Nathan didn't know if it was the hunger or the stress, but his stomach felt weird when he woke up. Kind of like that twisting feeling you get before an exam… or maybe after eating leftover noodles that sat out too long.
He rubbed his face and groaned. "What time is it…"
His neck felt sore. His back too. And he was cold.
He reached around, hand blindly searching the floor for his phone. When he finally found it under a crumpled shirt, he flipped it over—black screen.
Dead.
"Nice."
The only thing that still worked right these days was the screen in his head.
[Tycoon System Online][Tycoon Points: 70][Mission Progress – 70%][Deadline: 11 Days Left]
"Still got time… I think."
He sat up slowly. His back cracked a bit when he moved. Floor sleeping was not the best for a guy pushing thirty. But his old plastic chair snapped last week, and the wooden one was still half-broken. So the ground was all he had. It was that or sleeping across two crates stacked beside the wall.
The screen blinked again.
[No New Quests][Tip: Follow-up with Evelyn Moreau]
That made his heart skip a bit.
Oh. Right. The proposal.
He had stayed up late last night, tweaking that stupid business plan until his eyes went blurry. The AI writing assistant inside the system helped a lot, though. It fixed his grammar and made some sentences longer and more formal-sounding. Maybe too formal. Like… it sounded kind of stiff in places. Like something a robot would type.
Still, he was kinda proud of it.
Nathan opened his crusty laptop and pulled the file up. The screen flickered once, then loaded the file. Looked decent. The headings were bolded. There were proper sections. Budget charts even looked color-coded.
He stared at the email window for a long while. Cursor blinking.
What if she hated it?
What if she laughed and blocked his number?
Or worse—didn't reply at all?
"Just send it, man," he whispered to himself. "Worst she can do is reject you. You're already used to that."
He let out a shaky breath and hit send.
Then he sat there.
Waiting.
Staring at the screen.
The fan inside his laptop made this low humming sound like it was tired too.
Five minutes passed. Nothing.
Ten minutes. Still no ping.
By the fifteen-minute mark, he stood up, stretched, and grabbed his toothbrush. The second he stepped toward the bathroom, the system dinged.
[Message Received – Evelyn Moreau]"Got it. Reviewing."
Nathan stopped mid-step.
She replied.
Holy crap, she actually replied.
He ran back to his laptop, brushing forgotten.
[Relationship Thread – Evelyn Moreau]Status: CuriousAffection: 20%Trust: 14%[+20 Tycoon Points]
"Okay… that's something."
His mouth curled up a little, almost into a smile. He wasn't sure if he was happy or nervous. Like when a teacher calls your name and you can't remember if you submitted the assignment or not.
Nathan opened the Tycoon Shop again. 90 points now. Still not a ton, but more than earlier. He thought about buying that Charisma Boost thing again, but it only lasted 3 minutes. Probably better for a live meeting or call, not for emails and messages.
So he saved the points.
Then, right when he leaned back and tried to relax, another message dropped.
[Message – Evelyn Moreau]"Section 3 sounds like it was written by a teenager. Budget part is okay. Format's clean. Make the tone less dramatic. Also… lose the hotel slogan. It's corny."
Nathan blinked.
Then read it again. Slowly.
Okay… ouch.
She didn't like it.
But also—she didn't hate it?
"Teenager, huh…" he muttered.
He wasn't sure if he should feel offended or just… kinda flattered that she even read the whole thing and gave feedback. Most people just ghosted him before.
[Relationship Update – Evelyn Moreau]Affection: 23%Trust: 18%[+10 Tycoon Points]
"Still watching me, huh?"
He smirked a little and stretched his fingers.
Time to edit.
Nathan opened up the draft and went straight to Section 3. He deleted like, half of it. Then rewrote it in a more "business guy" kind of voice. Less emotional, more number-heavy. Also deleted that dumb slogan at the top. "Aurora Awaits" sounded more like a perfume ad now that he thought about it.
He wasn't great at writing slogans anyway.
He clicked save and updated the main file.
The system blinked again.
[Project Progress – 76%][+30 Tycoon Points]
"Not bad," he whispered.
He leaned against the wall and shut his eyes for a second. The room was quiet except for a leaking tap in the corner. Even though his neck hurt and his eyes felt like sandpaper, something inside him felt… okay.
Like he was doing something.
He wasn't wasting time job hunting or reapplying for the same rejected internships over and over.
He was working on something that might actually matter.
Then another alert appeared.
[New Obstacle – Aurora Staff Resistance Detected]Some project leads are not responding. Possible sabotage.[New Objective: Identify and Resolve Internal Blockage]Reward: +100 Points | Skill Unlock: Crisis Handling I
Nathan groaned. "Why is nothing ever simple?"
He opened a fresh notepad and wrote down the names he remembered from Evelyn's company. Then searched them online. Most were clean, but two of them? Their LinkedIn looked shady. One had weird vendor connections. The other guy had a scandal in a different hotel group like two years back.
"Found you," he muttered.
He went back to the proposal and made a new page. Added transfer suggestions and wrote up some corporate-sounding reasons for reassignments.
It was sneaky. But it was also smart.
[Project Progress – 79%][+40 Tycoon Points]
Suddenly the screen flickered again.
[Optional Side Quest – Rebranding Campaign Unlocked]"Suggest new name, design, and campaign plan for Aurora Hotel"Reward: +50 Points | Bonus: Evelyn Impression Boost
Nathan clicked accept.
"Why not," he said.
He opened Canva and started messing with logo shapes. Tried out some soft colors—blue, gold, white. Ended up calling the hotel Aurora Vale. Sounded like a place rich people might visit. Better than "Aurora Awaits" at least.
He even made a new slogan which was Kinda basic, yeah… but better than nothing.
He uploaded the new images and campaign stuff into the proposal.
[Project Progress – 83%][Time Left: 11 Days][+50 Tycoon Points]
Nathan leaned back and let out a breath.
It felt… good.
Like finally something was clicking.
He was still broke. Still alone. Still living in a half-broken apartment with wires hanging from the ceiling and stains on the wall.
But now… it didn't feel like the end of the road.
He was building something again.
He wasn't sure where this path led—but at least he was on it.
The screen glowed faintly, a soft light in the middle of his messy room.
He shut his eyes for just a minute.
And then—
[ALERT: Project Interference Detected]Unknown third-party influence spotted inside Aurora project data.Potential threat to progress.
Nathan sat up straight. Eyes wide.
"What the hell…?"