Screw That Sneaky Bastard!

It was a stroke of genius what he did….

How he forced us all to invest in his game.

He used our greed and self-interest to change the world forever.

And force us to forever compete with each other for more influence and power.

A most vicious scheme indeed!

And to keep things fair, he didn't make exceptions to anyone.

Not even his friends.

Lee Smith, CEO of Emart and head of House Erendis.

….

Railius spent a good 5 minutes looking at his faction screen. Most of it was self-explanatory to anyone with a brain.

Faction Foundations were the domestic and educational policies of the faction. Listed there would be training systems set up for faction members and their dynasties to use. This included any sort of industrial complex or business that can bring great profit to a faction.

The rest were pretty obvious and needed no further explanation, but there was one question that Railius wanted to be confirmed, even if he could already predict its answer.

"Friend system, I assume the reason that the Pelican Guards listed on my faction screen are so low is because they are part of Sigismond Security Solutions?"

Railius asked, his eyes turning sharp with an intelligent shine that the young player usually suppressed unless he was alone.

"Yes, you are right."

The friend systems voice asked, and afterwards, he looked up Sigismond Security Solutions as its secret owner and leader; Railius could get access to any information he wanted and looked at the number of Pelican Guards serving it.

1,000.

So he had 1,600 Pelican Guards after 8 years of development in the game, which was fast-forwarded by the system. In all of this time, he had only gained 100 men!

Railius almost broke something in his rage before taking a deep breath and regaining his calm, and, as if the Friend System could sense the young lord of Aurellion's rampant emotions, gave him an explanation.

"Don't be so disappointed in your current situation. Being able to keep your power and even expand your faction's influence throughout the kingdom is no easy task."

"You also need to remember that 8 years have passed since you first came to Nathia. Even stubborn old fellows will likely retire from the army unless they are of a high rank or have become master-level fighters by 50 years old."

Honestly, except for one stubborn bastard, most of your Pelican Guards who were 45 and older when you escaped from Chavaria retired from combat duties over these years. Even those who initially went to work as mercenaries for Sigismond Security Service retired once they made enough money."

"Also, while your men work as mercenaries, some will die during missions. Honestly, it's impressive you managed to maintain your Pelican Guard's numbers under these circumstances, let alone increase their number!"

The System said though Railius would not know that the old stubborn bastard he talked about was Lucian, who, except for Leon, was the oldest member and known as the grandpa of the Pelican Guard, but anyone who underestimated him because of his advanced age would be in for a rude awakening.

His experience was something not easy to come by, and even now, when his physical body began to fail him, he could still beat down people many years his junior in combat. The only thing that he really needed to worry about was his stamina, as he could not keep in peak form for long.

Then, Railius went over to the list of master-level fighters and others who were part of House Aurellion and its subordinate factions. The young lord of Aurellion was surprised by the result because instead of the expected 3 names, there were 4.

….

Leon Mantelon (House Aurellion) (Grandmaster)

Aldorus Belerion (House Aurellion) (Master)

Darius Hartguard (Sigismond Security Solutions) (Master)

Lucian Stararm (Sigismond Security Solutions) (Master)

….

Looking at the list, he found that there was one that he was not familiar with. While doing missions for Railius' security company, one of his Pelican Guards seemed to upgrade to the master rank. Later, he would investigate this to find out who this man was. He hoped it would be someone young as his loyal subordinates were only getting older as even Darius and Aldorus, the youngest of Railius' skilled subordinates, would be in their forties; while not an issue in the short term, in the long term, it was, as not only were these experts a crucial part of House Aurellions military power but also were his greatest shield against assassination.

After that, he found another option in the general menu that piqued his curiosity.

'Player Exchange, huh wonder what that was.'

Railius thought to himself, thinking that it was just a way for players to exchange items easily, but that was not the case, as hidden in it was a scheme placed by the creator of DO himself.

Tapping on the menu option, a blue screen appeared in front of him showing two numbers, one was for gold, and the other was for the real-life currency that you wanted to exchange it for. After tapping the pound sign, you could even change it to your local currency, for as of yet, no world currency has been created because doing so is truly difficult. Even the EU, with its Euro, had to heavily regulate all the local currencies of the EU members wanting to use it so that they aligned.

