It had been a long day of hard work, mostly progressing my Logging skill. Normally the trees would start regrowing after a day or two, however, if it was inside a settlement’s area of influence, you had the choice of removing it permanently when felling it.

The influence of the settlement came in two varieties: The settlement itself and the perimeter. Anything built in the perimeter did not count as being part of the settlement, however, you could still permanently remove and alter the terrain and its features.

There was an upper limit of how much you could claim for your settlement. At the upstart phase, which we were at, we could claim a 2,500 square metre area for the settlement itself, and double that as the perimeter. After having assigned everyone work I had modified and confirmed the area of influence. For now, the beach was only in the perimeter zone, because we had no safe way of getting down there for the moment.

The more area you claimed, the higher your taxes would be. Which was paid directly to the settlement token. Luckily, the token came with the first week prepaid for the maximum area of influence on the pre-hamlet stage. The money paid to the token automatically distributed the taxes to the Lord, the King, and the Emperor. As well as the Church.

You could also go three days into debt before the settlement was destroyed for lack of payment. When a settlement was destroyed it meant that the token broke into pieces, and you lost all the benefits of having a village token. At the same time, your guild would gain a lot of negative reputation with the Lord, the King, and the Emperor the token was tied to. To punish those that failed to pay their taxes, they would start issuing quests to other players to destroy the buildings of the settlement.

I was just about to logout and go to our daily physical torture session when Mia stopped me. “Damian, do you have a moment?”

“Of course, what’s up?”

“Normally, after dinner, you go off to do that shooting range simulation,” she started, looking a bit hesitant.

“Yup, want to join us?”

She shook her head. “No, I was wondering if you could skip it?”

“Maybe, why though?”

“Alicia is missing you a bit, you’ve been busy and I’ve tried to explain that to her,” she said with big puppy eyes. “But it’s hard for her to understand.”

I immediately started to feel bad. She was right, I had been busy and had not been able to take the time to help Alicia or any of the kids in the last couple of weeks. I knew it was not my responsibility, but I liked helping the kids with their games and so on.

With a guilty smile, I said, “Sure, I’ll take some time to help her with Pet Breeder. I’d like to see how large Mister Shell has grown.”

Mia frowned at that. “I think she spends too much time in the pod as it is. Could you swim with her or something like that? She still talks about the water fights you used to have.”

“Swimming and water fights it’ll be then,” I replied with a big smile. “We’ll get the other kids involved as well, maybe ask Kira, Sarah, and some of the others to join in.”

Some emotion flashed over her face, but it was too brief, for me to get a read on it. She gave me a beaming smile, “Splendid, I’ll inform her.”

“See you in the real world,” I replied with a small smile and logged out.

It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. I was spending a lot more time in the pod in this lifetime, compared to my last lifetime. It seemed I was starting to feel a bit of disconnect. The real world did not feel so real anymore. It was not an unknown phenomenon in my last lifetime, but in this, there had not been a lot of cases yet. It was one of the reasons that I insisted people used their real bodies, to lessen their chances of experiencing this disconnect.

I would have to keep a careful eye on that. If the symptoms started to worsen, I might have to stop being so much in the pod. I surely hoped that was not the case, I was not keen on taking an even more backseat approach to lead the guild than I already was.

In fact, I felt bad about not being in the thick of the action with the rest of the guild. However, that would have to wait until the next game. For now, the best I could do for my guild was to use my knowledge about crafting, materials, and quests to guide the rest of them.

I would also at most be a mediocre fighter, and I was of the belief that most players needed their guild leader to be outstanding in some aspect. For me in Carn Online that would be crafting.

We would have to send Kira and some of the combat-oriented parties back to Blackport after we logged back in. In twelve real-world hours, just one in-game day, we would receive another batch of recruits, the second last of those we had recruited in this go around.

I made my way to the second floor where the gym was located. It took up the entire middle pylon of the floor, where it had before shared space with the dining room. My guild members were already busy on the different machines, or from the slight laughter and splashes of water, in one of the pools already.

Kira wheeled up to me. “Looking good, Boss.”

“Huh?” was my clever response.

