Chapter 92 – Merchant City – Part 2 Stores

"Our latest trade."

"I see."

Jack wants to press Albert some more but a short man comes out the door. He is balding, with grey curling hair on the sides and a short beard. He looks rather ridiculous but Jack adopts a straight face as he comes forward.

"Carl, this is my Lord, Jack. He is one of those players who have recently shown up."

"Ah so this is one of the confirmed ones…? I have met a few of the claimed ones but who cares about a player without a village? How do you do, I am Carl Ratzinger, I am the lead of this Artisan's Bazaar and shall be dealing with your village from now on." Carl's tone and voice is simple and betrays his appearance.

"Pleased to meet you, uhh... Albert has told me a lot about you so I look forward to dealing with you. Our city is growing but if I can speak as a player, I think It's growing pretty damn well..."

Jack blusters his way through a greeting as he looks at Albert, who gives him a jovial smile black, before turning towards Carl.

"What did I tell you!? He's great! So how about you invite us inside to have something to eat, since we haven't had breakfast yet."

"Of course, I'll invite you in and you'll eat with me out of the house. This isn't an eatery and it's not breakfast time. We got deals to make, let's go inside."

"Sure thing Carl, let's go inside."

Albert walks in basically side by side with Carl, Jack smiles to himself and follows them inside. He looks around the store as he follows them. The store itself looks fancy with marble everywhere. Precise cuts and counters cover every corner… but there's a problem. He cannot see what they sell here, it seems boring yet upscaled?! Jack follows behind Albert as they walk behind a set of curtains into a backroom. There's two large couches and a table between them.

Carl takes a seat while Albert signals for Jack to take a seat, Jack does so while he remains standing.

"So... I heard that you players aren't many."

"Uhh, sure. I guess that's true. There's not many of us compared to the people of this world. Each system city here has a ridiculous amount of people in it, which would be hard to find in an entire single country in our world. Why do you ask?"

"There's been many people coming in, claiming that because they're a player they should be entitled to anything in the store. How can I help them? We've been here for countless years so we've started to call them 'fake players' as a business group. Albert has spent quite some time in order to assure me that you're better off when compared to the others... so what shall we do?"

"I'm not really sure, what can you do?"

Carl stares at Jack, Jack responds with a stare without knowing what's going on. This lasts a few moments with neither of them breaking eye contact, Carl is the first to break.

"You're right, he's good..." Carl laughs and looks towards Albert.

Albert places his hand on Jack's shoulder and shakes it gently, Jack smiles with them.

"Alright we'll do what you said Albert, so long as you can promise me that next time I'll meet your Lord again?" Carl looks at Jack strangely. Jack doesn't react to this as Albert steps forward to block the line of sight.

"That depends on the deal you cut Carl... We have lots of places to visit after this so you better hurry up."

Jack breathes out deeply as he inwardly thanks Albert for stepping in, Carl shifts about on the couch but Jack cannot see it.

"Alright, let's go with the deal you proposed. I'll lose some money on it but it'll be great to work more closely with this Lord of yours..." Carl's words trail off, Jack can feel his eyes looking at his body.

Albert laughs, "Sure... You sure know how to pick the best deal."

Jack looks up at Albert, the two make partial eye contact with him making an eye signal towards the door. Jack takes that as the cue to leave, he stands up.

"Oh you're going?"

"I have many other places to visit. I'll be back."

"So domineering... Of course, I'll see you soon, I'm sure..."

Jack nods at Carl and leaves the room, he ignores the gazes behind him as he stands by the roadside. The carriage has left the area because it was never their carriage to begin with, Jack stands by the road and watches the traffic go by. The caves have made it narrow everywhere, causing traffic jams to form everywhere from thin air. Albert catches up slowly as he hands Jack a piece of paper.

"What was that about?" he asks Albert.

"Goods for the city, stone and lumbar mostly." Albert says.

"Great so how many more to go until the scroll store?" Jack looks at the scroll, it's a receipt for what was going on. Jack hands him the money in another ring, there's several million gold coins being transferred instantly but he doesn't mind. Albert walks away leaving Jack alone by the side of the road again.

A carriage pulls up after not too long, Jack looks around and waits for a moment before no one shows up. He opens up the carriage door as soon as Albert shows up.

"Lord. We're done!"

Jack pauses his steps, "We're done?" he turns to Albert who is standing there without any care.

"Well, we have a few more stores to go to, I'll organise with the driver, you shall relax. Please try to meditate again Lord." Albert stops and swings around to speak to the carriage driver.

