Absolute Shopping Addict

"Who are you?" Jake asked, his anger still high, despite being bound. "Why are you stopping me?"

"This old man"s feelings are hurt, to think that you would turn down an old man"s invitation to sit down and have a cup of tea, maybe a good conversation. I will let you go the moment you put down your sword, young man."

It made for an interesting scene: a novice awakener, fresh off the tutorial, was about to run up and attack the successor of Cheon-Ji-In, one of the divisions in the Ten Stars.

The last few awakeners about to leave found themselves staying, their eyes affixed on the sight before them.

The old man ignored all of this, continuing to smile and talk calmly to Jake Smithson, even as he had him bound.

"There"s nothing we can do now," Liam said as he stepped up to Jake. "Let it go, we need to leave."

"Hold on, where do you think you"re going?" Director Lee shouted at them. "Do you think we"ll let an insult like taking a swing at the successor of Cheon-Ji-In go unpunished?"

Liam was in his inventory and readying for a fight.

It would be hopeless, but he can"t just stand still and do nothing.

"Oh, you think that"s an insult? How about getting in the middle of a perfectly good fight and stopping it because of reasons you think this lowly novice awakener won"t understand?" Jake asked, his voice dripping with venom. "You think you always get your way because of your division? Cheon-Ji-In, huh? Well, mark my words: I"m not going to let your insult stand until either you kneel before me or I turn your precious Ten Stars division into a smoking f.u.c.king crater."

And of course, Jake"s tendency to put out fires with gasoline reared its ugly head again, worsening the situation.

"Oh boy, here we go," Liam thought as he saw Jake"s face shift from a blazing fury to a cold one – he had no doubt in mind that Jake would do what he says he"ll do. "Either way, this is going to end badly."

The situation was about to escalate out of control… except it didn"t, as everyone suddenly found themselves unable to move once more.

"Everyone, calm down," the old man declared quietly, all attention to him. "Let"s all take a minute and take a deep breath before we do or say anything worse. Can we do that?"

The awakeners in the arena could only turn their heads towards the old man and nod, except one.

"You"ve heard him slander our division, Master Li!" Director Lee continued, heedless of the warning given to everyone in the arena. "He also took a sword to our successor!"

He was about to rant further when a pointed glare from the old man literally quieted him – Director Lee found that he could not move his jaw.

"Has he, now?" Master Li asked, still maintaining his even and genial tone even while he had a palm to Jake"s chest. "You two seem to be fearful of what your boy losing will do to your reputation, do you not? I can understand why this young man I am holding would want to give you a piece of his mind."

It was a surreal sight to the awakeners left in the stadium: an old man holding a younger man at bay with his hand, the man"s friend keeping him from struggling further. The old man was blatantly lying in the faces of Cheon-Ji-In, but the old man"s presence and power held the onlookers spellbound and the two members of Cheon-Ji-In helpless at the display of power.

The eyes of the two Cheon-Ji-In members widened as the old man laid out their entire reason for intervening in just a few words.

"You would stick out your neck for them?" Director Lee asked, his shaking knees betraying the false bravado in his voice. "What do these pieces of trash have that you would forsake our traditions and defy our authority?"

"That"s for me to decide," the old master replied, turning back to Lee and Timothy, "not you."

"So that is how it is," he said after briefly flinching from the retort. "All right, I"ll leave those two troublemakers to you. Director, Damian, we"re leaving."

After the force weighing them down subsided, they turned and left, with only Damian looking back at the three with a bewildered look on his face before following his departing fellows.

***

"I meant it when I said it. Cheon-Ji-In? You picked the wrong person to f.u.c.k with. Getting in the way of my shopping? You just as well had signed your own division"s death warrant. Death will not stop me from my mission to make you grovel underneath my heel or bring down your precious division, brick by f.u.c.king brick, Jake Smithson thought as he saw the three division members leave."

And with Master Li"s appearance, the evaluation of novice awakeners in Kingsville finally came to an end.

Jake did his best in the evaluation, but in the end, it didn"t even matter, because he didn"t win.

