Chapter 130: Rich

The first thing Jaxir did was hand Niri off to Elara for a bath. The girl had spent enough time running around outside that dirt streaked her clothes, her face and most of the hair Jaxir could see beneath the mess. Elara crouched in front of her and held out a hand, only for Niri to tuck herself behind Jaxir’s leg and glare at her.

"I don’t like Elara." Niri’s little face scrunched up while Elara’s expression fell, and for a moment she looked more hurt by that than she had by anything Nick threw at her earlier. Jaxir ignored the reaction and rested his palm on top of Niri’s head.

"Go get cleaned up, and when you’re done you can come back with us." Niri looked up at him for a moment before her pout disappeared and a wide smile replaced it. "Okay!"

She stepped around Jaxir and took Elara’s hand without any more resistance, leaving Elara staring down at her with mixed relief and embarrassment. Jaxir had already turned away by then, with Nick following him toward the exit. Malik caught up with them before they left the building and fell into step beside them.

Jaxir didn’t mind having him around, especially when Malik seemed to have been assigned as some sort of liaison for the government’s newest recruits. More importantly, Jaxir was running out of time, and Dr. Obrey’s schedule wasn’t something he intended to ignore after everything his body had put him through. It had already been a long day, so there was only one more problem he wanted handled before logging out.

"I need somewhere safe to sleep." Jaxir looked toward Nick as they stepped onto the crowded street outside, and Nick nodded as though he had expected the question sooner or later.

"Logging out was more forgiving back in the tutorial regions, but you’re out of those now."

That brought Jaxir back to the Natural he had once left below a rock wall when the real world forced him out of Divinity. At the time, he had assumed the creature simply couldn’t reach him, though that explanation felt much less convincing now.

"So the game was protecting me?"

"Not protecting you exactly, but it was putting training wheels on the situation." Nick slipped around a merchant pushing a loaded cart and waited for Jaxir and Malik to catch up. "If something wanted to reach your body after you logged out in a tutorial area, the system made it harder, but those protections are gone now."

Outside the tutorial regions, Jaxir’s body remained wherever he left it, and nothing stopped another player or creature from killing him while he was gone. The only reliable option was logging out inside a designated safe area, usually an inn, owned property or somewhere protected by a specialized item.

Jaxir scratched inns off the list before Nick had even finished explaining them.

He had already managed to antagonize a Minor God, Golden Fleece and the Chance Corporation before reaching Level 11. Leaving his unconscious body inside a room rented from someone else sounded like the sort of decision that would end with him logging back into a respawn screen. A private home at least gave him control over who could enter.

"Property also gets access to outside alerts," Malik added as they crossed into a quieter district filled with stone homes and enclosed courtyards. "Divinity usually doesn’t send information to you after you’ve logged out, but home security is one of the exceptions." He gestured toward one of the houses they passed before adding, "If somebody breaks into your real house while you’re asleep, an alarm can wake you, so they built the same principle into the game."

Jaxir liked that much more than trusting some innkeeper not to sell him out. Better systems could alert the owner before anyone actually entered, giving him time to reconnect while the property’s defenses slowed the intruder down. The only unpleasant part was the price.

"You’ve got another problem before that one," Nick added while Jaxir looked over the homes around them. "You can’t own property in a town or city without citizenship, and getting citizenship normally means registering yourself with the local government."

Jaxir’s mouth twisted at the thought.

Malik caught the expression and smiled. "We already handled that part, since a recognized noble can sponsor someone directly for citizenship." He pulled up a small screen and scrolled through it before turning it toward Jaxir. "The government has a noble operating in this city, and your citizenship was approved before you finished speaking with the Commander."

Nick stopped walking. "Maybe joining the government isn’t complete shit after all." His approval lasted all of two seconds before his eyes narrowed and he jabbed a finger toward his own chest, "Hey, where’s my house?"

Malik laughed and kept walking. "We can get you citizenship too after you prove you’re worth as much trouble as Jaxir."

Nick stared at his back with open offense and muttered something about the government disrespecting one of its greatest patriots.

"There’s still the money problem." Malik’s amusement faded as they entered a street lined with property offices and displays. "Our budget is tight, so we can get Jaxir the right to buy here, but we can’t do much to actually pay for it."

Jaxir grinned, ready to wave the concern away, then caught himself. He had learned enough about Divinity’s economy to ask one important question before saying anything stupid.

"How expensive?"

"Bad properties can still reach the high tens of thousands of silver, and anything decent starts pushing into the low hundreds of thousands." Malik glanced toward several listings hanging behind a window as they passed. "At the high end, you can hit several million silver without much trouble."

Jaxir’s lip twitched as he did the conversion in his head. One hundred silver made a gold, and a gold sat around two American dollars when converted through the game’s economy, which put three hundred thousand silver at roughly six thousand dollars in real money. Several million silver meant people were spending tens of thousands of dollars on houses that only existed inside Divinity.

"What is the cheapest I can pay for a place with decent security?" Jaxir asked when they entered one of the larger property offices. Malik immediately pointed past a display filled with cheaper condominium units. "Don’t bother with those."

"The building is jointly managed, so the city can pressure the property managers into disabling or restricting your security if someone important enough wants access." Malik shifted his attention toward a separate section of freehold listings. "With your situation, I’d only look at fully independent property, and those start in the high two-hundred-thousand range."

"That sounds much healthier for my sanity." Jaxir skimmed through several listings before looking back toward Malik. "What would the best security system available here cost?"

"At least as much as the house." Malik seemed to expect that answer to put an end to the discussion. Jaxir only nodded.

Six hundred thousand silver would amount to around twelve thousand dollars outside the game, which was insane money to spend on a place where his real body would never set foot. But it was also cheap compared to waking up dead after someone found him helpless.

"I’ll spend six hundred thousand silver on everything."

Malik’s eyes widened as the explanation he had clearly prepared died in his throat. From the look on his face, he had been ready to spend the next ten minutes explaining loans, collateral and whatever banking options the government could arrange for Jaxir. Nick only grinned beside him, far too entertained by watching someone else discover that Jaxir’s finances made very little sense.

A little over an hour later, Jaxir stepped through the door of his new home with Nick and Niri, looking around at what six hundred thousand silver had bought him. It wasn’t extravagant, but the property was detached, fully his, and protected well enough that anyone coming for his sleeping body would give him plenty of warning first. At least the one thing that wasn’t realistic about the game was how quick it took to get a close on a home.

He had only made it a few steps inside when a notification appeared before his eyes. He raised an internal eyebrow, reading the notification. But then he nodded, thinking he knew what this likely was.

[Someone from the outside world is attempting to contact you.]