The Shop.

Sleep evaded Akirai as she sat up all night thinking about her new situation and on what to do and she had ultimately decided to go and try her luck with the shop, the prospect of having something of her own, managed just by her was too enticing, she´d make the times, she´d make the prices, she decided who to serve and who to throw out, she loved to be free, and this shop, if it did well, could be a nice side buisness to finance her trips to the wild.

She lived in a world full of Beasts and covered in unexplored areas, untouched by man, she wouldn´t just sit by and let this opportunity escape her grasp.

The land and the shop were hers as her parents had bought the land years ago, the debt was due to her cousin failing to run the costs of keeping the store active.

She liked the idea of coming and going as she pleased, so, with her mind made up, she packed up and left on a flying Beast that was used to transport people and goods from place to place, and headed to the City with the name of "Forest edge"

The being that brought her to her goal was a bird like being with four wings and eight eyes, it was a Bronze-ranked Beast by the name of Eight eyed Sparrow due to it´s appearance reminding on of a sparrow.

She patted the being on the head where, from what she´d read about the Beasts on her ride, they liked to be petted and gave her thanks to the bird, which was returned by a happy "Cree" and a proud puff of it´s feathers, she´d laughed and gave her goodbye to the bird before leaving for her destination.

True to it´s name, the city bordered on a Forest-Zone, Zones being Beast breeding grounds and huntig grounds for humans, Zones had ranks too, from Bronze to Platinum- this Zone being a Bronze-Zone.

The ranks went as followerd, for both Beasts and Zones =No rank, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Ruby, Saphire, Emerald, Topaz and Platinum.

Most Zones were from Bronze rank to Gold rank, seeing as the rank depended on the overall region of the Zones.

The higher the rank, the more dangerous and powerfull the Beasts and Zones got.

For example, the only Ruby Zone known by man was an Island where the pacific ocean once layed, but was now named "The endless sea" and no sane human would dare go there with without a Ruby level Beast, anything under this would be suicide.

The Beasts living in a Bronze Zone were mostly no ranked to Bronze-ranked with few Silver-ranked monsters between them, most Zones near human settlements were Bronze to Silver ranked, but the farther you reached, the higher in rank the Beasts and Zones would become.

Akirao had read this on an official forum for Beast-masters, as humans with Beast companions were called, and mused a bit, this was a good place to start off with, it would ease her into this new world, because the old Akirai had never really had contact with these Beasts, living in a D+ ranked city with her parents- other than the tamed ones on Tv of course.

Akirai reached the shop that was dangerously close to the edge of town and looked at it with a bland look, "Seems like a horde ran through here." She thought.

The building was standing- yes, but only barely, the glass was broken and everything inside destroyed far beyond repair, glass was scattered on the floor and the shelves inside were destroyed and overturned.

A Beast horde must have passed through here as her shop was not the only building in this shape, constuction workers and low level Beast-Masters were working tirelessly on rebuilding and repairing what had been broken, her shop included- wich was likely where the bills had stemmed from, reperation due to low level Beast hordes.

Her shop was rather isolated as a large patch of land with overgrown grass could be seen on the sides and in the back of the shop, only a small path of grass was at the front of the store and the whole region had once been fenced in, although now the pieces of the fence were lying scattered all over the place.

And overall, this area was rather lonely, only a few houses stood here and there, and they too were in rather horrid conditions.

Beast hordes were a group or swarm of beasts coming out of the Zone to attack the neighbouring Citys or Zones to expand their territory, and the lower the rank of the city, thus the lower the security, the higher the chance of hoards coming.

she sighed and tapped one of the workers working on her shop a tap on the shoulder followed by a. "S´cuse me?"

The worker turned to her, hazel eyes sparkling in the late afternoon, he lifted his cap lightly in greeting before dropping it "What can I help ya´ with, Miss?" He asked.

"I´m sorry for interrupting you, but I´m the owner of this shop and want to ask when do you think the restoration will be done?" She tilted her head to the side lightly, Red, nearly brown hair spilling to the side.

"Ah," The mans brows rose in suprise "You´re the owner? Awfully young ain´t cha?"

She nodded and rose a brow to ask again, he snorted in a -whatever, not my problem- manner and said.

"Give us a day and a half and we´ll be done."

Now it was her turn to be suprised, and she voiced this. "Wow, that´s quick." She said, throwing a second glance at the building that was nearly falling apart.

Now he was laughing. "We´re good at what we do, Miss." She let out an amused huff before the man spoke again.

"You should buy what you need if you want to get back to business as soon as possible, Miss." He advised and she nodded in understanding.

"Thank you very much, good day." She excused herself, he bid her farewell and went back to work as she went to check on her ballance.

5.000 Credits, enough to last a normal famillie for 3 months, likely only enough to buy whatever was necessary, but then another thought struck her, where the fuck was she supposed to get Beasts from?

Where there regulations in place for this? Did she need a license? Did she have to breed the Beasts by hand? Could she catch them and then sell them?

She googled that REAL quick and was suprised at the simplicity of this-

Sure she needed a license, but the license of her parents worked- the regulations were nearly non-existent and she could just catch a few wild Beasts and sell them like that, wild, the contract made them work with humans, they weren´t loyal because of it, but they would heed their Masters demand and wouldn´t attack them unless they did something unforgivable to them.

Of course, people wanted already tamed Beasts as wild Beasts were more likely to rebell and run away than tamed beasts.

So the only problem she had now, was actually catching the Beasts and selling them.

She was baffled by this more than not, why was it so easy? Was she missing something? Was the licensing test just that hard?

In the end, Akirai had always been easy going, so she just brushed it off since it wasn´t a problem and left to shop for supplies.

It took her a long time of googling to find what she wanted- and needed, but for now, she ordered what she was necessary and told them to deliver it in two days time to her store.

This included cages, food and care supllies, if she needed anything else then she´d buy it later on, because even buying the bare minimum costed her 4.000 Credits and she still needed some to pay the bills and- not rent, she owned both the deeds to the flat and the store- she needed some for food for herself- so at the end, she was left with a measly 290 Credits.

She sighed, she was broke now.