CivCEO

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  CivCEO

  The Accidental Champion: Book 1

  by Andrew Karevik

  CivCEO (Book 1)

  Copyright © 2019 LitRPG Freaks

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

  Chapter 1

  Fifty years is a long time to be doing anything. At least, it would be for some people. Retirement. That’s the word just about everyone my age talks about, their eyes lighting up at the prospect of sitting around and playing bingo and golf for the rest of their days. Me? I’d much rather be sitting in my office, running one of the most successful corporations in the world. Fifty years was not long enough.

  But what are you going to do when the doctor tells you that things aren’t looking good? That the stress of daily meetings, frequent plane trips and eighty hour workweeks was going to kill you? Personally, I’d rather die behind my desk than sit around and watch tepid police procedurals for the remainder of my life. Of course, the board of directors didn’t much care for that kind of talk. “Charles,” they said, “you’re a great guy. You’ve built this company from the ground up and we all respect you. But we’re worried about your health. It’s time to retire.”

  All it takes is one little heart attack for the wolves to come out. If I weren’t so exhausted, I’d have fought the decision, pushed on my allies to support me and maybe, just maybe, pulled out a few less-than-clean tactics to ensure my position but…they were right. If I died suddenly, it would scare the hell out of the shareholders, and after missing our quarterly earnings, well, we just couldn’t afford a loss in confidence from Wall Street.

  So I officially retired from my position as Chief Executive Officer of Ergasia International, passed the baton to some young pup and made my way straight to the funeral home, so I could pick out a decent size casket. I was basically dead now—all that was left was for them to bury me.

  Of course, when you’re Charles Morris, captain of industry and inventor of over twenty-five different uses for the sweet potato, people only have fond things to say about you. Sweet Morris, the brand that started out as an oven baked sweet potato French fry, has become one of the most popular food brands in the entire world. We sold everything, from microwave meals, to baby formula and to candy. All run under different branches, yet owned by the same company: my beloved Ergasia International. Chances are, if a person is eating something in a package, Ergasia is the one who sold it to them.

  Unlike the other great entrepreneurs, I managed to keep my name intact. How? First, I ran my business with integrity and kept my hands to myself. Second, I never ran for office. It’s amazing how little controversy you can generate when you leave people alone and don’t bother politicians. This meant the general public received me well, and even the day after I was forced out of my job I got a call from an old friend. Well, when I say friend, I mean someone who is friendly with me and occasionally asks for money. At least this kind of friend is trying to support a good cause.

  The Foundation for Fighting Cancer has an annual fundraiser every year, an event that I was all too happy to donate to, but was never able to attend. Unless there was business to be discussed, I rarely went to any kind of party, fundraiser or event. Yet, I was out of excuses when Miss Sara asked for me to give a speech. Normally, I could have just written a check and gotten rid of her, but now that the secret of my retirement was out of the bag, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had agreed and was now standing in a swanky, upscale banquet hall, in the middle of giving some banal speech about togetherness.

  Don’t get me wrong, I believe in community. I believe in teamwork—to an extent. At the end of the day, you’ll be the one left alone, forced to handle whatever problem is in front of you. People will abandon you, especially when they realize they can’t get what they want from you. This might sound jaded, but in my entire life, all I’ve ever seen is the absolute worst in people. If you don’t keep an eye on them, they will hurt you. It’s best to give them what they want and remove any of the troublemakers from your company as quickly as possible.

  Of course, you don’t tell this to a large room full of eager, wide-eyed people looking to you for some kind of wise advice about life. You tell them what they want to hear. You give an uplifting story, tell a few maxims and a few quotes from people who inspired you. I’ve sat through enough PR prep meetings to know what not to say. I’d call it lying, but truthfully, no one wants real honesty. If they did, they’d know that there’s nothing some rich guy could tell them that would turn their lives around.

  I finished my speech and wowed them all by presenting the largest donation the Foundation had ever received. You see, I prefer to express my feelings through actions, not words. Actions don’t lie. It’s easy to say that you want cancer cured and that we have to rally up as a community to stop it. It’s much harder to write a check for half of your net worth and see that it actually happens. The value of a dollar always beats the value of someone’s words.

  After I was done with my big speech, it was time for the part that I dreaded more than anything. The meet and greet. There was always a long line at these events, full of people who wanted to shake my hand, ask me a question or try to pitch me their business idea. I didn’t mind talking to a few individuals, but I had a fairly low social limit. Unless I was in business with the person, I found that I had little to truly say to them. Not that they’d ever notice, of course, because they were far more focused on what they could get from me, rather than what they could share with me.

