NPC into Player: Let's Wreck This Game

Things were heading towards a power show off. The moment Bloom and his two allies unsheathed their swords, sounds of many swords being unsheathed appeared from all over the place.

"Please," Anne tried to act courteously to the last minute, "we don't want any trouble."

Bloom wasn't fazed by this little threat of hers. Instead he turned his back to her and said to Tony:

"Go and assemble my army," he then gave Anne a side glance with a sneer, "let's crush this place and raise it to the ground."

Anne's eyes widened as if she didn't expect Bloom to go for all these lengths.

"Right away," Tony played his role perfectly fine as he nodded, turned around and started to run fast towards the exit.

"Wait!" Anne couldn't help but shout to stop him, "why go to such lengths with us? We didn't do anything wrong!"

Bloom didn't even glance at Tony as he simply answered:

"I don't trust you," he paused, took a deep breath and wasted more seconds as if he didn't want this situation to be resolved, or didn't care. "This was a dark camp fort before and you were dealing with them for a long time."

"And?" Anne became a bit restless while moving her eyes towards Tony who was about to cross the gate. "Can you stop him?"

"Why should I?" but Bloom only cracked a wide smile, "I came here in peace but it seems all you want is war."

"I... We..." Anne seemed perplexed by this sudden escalation, "alright, alright," she nervously shouted.

"What?" yet Bloom acted like he didn't get her point.

"We'll deal with you," she said with puffy eyes and slightly red face and eyes. She was pushed to her limits to agree, and apparently she had many things to lose by agreeing on his demand.

"Good," Bloom turned to the king who nodded, arched his back and screamed:

"Come back!"

And strangely Tony stopped just before crossing the gates of the guild.

"Now," Bloom said with a wide smile, "can we start our business then?"

Anne's face showed how bitter she was feeling right now. "I have to warn you," she slowly said, "we can't give you a lot of warriors."

"Why is that?" Bloom didn't unsheathe his sword as he said in a very amusing tone.

And despite Anne not feeling comfortable at all to deal with him, she had to tell the truth. "Our numbers here are only a thousand. Other than this we have to ask from headquarters."

"And?" Bloom still couldn't see what was the problem here.

"Don't tell me you'll need time to teleport them," the king sneered, "I've bought many mercenaries before from the headquarters and they arrived in no time."

"It's not my point," Anne nervously said, "the headquarters won't agree to help you in times of war."

"Who said that?" Tony just returned, "they are bound by the rules of the game to sell to anyone asking and offering the corresponding price."

Anne's face showed her struggle. "they won't disagree openly," she slowly said, "but using another way."

"What way?" Bloom asked, "be direct please."

Anne took a deep breath and even turned around as if she was watching at the moment. "They will give you an astronomical price for hiring their warriors."

"Oh," Bloom felt surprised at first before he evilly smirked, "don't worry, I can handle a bunch of opportunistic and greedy wolves."

"Let's close this deal here first," Tony said, "and then we can see what the headquarters might offer."

Anne helplessly sighed before she took out a contract and gave it to Bloom. "This is the basic contract of the guild branch here. Select what you want and decide the type of currency you want to pay with before signing," she said while Bloom started to examine the list of warriors mentioned in the contract.

As she stated, there were only one thousand mercenaries available in this place. However they were grouped in batches, each having one hundred members in it.

And they were arranged from level thirty up to level eighty, with each batch five level difference in between each other.

"Only one hundred level eighty?" the king said in dissatisfaction, "we need more, much more than that!"

"I'll buy them all," Bloom didn't bat an eye when he selected all and selected the gold coins to use in payment. There were many ways to pay, even including ores, scrolls, and even gears.

Even light points were available as well as the dark points to be used in purchase.

"They will cost around... five hundred thousand gold coins," Anne said as she raised her head and examined Bloom's reaction for that.

However Bloom didn't flinch as he signed the contract and instantly it became active.

"I've a lot of coins in my possession," the king said.

"Mine too," Tony said.

"Keep them for now," Bloom calmly refused, "I'm not that short on money myself."

He amassed a large number of gold coins already, however he planned to use these for his guild establishment process.

But if things reached this far, he wouldn't hesitate to hire everyone he could for all the coins he had.

"Good," Anne nodded, "this contract is for one month period. After that there will be a narrow window to renew the contract or we'll need to go over all this from the beginning."

Bloom nodded in understanding. "How can we connect to the headquarters then?" he didn't want to waste any time.

"What about your mercenaries here?" Anne asked in curiosity, "wouldn't you take them now?"

Bloom shrugged as he said, "no, just leave them for now," he then showed a confident smile, "I'll wait until all my mercenaries are gathered before I lead them outside."

"Suit yourself then," Anne sighed before giving him another scroll, "here, you can contact the headquarters via this."

The moment he took it in his hands it turned into specks of light and vanished. Bloom's surprise didn't last for long before he heard a system alert that explained everything to him.

"System alert: player has gained a privileged connection with the mercenary guild higher ups."

"System alert: Player can now chat with them anytime he wants through his profile page."

"So this is how it works," Bloom hurriedly opened his profile page and there he found a new icon with letters MG engraved on it.

The moment he pressed it a screen appeared next in front of his eyes.

And the face of an old man appeared there.

"Mr. Hannipal," the old man said, "or should I say Mr. Bloom?"

Bloom wasn't surprised by the old man knowing his identity. After his last meeting with Mordon and Anna's uncle and others, he came to the realization that his little trick from before was already seen through.

"I'm here for business," he calmly said.

"Of course you are," the old man smiled, "but you must be aware of your current situation, right? You can't blame us for being... greedy here."

"Name your price," Bloom said.

"There are two ways to do this," the old man didn't play around and cut directly to the point, "the first is to pay for each thousand mercenaries with two million gold coins. And that's limited to level fifty."

"I want higher," Bloom wasn't content with that, "I want level one hundred."

"Then that price will be five million," the old man said with a bright smile, "how much do you want to order?"

Bloom hesitated for a brief second. "How about other ways to pay?"

"We only accept gold coins," the old man said, "the only currency that you lack most, right guild master?"

This time Bloom couldn't help but raise his eyebrow in surprise. That old man seemed to know everything about him, even his astronomica need for gold coins to establish his guild.

"What about the other way?" Bloom wasn't stupid. He could already tell the old man sat all this up to force him to accept the other condition.

"We are very interested in you," the old man paused a little before he continued, "you are doing great things without any name or backup. That's admirable."

"You want a piece of this cake then?" Bloom couldn't help but smirk while waving both hands around. He realized the old man's goal. He was after his fort.

"Not only that," the old man laughed, "we also want part of your bigger cake."

"I don't understand," Bloom seemed puzzled, "what cake do you refer to?"

He was honestly surprised and puzzled by the old man's words. For him this fort was his only asset, his biggest asset, his richest cake.

Yet the old man seemed to set his gaze upon another prize, something he didn't count for before.

"Your guild Mr. Bloom," the old man said with sparkling eyes, "we want to invest in your upcoming guild."

"My guild?!" This time he was astonished and was about to laugh but he controlled himself at the last second.

After all, if this old man saw his guild to be a tasty cake to bargain upon, he shouldn't convince him otherwise.

More chips in hands was much better than one chip in any bargain.