As Liam was packing up their meager belongings in their waiting room, Jake looked like a sh.e.l.l of his usual self, slumped over in a corner of the room, eyes glazed over from sorrow, deep in thought about his future.

"Looks like my life is over. Forget Cheon-Ji-In and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Timothy… I have more pressing concerns. What about my shopping? I need to come up with something. I may have lost the wager, but there should be some sort of way out for me…"

The evaluation meant nothing for him.

All Jake was doing was reminiscing of the days where he could buy books for 300 points while killing goblins left and right – now, though, that book no longer had any worth to him.

"Should I make a call to the Awakening Store and beg for their pardon? Beg for my life? Or should I ask them to keep me on the Black Label and double their prices as punishment instead?"

All this time, he"s thinking of a satisfactory way to deal with what"s coming, so he"s reading the wager over and over, anger fueling him despite the sheer exhaustion he"s in.

"This has to be some sort of nightmare."

He still can"t find the answer to his questions – the more he reads the wager, the more he hopes it"s just a bad dream he"ll wake up from.

"The Awakening Store is the only bastion of sanity I have in this crazy world: from my first purchase, until now… and losing that would mean…

…losing…

…wait a minute!"

An idea popped into his head: Jake finally found what he thought was his way out of this predicament.

***

Veilon"s last day helping out Kelderian was his crowning moment of triumph, as he heard that Jake didn"t take first place in the evaluation.

"I won! I won! I won the last bet! I hold all the chips! Weep before my majesty!" Velion said singsong as he strutted down the office halls.

While Jake did not lose in the final, he did not defeat his opponent in the end – in other words, he won the bet.

It would have been the most awkward return to Corporate HQ if Veilon had lost.

"I told you doubters I never lose!" he exclaimed, joy leaking out of every pore of his body, as he found another worthy match – and bested him.

"This gambler"s high is the greatest high ever!"

And now, time to put paid onto this wager.

Veilon was on his way to block Jake"s Black Label access. Of course, the Awakening Store will lose its best customer, Jake, but who cares about that?

The wager was won. Screw the company, wagers rule.

This is why Veilon was known as the "G.o.d of gamblers".

He was almost there when someone called out to him.

"Veilon, wait!"

It was Kelderian, who was taking quick strides towards him.

He laughed.

"What"s up? And what"s with the sound of your voice? We won already!"

Velion"s voice was full of grace and cheer and beauty, thanks to his victory.

Unfortunately, the piece of parchment that Kelderian procured and showed him would end up raining on his parade.

"Read this," he said, and the more Veilon read, the more his composure began to waver, as the parchment contained a copy of Jake Smithson"s service inquiry to the Awakening Store.

***

[h.e.l.lo, I"m Jake and I"m partic.i.p.ating in the Gold Label event. Thanks to my purchases earlier, I"ve qualified for Black Label access, but even with help from those items, I unfortunately couldn"t win the evaluation. It"s an embarra.s.sment to me and the reputation of the Awakening Store, and I apologize for falling short of expectations. If I don"t get the access to Gold Label, there"s nothing left to say. At this point, I think I have no other choice but to accept the consequences of the event.]

So far, there is nothing wrong here.

The next part was when things really started to go sideways for Veilon.

[However, the event says that you"re locked out of the Black Label "if you lose even one match". Since I managed a draw, I should still have access to the Black Label, right? I"ll be waiting for your prompt reply. Blessings for the Awakening Store, selling the best products all the time! I"m always wishing you the very best!]

"I don"t think he"s wrong," Kelderian said after Veilon rolled up the parchment and returned it to him. Thanks to the memo from Corporate, he had no more concern regarding Jake"s shopping habits – the floodgates had opened for him, so to speak.

When he thought about it, he chastised himself for his foolishness: Jake was someone who had ridiculous purchasing power and didn"t limit himself to one category – the amount he could buy was growing day by day, and that was when he was still in the tutorial area.

Now that he was in Nohas proper, how many more points would he end up placing in the Awakening Store"s coffers?

Kelderian was very close to shunning the ugly duckling without knowing it would grow into a beautiful swan… that also happened to lay golden eggs.

"The moment you"re back in HQ, I"m going to put my own Gold Label event down! With blackjack and hookers! You"re going to cry in envy when you see how I do business!"

