Ever since the start of the Golden Road project, Michael noticed that a lot of the Rebornian Engineers and the construction workers ended up feeling sad and burnt out at the end of the day.
After all, their days and weeks were just made up of going to work, pouring concrete, flattening roads, and waiting for it to dry.
Michael forgot that this was a world that didn't have any sort of entertainnt for people to enjoy. They didn't have television shows, ani, or even cellphones.
To redy this boredom that they had, he began a social project in which he spread all kinds of board gas to see which ones they liked the most.
Snakes and Ladders, in particular, were quite famous with the Rebornian Construction workers. They played that ga while on lunch breaks and during their day offs.
However, Lamias weren't quite fond of that for obvious reasons. Turns out, they didn't like snakes all that much, probably because of how much they were compared with each other. But, they did like the ga Hungry Hungry Hippos because it reminded them of their natural habitat near the rivers.
The Dragonborns liked Uno, which added up because they were siblings, so the rivalry certainly added up a lot of the fun.
As for the Engineers, plain old Reborn Chess was their choice for entertainnt.
The spread of board gas was received very well within the Rebornian community.
And surprisingly, an unintended side-effect of this was that even the other territories they conquered adapted board gas into their culture as well!
For example, the First Settlent saw the construction workers playing a lot of snakes and ladders. One thing led to another and soon, they were all playing board gas during their free ti!
However, he knew that board gas were fun and all, but sotis this wasn't enough to satisfy people's need for competition.
So, he ended up inventing Poker for them as well.
Creating the cards was easy enough, but he thought that spreading the rules of Poker could be a little bit complicated for people.
But, as it turned out, that was not the problem he should have thought of.
Instead, people picked up on Poker really fast and they beca really enthusiastic in playing it all the ti!
Right now, he was playing poker in the First Settlent with Zion, Fudge, Jaku, Grieve, and a Red Mankey.
And just as they were about to play their first hand of the night, Michael's shadow ascended from the floor and turned into a Shadow Orc.
This Orc whispered to Michael and pointed at the man entering the building.
"Sir, that's Barcus, the leader of Barcus Inc.," the Shadow Orc told him before disappearing into the shadows.
Michael was quite surprised to see Barcus here in the flesh. From what Fudge told him, it seed that the two twins weren't quite receptive to their entrance into the Grafted Cluster.
He watched as Barcus looked around the room, with wonder and surprise clearly painted on his face. And with the reddish glow on his cheeks, Michael was sure that the man had just finished a rejuvenating session at the bath houses.
Barcus continued to tour around the tables, peering at the different board gas that the Reborn company offered. Everyone had fun and tried to get Barcus to play with them, but he refused.
Eventually, the guy ended up approaching one of the tables who were also playing poker.
It was Butch and his friends, who were all adopted from the HamrStone company a few weeks back.
"Ummm, what's that?" Barcus asked.
"Co join us my friend. This is Beer and Poker!" Butch shouted, his cheeks reddened from being drunk.
Barcus seed really intrigued with the idea of poker. But Michael knew that those guys were practically veterans in the ga. They were the first ones that beca quite good at Poker upon its introduction. It beca their go-to entertainnt whenever they had guard duties on the Golden Road construction project.
"Guys, don't bully the man," Michael said to them.
Butch imdiately sobered up upon seeing him. "Boss! We weren't…weren't planning on beating the guy for all his money….just a little bit," he stamred.
Barcus' eyes squinted as he looked at Butch. He seed to have rembered the bald guy from sowhere.
"Wait! Weren't you the leader of the HamrStone company in Angora City?!" Barcus scread. "We buy our armor from your guys. Don't you rember ?"
Butch looked at Barcus, but seed to see three images of him at the sa ti. "Are you…hiccup…an Orc too?"
Barcus ignored Butch and then turned to Michael.
"He called you boss…then that ans—YOU'RE THE OWNER OF REBORN?!"
Michael shrugged. "I guess I am haha. Nice to et you," he said, offering his hand.
Barcus took a second to steady himself before he hurriedly shook Michael's hand.
"I wasn't expecting to see you…so young…," Barcus muttered, his eyes still clearly doubtful whether he was seeing the real thing.
"I wasn't expecting to see the owner of the famous #487th ranked company here too."
"I wasn't—okay, I admit it. I am spying on you," Barcus said, his head hanging low. "I thought I would expose all the deceit that your company was doing…but I'm wrong. I haven't seen the people of the First Settlent look this happy in all the years of my life. They look satisfied."
Michael appreciated the honesty. It looked like this guy wasn't bad at all.
"Bro Mike! Are we gonna play or what?!"
Zion shouted at Michael from the poker table, clearly impatient.
Michael looked at Barcus. "You want to play so poker?"
…
…
…
After giving him all the rules he needed to play poker, Barcus joined Michael and the others on the poker table.
He was given colorful coins that didn't seem to be any kind of denomination of money that he was familiar with.
"Those are chips," Michael explained. "It's what you use to bet."
Barcus nodded. He was smart enough and understood enough of the ga to play decently.
"Dealer, deal the cards!" Fudge shouted to the Shadow Orc on the opposite side of the table. The Orcanine Orc looked very distinguished with his black and white suit and well-combed mane.
The Orc gave each player two cards and laid down five other cards on the table.
The objective of the ga was to have the best 'hand' among the given cards on the table. There was a lot of bluffing and guessing involved in the ga, which made for so really interesting reactions in the table.
"I have the best cards on the table. You should all fold and surrender the chips to ," Zion bragged.
"Hoho, young one. Mine are the best cards….at least I think so…" Grieve took another peek at his cards before affirming his words. "Ah yes, indeed,"
"Urgh… I don't have any good cards, but I'll fight it out!" Fudge declared, completely misunderstanding the point of the ga.
While the other players were talking and bluffing against each other, Barcus was fidgeting in his seat, unable to sit properly. It seed that sothing was bothering him so much that he couldn't concentrate on playing the ga.
In the end, he leaned over to Michael and expressed his thoughts.
"Are you really planning on spreading the Reborn company in the Grafted Cluster? Aren't you afraid of Flarecorp?!"
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