“Take a look at yourself in the mirror,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. I did, but I could not really see any difference. I was still overweight. I told her as much. She sighed and pulled up some data on a holographic display. “Damian, you’re such an idiot. You’ve lost nine kilos. It would be more if you had not been building up muscles. Or if you had a better diet. You need to get some more nutrients in those disgusting shakes of yours.”

“Uhm, I can’t afford anything better,” I replied sheepishly.

“What do you mean?” she asked with a confused look. “We all just got a lot of credits, even if you had debt you would still be left with some.”

“Er, I that’s true, it’s just that—uhm—I didn’t payout any credits to myself,” I stammered.

“What?” she exclaimed. We just stared at each other for a couple of minutes. She sighed. When she spoke, she had an undertone of irritation, “You’re hopeless. If you don’t take care of yourself we’ll all end up paying for it. I’m sending you an updated training routine.”

My wrist device beeped and before I could even take a look at it, she wheeled away. Muttering something to herself. I shrugged and started following the new routine.

When I entered the dining room, Kira wheeled up to me once more. This time carrying what looked like a NutriShake. Gruffly she handed it to me. “Here, all you need for your new diet. I hope you like strawberry-banana milkshake flavour.”

“You don’t need to do this,” I protested.

“It’s already paid for, do you want me to throw it out and waste the mealcubes?” she challenged.

I shook my head. “No, of course not. Thank you. And yes, strawberry-banana milkshake is my favourite.”

“Good, now drink up,” she said and wheeled away.

I was considering how she knew it was my favourite. I tried to remember if we had talked about it before, but before I could go too far down memory lane, a happy girlish squeal interrupted me, “Damian!”

I put a smile on my face and turned around to greet the little black-haired energy bomb better known as Alicia. “Hey, Alicia. How’s Mister Shell?”

“Missing you!” she replied loudly, getting glances from everyone else. “I can’t wait for us to go swimming later.”

“Me too, I’m looking forward to it,” I replied with a warm smile.

Mia came up to us. “Hush, don’t be so loud, Alicia. You’re interrupting the others’ meals.”

“Oh, sorry,” she replied a bit depressed.

“Why don’t you go ask the others if they want to come swimming too?” I asked, trying to cheer her up. I did not like to see her the least bit unhappy.

“I don’t—” Mia started to protest.

However, before she could voice her protest, Alicia exclaimed, “That’s such a good idea!” and took off in a run towards the table with most of the other kids.

“No running,” Mia protested weakly. She gave me an irritated stare before hurrying after her daughter.

Leaving me to wonder, ‘What the fuck did I do?’

I sat down with the Phils, Denise, Elise, and the two new builders on the team. I thought I might take the time to talk shop. Philmore looked up as I got to the table. “Damian, perfect timing, we were just discussing what we were going to do about getting down to the beach. What’s the plan there?”

“Well, we’d have to wait for you to build a forge for Martine,” I replied.

“When do we do that, and why?” Philmore asked impatiently.

“The Forge will be tomorrow. From the intel I’ve gathered, we will be giving a string of quests. Where we need to build X amount of buildings. As soon as the previous quest is done, the next start,” I explained. “If we stretch out completion time until the edge of the time limit, we’ll have about a week. If we finish early, we’ll lose that time, and not gain any extra rewards for it.”

“So that’s why we should wait with completion, I had wondered,” Ibrahim said. He was the other new builder, and would be focused on carpentry, more specific furniture making.

“Indeed,” I said. “And why we need to wait, because I need a lot of iron to build the runesmithed lift I’m planning.”

“But we don’t have a lot of iron,” Alan protested.

I looked at the mason. “You’re right, which is why we’ll make a makeshift scaffold going down around fifteen metres. Ainsley, I mean Robin, discovered a mine down there. We should be able to mine a lot of stone slabs and iron from there.”

“Oh, when are we going to get access to that?”

“When we log back in, I think Philmore or Phil should make it. It’s one of those structures you don’t want to suddenly fail,” I said.

Denise said with a grin, “I don’t know, the beach looked very soft. So chances are high that we would survive the fall. It could be a mini vacation on the beach until you get the lift built.”

I stared with mock horror at her. Before remembering she was blind in real life. So I made sure that my voice reflected the joking tone I wanted. “Don’t you dare say that out loud. We would never get anything done!”

