Royal Emporium

Finn was currently on his way to the city of Iliados after he agreed to meet his friends in one of the bars there.

Once he got home from the café, he told his parents that he might miss some meals again, and he explained that his body was being fed in the capsule while he was playing.

His mom was first against it, but after remembering Finn's new body, she realized that the liquid must have really good properties for the human body, so she agreed with the condition that he would go eat with them once in a while.

Finn was then transported to the village square, where he had logged off.

He bought water and food because he was almost out of his jerky, and two daggers so that he could use them for assassinations.

His new sword was made for frontal assault rather than assassination, so he needed to buy the daggers to not lose 50% of his fighting power.

There were quests that Finn could do before leaving, but all of their rewards weren't really worth it for him, so instead of wasting his time with them, he departed for the big city, where the quest rewards were much more plentiful.

One of the villagers was going to sell his produce in Iliados, so he gave Finn a lift in his carriage. He also told Finn some helpful things about the city.

To Finn, who was living his second life, it was nothing new, but he still thanked him nonetheless.

---

After traveling for a day and a half, they finally arrived at Iliados.

It was a humongous city stretching as far as Finn's eye could see and the city itself was separated into different zones.

The outer zone, or the zone that was the closest to the walls, were the slums, where the poor people lived.

Closer to the center was the Middle district, which consisted of stone medieval houses where families that could afford to get by in their day-to-day lives lived.

This zone was also the biggest, and the closer a house was to the center of the city, the richer the family was.

The middle district also had large markets, theaters, bars, inns, and other buildings made for entertainment, so it was frequented even by the nobility that lived in the Noble district.

Next was the Noble district. There were a lot of mansions in this area with medieval-style architecture, and each one had lovely gardens that many gardeners cared for every day.

This district looked like it was taken straight out of a fairy tale, with a marble-paved road that connected all those breathtaking mansions together.

It was beautiful, but it still lacked when compared to the Royal Palace, or as some called it, "The Gem of Iliados."

There were marble statues of the previous kings along the road, which was surrounded by a garden that had gorgeous exotic flowers decorating it.

This long road, made of marble with gold veins, led to the Royal Palace.

A tall white castle that was the size of a small city by itself stood in the dead center of the city. It was built on a mountain so that the king would look down at his subjects while living above them.

There were numerous tall towers on the castle itself, with the middle one being the tallest.

It had a big wooden gate as an entrance, but Finn didn't know how the inside of the castle looked since only players who had a high enough reputation in this city would be granted an audience with the king.

Glad that he was finally here, Finn stepped inside the city and was immediately met with a bustling atmosphere.

"Buy one, get one free!"

"The freshest produce you have ever seen!"

"If you don't buy now, then you will regret it forever!"

There were people trying to sell things to the travelers that were arriving in the city while shouting.

Finn ignored them because his financial situation was starting to look bleak.

He now only had four silver coins from his gold coin that he had won on the first day of the game, so he needed to sell the corpses that were in his inventory.

Because of the humongous size of the city, everyone used public carriages that worked like buses in real life.

There were rails built into the ground that the carriage used to always drive the same route. The route then had multiple stops where the carriage would stop, and people would get off or on.

These public carriages were made a lot bigger to accommodate more people, and people had to pay for a ticket upon entering them.

The price of the ticket depended on their destination and how far it was from the stop they got on.

Finn waited for a few minutes at one of these carriage stops, and soon a carriage came. It stopped in front of him, and he got on.

"Free Avenue, please."

He informed the bus driver of his destination, and the driver took only a few seconds to calculate the price of the ticket.

Since all of the stops had the same distance between them, he just had to calculate how many stops Finn would use the carriage for and multiply this number by 5, which was the price of riding the carriage for only one stop.

"Ten copper coins."

The driver stretched out his hand, and Finn handed him the coins. The ticket price was made to be as cheap as possible so that everyone could afford to buy a ticket.

The driver also had a blue stone next to him that shined after Finn got on. This was a Memory stone, and it helped the driver keep track of everyone inside the carriage.

Every time the carriage arrived at a designated stop, the stone would show the faces of those that were supposed to get off, and if somebody refused to get off, hoping to hitch a free ride, the driver would ask one of the patrolling guards on the street to throw him out.

The carriage soon arrived at Free Avenue, and Finn swiftly got off, not wanting to be forcefully dragged out.

He then took a nostalgic look around after the carriage had left.

This street was one of the entertainment streets, as it didn't have any family houses. There were a lot of inns that people could sleep in, though.

There were a lot of bars and inns, but it also had a lot of shops. One of those shops was called the Royal Emporium.

It was a shop that sold pretty much anything, and it had multiple branches all across the city, but this one was the main one, so it was also the largest one.

The shop was a tall building surrounded by pillars that were made out of black stone, and it had a huge R with a golden crown above the entrance.

When Finn entered, there were lines of people, so he joined the shortest one and waited for his turn.

After a few minutes of waiting, it was his turn, and so he went and sat down at a table that had two chairs. The other chair was occupied by a handsome blonde man with green eyes and long, pointy ears.

