Finding a Body (The Dark Herbalist Book #4) LitRPG series

by Michael Atamanov

  At precisely eleven o’clock, I knocked at the door leading to the luxurious office of the President of the Boundless Realm Corporation. Thomas Heywood invited me in, greeted me drily and pointed me to the guest chair. After shaking hands, the president took a wet-nap from a desk drawer and started systematically wiping down his palm and fingers. If it weren’t for Kira telling me about his pathological health obsession, I would have been surprised and even offended. I also saw on the desk before the president... yes, that’s what it was, clear as day... It was my termination papers! I could clearly make out my name in the blank! And it even already had Thomas Heywood’s employee number and signature. All it needed was my signature on an empty line. My heart simply stopped.

  Finally, his hands once again pristine, the president threw the used napkin into the trash incinerator and got to the conversation:

  “Timothy, I am extremely upset by what has happened in the last few days!”

  “Well Thomas, imagine how I feel about it!” I answered him back tit for tat.

  And really, what was the point of holding back or shrinking now?! The worst had already come to pass. I had been fired, so I wasn’t in any mind to hold back. I had so many pent-up complaints about this company and I was prepared to voice them all now right to the face of its chief executive.

  Thomas simply choked on air at my impudence, sitting frozen with his mouth wide open. For five seconds, we bored into one another with smoldering gazes. Then Thomas Heywood averted his eyes and spoke quietly, looking to the side:

  “Hrm... Kirena Tyle has had a bad influence on you, Timothy.”

  I didn’t respond to the thinly veiled insult, and Thomas suddenly raised his voice, starting to explain his theory:

  “But no matter what Kirena says, I am not in quite so shaky a position as she assumes! I’m still the president of the corporation, after all! Yes, I have retracted my offer to make her Vice President. But there was a very good reason: her stocks have been frozen! Her bank accounts, too! Kira would be no use to me in the upcoming vote! What’s surprising in the fact that I went looking for a more beneficial candidate?! I’m not mad at Kirena or anything, it’s just pure pragmatism, plain and simple!”

  I realized that the CEO was severely overestimating my knowledge of the corporation’s affairs, and my closeness with Kirena Tyle. But why not take advantage of his confusion to try and tease out some information?

  “Thomas, there’s just one little thing I don’t understand: why would someone be trying to kill Kira? Her stocks are frozen, her accounts too. Kirena has no way of influencing the vote at the board of directors. She’s basically out of the game. But then why does someone want her dead?”

  That really had been bothering me since this morning. Kirena Tyle was a famous and influential woman, and had a large security staff. If she wasn’t bothering anyone, these dogged attempts to get her out of the picture looked utterly illogical. I was greatly hoping that the president of the corporation could explain that to me. Thomas Heywood did not refuse to answer the ticklish question:

  “Ugh, Timothy, you’ve got it all wrong! See, that all makes sense. First off, Kira is a Tyle and there is a whole block of directors who will vote exactly the same as Kirena Tyle simply out of old habit. Second, there’s a big difference between ‘out of the game’ and ‘lacks the means to get back in it.’ Kira needs around two and a half billion credits to pay bail on her case and get her stocks unfrozen. Now she does have that kind of money, but some extremely influential person has tried very hard to get all of Kira’s accounts and whatnot frozen as well, so she can’t touch them. I tried to help her, but I immediately took a smack to the nose and had to step back. It may sound offensive, but the Tyle family will not be able to retain control over the Boundless Realm Corporation. I was led to believe that there isn’t a single bank on the planet that will give Kira a loan before the end of the board of director’s meeting.”

  “Not one bank? Her opponent is that strong and influential?” I asked in surprise and — why hide it? — even fear.

  “Timothy, did you really doubt that? Your kidnapping is obvious proof of what these people are capable of, and now they’re trying to seize ownership of the Boundless Realm Corporation. Getting access to the sealed technical floors of the building is practically impossible without long and complicated discussions involving various departments. And doing it in a way the president doesn’t notice is twice as hard. But they did! There is a large group of influential employees currently against Kira, including a few directors at the highest levels. Some of them could be seen in the video of your kidnapping. The commander of that group was head of In-Game Security, Andrei Soloviev. And I’ve called him into my office for a very serious talk.”

