Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

The somber mood at the booth did not last long.

Dante was halfway through his second glass of cheap synthetic beer when the front door of The Rust & Ruin swung open with a loud bang.

A heavy-set middle-aged man wearing a tight polo shirt and a pair of cargo shorts barged into the pub.

He looked around the dimly lit room. His eyes scanned the booths.

When he spotted Sera, his face lit up.

"Boss!" the man bellowed. His voice echoed over the hum of the neon signs.

Sera winced and sank slightly lower in her cracked leather seat. "Oh no."

"Who is that?" Dante asked.

"That is Garrick," Nyx sighed. She pushed her dark glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"He applied for our main tank vacancy this morning. We told him we were having a casual team dinner to evaluate his fit. I did not think he would actually show up here."

Garrick marched over to their table.

He pulled up a wobbly wooden chair and squeezed his massive frame into it. He sat right at the end of the booth.

"Sera! Nyx! Lila!" Garrick beamed and pointed at each of the girls with thick sausage-like fingers.

"And you must be the new healer applicant! Nice to meet you, buddy. I am Garrick. Main tank."

Dante looked at the outstretched hand of the man. He shook it once. "Dante. I do not play."

"Do not play?" Garrick gasped. He pulled his hand back like he had just touched a hot stove.

"Man, you are missing out! Overture is the real deal. I was just in the beginner forest for eight hours straight. Absolute bloodbath out there."

"Did you level up at all, Garrick?" Sera asked. She tried to steer the conversation into a professional interview.

"Did I level up?" Garrick laughed loudly and slapped the wooden table.

"Boss, I hit Level 4. I took the Vanguard class. Classic sword and board. I actually held the line against three Crag-Boars at once today. Three of them! My aggro management is practically professional-tier. I saw the attack patterns coming a mile away."

Nyx didn’t even look up from her datapad. "A Level 2 could tank three Crag-Boars if they just held the block button down."

Garrick completely ignored her. He leaned forward and rested his thick forearms on the sticky table.

"I am telling you, I am the guy you need for your studio," Garrick boasted confidently. "I read the boss mechanics. I understand situational awareness. Nothing slips past me. Nothing."

Dante took a slow sip of his beer. "Situational awareness is important."

"Exactly, Dante gets it," Garrick pointed at him approvingly.

Suddenly, the broad smile of the middle-aged man faded.

He let out a long and heavy sigh. His broad shoulders slumped forward.

The confident gamer persona completely vanished. It was replaced by the exhausted demeanor of a guy who clearly paid too much in alimony.

"Actually," Garrick said and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Since we are all a team here, and you guys are young and hip... mind if I ask for some relationship advice?"

Lila looked terrified. "Garrick, I really do not think we should."

"It is about my wife, Brenda," Garrick interrupted. He was completely oblivious to the social cues of the table. "I love her, you know? But she has been acting a little strange lately."

Sera rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Garrick, this really is not the time or the place."

"I just need a second opinion," Garrick insisted and looked at Dante. "Man to man, you know?"

"I am completely unqualified to give relationship advice," Dante said flatly.

"It is just some weird behavior," Garrick pushed on and leaned closer. "Like, two months ago, she joined this late-night book club. It meets from 10 PM to 3 AM. Every single night."

Nyx stopped scrolling on her datapad. She slowly looked up at Garrick. "A book club that meets at three in the morning?"

"Yeah, dedicated readers, right?" Garrick nodded earnestly.

"But here is the weird part. She does not take the mag-train. The book club sends a car for her. A completely different luxury hover-car every night. Last night it was a sleek black one with tinted windows. The guy driving it looked like a supermodel."

The jaw of Lila dropped slightly. She looked at Sera. Sera looked completely horrified.

"A luxury car picks her up at 10 PM," Dante repeated. His voice was perfectly flat. "To read books."

"Exactly!" Garrick threw his hands up. "And she never brings any books home! I asked her what they were reading, and she just said anatomy. Very educational."

Dante set his beer glass down.

He looked at the middle-aged man. Garrick wasn’t joking. The guy was entirely and genuinely clueless.

"Garrick," Sera started. Her voice was laced with heavy pity. "I do not think Brenda is in a book club."

"Wait, it gets crazier," Garrick interrupted. He completely missed the tone of Sera.

"So my kid, Timmy. He is doing this science fair project for school. Genetics. We bought one of those cheap at-home DNA swab kits to test our family lineage just for fun."

Nyx took her dark glasses completely off. "Oh no."

"The results came back yesterday," Garrick said and shook his head in absolute wonder.

"Turns out, I am not his biological father. Can you believe that? Science is insane! The lab must have mixed up the samples, or maybe it is some kind of crazy genetic mutation that skipped a generation. I watched a documentary about that once."

Dead silence fell over the booth.

The neon signs outside buzzed loudly.

