The girl held out a worn paper check.

  Before putting it in his inventory, Shane looked at the sum. His shoulders dipped for a moment. In the real world, this might buy him a week’s worth of nutrient paste.

  It was a D-rank monster, but a Celestial-class monster was the equivalent of a monster a rank higher than its actual rank, because of its curse abilities. He had even kept all the rewards to himself for soloing the dungeon.

  Was boss loot always this cheap? He sighed.

  The broker looked up at the sound, then started organizing the scales according to their quality.

  “Still, these are a great find.” She was still looking at her tablet, avoiding his eyes.

  Shane stared at her. He didn’t know what she was getting at.

  She must have felt his gaze, because she shrugged.

  “Who knows, this might save someone’s life later.”

  That stopped Shane from getting up from his seat. Was she… trying to cheer him up?

  Because he looked disappointed?

  For a second, he forgot the girl in front of him was an NPC.

  “Why are you up here by yourself?”

  He regretted it the moment the words left his lips. Meddling with other people’s problems never ended well for him.

  But he let it go.

  This was a virtual problem. Shane couldn’t get tied up in a mess that didn’t exist in real life, could he?

  A flush creeped across her cheeks.

  “Well, I’m an independent broker.” She fidgeted with the scale. “The building management was kind enough to rent me this old-model booth.”

  Ah. So the brokers basically exiled her from the popular floor because she didn’t have a patron.

  It was the same in real life, for Shane, at least. It didn’t matter what you could do, it was all about who you knew.

  The broker continued. “Still, I’m saving up. So I can get the license to open my own brokerage. I want to specialize in deals for life-saving and curse-curing materials. To sell them at fair-margin price. Well, I mean, yeah.”

  Her chin dipped down and her ears turned red, as if she accidentally spoke too much.

  Interesting. Not just the improved AI.

  The word “brokerage” had caught Shane’s attention.

  She could be a useful tool. He couldn’t always afford to be running away from brokers because he couldn’t get into a guild.

  Maybe with a good nudge, he might get something he could work with.

  Shane pulled out the fangs and venom sac of the Giant Gloom Viper from his inventory.

  “What are these worth?”

  The broker blinked. “You want to sell these, too?”

  She appraised the loot and stated the standard market rate. These didn’t have a chance of getting the [Curse Resistance] skill, so they were cheaper. But, since it was a quality loot from a D-rank Celestial-class, they were treated like C-rank monster loot.

  “Do you want a check for these, too?”

  Shane pushed them across the desk. “Take them. Consider it an investment.”

  “Wh-what?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “In that brokerage you’re going to make. I’ll have more. And I’ll need them appraised honestly.”

  The broker froze, with only her eyelids fluttering.

  “Sorry?”

  He knew she heard him the first time, so he pulled his coat together before getting up from his seat and left without another word.

  ***

  Nora stared at the fangs and the venom sac on her desk.

  Consider it an investment.

  It was the same thing her older brother used to say.

  He was a D-rank hunter.

  Not the best rank to awaken. In order to get the Artificer Grant in Nora’s name, he had signed a new contract with a guild that required him to work 120-hour weeks in D-rank dungeons.

  Nora and her brother were both orphaned at a young age.

  With no one to guide them, her brother didn’t realize that the grant, unlike the name, was a loan with a high interest rate. Sixty percent of all his dungeon-clear earnings were diverted to pay off the loan.

  He was making less per-run than a rookie.

  Bruised and exhausted, he’d come home from a D-rank dungeon and drop the few looted monster parts he’d been able to keep on her table.

  “An investment in my favorite artificer,” he used to say.

  All because her artificer exam required materials she could never afford.

  He died a year later from an F-rank [Hallucination Curse], unable to wake up.

  A single antidote would have cured him—if it wasn’t hoarded by the guilds and priced for millions at auction.

  She was too wrecked by grief and stress to focus on her studies, perhaps a poor excuse for failing the exam her brother had worked all this time to help her pass.

  Nora looked at the fangs and venom sac she put in her inventory.

  She felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted. Her client... he was nothing like the swaggering hunters from the major guilds, even though he possessed the power to hunt a Celestial-class monster.

  And to give away part of that loot…

  No, not give away. He said he was investing in her.

  He hadn’t laughed at her naive dream of running a fair-margin brokerage. Just like her, he was someone who believed in a fair system.

  It was weird to be validated by a total stranger. She hadn’t felt this way since her brother—

  She pursed her lips. That was the problem.

  He was a good guy, like her brother had been. And monsters liked to prey on good people, which was why Nora was more scared of the monsters outside the dungeon.

  The commotion downstairs was just the start. In this economy, kindness and trust were things that would make him a target.

  …Unless Nora helped him.

  The loot he gave her was just enough to take the next step to creating her own brokerage.

  Her gaze swept around her old booth. She had saved every penny she earned from her meager margins to reach the personal net capital requirement she needed to create her brokerage.

  Tomorrow, the bulk of her life’s savings would move to a lawyer’s trust, then into the government-mandated capital bond.

  It was a terrifying leap, to be creating her very own brokerage.

  But she had to be prepared for when the hunter returned. She knew he would return.

  Consider it an investment. In that brokerage you’re going to make. I’ll have more. And I’ll need them appraised honestly.

  And she would become his trusted broker.

  ###

  Shane stared at the street-level office, wedged between cafes. The door looked as intimidating as the Chairman’s office.

  Still, he had to check what kind of hovel this would get him, since the game was almost a carbon copy of real life. When he logged out, the game’s time would freeze and his avatar needed sleep during the run at some point.

  So with a deep breath, he pushed the door open, and the good-for-nothing doorbell chimed, broadcasting his arrival.

  Dust rose everywhere as he stepped inside. Shane scrunched his face, trying not to cough.

  Only the clack-clack-clack of a cheap keyboard welcomed him amidst the silence. Two shoddy desks, and walls covered in maps of the neighborhood were all they could afford, it seemed.

  Behind the desk sat a man who looked too young to be deciding his fate.

  He didn’t look up from his laptop, so Shane just stood near the entrance, looking awkwardly at the dust settling back to their places.

  After a moment, the agent spoke.

  “What can we do for you?”

  When Shane sank his weight down in the worn-out armchair, the fabric ripped, and a spring started poking him through his pants. Even the armrest was sticky.

  Shane rubbed his fingers together to get rid of the stickiness as he spoke, “I’m looking for a rental. The cheapest thing you have. A single room, shared bath… anything.”

  The keyboard stopped, and Shane heard the faintest sigh.

  “We don’t really do single-room-occupancy here, sir.” With a frown, the agent tapped a few keys. “Cheapest we have is a studio in a pre-war walk-up. It’s just been renovated.”

  He swiveled the screen, showing pictures of a clean room with polished hardwood floors and a modern kitchenette. Below it was the price for the monthly rent.

  Shane blinked. He read the number again.

  “Is that the daily rate?”

  The agent gave him a strange look. “No. That’s the rent. Per month.”

  Shane slightly lifted his eyebrows. This… for a whole month? In a secure building?

  With the money he had, he could rent this place for half a year.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. His first thoughts were the monster loot he’d carelessly given away as a freebie.

  Damn it… he shouldn’t have donated them to that broker. Regret started sinking in as he clicked his tongue. Oh well, it was too late. Better to forget it.

  This game was based decades in the past, an era before hyperinflation. Having never had to find a rental in the game before, his financial sense had been way off.

  That wasn’t his fault. All he’d ever had to buy in the game was gear, where prices skyrocketed to millions of dollars if you wanted something useful.

  His heart raced as realization finally set in.

  He was rich.