  Woah! So that meant that Andrei Soloviev was involved in the affair. But he was the personal assistant and right hand of the late Vice-President Inessa Tyle! Who would have thought?! Although... I guess I did remember hearing his voice when I was fighting off the technician and passing out. I had always suspected that Andrei Soloviev was somehow involved in what was going on around me. But I wasn’t entirely sure, so I didn’t share my suspicions. As it turned out, that was the wrong move!

  After all, Kira’s grandmother trusted him fully! Andrei Soloviev was in the Vice-President’s office for all our important discussions. He was probably also in the room when the richest woman on the planet spoke with her notary public and wrote her will! Yeah, that sounded right! So that was the reason my kidnappers knew such surprisingly fine details of Inessa Tyle’s will!

  And meanwhile, Thomas continued his monologue:

  “We managed to uncover another group of conspirators this morning with your help. You see, adding the Dark Sovereign’s trap to the game, which is all the players can talk about today, left a decent amount of program logs. Using them, we managed to determine which programmers worked on creating the trap, and that traced back to the directors who wrote the technical orders and gave the instructions. And we pulled at those threads and followed them even higher to some members of the board of directors. And I was planning to call them to task, but first I made some inquiries. And it was good I didn’t rush laying the blame! Behind them are the largest financial corporations and investment funds on the planet. No one can go against such power! It would be pointless to go to war with them. I can only try to prove my worth so they think me a valuable ally and let me join them.”

  Aha... I realized that Thomas Heywood had basically turned against trying to simply further his own interests, and staying loyal to the former owners of the corporation. Now he was just looking for a way to suck up to the new owners and prove his worth. Could I really judge him for that though? Hardly. Pure pragmatism, as he just said. But I still couldn’t overcome a feeling of disgust. I was clearly not cut out to be a politician, changing my position wherever the wind blows like a weathercock. I reached out to the desk and picked up my termination papers.

  “Well apparently everything’s already been decided. So where do I sign?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Thomas Heywood unexpectedly stopped me. “Yes, Timothy. After your biting video about me and the corporation, you must understand that there is no way out for you now but termination. But there’s getting fired, and there’s getting fired. I suggest we don’t burn any bridges, just part ways on good terms. As you’ll see, it’s all written out in great detail.”

  I started lifting the paper to read it, but Thomas Heywood stopped me:

  “How about I just tell you what’s there so you don’t have to fill your head with legal terms. I want to allow you to work a few more days for the corporation so the Dark Sovereign event gets a worthy ending with a decisive final battle against the player army. I would really like the final stroke of your work for the Boundless Realm Corporation to be an epic struggle. I want all the news channels on the planet to write about it, so it will be remembered for many years to come. And in that battle, the Dark Sovereign will die and never again respawn
. Yes, Timothy, the corporation plans to make your character mortal like an NPC, which is what the Dark Sovereign was intended to be in the first place. But in return we’ll make you level faster and get more experience so your Amra can be in good shape for the final battle and give the players a real run for their money.”

  I cringed in dismay. Hrm... Instead of an undying, I would become mortal. An unfortunate perspective. But if that was my “stick” for disobedience, there would have to be a “carrot,” too. And it came next:

  “Before the battle, you will have time to sell all your virtual property and convert your silver seven-sided coins into real-world money. And we will also remove the restriction against selling your most valuable possession: the Royal Forest Wyvern. I’m sure that will leave you with a tidy sum with seven or maybe even eight zeroes. Especially considering the large number of unique and legendary items your Storekeeper collected from the players today. By the way, the bug you found has already been fixed. Allowing indestructible NPC’s to go through portals with an illusion enchantment was a crazy oversight. As a tester, you’re even getting paid a bonus. So that’s basically everything I wanted to tell you. Any questions?”

