Setting Up for a Stressful Week

[Arius POV]

"Because I want to! I don't like Kaiser! I want to prove him wrong! And most of all, I want to see more engraving!"

Hearing my little outburst, I see Grampa Edward tremble a little before bringing me into a hug. I was a little shocked for a moment but after the initial surprise, I returned the hug as well.

After a few breaths, Grampa Edward releases the hug and faces away from me, before heading upstairs.

"Arius, I'll show you everything I know about Engraving."

"Yeah!"

...

With that, we got to work figuring out how to revive Grampa Edward's business. We first started to clean up the shop itself. There was too much dust everywhere, no one would want to shop there.

Dust dust

"Cough, Cough, Grampa Edward, how well does the shop, cough, need to be so that we don't get kicked out."

"Hmm, looking through these papers, we would need to reach a certain amount paid in taxes."

"Taxes?"

"Yeah, taxes, since the Count is responsible for the growth and protection of the city the residents will need to pay taxes. Shops too. For all the shops, the city will take a certain percentage of profits as taxes. *Sigh* Who would think there would be a day when I would want to pay more taxes."

"What! They take money from everyone! How much do we need to sell then?"

"It would take about 30 engraved items. *sigh* It makes that there wasn't a single business that managed to reach that goal."

Hearing the depressed tone from Grampa Edward's voice, I turn around after I finished dusting the front windows.

"Is that a lot?"

"It's a lot, remember we only got a week to do this. Looking at the time, it took me probably half an hour of extreme concentration to finish engraving your dagger and that was with me having an extremely well-made dagger to work with. Due to my old age and lesser quality items, I can probably only engrave about five or so items a day and that's considering that I won't fail the engravement.

Also, a big factor is the price of engraved items. Copper-ranked engraved items have a price ranging from 50 copper to 1 silver coin. While most adventurers could buy them, most would be unwilling to when you can buy multiple normal swords for the same price."

Throughout his entire rant, Grampa Edward continued to mop the floor and wipe the shelves clean. While what he said was demoralizing, I could feel that he believed we could do it. Since he believed in us, I needed to as well.

"Don't worry about getting items to engrave, I'll take care of that!"

"Alright, then I won't be courteous."

With a smile drawn on both our faces, we quickly cleaned up the shop and I promised to come here early the next morning. With that, I left the shop. On the way back to the inn, I think back to what we were going to do. Grampa Edward needed a lot of items to be made to engrave on, the items needed to be different weapons or armours to attract the most amount of people.

'Ok, I need to first get my hands on a place to forge. I should probably ask Master Doherty, he'll know somewhere.'

With my plan set up in my mind, I let out a deep breath as I clear my mind from this stressful situation and simply observe the streets I was walking around. Perhaps it was because it was a little late, but there weren't many people walking on the street.

Seeing the well-made and beautiful houses that lined the street, I couldn't help but give a little respect to Kaiser, assuming that he was the one that did all this. Soon, I reach a street where there were many large and small shops. Seeing some of the staff closing their shops, I couldn't help but think about the situation that Grampa Edward was in now.

'Dakria, do you think many of these shops used to be shops like Grampa Edward's.'

'It's a near certainty. Kaiser wouldn't be able to command such respect without some pretty sizable changes.'

'... Whatever, my head hurts from thinking about all these sad things. I'm bored. Dakria, can you come out of Duargeinhelm and play with me.'

'Sorry, Arius, I can't do it now.'

'Does that mean you can do it?'

'...probably, I think? Maybe, I don't know. I don't have that knowledge in my systems but I do believe that there should a physical body that would allow me to do so somewhere in Duargeinhelm. You'll just need to become a creator first.'

'Again with becoming a creator, I will, I will. I'll learn engraving from Grampa Edward and find Mr. Krast to teach me alchemy and I'll be set!'

Just as I finished talking to Dakria, I walk into the inn and see Master Doherty at one of the front tables eating a delicious-looking stew. Feeling my tummy rumble, I quickly run over and sit down. Then looking around, I make eye contact with one of the waiters, calling him over.

"What would you like, dear guest?"

"Can I have one of your most delicious foods?"

"Of course."

Seeing the waiter walking away with my order, I already feel my mouth drooling a little bit. As a gold-ranked food eater, I developed a tactic when I was in a new restaurant in Erlabyn. By asking you for the most delicious food, I get the best food and save my hard-earned money because I didn't have to order one of every food item to try out.

Wiping away my drool, I looked toward Master Doherty, who was across from me. He seemed to be in a daze, all he was doing was bringing his spoon to his mouth every once in a while.

'He hasn't said a thing yet. That's weird?'

"Master, why are you all dazed? Master, I got something to ask you. Master? Master Doherty!"

"HA!... ha ha ha ha..."

After calling his name, Master Doherty suddenly jolted up before looking around and realizing that I was there.

"Did you say something, Arius?"

"Yeah, but are you ok, Master? You seemed pretty weird just now."

"It's fine, Arius, I just remembered that I had some overdue work that I forgot about."

"Oh really, I know exactly how that feels. There was this one time Sister Liza, who works at the orphanage, told me to get the bread out of the stove. I forgot and I had to run away after hearing her scream my name. Ha ha ha!"

"Ha, alright, Arius. What did you want to ask me?"

Seeing Master Doherty show a smile on his face, I smile back too.

"I need somewhere to forge. I also need some materials."

"Hmm, alright. You can just rent out a forging room in the Craftsman Guild. Why do you need the forge for? Are you running the high of just passing the entrance test?"

"No, I need it to help out Grampa Edward."

With that, I started to explain the situation with Grampa Edward's shop. Halfway through my talk, my food arrived. Just taking a bite of the delicious meat in front of me, I knew I made the right decision with my order. Taking a bit between sentences, I eventually got the story across.

"Hmm, seems like the Count is letting the balance slip. Well, hearing that story, I'm proud that you've decided to use your talents in a situation like this, Arius. While I would love to help you, I've been quite busy with the work I mentioned before. Feel free to use the forge at the Craftsman Guild, I'll rent it out for the week."

"Thanks, Master!"

With that, Master lays down a few coins on the table before quickly leaving. I simply sat there eating my delicious meal as I listened to a few other conversations going on around me. Most of them were simply stories of adventurers fighting monsters.

As I finished my last bite, I see Master come back and toss a token into my hands.

"That will be for the forging room."

"Ok, Master!"

With that, I see Master head upstairs. Looking at the stary sky outside, I felt a little sleepy too. After getting the price from the waiter, I reluctantly take out what little coins I had and placed them on the table.

Walking to my room, I only had one thought in mind.

'It was worth it, it was worth, definitely work two days of adventuring, it was so good...''

...

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Edward's Fun Fact: Most engraver apprentices go through many items as they learn how to engrave. The most common way for them to destroy the item is they take too long engraving. Once the mana dust is applied to the item, the durability of the item will start to decrease. This decrease will be fully reversed if a valid engravement is placed on the item and after the depleted version of the mana dust is applied. If they take too long, the durability will drop to zero and the item will become junk. A skilled engraver can tell roughly how much time they have left to complete the engraving.