At that time, Britain, who initially wanted to join the Euro, was eventually forced against joining it because the British pound was too strong and failed to stay within the strict, narrow limits required by the EU even after spending £6 billion trying to force it to remain within the Eu's limits Britain failed. So Britain secured an opt-out after speculators put pressure on it, and Black Wednesday happened because of the British government's attempts to keep it within the EU's limits in the 1990s.

Even disregarding the significant political differences of the many countries around the world, just getting them to agree on trying to make their currency the same would be met with a massive backlash and difficulty, and so because of these reasons, no world currency has appeared despite how much it would help the world's economy and ease of transactions between people who live on differing sides of the world.

If even Europe cannot seem to be able to implement a standardised currency throughout Europe, then what chance does the rest of the world have? Despite their differences, Europe's countries are surprisingly similar in ideology, with many being democracies that believe that religion and the state should be separated in human rights and other issues.

Yet despite all of the similarities of the EU countries, it still failed to have all its members share one currency and even had Britain, one of its founders, leave.

Either way, setting the currency over to pounds, Railius decided to test it out by putting in 1 gold coin to see how much he would get out of it or whether this vital system of DO was active yet.

After the one gold coin was put into the converter, it came out with £8 on the other side, at which point Railius cursed the system's tax and realised why players would much rather sell their in-game resources to another player than the system directly as the tax was lower!

This is because the currency in Dynasties Online came for now in 3 forms.

First was copper, the lowest form of currency in the game, which was used mainly by the poorer players and NPCs and was commonly used to buy things such as food and beverages.

Second, was silver 100 copper coins made a silver coin, which was used mainly by merchants or the slightly well-off and was used to buy things like weapons, clothing and other semi-luxury goods.

The last was gold. 10 silver coins make a gold coin, and gold coins were worth the most in Dynasties Online and were usually used by the rich for large transactions or luxury goods such as silks, high-grade armour and warhorses. Countries usually made several tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of gold each year, which would go to many different projects and wars.

After looking at the confirmation button that appeared after he put the values in, he pressed the no button and removed his in-game money from the system's converter as he currently had enough money for real life, which would allow Railius to focus all of his in-game resources on building up his power and wealth within the game.

It also seemed that, like what James Larant had said in his announcement of the game, the exchange rate given by the system was 1 silver for £1.

You must spend money to make money, after all.

There were many tabs at the top of the screen. He then went on to one called The Player Business Zone. He saw that he could register one product if he had one and even had to register the business the product was related to, and even with all of Railius' achievements in the game, he could only register 3. The rest were locked behind prerequisites.

You have to remember that Railius can be considered to be in the top 1% of players regarding power and influence within the game, his practical power being more than even some landed nobles had! Also, all the players who went through the Dynasty History System before the game would have a massive advantage over the newcomers. Considering that even some of Railius' lecturers couldn't seem to figure out James Larant's moves meant that average businessmen had no chance.

"Fuck how cunning!"

Railius blurted loudly, almost waking up the house again. As a business student, how could he not know the implications of this screen? He then looked at the help icon, which made things clear for this screen.

'Welcome to The Player Business Zone! Here, players who are connected to a business in the real world can choose to register products. You get to register 1 for free as a gift from the ever-benevolent system that can be sold and bought by players across the world of Dynasties Online.'

'There are 2 ways to sell real-life products in the game. First is by getting a shop in the game and selling your products through it, though only those who visit your shop can buy them, limiting your customer base to the players that can visit it.'

'The second one is to gain product slots through milestones in the game. These get increasingly harder to get, though the first slots are rather easy to obtain; however, if the dynasty connected to these slots is destroyed, the business will lose these slots. These slots can be used to register products that can be sold throughout the countries that allow the game to run.'

'Players can choose what type of currency or resource they will require from others to buy their goods. This can be both in-game currency and goods and real-life currency and goods. Either way, it will be up to the player to set these prices.'