  Yes, I had a question, which I immediately asked. What would happen if the Dark Sovereign won the epic battle?

  Thomas Heywood sat back in his armchair and laughed uncontrollably, as if I’d just said something hilariously stupid:

  “Timothy, don’t fall for any naïve illusions, you aren’t going to win! As soon as the front lines reach the Dark Sovereign’s castle, and that news spreads to all Boundless Realm , hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of users will want to come take part in the grand event, all for the corporation’s benefit. What’s more, our marketers have taken into account the negative experience of your curses and the mass refusal of NPC’s to communicate with enemies of the Dark Sovereign. All the curses and limitations you put on those players will terminate after your character dies. And everyone who took part in the war against the ‘great and terrible Dark Sovereign’ will get a special status marker next to their name. Players love those little souvenirs. So no matter what kind of army you get together in the next few days, it will not be able to withstand the invasion. What’s more, your soldiers are ‘single-use’ NPC’s unlike the living players fighting against them, so the outcome of the battle is a foregone conclusion!”

  I tried to object, saying that losing one battle didn’t necessarily mean the end of the whole war, that the Dark Sovereign could gather a new army in other distant lands of Boundless Realm . But I quickly figured out that the corporation was simply not going to allow an unending event:

  “Timothy, after the beginning of the final battle, you won’t be able to retreat. If the Dark Sovereign tries to run, it will be considered a technical defeat. He cannot emerge from a portal alive after that. And in any case, Amra will die just if the player army captures your castle.”

  Day Four. Becoming Mortal

  BEFORE SIGNING, I read my termination papers in great detail. Nothing personal, let Thomas Heywood wheeze in dismay. After recent events, I just could not take anyone at their word anymore. But the president wasn’t lying. Exactly what he said was written in a huge addendum though, to be honest, it was all laid out in these clever little legal terms. Also, I did find two important aspects that the president neglected to mention. First, the corporation would compensate all expenses incurred during the event, returning all the money I’d spent right after the final and irreversible death of my character. Good news! I was already curling my lip, planning to throw all available funds into game currency to build up the Dark Sovereign’s army, given the corporation was now promising to compensate all my investments. But then I saw a restriction just after it saying, “in an amount no greater than one and a half million credits.” And that made me sad. It was about as much as I’d already invested.

  “In your video when you referenced the ‘big firm and the rented stapler,’ you were absolutely correct,” the president commented, having seen that I’d reached that paragraph. “Our budget really didn’t have anything set aside to buy the Dark Sovereign an army. I knocked out some money from the leftovers of various projects. And that was despite the fact that, before the board of directors meeting, any off-the-books expense reflects poorly on accounting. A million and a half is the maximum we were able to squeeze out without seriously revamping our finance sheets.”

  The second important aspect was a point saying that, if I broke any of their rules, the payout would be cancelled and my ability to withdraw game currency into the real world would be immediately blocked. First and foremost that applied to public speeches or videos revealing commercial or technological secrets, or statements that might tarnish the reputation either of the Boundless Realm Corporation as a whole, or any of its employees. That paragraph was even specially marked in bold to draw my attention. So I was in fact being given an ultimatum. Either I held my tongue about being kidnapped and other unfavorable incidents, or I was out on my ass. And instead of my expenses being compensated, and being paid a tidy little exit bonus, I’d be getting zilch, nada, zero.

  I didn’t find any other unexpected points in the text. Thomas Heywood was sitting in agitation, awaiting arguments and objections. So he was unbelievably surprised when I simply signed and, without saying goodbye, left his office in silence. I was in no mind to try and justify myself, and I definitely wasn’t going to beg. First of all, my pride wouldn’t allow me to bow and scrape. Second, I understood that very little actually depended on Thomas Heywood here. The armchair he sat in was on very shaky ground. He couldn’t give up anything that might not be to the liking of the future owners of the Boundless Realm Corporation.

