They held each other in that embrace for a few seconds before Alara pulled away, her face a bright beet red.
Lowering her eyes at Lukas, Alara said, "Don't tell anybody about this!"
Then she pushed herself off the bed and made a beeline to the door.
All the while, Lukas placed his hands behind his head as he nonchalantly lied down. Smiling at the ceiling, he said, "Yea, I agree. So embarrassing."
Alara ignored the remark as she raced to open the door. Then, right before leaving, she said, "I'll talk to Fred and see if he has any ideas. Leaving out some unnecessary details, of course."
Lukas nodded.
Though, he already felt like Fred knew a lot more than he let on. It wasn't just the fact that Fred was highly intelligent, but just the way he carried himself was vastly different.
'Every motherfucker has their secrets,' Lukas mused, wishing he had some kind of ball to toss at the roof.
[Personal Shop] –> [Sports] –> [Small Balls]
– Baseball, Tennis, Football: 2 Gold
– Yours: 0 Gold
'Haha, very funny.'
still, 2 Gold didn't seem like too much. It was just a 200 dollar ball.
Going down to 145 Gold, Lukas smiled at the football in his hand. Then he tossed it up and down, letting the rhythmic pulse it cleared calm him.
There was quite a lot he needed to do, but the most important was increasing his wealth. More money meant better weapons and possibly even more.
Considering everything else he could buy, Lukas supposed he should be able to buy vehicles, buildings, and even employees in addition to the gear, class tokens, and random bs he already knew he could buy.
Also, it was just cool to say stuff like, 'I make a million dollars by sitting on my ass.'
Therefore, he knew it was imperative that he raised his merchant rank as much as possible. If they were going to be traveling soon, he needed all the stock he could get.
'How much would it cost to max my production?' Lukas thought, mostly to himself.
Before he could even begin the calculations, though, Nina already had the answers.
[You make 5 units for free. For every 5 Gold you spend, you can make another unit for free every day. Right now, if you spend all of your 145 Gold you'll make 34 units every day. 29 paid, 5 for free.]
'Nice,' Lukas said with a hint of surprise, as he had forgotten about his personal calculator for a moment. 'Do I need to pay for those 29 units?'
[No. It's a permanent, one time thing.]
'That's op,' Lukas mused. Of course, he needed to make sure there was a demand to match his supply.
Right now, spending 145 Gold made sense because it wouldn't be too hard to sell 34 units. Especially if they were going to be traveling alot.
Then, even if he only sold them at 40 a piece, the first sale had positive return. By spending 145 Gold, he would make 1,160 from the first batch.
Assuming people would buy the Ice Cream.
'OK, do it.' Lukas ordered as he watched 145 Gold leave his system.
By tomorrow, he'd be a walking Ice Cream Stand.
...
"There's a goblin village about 30 kilometers to the northeast." Fred told Lukas. The goblin wore a grim expression, directly contrasting the relatively jovial expression of Poki.
The 4 of them: Lukas, Alara, Poki, and Fred stood around a table looking at a map. Fred expertly navigated his way through the map, offering many places the hero could be at.
"Bad hero there?" Poki asked as he gripped his spear excitedly. "Me kill bad hero, me gets good god his chalice!"
"It's I," Lukas said almost absentmindedly. It was a little endearing at first, but the goblins' horrid grammar was becoming too much.
"I will kill the bad hero and return the chalice to my good god ." Lukas said slowly, hoping Poki would catch on.
Nodding, Poki cleared his throat and then made his promise again.
"Me will kill the bad hero and return the chalice to me good god."
He looked around expectantly, like a little kid who spelled the word car correctly.
Alara was the first to chuckle. Lukas tried to stifle his own laugh, but after Alara continued he couldn't help it.
Both of them began chuckling uncontrollably to the point Lukas had to clutch his stomach.
Their laughter energized Poki, who flaunted his spear as he chanted, "Me will kill the bad hero!"
This only incited even more laughter. For the next 5 minutes, Fred could do nothing but sigh and stare at the map.
After 5 minutes passed, Fred decided it was time to put a stop to this juvenile behavior and said, "Are we done? May I continue with the plan?"
Poki immediately stopped in his tracks, causing him to look like some kind of war statue. Lukas did his best to stifle his laughter but Alara didn't even hid her snorting chuckle.
Biting his tongue, Lukas did his best to keep from laughing anymore. There was work to be done.
Fred shook his head at Alara but decided this was the most attention he was going to get.
Returning to the map, he said simply, "There are many enemy goblin camps, but this one isn't one of them. I'm a longtime friend of the chieftain in this tribe, so I'm sure they will help us."
Lukas nodded his understanding and heeded the warning.
The tribe was 30 kilometers away, which wasn't the longest distance but it was long enough. In addition to whatever monsters were hiding in the desert, there could be other tribes.
Even if they were flying on the Spigon, Lukas saw no reason to assume they couldn't do something similar.
Turning to Poki, Fred said, "Go grab the Arkinia. I'll grab a few of our elite soldiers and then we'll go."
"It's important that we get this chalice as soon as possible," Fred warned. "If the hero learns how to use it, even the combined force of our god's army, aided by him, may not be enough."