Fantastic Life Tycoon - Chapter 1

2019

“Brian, did you even try runnning this code? Why are there so many errors.” A tall lady wearing a blue office skirt with a white shirt was screaming on top of her voice as if to make everyone in the office hear it.

Man, such a beautiful face but she always spits venom.

“You know your position,Bryan. One more mark on your performance sheet and you will be out of here.”

The boy, Brian was not a bad coder. He was almost as good as others in the office.

It was his personality. He couldn’t say No to people.

Brian had passed out of college in mid 2017. This was the first company he joined.

It was all fine at first, he worked hard among the other interns to get a long term contract. It was his hardwork that finally led to all this trouble.

Since, Brian could complete his work earlier than the deadline, he would go surf other sites like Wuxiaworld and read his favourite novels. It was during one such reading sessions that he was smiling when the HR had caught him.

He was given an official warning. When Brian complained that he had already done his work, the actual trouble began. He was given extra work by almost everyone on his team. Brian the work horse worked hard every day.

Others went on cig breaks, lunch breaks while Brian toiled hard on his PC coding all day.

To meet these impending deadlines, he hadn’t reviewed his code which eventually lead to a segfault that caused the immediate situation.

Brian felt helpless but couldn’t say a word. We could say he had not adapted to the office culture.

You just couldn’t complete the work before deadline. This was common knowledge among people who had worked in IT companies for a long time. Breaking this sacred rule was his own foolishness.

Soon, the HR manager had made enough of a scene and warned everyone in office. Two birds with one arrow.

Brian went back to reviewing the code. He wanted to stand up and leave, but didn’t have the courage for it. It wasn’t like Brian had many responsibilities. He was just responsible for himself.

Brian felt like a slave mindlessly working everyday to live a life that he didn’t like, to impress people he didn’t know.

If Freidich Nietzsche was to be believed with his “Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.” Then Brian would have been a slave but who takes philosophers seriously, right?

Tch! Tch! Tch!

The sound of fingers dancing on the keyboard seemed like music as Brian tried hard to get through the day.

The Sun set and Brian’s work hours were over.

Brian didn’t go back to his house but went to the nearest bar.

Couple of shots later, Brian was thinking about his old friends whom he hadn’t met in years. About his college buddies who had promised to keep in touch but had drifted apart just after college.

“Those were simpler times, I wish I could go back.”

This was Brian’s last thought or the last thought he remembers.

——————————————-

Bang!

Why does my head hurt so much?

“I won’t drink ever again.”

This was Brian’s first thought. He was cursing himself for getting carried away. Trying hard to remember how much money he had pissed away at that bar. Fuck HR.

Is the migraine acting up again.

I can’t show up to work like this.

“Should I call in sick?” was Brian’s first thought but then he remembered the scene yesterday.

It would be truly pushing the line to miss office the very next day.

With a heavy heart, Brian decided to get up.

He stretched his hand and sweeped the bed to find his phone. There it was but something didn’t feel right.

Brian tried opening his phone with my fingerprint but something didn’t feel right.

It was then he opened his eyes.

“Did someone prank me? replacing the touchscreen with old classic Nokia phone.”

Then, Brian looked around to see that he had crossed. Brian had tried publishing Wuxiaworlds related to transmigration but never thought that it could happen to him.

“This looks like my college dorm. Is it the same world then. No magic. There were no memories of any magic in this world. It seemed like the same timeline.’

Slightly disappointed that he couldn’t have his own magical adventure, Brian opened his phone code. He was lucky that he had not changed it in years. birthday date and birthday month. All the four digits. It would have been a nightmare start to lose the phone at the start.

“August, 2013. Hmm, freshman year at college.”

“What can I do in 2013” Brian thought while closing his eyes.

Brian remembered the obvious things like sports event winners or some major unicorns which were popular in 2019. Bitcoin could be used as well but all that was too late.

“I can save the college fees, it is not like I need it anyway.” This was the first money “making” idea in his head.

No education loans – The American dream.

Brian was cursing all the novel writers who made it easy to earn money going back. Was he dumb or was reality harsh.

“Why no system?” Thought Brian while feeling a little unlucky.

Ding!