Ever since the start of the Golden Road project, Michael noticed that a lot of the Rebornian Engineers and the construction workers ended up feeling sad and burnt out at the end of the day.
After all, their days and weeks were just made up of going to work, pouring concrete, flattening roads, and waiting for it to dry.
Michael forgot that this was a world that didn't have any sort of entertainment for people to enjoy. They didn't have television shows, anime, or even cellphones.
To remedy this boredom that they had, he began a social project in which he spread all kinds of board games to see which ones they liked the most.
Snakes and Ladders, in particular, were quite famous with the Rebornian Construction workers. They played that game while on lunch breaks and during their day offs.
However, Lamias weren't quite fond of that for obvious reasons. Turns out, they didn't like snakes all that much, probably because of how much they were compared with each other. But, they did like the game Hungry Hungry Hippos because it reminded them of their natural habitat near the rivers.
The Dragonborns liked Uno, which added up because they were siblings, so the rivalry certainly added up a lot of the fun.
As for the Engineers, plain old Reborn Chess was their choice for entertainment.
The spread of board games was received very well within the Rebornian community.
And surprisingly, an unintended side-effect of this was that even the other territories they conquered adapted board games into their culture as well!
For example, the First Settlement saw the construction workers playing a lot of snakes and ladders. One thing led to another and soon, they were all playing board games during their free time!
However, he knew that board games were fun and all, but sometimes this wasn't enough to satisfy people's need for competition.
So, he ended up inventing Poker for them as well.
Creating the cards was easy enough, but he thought that spreading the rules of Poker could be a little bit complicated for people.
But, as it turned out, that was not the problem he should have thought of.
Instead, people picked up on Poker really fast and they became really enthusiastic in playing it all the time!
Right now, he was playing poker in the First Settlement with Zion, Fudge, Jaku, Grieve, and a Red Mankey.
And just as they were about to play their first hand of the night, Michael's shadow ascended from the floor and turned into a Shadow Orc.
This Orc whispered to Michael and pointed at the man entering the building.
"Sir, that's Barcus, the leader of Barcus Inc.," the Shadow Orc told him before disappearing into the shadows.
Michael was quite surprised to see Barcus here in the flesh. From what Fudge told him, it seemed that the two twins weren't quite receptive to their entrance into the Grafted Cluster.
He watched as Barcus looked around the room, with wonder and surprise clearly painted on his face. And with the reddish glow on his cheeks, Michael was sure that the man had just finished a rejuvenating session at the bath houses.
Barcus continued to tour around the tables, peering at the different board games that the Reborn company offered. Everyone had fun and tried to get Barcus to play with them, but he refused.
Eventually, the guy ended up approaching one of the tables who were also playing poker.
It was Butch and his friends, who were all adopted from the HammerStone company a few weeks back.
"Ummm, what's that?" Barcus asked.
"Come join us my friend. This is Beer and Poker!" Butch shouted, his cheeks reddened from being drunk.
Barcus seemed really intrigued with the idea of poker. But Michael knew that those guys were practically veterans in the game. They were the first ones that became quite good at Poker upon its introduction. It became their go-to entertainment whenever they had guard duties on the Golden Road construction project.
"Guys, don't bully the man," Michael said to them.
Butch immediately sobered up upon seeing him. "Boss! We weren't…weren't planning on beating the guy for all his money….just a little bit," he stammered.
Barcus' eyes squinted as he looked at Butch. He seemed to have remembered the bald guy from somewhere.
"Wait! Weren't you the leader of the HammerStone company in Angora City?!" Barcus screamed. "We buy our armor from your guys. Don't you remember me?"
Butch looked at Barcus, but seemed to see three images of him at the same time. "Are you…hiccup…an Orc too?"
Barcus ignored Butch and then turned to Michael.
"He called you boss…then that means—YOU'RE THE OWNER OF REBORN?!"
Michael shrugged. "I guess I am haha. Nice to meet you," he said, offering his hand.
Barcus took a second to steady himself before he hurriedly shook Michael's hand.
"I wasn't expecting to see you…so young…," Barcus muttered, his eyes still clearly doubtful whether he was seeing the real thing.
"I wasn't expecting to see the owner of the famous #487th ranked company here too."
"I wasn't—okay, I admit it. I am spying on you," Barcus said, his head hanging low. "I thought I would expose all the deceit that your company was doing…but I'm wrong. I haven't seen the people of the First Settlement look this happy in all the years of my life. They look satisfied."
Michael appreciated the honesty. It looked like this guy wasn't bad at all.
"Bro Mike! Are we gonna play or what?!"
Zion shouted at Michael from the poker table, clearly impatient.
Michael looked at Barcus. "You want to play some poker?"
…
…
…
After giving him all the rules he needed to play poker, Barcus joined Michael and the others on the poker table.
He was given colorful coins that didn't seem to be any kind of denomination of money that he was familiar with.
"Those are chips," Michael explained. "It's what you use to bet."
Barcus nodded. He was smart enough and understood enough of the game to play decently.
"Dealer, deal the cards!" Fudge shouted to the Shadow Orc on the opposite side of the table. The Orcanine Orc looked very distinguished with his black and white suit and well-combed mane.
The Orc gave each player two cards and laid down five other cards on the table.
The objective of the game was to have the best 'hand' among the given cards on the table. There was a lot of bluffing and guessing involved in the game, which made for some really interesting reactions in the table.
"I have the best cards on the table. You should all fold and surrender the chips to me," Zion bragged.
"Hoho, young one. Mine are the best cards….at least I think so…" Grieve took another peek at his cards before affirming his words. "Ah yes, indeed,"
"Urgh… I don't have any good cards, but I'll fight it out!" Fudge declared, completely misunderstanding the point of the game.
While the other players were talking and bluffing against each other, Barcus was fidgeting in his seat, unable to sit properly. It seemed that something was bothering him so much that he couldn't concentrate on playing the game.
In the end, he leaned over to Michael and expressed his thoughts.
"Are you really planning on spreading the Reborn company in the Grafted Cluster? Aren't you afraid of Flarecorp?!"