“What are you going to pay me for keeping quiet?” she mock-challenged me.

I let out a thoughtful hum several times. “How about I don’t overwork Phil when the village is up and running?”

“Hey, don’t drag me into this,” Phil added.

“I can always find a new boy toy if he’s too busy,” she replied seriously. Her words were betrayed by her actions that followed, which was to kiss his cheek and grab hold of his hand.

“Boy toy? Is that all I’m to you?” Phil mock sobbed.

“Like father, like son,” Elise said with an impish grin.

“Hey!” Philmore exclaimed. “Don’t listen to her. I wear the pants in our relationship.”

“Dear, could you take my plate to the recycler?” Elise asked after giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Yes, dear,” Philmore said and stood up. It made all of us break out in laughter. He gave us a mock scowl. “It’ll be your turn very soon if you ever get yourself a life partner.”

When he returned he asked, “So, besides the forge, what will be the next buildings going up?”

“It really depends on the quest we’ll receive. It’s a chain quest after all,” I started to explain. I could not remember the precise number of buildings and combination thereof. “However, it’ll most likely be more basic buildings, with an advanced building or two thrown in.”

“What’s the difference between basic and advanced buildings?” Ibrahim asked.

It was Phil who answered, he had picked up the Architect skill, so he knew about the subject. “A basic building is something that is used for storage like the barn. Private houses are a basic building as well, even if it can be modified to provide skill bonuses. Or if it has a simple purpose like the well to provide water. And though the hen house does provide a bonus to a skill, it’s only in a very specific use of that skill. Taking care of the chickens.”

I nodded. “Also, the building can be built without a blueprint.”

“Exactly. An advanced building is something like an inn, the guildhall, or the forge. Either it’s multipurpose, or it provides a flat bonus to a skill no matter what you make there,” Phil explained.

“Are there any other building tiers?” Alan asked.

Phil shrugged his shoulders. It made sense he did not know the answer to that. The system would not provide him with knowledge about those until he hit master tier or higher. So I answered that question. “Yes, there is an expert tier and I’ve heard rumours of ancient buildings.”

Before they could ask, I elaborated. “Expert buildings are things that combine normal building blueprints with runesmithing. Not just that there are runesmithed items inside it, but that the whole building is runesmithed. The difference between an advanced forge and an expert one is huge. Even if the same materials are used, and the same success is used, a runesmithed building will be at least twice as good.”

“That sounds pretty awesome, can you do that?” Alan asked.

I shook my head. “No, you need to be at least grandmaster tier to do that. No less than twenty runes are needed.”

“Okay, what about those ancient buildings?” Elise asked. “That sounds pretty exciting.”

I nodded my head. “It is. They are very rare, one could easily be worth tens if not hundreds of thousand platinum coins. They’re extremely expensive to build because the materials need to be the specific ones listed. If it says very good quality, then you need a very good quality material. You can’t substitute it with excellent quality, even if it’s better. The benefits it gives are already decided. How it looks and so on is also decided. You can change nothing, and each blueprint can only be used once.”

“Sounds like it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Philmore said with a frown.

I shook my head. “No, it’s worth every single frustration that might come in building it. The buildings are much more powerful than anyone can craft on their own. Except maybe if you’ve reached mythical skill tier and use mythical materials with perfect quality. And then it’s still only a maybe.”

“Okay, I see your point,” Philmore said. “Now the most important question is when are we building my shipyard?”

He sounded a bit impatient when he asked, so I was going to tease him a bit. “Well, first we need the forge, a guildhall, maybe even a tavern or inn would be a good—”

I was interrupted by a tug on my shirt. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Alicia standing there with an impatient look on her face. “Damian, are you done? Can we go play in the water now?”

I gave her a large smile. “You betcha. Go get your swimming gear and I’ll meet you in the pool.”

A big smile bloomed on her face. Enough to melt any heart. “Awesome!”

As she scampered away, I turned back to the table and gulped down the last of my for once delicious NutriShake. “Well, I got a playdate as you can hear, so I’ll see you in the game.”