  But Miss Sara had been insistent on donors of a certain amount being allowed to come up and talk to me after the speech. So, I stood, dutifully, shaking hands, giving trite business advice and listening to ideas about combining deodorant/hairspray cans. As one overly handsy older woman told me of some concept she had about merging women’s sports with charity auctions, I noticed that past the barricades, in the common area, a young man was nervously fiddling with his tie.

  He was barely fifteen or sixteen, in a suit that clearly wasn’t his fit and seemed to be out of place. The tie gave it away, because no matter what he tried to do, he simply did not know how to tie it properly. The battered blue cloth looked as if it had been bunched together in a desperate attempt to mimic the Windsor knot. He was standing outside of the stanchions that prevented non-donors from entering the VIP area, yet was craning his head while adjusting his tie, in the hopes of overhearing the conversations.

  I excused myself from the line and walked over to the boy, slowly ducking under the velvet red barricade to get to him.

  “Young man,” I said, as I reached for his tie and began to unknot it. “Do you know how to tie this th
ing?”

  “I could never figure it out, sir,” he said, looking down with shame.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about, my boy,” I replied, working carefully to put the tie into a correct knot. “The fact that you know that you don’t know something means that you can fix it. Your greatest strength can come from a keen awareness of your own limitations.”

  The boy nodded but said nothing as I worked.

  “So, did you sneak in here?”

  He jerked his head up in surprise, eyes wide. I could read him well enough, that he was thinking about lying but then decided against it. “How did you know?”

  “At $300 a plate, you’d need to have parents here who would certainly make sure your tie was on properly and that your suit was clean,” I replied. “But don’t worry about me telling anyone. This is a charity, right?”

  The boy laughed at those words and, for a moment, I felt joyful. Adults were cruel and cutthroat, but I had a soft spot for the youth. They had an innocence to them, a trusting nature that was genuine. If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t pretend to in order to get a promotion. They’d shout at you angrily and storm off. They were, in many ways, far more honest than your average adult. If I had been less dedicated to my career, I would have had many children, but alas these are the things you give up when you try to make your way to the top.

  “So,” I asked, “why would a boy your age be sneaking into a cancer fundraiser? It can’t be for the food, it’s too fancy for anyone to actually enjoy.”

  He sheepishly smiled. “Uh, actually, I was here to listen to you speak.”

  “You want to become an entrepreneur?” I asked.

  “I already am,” he said. “I sell candy at school. I call it the Snack Shack.”

  “And how is the Snack Shack performing?” I asked. “Did you hit your quarterly projections?” A gust of wind began to pick up around us, which was a rather odd occurrence due to the fact that we were indoors. I would have paid more attention to this, had I not been so interested in the young man’s business.

  “It’s doing pretty well. I mean, the teachers didn’t want me selling anything because they said it interfered with the senior bake sale, so I’ve been kind of selling on the down low.”

  “Ah yes, the black market,” I chuckled. “Kudos to you for your hustle.”

  “Thanks,” the boy said, extending his hand. “I’m Jacob, by the way.”

  I reached to shake Jacob’s hand, but the wind grew fiercer, whipping wildly. I didn’t have much time to react, for as I tried to grab the boy’s hand, the wind pulled me upwards into the air. I gasped, trying to make sense of how I was being pulled through the sky. What was happening?

  “Fear not!” came a cry from all around me. It was a feminine voice, ethereal and bubbly. The winds continued to carry me somewhere, but my vision was fading out. The last words I heard before I became unconscious were: “Great champion, I have come to usher you to your destiny!”

  Chapter 2

  The world came back into focus with startling clarity. I was outdoors, in some kind of forest, lying on my back. I was groggy, stunned and aching all over. There were many birds throughout the forest, chirping morning songs as I stared at the sky.

  Slowly, I began to climb to my feet, careful not to move too quickly for fear of damaging my back. Where was I? The strange torrent of wind, the woman’s voice, they were not figments of my imagination, for I was no longer inside of the banquet hall. Was I dead? Did entering the afterlife feel so confusing and torrential?

  I glanced around to see the back of a tall woman, adorned in golden armor, with long, flowing locks of hair touching the ground. She was barefoot, carrying a spear in her left hand and a lantern in her right. Her skin was also gold, shimmering as if it were made of sunlight.

  “H-hello?” I hoarsely called out. “Where am I?”

  “Where are you?” she growled, sharply turning around. She was not pleased for some reason and I instinctively took a step back, eying the spear in her hand. “I’ll tell you where you are. You are in the realm of Liora. A land of great magic and even greater opportunity.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “How did I get here?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I messed up,” she grumbled, speaking more to herself than to me. “I messed this whole thing up.”

  “I’m sure whatever it is, it can be fixed,” I said. “Just tell me how I can help.” There had to be an explanation for all of this. The most fitting one was that I had a terrible stroke. I had a stroke and was now in a hospital bed, experiencing a most vivid dream. I would wake up any minute and all of this would be over.