Lila covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes were wide with secondhand embarrassment.

Nyx looked like she wanted to crawl under the table and die.

Sera just stared at Garrick. She was completely paralyzed by the sheer density of the man sitting in front of her.

"A genetic mutation," Dante echoed.

"Right?" Garrick agreed enthusiastically. "The human body is full of mysteries."

"Garrick," Nyx said. Her voice was completely flat. "Your wife is cheating on you. With multiple men. In luxury cars. And your child is not yours."

Garrick blinked. He looked at Nyx and processed the words.

Then he let out a loud and booming laugh.

"Cheating? Brenda? Nah," Garrick waved his hand dismissively.

"You guys read too many drama forums. Brenda loves me. She bought me a new gaming headset last week so I would not hear her coming home late. She is incredibly thoughtful."

Dante could not help it. A small and genuine smirk broke through his carefully maintained stoic expression.

The guy claimed he could read boss mechanics from a mile away. But he was currently standing in the middle of a blazing inferno of red flags and thought it was a sunburn.

"Anyway, that is not even the advice I needed," Garrick said. He leaned forward again, and his face turned serious.

"There is more?" Sera whispered in horror.

"Yeah, this is the part that is really bothering me," Garrick frowned.

"So tonight, I decided to surprise her. I hopped on my mountain bike and tried to follow the black hover-car to the book club to bring her some snacks."

"You chased a luxury hover-car on a bicycle," Dante clarified.

"I have got good calves," Garrick stated proudly. "But about three blocks down, I hit this massive pothole. It completely blew out my front tire. The inner tube is shredded."

Garrick leaned over the table. He looked incredibly stressed.

"So here is my question for you guys," Garrick said. His voice was tense. "Do you think a flat tire from a pothole is covered under the standard manufacturer warranty? Or am I going to have to pay out of pocket for a new tube?"

The silence returned. It was heavier this time.

Sera slowly lowered her head onto the sticky table. Lila buried her face in her hands.

Dante looked at Garrick. The man was staring at him and genuinely waiting for an answer about his bicycle warranty.

"Garrick," Dante said. He kept his voice incredibly calm.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"Have you ever heard the old phrase about wearing a green hat?" Dante asked.

"A green hat?" Garrick scratched his chin. "Like a fedora? No, I look terrible in green. It clashes with my skin tone."

"It is an old expression," Dante explained slowly. He spoke as if he were talking to a very dense child.

"When the wife of a man is unfaithful, people say she made him wear a green hat. It means everyone around him can clearly see the hat on his head. Everyone knows what is happening. Except him. Because you cannot see the hat you are wearing."

Garrick stared at Dante. His brow furrowed in deep concentration.

Dante waited for the realization to finally hit. He waited for the anger, the tears, or the shock.

"I do not get it," Garrick finally said.

"Your wife bought you a neon green hat, Garrick," Dante said bluntly.

"You are wearing it right now. It is brightly glowing. She is sleeping with the guy in the hover-car."

Garrick laughed again and shook his head.

"Man, you freelance data guys have a weird sense of humor. Green hats. Whatever. I guess I will just have to call the bike shop in the morning and argue with the manager."

Garrick abruptly stood up. His wooden chair scraped loudly against the floor.

"Well, it was great meeting the team!" Garrick beamed. He was completely unaffected by the absolute devastation he had just unloaded onto the table.

"I am going to go step outside and see if the bike shop has an automated customer service line. Sera, let me know what time the dungeon run is tomorrow! I will draw all the aggro, do not worry!"

Garrick gave them a thumbs-up. He turned around and marched out of the pub. The little bell above the door jingled merrily.

The booth remained entirely silent for a full minute after he left.

Sera slowly lifted her head off the sticky table. She looked utterly exhausted.

"I am not hiring him," Sera declared.

"He thinks a flat tire is his biggest problem," Lila whispered. She was still in absolute shock. "His kid is not his."

Nyx took a long and desperate gulp of her beer.

"If that guy is our main tank, I am deleting my character and throwing my VR capsule into the river."

Dante leaned back against the cracked vinyl booth. He picked up a cold french fry and popped it into his mouth.

"I do not know," Dante said. His tone was entirely dry.

"He completely ignored every single warning sign, stood his ground against overwhelming damage, and walked away completely unfazed.

I would say he has got the aggro-pulling part of being a tank completely mastered."

Nyx shot him a dirty look. But a small and reluctant laugh escaped her lips.

Sera groaned and covered her face. "This server is going to kill me. If it is not Silas, it is guys chasing hover-cars on bicycles."

Dante finished his beer.

He didn’t mind the distraction.

For the first time in three months, he was sitting at a table with people who were not actively trying to stab him in the back or steal his loot.

They were loud, stressed out, and dealing with terrible job applicants. But they were normal.

"So," Dante asked and set his empty glass down. "Who is paying for the burgers?"