“Hey, wait a goddamn minute,” Philmore protested. “You haven’t answered my quest—”

He was cut off by Elise. “See you in the game, Damian. Don’t mind this old goat.”

“Hey, who are you calling a goat,” I heard Philmore protest as I left the table.

In a loud stage whisper, Phil said to Denise, “At least he doesn’t try to claim that he isn’t old.”

That made everyone at the table laugh, and I had a smile on my face as I made my way to the gym. I had left my swimming gear there. After the upgrade, the changing rooms now had lockers for training clothes and so on. They would automatically be cleaned and dried when you closed the door. Quite a nifty upgrade.

I was the first to get in the water, but soon after Miss Elleby and a gaggle of kids arrived. She gave me that stare she had used at me growing up and she gave me a job to do. It was a stare that made sure I did whatever she asked me to. “You watch after these kids, you hear?”

“Yes, Miss Elleby,” I replied meekly, just like when I had been a kid.

“Good,” she said and turned to all the kids. “You listen to what Mister Pryce says, you hear?”

“Yes, Miss Elleby,” they replied meekly.

“Get in the water, then,” she said with a smile and looked fondly as the kids screamed as they got to the pool. Since there were two pools now, one was for children and one for adults. I was in the children pool. When standing up, it would barely reach my stomach, if I stood in the deep end.

Immediately the kids decided to gang up on me and pelt me with water. I returned small waves of water and chased after them, purposely not catching them. Once in a while, I would catch one of them and throw them into the air and catch them again, before lightly tossing them into the water.

We had been hard at play for ten minutes when Alicia and Mia joined us. I was not sure what Mia had on could qualify as swimming wear. I was not even sure it could be qualified as a clothing item. It might have better luck being categorized as string floss. I almost missed catching Jessica who I had just thrown into the air when Mia made her entrance.

“I want to fly too!” Alicia exclaimed and quickly made her way over to me. I took a long glance at Mia, swallowed hard once, or twice, before focusing on the kids again. I suddenly wished the water was cold.

We horsed around for twenty minutes when Mia suggested that we play Marco Polo. Of course, I started being Marco, and it took me a couple of minutes before I tagged Brian. I had purposely let a lot of them slip by me. Whenever someone approached two minutes of being it, I let myself be tagged.

It was the fourth time I was playing the part of Marco when I suddenly felt a pair of arms encircle my neck and lips press against mine. My eyes flew up and I drew back. Mia was looking into my eyes with a big smile.

I opened my mouth to say something, ask what the heck she thought she was doing, however, she interrupted me with another kiss. The kids all laughed. It was not unpleasant being kissed, but this was unexpected and not the place, so I managed to push her away and extricate myself.

I gave her a confused stare. “What the fu—what are you doing?”

“Kissing you,” she replied with a small smile and an eye roll.

I was about to reply when Alicia asked, “Does this mean you and mom are together? In the stories people who kiss always like each other.”

“I ehm—That’s to say—,” I stammered, unsure what to say. Mia looked at me with a challenging and amused look on her face. One eyebrow quirked as if to say, “How are you getting out of this one?”, or maybe I was just reading into her expression.

Before being able to formulate an answer, Alicia hit me with another question. “If you like mom, does that mean you are my new daddy?”

I was about to immediately answer no, but she had this hopeful look in her eyes, almost as if she was begging me for it to be true. I sighed. I knew it would hurt her, but I needed to give her an honest answer. I opened my mouth to tell her the harsh truth, but I wavered in the last second. “Maybe. Your mom and I have to discuss it first.”

“Okay,” she replied in a serious tone. However, the hope and happiness in her eyes felt soul-crushing.

“Close your eyes, you’re still It,” Mia said with a bright smile. The kids called me a cheater for having my eyes open.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I said to her and closed my eyes.

The game continued. Though Mia took every second or third chance I had my eyes closed to do something inappropriate. Like stepping in front of my hand so that my questing hand would find one of her breasts and so on.

I was not certain how I felt about it. It felt flattering that a young beautiful woman was interested in me, a semi-old overweight fart with average looks at best. On the other hand, the whole situation felt like she was trying to manipulate me. Why not just broach the subject in private? Why make a play in public, with her daughter no less as a witness?

I was mightily confused.