Another two weeks had passed, and it was about time for the last bits of forced patching to be completed. Based on what his oligarch friend, Thomas Rhodes, had told him, there was major discontent among the elite. The whole debacle had been swept under the rug, but for the elites, it had come way too damn close.

The companies that made the pods and the game itself were, apparently, put under some absolutely batshit insane scrutiny. And, while nobody got in any major trouble (mostly due to connections), there were now both UN Funded and Privately Funded groups that now had a direct hand in monitoring and interfering with the pods and the game itself.

This did not make some few elites very happy. In fact, it made a hell of a lot of them very unhappy. The majority of those who were angered were so because it was both a drain on their resources and because they now had to strain relations with a few others, to say nothing about how the fact that they had to do this in order to prevent what could be a revolt. As for the minority?

Well, according to Thomas, they were pissed because it meant that they couldn’t get their sick and twisted kicks as easily. According to him, some of the stuff that these elites had been doing in-game to NPCs and to trapped Players alike had been… well, calling disturbing was beyond an understatement.

Axton, for his part, had fully expected that someone like his old boss would be a twisted little fuck, but the thousand-yard stare of his friend when he inquired as to the nature of the acts perpetrated was a clue that his own fears about what would have happened to him if he got taken were not nearly as intense as they should have been. Seeing his friend like that was a wake-up call if ever there was one.

He had been exceedingly lucky up till now, and he had not fully realized that fact until just recently. Not many other members of the Not-1% could claim to have an actual friend among the ruling elite, and even if they did, there was little chance that they would lift so much as a finger in retaliation if that member of the masses got fucked over.

With all that said, Thomas had one last bit of advice for his friend.

“Do not leave the house without an escort, and do not let anyone in or even open the door unless I call and tell you to.”

Axton knew exactly why such a warning was given. Since Thomas had been the oligarch to instigate the inspection, it was also painfully obvious to those who were invested in the torture of the innocent that Axton was the ultimate root cause of their misfortune.

Axton was now in serious danger, and Thomas was making plans with him to have him leave his current abode and live with him. However, that would take time, and Axton would have to stay in his home for now, and every moment he wasn’t deep inside the Rhodes Family’s estate was a moment where some enemy could rock up and put a bullet in him, if not do something far, far worse.

And so Axton waited in anxious solitude for the game to be playable again or for someone to bust down the door and gun him down. The next few days would be… uncomfortable.

…

Donovan stewed in his own hatred as he listened to his father berate him. If only that little bastard pleb hadn’t suffered from the transition from virtual to reality, then he might have been able to keep his fun going a while longer. In hindsight, he should have made that torture even worse than it normally would have. How he had managed to endure that existential breakdown without being reduced to a vegetable was beyond him. Perhaps he had the devil’s luck, or maybe there was someone in his home who spared him and forced this terrible turn of events to take place.

Either way, he was now getting quite the tongue lashing from his dumb old man. Of course, that would be the extent of his punishment, but the mere fact that he had to be talked down to in such a way was beyond humiliating. Hopefully, his ‘associates’ would deal with that damn fucking pleb soon.

“Sir, we have a report.”

An intrusion stopped the lecture for a bit. Finally, some reprieve from the humiliation.

“What is it? Can’t you see I’m a bit busy?”

“Yes, well, some of our assets were taken into custody by Rhodes Family Assets.”

Oh, shit.

“What?! Why?! Are they breaking the unwritten rules of our society?”

“Well, it seems that some of your son’s assets were on their way to liquidate an asset of Thomas Rhodes. They were stopped just after they had forcibly entered the asset’s dwelling and they were apparently armed to the teeth with everything from pain-inducing neurotoxins, high-voltage stun batons, and even a few thermal prods. They resisted being captured and a third-party interrogation revealed that they were sent by orders of your son.”

This… would not end well….

“Oh? Let me read this. Donovan Blythe, you sit right there and wait for me to finish dealing with the mess you’ve made. I’ll not have our family dragged through the mud by your actions much further than this. Such petty and barbaric behavior is most unbecoming of ones of our stature! You’ll get much more than a lecture if this is all true!”

As his father walked away and into his study, Donovan sat on the fine leather couch and let his rage build to a near burst. He would get out of this, and then he would deal with the fucking pleb once and for all, no matter if it caused his family to lose face. The plebs meant nothing, after all. They were there to be used and toyed with for the enjoyment of their superiors.

If he could not touch that fucker in real life, then he would double down and make his time in the virtual a living hell. No more bounties; no more fucking around. He would bring down everything he could on the miserable insect and then crush him like the bug that he was. If that meant that he had to start the first in-game war, then that was what he would do.

Besides, what harm could a bunch of pirates really cause to a pure, noble nation like the Andromedan Empire? He was fairly sure the pirates didn’t even have any War Suits, to say nothing of their pitiful navy. He was sure that he could muster a sizable force and crush whatever scrap boats that came to stop him. He would lay siege to the planet that the pleb was on, raze it to the ground and be back in his in-game home in time for lunch.

It would be a cakewalk.