'Once a product is registered, you will be given a warehouse for you to store your product. All products to be sold or shipped must be put in this warehouse first, and you can rent more warehouse space from the game company if you need it. Please bear in mind that legal action will be taken against anyone trying to use the game to scam people, as well as an extended punishment session with the friend system in hell for the player who registered the product.'

'Any player may view the product registered in the system and buy it from anywhere in the virtual world. The money will then be taken from the bank account connected to their DO account and into the business account specified by the seller.'

'All products bought will then be sent to that player's residence by the game company to help keep a player's privacy.'

'Please do not try to have multiple accounts registered to the same business to exploit the system, as only one account can sell the products of one business, and any attempt to use this exploit will be punished severely to the point where the offending company will be unable to conduct business using DO virtual marketplace.'

'We hope everyone can enjoy the game and prosper in the virtual and real world.'

"Screw that sneaky bastard!"

These were not only Railius' words but every single businessman who had invested in the game and believed that James Larant, that eccentric bastard, would not have released a game that players can make money from for no reason, finally realising alongside the rest of the world what the DO creator's intentions were.

He was trying to create a bloody virtual marketplace!

Throughout history and over the last 100 years, many people have tried to do something like this, but all have failed.

The main reason for failure was that they did not have the diversity of products to compete with the internet, but because over the past 12 years, James had expanded into almost every single industry, this was not a problem.

The second problem was that any sort of game trying to get businesses to invest may not have the traction or influence to affect companies enough in the real world to make them invest in the game.

The third problem is the massive amount of money needed to pay the millions, if not hundreds of millions, of players who could make money off the game directly, but this was dealt with by James' massive fortune and the fact that in the early stages, the money made from renting and selling equipment and subscriptions to the game can help keep the company afloat.

James had, however, timed his release of the game to a prodigal level as if he were a god perfectly timing rain while a fire was burning through a city. It has only been in recent years that unemployment had spiked to the point that even the government had to give in and put through UBI for everyone.

Now, James would use these millions of unemployed people with little other opportunity for advancement in society as his cudgel to force these businesses to invest in his game, or otherwise, they would just use his much more convenient marketplace filled with his many products to do their shopping anyway.

Why would you spend time going online for something if you could just buy it from Dynasties Online, which is your job anyway, and spend more time making money?

Even if there were more variety of products elsewhere, you would go to DO first to get it as it is more convenient, the prices are competitive too with the market, and so more and more people will buy things from the DO game company and James Larant's other affiliated companies.

So, either way, whether it was sooner or later, they would have no choice but to invest in DO, spending vast amounts of money and paying the players to play the game who would much rather trade with them instead of paying the 20% tax to use the game system to make money from the game.

This is because, in this player's marketplace, there was one last move that James made, which hammered down and secured his position in the interplayer exchange.

Here, players can list in-game currency and items, and then others can buy them with assets both in the game and in the real world, with the system taking 5% from each transaction.

This will be paid by the player buying, not the player selling, but it was the difference in the system tax that made this such a cunning scheme.

With no other way to gain in-game assets, the businesses that missed the initial character creation will now be forced to buy them from the players to catch up to the broader player base and competitors. This is because some businessmen like Lee Smith, a good friend of James', who had already invested early and used the initial character creation and more open Dynasty History System to gain a strong early game advantage, and now the only thing that his competitors could do was spend more money to catch up.

They couldn't even use their thousands of employees to exploit the system!

The DO creator's scheme had finally been revealed.

….

Far away in the eastern part of the Chavarian Empire, a man sighed as he looked at what seemed to be an invisible screen, making his identity as a player obvious as only they would do something like this, tapping on an invisible screen.

The man sat on a throne in his mansion, getting up and moving outside to look at the starry night as the silvery moonlight reflected off the small lake in the mansion's back garden.

'James, you have achieved something that I could not have even possibly imagined.'

Lee Smith thought as his character's chestnut brown eyes looked up at the sky to see a vaguely red planet and stared at it sensing that a raging storm was soon to come for his good friend.

'Mars is bright tonight.'