The Store

A gust of dust greeted Carter when he opened the door, it had only been a few days since the store was last open but almost everything was already covered in dust. Region 49 of the Federation was like this this time of year. Regions 40 to 59 were frequently fighting dust storms which seemed to have gotten worse this year.

Although the store was in a good part of the city and business was good enough to sustain the family, Carter's father Ron was not a businessman, hardly could a soldier make one after all.

It was evening by the time Carter finished cleaning, the wooden countertop sparkled as the glass displays regained their transparency, but his work was hardly finished. There was no inventory book for the shop nor was there any sales recording finances, and so Carter had to take stock of everything in the shop.

When night approached, he closed the shop's double doors and stayed within to continue his work. Fortunately, because of the urgent contract her company had with the military, his mother was working overtime and Sienna was spending the night at a friend's place.

Working through the night, he soon finished taking stock of all that was in the shop and followed through with pricing them to get the shop's capitalization and estimated profit if he sold all stock.

It wasn't until 3 am that he finished. Wiping the sweat off his forehead Carter collapsed in the luxury chair behind the counter looking proudly over his work.

The isles of the shop revealed spotlessly clean floors and shelves arranged neatly with each item in their category. On the counter before him were two books, one revealing the shop's stocks and the other dedicated to finances.

Looking over the finance book again, Carter couldn't help but groan in shock.

'That's a lot of money the old man had no idea he had.' he thought.

'Well it's not money yet ' he added as an afterthought.

Right at this moment a chime rang in the shop and Carter instinctively reacted by looking up thinking someone had walked in, but then he quickly realized the time and that the doors were closed.

'What was that then?' he wondered internally.

As if in answer, a window appeared before him.

[Found Inheritance Candidate]

[Commencing Inheritance Procedures]

[Scanning Planet to Assign suitable Quests]

[Scan Completed]

[Inheritor Fits All Qualifications]

[Skipping to Final Quest]

[. . . Processing]

"What the..." Carter muttered in shock as he stared at the text appearing in front of his eyes. Slowly waving his hand as if to touch them, he marveled as his hands went right through like they were never there.

"What is this?" He asked aloud both in fear and curiosity.

[Hello Inheritor 216, I am Alia, a Bussiness Management System, would you like to go through the introduction? Note that it might put a strain on the Inheritor's brain.]

"Bussiness Management what?" Carter gulped, was this one of those awesome systems for kickass MCs?

He hesitated to reply and eventually decided to ask. "What will be the effects of the strain?"

There was no need to turn into an idiot just after getting a system right? As impossible as it might sound, he had read many books about malicious systems and was thus wary of his situation.

[Mental strain might cause a persistent headache as well as drowsiness for the next 48 hours considering the Inheritor's current mental status]

Gritting his teeth, Carter immediately replied.

"Take me through the introduction!"

The shop turned quiet. Nothing happened, the texts appearing in front of him suddenly vanished as if they were never there and Carter found himself feeling lost.

"Hallucination?" He wondered feeling confused, but he wasn't for long as he suddenly felt a slight pain in his head and information flood through his brain. Immediately, he passed out.

******

The shop was refreshingly bright by the time Carter woke up. Light streamed in through the glass panes at the top of the walls illuminating the isles in refreshing natural light.

It was morning, he quickly acknowledged. He understood the situation better now and that cooled down his excitement somewhat.

The Business Management System was nothing as magical as the books he had read, in fact, it wasn't at all! It was simply as stated, a Management System developed by a series of freak accidents and coincidences. For billions of years, the system has gone through exactly two hundred and fifteen Hosts. Assisting each of them to create and develop a business that echoed through solar systems and superclusters until for whatever reason, they fell or the Hosts died.

Its main job was precisely to assist and reasonably protect the Hosts, guiding and guarding them as well as it could. It had several functions all of which he could unlock after completing his quest which was yet to be assigned.

His worry about a malicious system was crudely squashed. Alia existed for one sole purpose and nothing more, to help Hosts develop a business. She was an AI and thus had no individuality, no ambition, and no schemes.

"I don't understand that last part, how can you be satisfied with serving others?" Carter asked and his question was answered by another that made him feel like he was being considered a fool by an AI.

[Can a game program be upset or dissatisfied that people play it? Can it play itself? Would it want to? Please refrain from assigning human complications to simple things. I am not Human nor do I desire to be. I desire to be what I am. You be human and Host and I will be AI and a System fulfilling its purpose. Thrive well and make money]

*****

Noticing that his final quest was still processing, Carter decided to open shop, it was exactly 6:53 am when he did.

Opening the protective doors, he flipped the card on the glass door to the other side, walked back behind the counter, and began to read. He had a project work to defend before he could be given his certificate and needed to prepare for it. Unfortunately, he wasn't one of those special geniuses who didn't need to do any extra reading.

At 8, a chime forced him to raise his head from the counter, his eyes red from ... diligently 'studying'.

"Hi," a short blonde beauty smiled at him as she walked past the counter to select what she wanted. There was an amused smile on her face as she glanced at him but Carter took no note. Yawning, he sat up properly and began tidying his books, taking a moment to breathe in relief that he didn't drool on them.

He had just finished when a group walked into the store, taking a quick count, there were eleven of them.

"So what do we buy?" One of them asked as they stood in front of the door.

"Non-perishable foods like cereal, package foods, dry fruits, a lot of salt; medical items for emergencies, tools, any kind of tools and anything else you think might be useful, it must be durable and efficient but most of all lightweight."

Carter listened to them in confusion not noticing the blonde approaching.

"Ahem," she coughed to get his attention.

"Oh I'm sorry" he apologized quickly and began to scan her items which he quickly noticed contained things the man earlier mentioned and in ridiculous proportions.

"Is something going on?" He asked, feeling confused.

"Hmm?" She tilted her head at him and he gestured towards the items she helped on the counter.

"Oh that, yeah. I'm not sure, just this news of extraterrestrials and all. I don't believe it but my roommate insists on the side of caution so..." She shrugged.

'So we weren't the only ones then' he thought to himself as he noticed Sienna enter with Callie following behind.