1.99 Lucky Player

"You stopped studying, didn’t you?" Hina asked.

Haru did not understand the purpose of the question.

"Yes, but not completely, I just reduced the amount of time a little. Why did you think of that?"

"Just curious, don’t worry about it, just keep shooting and then we’ll go to the surface, we’ll be exhausted soon."

Haru continued with the meaningless poses, changing his pose from time to time and looking like a caricatured character from some Western movie. Not the protagonist, but one of those characters who makes many different movements and dies right at the beginning.

Mio heard the conversation between the two, and she was also certain that he was neglecting his studies. And it was obvious, he did not look like anyone else who wanted to improve their own class. He did not consume pills, he did not drink the recommended teas, and he never meditated, he simply fell asleep and slept like any carefree person, which was making him become a small burden. Not because he was useless, but because it seemed like he had stagnated.

Mio was already exhausted, her movements gradually became slower, Hina used the ability once more, and she and Haru went back to killing the monsters. But the exhaustion returned faster, it was time for the three of them to return. They used the guild card and returned to the upper floors, and when they came out, they saw the two suspects in the cafeteria, the two were drinking tea and eating some cookies.

The two seemed to recognize Haru, and both were looking at him, Mio noticed and pretended not to.

The three went straight to Masaru’s office, Kaede followed them.

"Fifty gold coins divided among the three of you, that’s what these drops are worth," Kaede said while storing the items in her inventory.

"I suspect something," Mio said, she seemed very bothered.

"Tell me what you suspect," Masaru said.

"Those two know Haru from somewhere, my question is: do you know them?" she asked while looking at Haru, she did not want to ask the question, but something told her that she really should have asked.

"To be honest, I think I’ve seen them somewhere before, but I don’t know where I might have seen them, but what I can guarantee is that I’ve never talked to either of them."

He was telling the truth, although he knew the names of the two, he had never actually spoken to either of them. He did not even know exactly what the two did.

"That is enough for me, I’m sorry for asking that question, but they looked at you as if you were some ally or something like that. I know I shouldn’t be suspicious, but I couldn’t contain myself."

"No problem, I think I would have done the same. I don’t really know who they are, nor did I notice the way they were looking at me. I just looked at them at that moment because she was wearing a different neckline."

Kaede kept looking at Haru, she believed him. But she wished she had not heard the last part.

"The coins will be transferred soon, perhaps in two days the coins will already be in your accounts," Kaede said as she left the room.

"The two of them may be connected to your family, Haru," Masaru said while looking at his face.

"How do you know that?"

"First, I asked Kaede to look into information about the two of them, she couldn’t find much besides the data we already had on them, I investigated the two of them inside the dungeon and neither of them said anything useful. But I remembered something, your family provides security for the Shinozaki family. The Shinozaki have a connection with the Himura family, I continued investigating. Actually, I asked a friend of mine to do it, he discovered that those two work for your father and, somehow, Shinozaki and Himura are working together, at least that’s what my friend concluded."

"How long have you known about this?" Mio asked.

"I found out this morning, I’m still allowing the two of them to enter, they think they managed to sabotage the dungeon and, if I prevent either of them from entering, Shinozaki will send other people to finish the job. But don’t worry, I don’t blame you for this, and neither will Mio blame you," he said, looking at Haru and then at Mio.

Mio agreed, she would not hold a grudge over something he had neither done nor known about.

"How will we act?"

"In the same way, we’ll continue operating normally and, when the sabotage fails, I’ll come up with some way to deal with it."

"How many coins do you owe?"

"More than four hundred thousand gold coins."

Haru remained silent, thinking.

"I’ll pay your debt, that’s how I can apologize for the inconvenience caused by my father and my brother, who is probably involved in this as well. I’ll also give you the five thousand coins from the prize."

"What?" Masaru quickly stood up from his chair.

"That’s right, you heard me, I’ll pay for everything and, if any coins are missing, let me know, I’ll make sure their mistakes are resolved."

Mio was left speechless, Masaru said nothing else. He sat down and thought about how possible this was, Haru did not seem to be rich.

Haru asked for his account, Masaru transferred the money and, a few minutes later, Masaru looked at the balance in the bank account, four hundred and five thousand gold coins had been deposited into the bank account, he reloaded the account page and the balance was still there. Masaru still could not believe it.

"Thank you very much for your kindness, you can do whatever you want with my daughter and, if she runs away, I’ll tie her up myself."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Mio shouted angrily.

"I’m just saving our family, and you should cooperate a little."

Mio put her hand over her face, she was angry and disappointed by those words, but she already knew the father she had, he could even have said something worse.

Mio took Haru to the bedroom together with Hina, she wanted to explain in detail what he should do, but before that the three of them took another bath together, this time a longer one. Still without clothes, Mio asked Haru to sit on the cold floor, his testicles contracted along with his penis, the scene looked like a turtle’s head going back into its shell. Mio simply laughed silently, Haru noticed this and then looked at Hina, who was not hiding her laughter.

"You’ll only leave there when you manage to meditate, you need to learn how to meditate to recover your energy and to better understand your own class, this is the best training a beginner should do. You don’t seem to do this, your body seems very weak, even with exercise and combat, the body needs meditation to be able to perform at its best."

"I already asked him to meditate, but he didn’t do it. Actually, he tried, but he couldn’t keep it up for very long."

Mio took her phone and took a picture of him.

"Your motivation for meditating will be that, if you don’t do it, your picture will be shared with all the adventurers," she said with an evil smile that he did not know whether or not was real.

With no choice, Haru began to meditate.