CHAPTER 79: TOO MUCH

Maximus pinched the bridge of his nose, staring at the numbers on his screen like they personally offended him.

190,300 registrations.

He refreshed.

190,892.

Another refresh.

196,215.

His stomach dropped. "Oh, come on," he muttered.

His phone vibrated on the table, and he snatched it up, answering without looking.

"You seeing this?" Zack’s voice crackled through the speaker.

He sounded just as exhausted as Maximus felt.

"Yeah," Maximus groaned, rubbing his temple. "We’re screwed, man. How the hell are we supposed to process over 190,000 people?"

Zack let out a tired laugh. "You think that’s bad? I checked the analytics. We’ve got another 40,000 people sitting on the payment screen."

Maximus exhaled sharply. "Bro, this site’s about to go up in flames."

Zack sighed on the other end. "Yeah. If this keeps up, it might actually crash."

Maximus leaned back into his chair, staring at the ceiling. "Explain to me again why we didn’t hire an IT team for this?"

Zack snorted. "Because someone said, ’Oh, Zack, you’re a genius. You can handle it all yourself, right?’"

Maximus groaned. "Alright, fine. My bad. I believed in you too much."

"As you should," Zack replied smugly. "But even geniuses have limits. This is insane."

Maximus checked the screen again. 193,032 registrations. "Man, this is going to take all night."

The system they had built was pretty straightforward — on paper, at least.

People would first log in to the website, where they’d be prompted to choose from three different resort passes — standard, premium, and VIP.

Naturally, VIP was absurdly expensive, but that didn’t seem to stop people from buying them in bulk.

Once a plan was selected, they’d be redirected to an automated payment system.

After completing the transaction, they’d enter their email, and the system would generate a virtual ticket linked to that email, which would then be verified on launch day when they were to be let into the resort.

It was simple. Efficient. Designed to handle a lot of traffic.

But apparently, not this much.

"So," Maximus said, pulling himself up. "What’s the plan?"

Zack sighed. "For today? We just keep verifying as many registrations as possible. Tomorrow, I’ll find someone to hire for this because — "

A loud notification sound blasted in Maximus’s ear.

200,001 registrations.

Zack clicked his tongue. " — because we’re drowning, bro."

Maximus took a deep breath and sat up properly. "Alright. Let’s just power through."

"You sure?" Zack asked. "You’ve been at this all day."

Maximus shrugged. "And I’ll be at it all night if I have to. We can’t have people showing up without valid registrations."

Zack sighed. "Alright, fine. Let’s grind this out."

Maximus cracked his knuckles. "Time to suffer."

"Time to suffer," Zack echoed.

And with that, they got to work.

Hours passed.

The numbers kept climbing. The sun had started setting, casting an orange glow through the windows.

Maximus’s eyes were starting to blur, but he kept clicking, verifying, and sending out virtual tickets.

At some point, Dressa came downstairs. She walked into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and glanced at Maximus.

He barely acknowledged her, too lost in his work. She didn’t say anything — just raised an eyebrow, took a sip of water, and left.

Fifteen minutes later, she came back.

This time, she opened the fridge, grabbed a snack, and once again silently observed Maximus like he was some kind of lab experiment.

He finally looked up. "You good?"

She tilted her head. "Are you good?"

Maximus gestured at his laptop. "No."

She smirked. "Figured."

Then she grabbed another bottle of water and left.

Zack, who had been listening through the call, chuckled. "She’s just checking if you’re still alive."

"Yeah, well, give it a few more hours, and I might not be."

After what felt like an eternity, Zack suddenly groaned.

"Yo," he said, "I just realized something."

"What?" Maximus asked, still verifying emails.

"We’re literally printing money right now."

Maximus blinked. "Huh."

Zack continued, "Think about it. We’re sitting here, half-dead, clicking through registrations, and people are throwing thousands of dollars at us."

Maximus frowned. "...So what I’m hearing is, I should be happier about this?"

"Yes!" Zack exclaimed. "Dude, in the last two hours alone, we’ve made more money than some people make in a year. And all we had to do was suffer."

Maximus leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "I don’t know, man. This level of suffering might not be worth it."

"Bro," Zack said, "if someone gave you two million dollars but said you had to verify emails for eight hours straight, you wouldn’t do it?"

Maximus sighed. "...I’d do it. But I’d complain the entire time."

"Obviously."

They kept working. The screen refreshed again.

165,482 registrations.

Zack groaned. "This is never-ending."

Maximus laughed tiredly. "What did we expect? We built a resort, hyped it up, and now everyone wants in. We should’ve known this would happen."

"You say that like we’re masterminds and not two idiots panicking at the last minute."

"Yeah, well, at least we’re two idiots who are about to be very rich."

Zack sighed dramatically. "Fine. Let’s get back to suffering."

Maximus nodded, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah. Time to suffer."

Maximus groaned, rubbing his tired eyes.

The numbers on his screen were still climbing, but at this point, they blurred together like an unreadable mess.

His fingers ached from all the clicking, his back was stiff, and Zack was still rambling in his ear about website stability or something.

Then it hit him.

"Oh, shit," Maximus muttered, sitting up straight.

"What?" Zack asked.

Maximus checked the time. "Shit, shit, shit."

"What, bro? Talk to me."

Maximus ran a hand through his hair, suddenly feeling the panic set in. "I have a date set tonight ."

There was a brief silence on the line.

Then Zack burst out laughing. "Bro, you forgot?"

Maximus grabbed his phone, double-checking his messages. "Dude, I’ve been drowning in emails all day! How was I supposed to — " He cut himself off, staring at the last message from Lily.

Crap.

Zack was still laughing. "Man, I hope the

girl slaps you for this,"

Maximus groaned. "Not helping!"

"Not trying to help! This is funny as hell."

Shaking his head, Maximus slammed his laptop shut. "Alright, I need to go. You hold things down here. I’ll be back in... I don’t know, some time."