Surveying the swampy place in Zone 3 was done in short order. Simply, because Zoli didn't like the smell of stagnant water and rotting plant life. In his opinion, watery surfaces should be large enough to accommodate a yacht and have a nice climate and a lot of sunshine.

  And, well, open water.

  The swampy patch couldn’t present any of those.

  Someone even added greenish fog to the swamp – Zoli wasn't sure if delivering poisonous fog was considered good customer service or environmentally friendly. Or how he knew, the fog was poisonous, inducing coughing and disorientation. Or how he knew, the employees were immune to the toxic work environment.

  The last thing, which made the survey short, was another team, doing a LARP. Every last joy was leached from Zoli by watching six Goblins up to their chests in muddy water, hunting for Turtles and complaining about how [Swimming] didn't apply to mud, and how hard it would be to remove mud from their fake gear.

  Zone 4 wasn’t better either.

  LARP teams were running up and down, collecting merchandize, and arguing, how certain rules were to be applied to different circumstances. And why a "Rogue" thought, wearing a full plate was a good idea.

  The “Rogue” did a backflip, and explained, how a good selection of Skills and Perks made even the unlikely stupid a valid choice.

  When Zoli entered Zone 5, he finally had enough.

  Three teams banded together for something they called a “Raid” on the Wild Dog Pack, and were doing a large-scale assault on the Dog’s position.

  “Janine, please inform the Executive Team, that the LARP surveys should be done when I'm not visiting the Zones."

  “Sure. That would be a few hours every other week, no?”

  Zoli was quite certain, he was enjoying doing nothing… khmmm… surveying the Zones more often, but Janine kept his schedule, so knew probably better.

  Zoli retreated to his beach house – walking around in the wilderness for so long was mentally exhausting. Maybe he could order a nice hiking trail, just for him from Engineering and Zoning? With park benches every couple of meters. With good pavement, and at least a few fast-food joints. That was hiking, not going cross-country in the deep forest!

  His relaxation on the beach was cut short when Janine suddenly informed him about the next pending meeting.

  “A meeting? Already? The last one was like this morning!”

  “You were sitting on your ass for more, than a week. Boss. Sir."

  Barely a week? That certainly felt shorter, and probably didn’t include the time he was contemplating work-related things. For example how he could protect his retreat from customers when the Lake Biome was opened. Or how he could get free perks from the Stockholder. A CEO had to have forethought!

  “All right, tell the Executive Team, I will be there in a minute."

  One minute for the CEO turned out to be almost two hours for the Executive Team, in the end. It was a well-known fact, that time worked differently for every strata of the corporate environment, after all.

  “Honored CEO, sir, let me present today's topics." It was Ellen's turn to lead the meeting, obviously. "The first challenge is to competently conceptualize Zone 6's client-centered applications. Winston, would you please set up the scale model and the miniatures? Thank you."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The model was finely crafted this time too. The Zone had the same, usual shape: a vague square, with a length of almost three kilometers, and a width of a few hundred meters more. It had quite a diverse geography and flora; in the South, next to Zone 5 a shrubby terrace dominated the environment, ending in a steep, equally shrubby slope with the occasional rocky outcrop. In the middle, it contained a grassy flat, interspersed with copes of trees and small gullies, while in the North and East, the local stream was accompanied by a broad, swampy flood plain. Finally, in the West, a southward rising, forested slope was to be found.

  Why the previous CEO laid it out that way, Zoli did not know and wasn't interested in the answer. It was probably incompetence, though.

  Zoli was curious, about what kind of employee could be promoted to lead such a diverse Zone. Probably one of the furry ones, like… ehmmm… those small ones, or the medium ones.

  “They are Golden Jackals." Dana put seven figurines on the side of the model. So, Zoli was right again, it was one of the furry employees "As per company policy, the Patriarch will be promoted to Level 12 and the rest of the Pack to Senior Agents." Zoli noticed the figurines had differently colored bases, a deep red for one of the Jackals (probably the Patriarch) and yellow for the rest.

  “Boss, ehmm… CEO, the devs put another idea forward: put a dead decoration-Jackal into a patch of weeds as a clue, and make the live ones allergic to that special weed. Of course, the adventurers need to harvest the weed, but the only viable patch would be placed in the flood plain, protected by a Deputy Zone Leader. They think an Aurochs would be an excellent choice."

  “Honored CEO, sir, by making the Jackals Allergic, we can even choose another good Perk for them!" Colette enthusiastically supported her co-manager.

  “Could we continually harness this backward-compatible scheme for other employees too?" Zoli asked. Exploiting the employees by saddling them with extra (mostly hidden) expectations was a very good way to not pay them bonuses when they predictably failed to reach the unknown goals. This "awarding Perks"-thing was basically the same.

  “Saddling other employees with negative Perks so as to gain another positive one, sir? We would need to examine the feasibility, but broadly speaking this scheme should be reserved for special circumstances and dedicated mechanisms." Dana explained.

  “All right, continue!” Zoli wasn’t prepared to leave leveraging niche solutions go, but for now, he could wait.

  “Yes, sir, honored CEO, sir. We propose giving the Jackal Patriarch Dash, Opportunist, Wily, and Pack Hunter. The Senior Agents will receive Dash and Pack Hunter. With these, the employees will get the opportunity to close the distance in an expedited fashion, while taking advantage of their number. Also, the Patriarch will be able to direct the pack in a most excellent way, and will be able to spot momentary openings."

  “However, if the customers find out about the properties of the weed, we call it Jackal Grass, we had a brainstorming session to come up with that awesome name, sir, and apply it correctly, the pack will lose Dash and 20% of their Health Points," Ellen added.

  “The Aurochs will receive Gore and Bash. They are actually spells, but the devs found a way to make them into pseudo-Perks.” Burke continued “IT helped, though. Since they are very situational, we managed to add Herbivore Rage too.”

  “Honored CEO, sir, those two Perks will make the delivered services much more damaging.”

  “Sir, we still have five Deputy Zone Leader and twelve Senior Agent positions to fill," Dana informed the most awesome CEO in all the multiverses. "We think, and the devs put this initiative forward, that it is time to introduce traps to the Zones. To seamlessly exploit the company's strength in its choice of specialization, the proposed innovation is to hire Caltrop Hedgehogs and distribute them throughout the Zone. My department found this interesting new species. They are hedgehogs with hard spines. According to the CV, the spines can even punch through hardened leather – if a customer steps on one of them, they will be in for a surprise!"

  “Yeah, boss-man.” Burke was swaying in his seat. Poor guy. So many illnesses! “The devs think, nine Elites with Camouflage and another dozen simple animals would be sufficient. Since they are basically free, we should spread another dozen basic critters too. Still not that many, but still.”

  “Honored CEO, sir, to continue with empowering extensive experiences with surprising customer service, we propose to fill the Org Chart for Senior Agent positions with three Fort Bushes and place them close to where the Aurochs will guard Jackal Grass. We are aware, that they are more expensive than animals, but we see a synergy here. Getting through the bushes, especially if they are Senior Agents is almost impossible without dedicated siege engines. Or a heavy application of fire. Giving them Resilience will make them even harder to defeat."

  “As for the Deputy Zone Leaders…”