11 Going to the Market

Walking into the bank Astur finds it to be just as deserted as it previously was, with only the employees and a handful of customers, still mostly consisting of the employee's friends. Seeing Astur enter, the teller who handled her previously, Krisha Lovenus, beckons Astur over to her.

"Good timing, your card has been made," Krisha says, handing over an envelope to Astur.

"So you remember me," Astur says.

"Of course I do, someone with your appearance isn't easy to forget. And who's this your daughter, no wait, considering your age, granddaughter?" Krisha asks, looking towards Elizabeth.

"Hell no! I'm way too young to have a daughter let alone a granddaughter!" Astur yells, attracting the attention of everyone in the bank. "What do you all think you're lookin' at!"

Immediately everyone who had turned to watch had turned away, knowing better than to keep watching and invoke the wrath of an already annoyed woman.

"But Astur, being over a hundred isn't exactly young to most people," both Krisha and Elizabeth thought, only to receive a glare from Astur.

"You two," Astur says, turning back towards Elizabeth and Krisha, "you just thought something rude just now."

The two quickly shake their heads in denial as they both thought, "why is she so sharp!?"

"Ahm, so this young girl would be your friend then?" Krisha asks, bring the conversation back to where it started.

"Hmm… housemaid?"

"Why do you sound so unsure of it yourself?" Krisha thought, but before she could say anything, Elizabeth answers.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss. My name is Elizabeth. Lady Astur has graciously allowed me to reside within her abode. I have, in return, been assisting with some house chores, but I assure you, I am no maid," she says with a slight bow.

Krisha looks Elizabeth over for a moment before saying, "a noblewoman?"

Astur thinks it over for a couple of seconds, saying, "You could say that."

"My, what gave it away?" Elizabeth questions.

"Although your choice of clothing is questionable," Krisha says, looking at the clothes that are clearly several sizes bigger than her, "your manner of speech and the way you act are dead giveaways. But back to business, did you get a PO box or some other way to have mail delivered to you?"

Nodding at her question, Astur fills out a couple of forms for dealing with mail from the back and if she wants to receive any notice of special offers, which obviously gets declined.

"If that's all on your end, there's a couple of things I want to ask," Astur says.

"We should be about done with all the bureaucratic procedures, so what do you want to know?"

"This, I wanted to know if I can buy these at the market around here," Astur says, handing over a slip of paper.

"Let me see… oxygen, carbon, hydrogen… so you're looking for some chemical elements, and quite a few at that. Heh, why not just go outside if you're looking for oxygen?" Krisha asks with clear sarcasm in her voice.

Astur just looks at Krisha with an unamused expression as she continues, "fine, don't laugh at my bad joke. As for when you can get these, it would have to be from specialised sellers online, the Town of Dawn doesn't have any place here or nearby where you can easily get a hold of raw chemical elements."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Also, can I get some recipes at the market?" Astur asks.

"If it's just cooking recipes you're after, I'm sure you can just look online. But there should be a few bookstores with cookbooks in them," Krisha says.

"I know, but that's not what I was looking for. I meant things like the exact list of ingredients a blacksmith would use to make a sword or like a mage's recipe for a potion."

"Oh, that might be a little harder, most people don't sell their methods easily and typically only teach it to their apprentices. But that isn't to say there's nothing, there are a few things publicly available at the library, most of them are outdated."

Crossing her arms and closing her eyes, Astur takes a moment to think as she remembers something, "ok then, I'll just check out what's at the market and look for what I need online later. I'll be back if I need something from here," she says as she turns around to leave the bank.

Elizabeth gives a slight bow in goodbye before following after Astur while Krisha says, "I'll look forward to serving you again."

As Astur and Elizabeth leave the bank and begin walking towards the market district, Astur asks, "why are you suddenly acting all formal and polite? Now that I think about it, you acted similarly towards me when we first met."

Elizabeth just sighs and thinks, "Astur… since I got tied up and hung from the ceiling, you've lost the privilege of receiving a polite attitude, you insane drug addict."

"I don't deny being a little insane, but calling me a drug addict is rude. I just enjoy the finer things in life. And as a person of culture, I know that next you'll say, 'how did you read my mind'."

"How did you read my-- what!" Elizabeth says, with her loud outburst attracting a few eyes from the people around us.

While Elizabeth keeps pestering Astur on her previous actions, she just ignores her while taking a look at her status, causing her to let out a small sigh. Astur compares the EXP she needs to level up her Alchemist class to how much free EXP she currently has, only to see her being just a few hundred short of a level up. If it were just stat points Astur was after, she has enough free EXP to level her subclasses, but for her current idea, she still needs one more level in her Alchemist class to be able to learn the skill she wants, [Item Disassembly]. This skill is relatively straightforward, it breaks down an item into its core ingredients, allowing Astur to reverse engineer a recipe for almost anything. Although there are limits to it upon first learning it, with subsequent upgrades to the skill using her Skill Points, Astur can eventually reach a point where almost anything can be disassembled.

"Will you stop ignoring me and say something!?" Elizabeth says.

"Huh? You say something, little runway," Astur says, looking down at Elizabeth.

Little runway…" it doesn't take too long for Elizabeth to realise what Astur was insinuating once she realised where it was Astur's eyes had been focused on when she said that. "I'm still growing!"

"Human females generally reach the end of their physical growth around 15 years old, and I don't think it should be too different for Vampires," Astur thinks as she silently pats Elizabeth's head.

"So what were you actually trying to say earlier?" Astur asks.

"That's right, I nearly forgot. I was wondering what you even wanted from the market, you never explained your reason for coming here."

"Do you want the short or the long answer?"

"Give me the long one, I want to try and understand what's going through your head," Elizabeth says.

A creepy smile makes its way onto Astur's face as she says, "ok," while Elizabeth begins to feel she should have taken the short answer. Astur then goes on to explain her thought process, from the absolute beginning, on how the economy works and the mathematics behind it. It doesn't take more than thirty seconds before Elizabeth's eyes have entirely lost focus and appears to have had her brain fried before Astur eventually stops to ask, "do you understand so far?"

"... can I have the short version?"

Satisfied, Astur nods and says, "money."

"How about the short but explained version," Elizabeth asks, not understanding what Astur is trying to do.

"I'm going to buy some stuff that looks useful or is popular, then I'm going to reverse engineer them and make it all at a higher quality so I can sell them back. Naturally, I have a few strategies in mind to run my competitors out of business, but I know someone who might be able to provide some more insight on this matter, so I'll ask them later."

Arriving at the crosswalk just beyond the Town of Dawn's market district, Elizabeth just gives Astur an empty look as she says, "you evil capitalist."