  Then the elevator opened and... I was shocked, shuddering in surprise and even taking a step back because out stepped Andrei Soloviev in the flesh! Ah yes. Thomas Heywood did say he had called him in for a serious talk. Noticing my reaction, the ghastly former spy gave a chuckle and condescendingly patted me on the shoulder:

  “Timothy, you really had nothing to fear, I’m no enemy of yours! I have no problem with your work as a tester and living engine to move large events forward. As the most probable next President of the Boundless Realm Corporation, I would even like promote you to lead the whole testing department!”

  Now that would be a twist! Andrei Soloviev wasn’t hiding the fact that, at the upcoming board of directors’ meeting, he was planning to usurp Thomas Heywood and become president. Clearly he thought he had true power behind him given he was speaking so openly about his ambitions. But as far as I had seen, Thomas Heywood was not going to give up so easily. The upcoming meeting in the president’s office was going to be interesting. Two presidents would be a bit much for one corporation, even one as huge as this, so their dispute was sure to be heated!

  And meanwhile, Andrei Soloviev, holding the elevator door open with his leg, continued the conversation:

  “Timothy, I have many grand plans for the future, and I’ll need capable employees like you to carry them out. With me you’ll shoot straight to the top and achieve many things! So I’m counting on your two percent of the stocks supporting us at the board of directors vote!”

  While saying that, he was carefully gauging my reaction and laughing in satisfaction, having noticed a momentary flicker of surprise and confusion on my face:

  “What, neither Kirena Tyle nor her former admirer and lover Thomas Heywood told you? Then let me be the first to break the pleasant news: you’ll be fabulously wealthy soon! Vice-President Inessa Tyle was a big fan of your active gameplay style during the flying snake event, and of you as an ambitious man of action. That remarkable woman decided to take a hand in your fate and willed you two percent of stocks in the Boundless Realm Corporation! At present that’s worth almost seven and a half billion credits! Congratulations, Timothy!”

  My spirit faded at the earth-shattering news. Sure, I had heard veiled hints that my name was among Inessa Tyle’s heirs. Neverthe
less, this was the first time I was hearing a concrete figure: two percent of the stocks in the Boundless Realm Corporation. That was a lot. A ton, even. Such a colossal inheritance immediately made me not even a millionaire, which I potentially already was assuming I got compensation when losing my job. No, this could shoot me straight to billionaire! But that was if I could trust Andrei Soloviev and, as it happened, that man didn’t inspire any trust in me. He was the one behind my kidnapping and, based on the design of my virtual reality capsule with the tanks, he was not planning to keep me alive after using me in his plans.

  Nevertheless, despite the alarm and internal agitation, I was trying to smile and show the dangerous man a relaxed and satisfied demeanor. Andrei Soloviev took my smile for the genuine article and started smiling back in satisfaction:

  “As you see, Timothy, I am being as open with you as I can. Now we are on the same side of the barricade and our goals coincide. And in the future I’ll need your help, so I hope I can keep you close. I’ll even tell you a little secret: the only person you should actually be afraid of is Kirena Tyle, the granddaughter of the Vice-President. You see, according to the will, if you die, your two percent goes to her. Kira is a flighty and emotionally unstable woman who ruins lives. She has been living beyond her means for a long time and has accrued so many debts her creditors sued and had her stocks frozen. So the temptation to get rid of you and thus her debts, might be too strong. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know where Kira is right now, would you? No one has been able to reach her since this morning.”

  Wow! Everything got turned inside out in Andrei Soloviev’s words! The situation with the frozen bank accounts, which Kira had vigorously complained about, and which the president had commented on dejectedly, he described in a diametrically opposite way. And Kira Tyle didn’t look like the victim of a corporate raiding scheme for her family business in this version, but a bankrupt spendthrift trying to dodge court orders, or someone pursued doggedly by creditors for outsized debts. And I didn’t know whose version was more plausible. Perhaps the truth was somewhere in the middle but, deep down, I was still on my redheaded girlfriend’s side. That said, when Andrei Soloviev asked a question, I answered with complete honesty, not bending the truth one bit: