family car in Hayden's opinion.
At the same time, Hayden bought a black sports car that was extremely sleek, one of the most attractive car he has seen. It had the self-driving function, a built-in, self-updating, world-map, has a maximum speed of 310 kilometers per hour, glasses made of Greek Tempered Glass, a bulletproof type of glass that has toughness that can withstand even Shojin Steel bullets from a pistol at least once, and the car was made of Forged Plastic, a light yet unusually resilient plastic that can supposedly withstand even the worst of the car crashes.
Meanwhile, there were also a ton of other functions that weren't mentioned, such as the adaptive heating seats, the holographic HUD below the line of sight of the driver, blind spot monitors, and an electric battery, making it a hybrid car.
Even though there were many functions to this sport car, it was actually merely priced at 1,000,000 credits. This was due to the inflation of the cars in the car-making industry, making those smaller-scale car manufacturing companies close down, with the big names dominating it freely with the creation of the World Government.
Plus, with the surge of the middle and high-class people, the car manufacturing companies thrived and focused on public transports as, these days, only the really stinking rich people took personal cars, with most people, even in high class, taking the public transport more and more.
Of course, this was not enough as some people wanted to flaunt their wealth, though, it was actually due to this reason that made the personal car business lose interest. There were too few people who desired to flaunt their wealth anymore! Only celebrities who don't want to be flocked by people or those that truly wanted to display their wealth were the ones that bought personal cars.
Needless to say, Hayden didn't actually want to rub his wealth in other people's faces, buying the car solely due to its sleekness, high functionality, and that he sometimes got claustrophobic, choked by large crowds, despite his status as a wielder.
It was convenient as well that the car company offered the registration of the car directly for making two purchases above two million, and in about an hour, the cars were already licensed, with the race car under his personal property in his Identity Number, while the SUV under a family registration.
Whilst waiting for the company to register the car, him and his parents went to a grocery store to buy a ton of groceries.
”This is a must.” In the store, Hayden was checking out red wine.
”Want to celebrate?” His father precipitously showed up, holding up a pack of local brand beers.
”No, no, dad,” Hayden shook his head. ”Let's celebrate harder for a bit, let's drink red wine.”
Before his dad could even refute, Hayden interrupted him, ”No, no, red wine, or do you want soju? Just this night, dad.”
Sighing and smiling warmly on the side, his father looked at his son, gratification and a glint of pride appeared in his eyes.
Returning to the car dealership company, the cars' registration was fully processed and can be driven without breaking any laws. The downside to this is that as a foreigner, Hayden was required to fork out 10,000 credits in total for the road tax annually, though Hayden didn't mind.
Giving his parents the address and helping them loading up the groceries they purchased, Hayden boarded his car to drive.
”I love this car…” Driving the car, Hayden was wowed again, full of admiration. ”But, seriously, damn, practice self-control next time.”
Hayden nodded, promising to himself that when he becomes even richer, he would practice more self-discipline as splurging money like this was not going to do him any good.
…..
Reaching his destination, Hayden showed his stunned parents around the house. ”Kid, how much did you spend on this house?”
”Don��t worry about that, dad,” Hayden smiled, patting his dad on the back as he showed them around. ”We have the money, so you don't have to mind this as it's a home, a long-term investment.”
Besides, other than the land property tax of 75,000 per year, and the water, electricity, and internet bill (1), there was nothing else that Hayden actually needed. All in all, annually, Hayden only needed to pay 100,000 credits for this property, 75,000 if he's not currently living in it.
He convinced his parents to not take this into account and to not ask what the price of this house anymore. Letting them settle in, Hayden stepped out of the house for a second to take a breath of fresh air.
The wintery air entered Hayden's nostrils, embracing it. He liked the coldness and the moisture of the air here in South Korea, contrary to his home country that had fresh yet warm air. It was not that he disliked the tropical atmosphere in the Philippines, it was just that he naturally prefers the cold, frigid air here, especially since there are literally two seasons in the Philippines, dry season and wet season.
Returning inside, Hayden took out the red wine from his car, which was still pretty cold, and invited his mother and father to drink the soju and wine he bought.
His mother, someone whose alcohol tolerance can simply be described as the worst, declined, wanting to bring them pulutan instead (Pulutan is a Filipino term for any kind of food eaten as an accompaniment for alcohol).
...
For hours, in the general balcony, the father and son duo drank, his father ranting to him how proud he was, how far Hayden already reached in his life, how was life hard on his father the past few years, and just how thankful he is.
Hayden accepted this with all his heart as he understood himself how hard it was for his father all these years. Finally, his father passed out due to being too drunk, thus, Hayden assisted him to his bed.
”You know son, I'm proud of you,” while he was carrying his father, his father spoke. ”It's good that you don't have to worry about the countless vicissitudes in life anymore, you… you are the best son I could ever ask for…”
On that note, his father fell on the master bed. Hayden, who heard this, had watery eyes as of this moment, a smile was on his face. ”Thank you, dad…”
Turning around, he went to call his mom, told her of his father's condition, and went out to their front lawn. Without turning on the garden lights, he walked to the gardens and proceeded to lay down on the grass.
”Such a beautiful sight,” Hayden stared at the night sky riddled with stars and the moon. ”I hope there wouldn't be anyone or anything that would disturb me anymore…”
Snorting, he remembered the cognizant raven he fought yesterday. Usually, he loved animals, it was just that the raven attacked him with the intent to kill him, so he fought back, such is his personality.
Then, his mind wandered to the eleven figures watching him fight the cognizant, his face contorting in puzzlement. ”I wonder, who are those eleven figures…? There's no way it's CHORUS, right? No, heh, no…”
Dwelling on the matter, he chuckled here and there, denying his assumption that the eleven figures are CHORUS. ”Heh, no, impossible.”
...
1 World Lore Time: With the creation of renewable energy and water vapor condensers and total water purification systems that can remove 100% of the impurities in pee and human waste, as well as saltwater, the electrical companies and water distribution companies have been closed down by the World Government, merging all of them all around the world into a single organization, with divisions on each major region of a country, or, at least, one on each country, depending on their size. With this in mind, electricity and water has become unbelievably cheap, with a kilowatt being merely 0.1 credit, and a cubic meter of water is 1 credit.
Meanwhile, internet companies have become bankrupt with the creation of the seventh generation of communication systems, with the World Government providing unbelievably fast and free public internet. Needless to say, the most powerful multinatonal internet companies are still in play as the public internet is still inferior to its speeds, with premium paid internet reaching up speeds of possibly 5 zetabit per second, which is the next after petabit, with petabit being preceded by gigabit (which refers to our modern internet speeds of gigabit per second, or gbps); while the maximum speed of the free public internets are still at a puny 100 petabit per second per region, and with the number of people using it per region, it couldn't be anything but slow.
And yes, there are already hard drives that reaches up to storage spaces of 100 zettabytes compressed to spaces of a single modern (our modern) hard drive, with rams reaching up to 48 petabytes, video ram reaching up to 1 zettabyte, and such.