  “Help?” she repeated, laughing a little. “Mortals cannot just help.”

  “Are you a goddess then?” I asked.

  “I am. You may call me Marispa, goddess of all the winds of Liora.”

  “And you brought me here? Why?” I asked.

  Marispa sighed at that. “I missed. My magical winds were aiming for the boy you were talking to, young brave and clever Jacob Nial, the man who is destined to bring greatness to my village! Instead I got…you.” The disgust in her voice was rather disconcerting. I was still paying attention to the spear, unsure as to the stability of this goddess.

  She continued. “No doubt you must be scared and confused. I would suggest that you travel north, to the city of Igithor, where the priests will be happy to take you in and teach you the ways of the world. Good luck.”

  And with that, she turned around to walk off.

  “Wait!” I cried. “You can’t just leave me here!”

  “That is my intention, yes,” Marispa replied. “You are not my champion. I must return to my home and prepare a new spell to retrieve him. This sets me back a few centuries.”

  “But how do I get home?” I asked. “You can’t just pull me into this world and not send me back home!” I realized that it was madness to continue playing along with all of this, but something was beginning to tell me that I wasn’t in a stroke-induced coma. Perhaps it was the sharpness of my senses and the full control of my faculties, but I was afraid that if she left me, I would never be able to return where I belonged.

  “Home?” she repeated. “This is your home now. As far as I’m concerned, we both messed up. My winds picked the wrong person, but you did get in the way of my spell. If you hadn’t been bothering that boy, we would both be happy right now.”

  “I’m a seventy-five year old man!” I shouted. “I can’t survive a walk to a city!”

  “Oh stop your fussing,” she said as she began to hover in the air. “Look at your hands.”

  I looked down to see that my hands were…smooth. Soft. Clear of the wrinkles and splotches that years of aging had brought to them. What? I touched my head to find a full, strong mass of hair. I took a few steps forward and realized that I was walking and breathing normally. I even jumped in the air, surprised that I didn’t break my ankles on the landing.

  “When you crossed between realms, my magic returned you to peak health. A champion cannot have secret diseases or ailments that would impede them. For a young boy, it would have ensured he would have been able to live long and healthily, but for an old man…I suppose it returned you to the prime of your years.”

  I was young again! What a novel thing, to have the wisdom of an elderly man but the body of a strong, hearty young man. Such vigor would allow me to achieve many great things. I could even go back to the board and demand my old position. They’d hardly recognize me, that would be for sure!

  “Farewell, stranger,” Marispa said as she began to fly off.

  “Wait! How do I get back?”

  “That is no concern of mine,” she called back as she became the wind itself, flowing far away from me. I was left all alone in the woods. I waited a beat or two, still wondering if I would wake up, but nothing happened. It looked as if I were trapped in Liora, at least for now. But if I were in a world where magic did exist, as
well as goddesses, then perhaps it wouldn’t be too hard to return home.

  I found a path and began to run, for the first time in a very, very long time. It was joyous to be able to push my body as hard as possible, rushing through the woods, the sounds of my boots thumping against the ground. My clothes had been transformed with the teleportation, it would seem. I was no longer wearing a fitted suit, but rather a leather tunic, like something out of a fantasy movie. I had a belt with many pockets and a small dagger at my side. I wondered if I would face something like bandits out in these woods.

  I ran for a time, until I grew exhausted and began to slow down. Even as my legs were burning, I was enjoying the sensation of being free from the confines of my old body, at least for now. Would I stay young when I returned to Earth? There would only be one way to find out.

  I reached a fork in the road with two signs. The one on the left indicated there was a town by the name of Tine only a quarter of a mile away. The city of Igithor was nearly fifteen miles away. My stomach was beginning to rumble. It would be prudent to stop by Tine, stock up on provisions and then set out on my journey. Otherwise, I’d be forced to forage for food, and I had no clue as to what foods were edible or poisonous in this world. Just because something might look good here didn’t mean it was safe to eat.

  And so I made my way to Tine, which was a short walk down a poorly kept road. The ground was uneven and difficult to traverse. It was hard to imagine that this town received any kind of regular foot traffic. A wagon would probably break most of its wheels by the time it reached Tine. Perhaps they had some kind of flying animal in this world and thus didn’t need to take care of their roads.

  I emerged from the forest to find a rather small village. There were six small huts, a wheat farm in the distance and two larger buildings made from what looked to be cedarwood. The structures were in poor condition and the largest one had a roof that appeared ready to collapse at any minute. Someone was standing atop a watchtower in the center of the town, vigilantly looking for signs of danger. As soon as he spotted me, he began to ring his bell.