He heard the buzz on the bedside table and dreaded the notification. He was confident it wasn’t work related, it could have been bad news from a relative but that was about as probable as pulling a S class warrior. It was more likely that fucker stealing his cows. He grumbled but sighed in acceptance, and lo and behold, there that overly pay to win strong POS was, he could imagine his face grinning, but then he paused to think of the way he had spoken with the guy. He could have just lol’d and told him “what you gonna do about it?” But instead had calmly explained the way to play the game. He could just picture him shrugging as he hoisted a rotund Friesian over his shoulder. And then it dawned on him. He looked around the neighbouring fields. There were smaller farms that the bigger players didn’t bother with. Their plunder wouldn’t make a difference to them. But to him, well, that could compensate for the losses quite well. But geez, this wasn’t very nice, this was awful, this was bullying, this was capitalism, and simply dog eat dog. He considered the humanity of it all, and launched an attack. After laying waste and razing several farms, his account level started to rise. He noticed he didn’t even need to farm himself, he could just spend all day raiding others. His level rose and rose.
Inevitably, he received a message from one of his targets.
Hey, you took all my cows man
Yes, I got all the cows man
You think you good at this? Not stop?
Never stop, never enough cows, gotta get them all
You take all the cows?
“Well, yeah,” he said, calmly “that’s how the game works, I mean, what you gonna do about it?”
Well, replied the player, I find you, I give you offer. Real good.
Sure, he replied, whatever lol
One morning later, HappyFarmer92, known as Michael to his normie friends and family, was getting into his car when a hand grasped the door frame. He turned to face this annoying person who was either a neighbour or a beggar or salesperson, either he was about to tell them to fuck off when he looked up to see a thin yet sturdy looking man with a buzz cut, in casual gear which could only conjure up the image of as ex-military who had been drinking all night to drown his PTSD. He adjusted his face and tactical response: “Er, hell-low, can I help you?” It was always the polite question to ask when you were being threatened. “You are HappyFarmer92, yes?” asked the man in a gruff Eastern European accent. “What? he blinked. You play FarmerKing yes? I find you. You’ve got the wrong person. My name is Gordon half-dead02. Oh really? Yes, I mean, look, he quickly opened his phone and then changed his mind, I have to go sorry bye. There was no obstacle from preventing him driving away so he did., what the fuck?
As he drove away, he looked in the rear view mirror and could see the man in faded and fraying fatigues standing on the sidewalk, watching him back, raising a pitchfork into the air. What the fuck! He accelerated and clutched his phone to his chest, nobody must see my player name!
He drove for a good 30 minutes, repeatedly checking the mirror, occasionally seeing something that wasn’t there. The next time he looked back at the road, there was definitely something there, yes, there in the middle of the road, was a cow. Swerving to the left, HappyFarmer92 careered off the road into a tree with a bang, as the airbag activated and smashed the phone that he held into his head, concussing him from reality. When he came to, he was surrounded by friendly cows who had come to see what the fuss was about.
Meanwhile the man with the pitchfork went back home disappointed that HappyFarmer92 wasn’t interested in his offer of starting an eSports team. He had even bought a pitchfork for the photos he’d imagined they would have taken to celebrate. He picked up his phone, and definitely not because it was listening to him, he scrolled to see a photo of the car crash with the cows all around him. Damn this guy is a natural. He lay the phone on the table and folded his arms in discontent. Tch, what you gonna do about it?
Now let’s play a game, flip a coin, and if it’s heads, you can read the alternate ending in the next post