I Married My Ruthless Boss in a Video Game novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Grab
At the all-hands, Roxie grabs the new CEO by the crotch because her taped headset says he is a Legendary scroll, and she does not let go; the game marries them on the spot.
Two hundred people watched me grab our new CEO below the belt, and I tightened my grip.
It was his first morning running our studio.
I was in the front row, wearing an AR headset that my roommate's blue painter's tape was holding together.
Through the cracked left lens, Emberfall was running over the real room.
Emberfall is our game. It puts dragons and loot on top of whatever you're standing in.
That morning, the dragon I'd killed over breakfast had dropped a gold scroll, and the scroll was floating at waist height in the aisle.
A timer hung over it in red letters: 90 seconds to despawn.
I'd been waiting three years for that scroll.
"Roxie," my best friend whispered from the next seat. She was filming the stage on her phone, because Jessamine films everything. "Roxie, stay in your chair."
"Ninety seconds," I whispered back. "Do you know what Legendary scrolls go for?"
"It's the all-hands."
"It's the all-hands for you."
Up on the stage, a man in a plain navy suit tapped the microphone.
"Good morning," he said. "I'm Lorne Roark."
The room went quiet. Everyone knew that name.
They called him the Axe. He had shut down two studios before this one, and the whole building had spent a week guessing who would be next.
He set his phone on the lectern, and it lit up.
I read it without meaning to, because I read everything on a screen.
Transfer complete: 41,000 to Pinecrest Payroll.
"First thing," Lorne said. "Payroll goes out Friday. Same as always."
Somebody in row three said "thank God" out loud.
Then he stepped down off the stage and walked up the aisle to shake hands with the department heads.
He stopped one pace in front of me.
My headset put a gold scroll exactly where his belt buckle was.
I want it on record that the scroll looked solid.
It had a wax seal and a ribbon, and the timer over it said 14 seconds.
I reached out and closed my hand around it.
It was not a scroll.
It was warm, and it was definitely not paper.
Above it, a bar appeared in my lens: Binding 1 of 5.
I should have let go. The bar was already moving.
The rule in Emberfall is that you hold on until the bar is full. If you let go halfway, the scroll despawns for everyone.
So I held on.
"Miss," Lorne Roark said, very quietly, above my head. "I need you to let go."
"Sorry," I said. "Four more."
"Four more what?"
I pulled, because the scroll felt heavier than a Legendary should.
His whole body moved one step toward me.
Binding 3 of 5.
"This isn't," he said, and then he stopped, because two hundred phones had come up in the room at once.
"I know what it looks like," I said. "Please hold still. It's almost bound."
"What is bound?"
"The scroll."
He looked down.
Then he looked at the hand I was holding him with.
Then he looked at me.
"Miss," he said again. His voice was perfectly even. "That is not a scroll."
Gus Lindqvist, our lead engineer, stood up in row four with his reading glasses halfway down his nose.
"That is absolutely a scroll," Gus said. "She has the Oath Scroll. I wrote the Oath Scroll."
"Gus," I said, "tell him it's okay."
"Roxie," Gus said, "it is not okay. Whoever binds it gets married."
I did not let go.
I'll be honest about it. A lot of things went through my head, and the loudest was that the bar was at four.
Binding 5 of 5.
My headset chimed, bright and cheerful.
HANDFAST FORMED. You are now bound to Sunder, Level 90.
Confetti fell from the ceiling in the game.
In the room, there was only the sound of two hundred people trying to be quiet.
I let go.
I stood up fast and put both hands behind my back.
"Good morning," I said.
Lorne Roark closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, he addressed the room.
"I'm cutting QA from eight people to four," he said. "That is all for today."
He didn't look at me when he said it.
I stood there with my mouth open.
My lens was still showing the rest of the notification, the one with his profile. 4,100 hours played. World rank 3.
World rank 3 is Sunder.
I was rank 4. I had been trying to beat Sunder for three years.
The man I'd just grabbed in public was the one I'd been chasing the whole time.
He walked past me up the aisle and stopped at the door.
"My office," he said. "Bring the headset."
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