Finn knew instantly that this was an elf, and contrary to human stereotypes about arrogant elves, the elves in Second Life were kind and gentle to everyone, but if you angered them, they wouldn't hesitate to snap your head off.

"Hello sir. What can I help you with today?"

The blonde elf asked with a professional smile.

He was wearing a white shirt with a black vest and a red tie that went well with the color of his vest and he had a nametag on his left breast that had the word "Anduin" written on it.

"Hello, I would like to sell some monster corpses that I have hunted."

Finn wasn't wearing a backpack that could store those corpses, but Anduin wasn't flustered because in this world, the richer NPCs used spatial rings that had spatial storage inside of them.

The players had an inventory, which was basically just a larger version of a spatial ring.

"Certainly sir. Please follow me into our warehouse, where I will assess the price."

Anduin got up from his chair, and with a slight bow, he pointed his hand in the direction of the shop's warehouse.

Finn also got up and followed Anduin until they reached the warehouse.

Anduin then told Finn to place the monster corpses he wanted to sell on the ground.

Finn nodded, and after browsing his inventory, he first took out all 10 kobold corpses and one Kobold king corpse.

This surprised Anduin a little, as he thought that Finn was someone weak who would want to sell some wild rabbits or something.

But Finn wasn't done yet.

He then took out ten fire imps, twelve black wolves, and the boss monster, Grawdr.

Finn kept the moonlight wolves, as he was planning to use their hides for creating armor.

He would have also kept Grawdr's corpse for his strong leather, but it was way too tough and would have been impossible to work with, so he decided to sell it since he needed money.

At this point, Anduin was looking at the pile of monster corpses with a shocked expression.

He had started working there only recently and had never seen such a massive haul, so he quickly called his boss to help him with the calculations.

Soon, Finn heard the clapping sound of high heels, and when he turned around, he saw a middle-aged woman wearing a white shirt and a black skirt.

She had her black hair tied into a bun, and when she saw the corpse of Grawdr, which Finn had brought, a smile bloomed across her face.

The woman used a spatial ring on her finger to take all the corpses, and then she started calculating the price on a piece of paper.

After she was done, she asked Finn to follow her into her office, and so he followed. Anduin returned to his post because he had customers to serve.

The office had a large table with various documents stacked on top of each other.

Two couches surrounded the coffee table in the center of the room, so Finn sat down on one of them and received some tea.

"My name is Nora, the manager of this branch."

Nora introduced herself with a slight bow and poured some tea for Finn to enjoy.

She then sat down across from him and got straight to business.

"The price for the corpses is twenty gold coins, and we had a bounty on the bear Grawdr because he was killing the horses of our merchants, so we added this bounty into your total, making it fifty gold coins."

"Fifty?! You had a bounty of thirty gold coins?!"

Finn was calmly drinking his tea when he heard about the big bounty he had done by accident and didn't even know about.

He was so surprised that he spilled his tea all over Nora.

Fortunately, the tea wasn't too hot, so she didn't get burned.

"I'm so sorry!"

Realizing what he had done, he started apologizing, but Nora stopped him.

"It's ok. I understand you were just surprised. Anyway, as I was saying, compared to the profits we have lost by him killing our horses and thus making the delivery of our goods extremely slow, thirty gold coins are nothing."

Nora explained in a calm way why the reward was so high as she wiped her face with a towel.

"As this sum is such a sizeable amount, I have decided to give you the VIP card of the Royal Emporium. If you show this card in any of the branches, you will be prioritized in any of your dealings."

She said as she handed Finn a black card.

It was made out of black steel, and it had the words "The Royal Emporium" carved on it in a beautiful golden color.

On the backside there was the logo of the Royal Emporium, which was the letter R with a golden crown on top of it, and under it there were three letters "VIP."

"This card was made with magic, so it needs a drop of your blood to recognize you as the sole owner of it."

Nora said as she handed Finn a thin needle.

He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall on the card.

With it, the card shone for a second, and after it stopped, the words "Chained_Trickster" appeared on the card, written in a golden color.

Finn was then given his hefty sum of 50 gold coins, and with a bow from Nora, he left the Royal Emporium.

He could have also sold the kobold's metal weapons, but he decided to sell them in a blacksmith shop since he would probably get a better price there than in a popular department store.

Finn did have a VIP card, but it wouldn't grant him better prices, only better treatment like skipping lines.

He then walked along the street until he arrived in front of one of the bars that was called "Flying Pig."

This was the bar he and his friends agreed to meet at.

When Finn opened the bar door and entered the bar, he was immediately hit with a warm temperature that differed from the cold one outside.

The bar was filled with chairs and tables, but since it was currently afternoon, there were only two tables taken, so it didn't take him even a second to notice where his friends were sitting.

He went to greet them, and out of curiosity, he looked around to see who else was in the bar in the afternoon.

Finn didn't see the person's face, but when he saw the long, purplish hair and the outline of a perfect figure, he instantly stopped in his tracks and mumbled.

"What are the chances...?"