Heaven's Shadow - Chapter 47

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

I met the male lead in prison.

Somebody once told a joke.A man ran in place all his life. He worked a job he didn't love for people he couldn't stand. But at the end of the day, the number in his bank account went up.That man got a second chance at life. He woke up in another world, full of adventures and romances and monsters and gods. And floating above his head he saw the number “1”. So what did he say?“Gosh I better make the number go up.”Not today. Not for this old soul. Reborn as a beast of battle meant to live a short life and die screaming, Garek refuses. He puts the madness of skills and levels behind him and sets out to found a little farmstead. He grows crops. Maybe someday he'll get a pig, and have bacon.It's a shame the world won't let him be. It's a shame that the warmongers and level-grinders hate nothing more than a soul at peace.He put down his sword for a plowshare, but when trouble comes calling, he'll pick it up again.

I was reincarnated as the heiress of a conglomerate in the novel. However there was a problem, this world was about to be destroyed by a virus monster. All I have left is money, I quickly bought in the countryside and built a shelter to avoid monsters…The world went down much faster than I expected, f*ck! And somehow, even the male leads are trapped with me in my house. But it doesn’t seem like these two wanted to leave. Why is it as if you guys have no intention of going to the female lead? “What the hell are you?” “I think she knew about the fact that the world would be destroyed.” They had a lot of questions for me but I couldn’t answer them. It’s not like you’re going to believe me anyway, right? Now, in my eyes, they just look like good manpower resources. “Now let’s get to work, pay as much as you eat!” If we manage to find a cure for the virus, the cause of the world’s collapse, our hellish times will be over. So, let’s roll the male leads until then and hold out! But there’s one problem. This old mansion I bought turned out to be quite suspicious. What the hell is going on in my house?