He already had a plan in mind to give Jake access to the Gold Label, and it"s an event this time, not a wager.

"What do you mean, he"s right? We"ll let him off the hook due to a technicality?"

"Well, it was what was written on the wager," Kelderian replied.

"What? What do you mean… oh no, this is unbelievable!" Veilon exclaimed, as this ridiculous mistake would end up costing him his hard-earned victory.

He was too hung up on trying to nail Jake with a ridiculous wager; he made one of the most elementary mistakes ever: he did not read the fine print.

"Well, sir, isn"t our store always oriented toward right-away reply service? I think we have to reply to him quickly…"

"You mean you"re going to keep him use the Black Label?"

"Do we have any other option? If he reports it to the Consumer"s a.s.sociation, we"ll end up in trouble. Do you really want that to happen? Besides, you never actually lost that bet, right?" Kelderian asked back, now throwing his lot in with Jake.

Veilon now realized that he was the one who needed to leave, as a customer with ridiculous purchasing power was more important than a wager.

He clicked his tongue in disgust as he figured it all out.

"I did," Velion said stiffly, being forced to give his a.s.sent.

A draw. A d.a.m.ned draw.

In the end, that"s how Jake and Veilon"s wager on Gold Label access turned out.

With the rather unflattering record of one draw and one loss, Veilon stepped out of the Nohas branch and made his way back to headquarters, thoughts of payback filling his mind.

"This isn"t over, Jake Smithson. Mark my words, I"ll be back."

As soon as the door closed behind Veilon, Kelderian finally got to smile.

"Let"s get down to business and start Jake on the road to the Gold Label. This is great."

***

[Dear customer,

We regret to hear of your inability to win the novice awakener"s evaluation. But do not lose hope, as since your match was declared a draw, we will not remove your Black Label shopping privileges.

Hope you continue to enjoy shopping at the Awakening Store! ]

"DON"T CALL IT A COMEBACK, BOY!" Jake exclaimed, leaping up. "I"ve been here for years, shopping my peers and putting suckers in fear!"

And once Jake read the reply from the Awakening Store, he cheered.

"Guess what, Mr. Turtle Ship?" Jake asked no one in particular, in the depths of despair in one moment and back to his usual self in the next. "I stared at the abyss, dead in its eye and I SPAT IN ITS FACE!"

The mental image of a Turtle Ship plying the River of the Dead, sailing against the current, and emerging in the living world, came to his mind.

"I now know how you feel," Jake continued. "Did you feel this way? You feel like you came back from h.e.l.l, too?"

"Jake, I"m done packing up. Have you made a decision about what to do about the divisions?"

Liam briefly interrupted Jake"s happy moment, which was often peppered with random references and questions asked to no one in particular.
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"I have," Jake answered as he turned to Liam. "We have something left to do, though."

"Okay, but are you doing fine?" Liam asked, the breakneck change of mood worrying him. "Did you have something bad to eat earlier?"

It was the first time he saw Jake look so forlorn and broken – the last time he ran into a problem, Jake said "it doesn"t matter, we have some shopping to do, I don"t give a s.h.i.t."

Now, even though Jake bounced back and returned to his usual self, Liam still worried: he wanted to find a good division for himself and Jake.

What now, though?

"No," Jake replied. "Just realized something."

"What did you realize?"

"We have to get stronger – much stronger."

"That goes without saying," Liam replied.

"No," Jake explained. "I didn"t mean that. I need power. Lots of it. As much as possible."

"What are you talking about?" Liam asked, confused because Jake had never said anything like this.

The need to be stronger? Jake never cared about that. All he wanted to do was shop – why the sudden change of motivation?

"I need to be powerful enough to keep everyone out of my way. Enough power that no one interferes with me, power to make me able to do whatever I want; how I want," Jake declared.

"Interfere? Who did? And how?" Liam asked, and Jake answered quickly.

"Shopping," Jake said.

Liam didn"t reply, and waited for Jake to explain himself.

"Shopping isn"t enough anymore. People here can interfere with my shopping. I need to be powerful enough so n.o.body will be foolish enough to try that with me again."