Jack boards the carriage, he sits back in the chair and tries to relax but cannot feel relaxed not knowing what's going on yet... he really does not care about organising all of this stuff. He's just eternally grateful for Albert showing up to organise this all, yet hopes the next person is different to the last.

Albert re-enters the carriage shortly after, Jack looks towards him wondering what's on next.

"Lord, we'll head on over to the next store, it's not far but I couldn't account for this traffic so I don't really know how long it'll take. I'll inform you when we're close."

'So much for coming to the city early huh?' Xueli snickers in his mind.

Jack slaps his arm, "Sure whatever Albert, it's for the village."

Jack looks exhausted, his appearance is a bit haggard as he looks at the placard before the store in front of him.

'Jacqured's Scrolls and Items'

Jack looks at Albert, the middle-aged merchant doesn't have any expression on his face. Jack looks at the store before the two of them, it's tiny.

The previous stores they have visited have been luxurious, spacious and well decorated. The attendants would come out and greet them in the gateway. Jack was even starting to enjoy it, but instead, with this scroll store, the single store that he has been looking forward to all morning... it's this drudgery. Jack looks towards Albert again who is smiling.

"Please go in, Lord. I ensure the owner of the store is inside."

"Alright."

Jack proceeds inside the store. A dirty window filled with books blackens out the exterior. He walks inside and all he can see are endless piles of books and scrolls. There doesn't seem to be any sort of order in the piles, yet there is a pathway going through them. Jack makes his way through the short pathway looking at everything he can but sticking closely to the marked pathway. Albert does the same as they both come upon the counter.

"Good job." an old voice speaks from behind the counter.

"Speak, I heard the players will have questions. What do you want to know?"

"Do you have a teleportation scroll? One suited for the city hearts?"

"Sure, anything else?"

A talisman floats upwards from a pile to the back. The large piece of paper suddenly soars through the air towards him before slowly shrinking down, fitting into his palm. The inspection panel of the system comes up allowing him to inspect it.

<Teleport Scroll - System Heart Level - Allows teleportation to tier 1 cities within region.>

"You're lucky to have received this item. This was my last one, since I have to make so many of the stupid low level garbage. Why did I agree to this shit... Ugh."

"What?" Jack is confused by his soliloquy.

Albert steps forward, "Thank you master, We won't disturb you any further. We know that you're under the orders from the city lord."

The scroll store owner waves Jack off and turns around, Albert bows deeply and turns around after Jack.

They don't speak until they enter the carriage, Jack coughs.

"So what was that about?"

"That was the only talisman master in the city. He is unable to get any more supplies since the regional barriers came down, so I have promised to funnel him any supplies we might get that he could need. I am sure Lord won't mind it too much."

"What sort of materials? I don't mind since you handle the business side of things, but some more heads up would be nice, I don't want to say anything to jeopardize your deals."

"Lord, you are doing fine and it's best for you to handle these with your natural discretion. The materials he requested were, Tier 5 or higher beast skin."

"Tier 5? What sort of creature is that?"

"Well there is the legendary western bronze ox... it has the defense of a tier 5 creature."

'Those ox are delicious, so they're over there...' Xueli speaks to him.

"Tier 5 defense but not tier 5? How difficult are they to take down?"

"Well... sects often take them down. The last time one was taken down, the Yellow Springs Sect set out with only 230 people. They returned with 3."

"How strong were they?"

"Mostly Level 6 or higher..."

"Damn, we gotta get stronger... We can't really handle anything... beyond Tier 3 at the moment with the city's equipment. Not speaking regarding what I have... Anything regarding the dwarven power cubes? Something that can be used in their place?" Jack mutters to himself for a bit then asks Albert about the cubes.

"No Lord. That sort of thing is immediately taken by the stronger people, if Madam Leah were here then we could perhaps have a slight leeway with the people handling them but for now, without status, we are nobodies."

"Alright well perhaps the auction will surprise us."

Albert nods while Jack looks away, there are lots of people on the streets now as it's nearing lunch time, yet they have not seen any bunny assassins. Jack sits back and uses his divine sense to look around, his spiritual sense peeks at the inadverted people, because the divine sense is so unique it's hard to notice. The few people aware don't even recognise where it's coming from and by the time the best of them do, he's already out of reach. Jack practices like this for some time, before he notices something.

Jack quickly moves to open the door, a shadow jumps straight through it.

"Lord." a male bunny assassin is standing there in civilian clothing.

"What you got?"

"Madam Amber has sent word, she has given you directions on where to meet her. If Lord would like to follow me, I could take'im to the place where we need assistance."