n

n

nRedlands didn't have land ownership.

nNot for another six months, anyway. Most players rented and leased.

nBut there were two buildings that were the exception: a warehouse, a workshop. They were currently the only two properties available for player sale and purchase.

nKrow tapped and flicked at the layers of items he was now going through.

nStarfall Tunic. Starfall Trousers.

nOf all the things to sell, why the ones that didn't take up an equip slot?

nNew players were that hard up for money?

nThere weren't a lot; maybe a dozen on the kingdom market all told, selling for 3-10 drax.

nOf course no one bought.

nThe top players were barely earning 50 drax a day at this point.

nHe gestured the Exiled Seafarer's Bracers closer, bought it.

n45k drax. He now needed 5k more to gain access to the Bourse, the Infinity Catalogue.

nWho knew how many players in the whole of Redlands were even now throwing away their starting gear?

n

"Weapons. Add Starfall gear.

"

nWeapon after weapon appeared in the holoframe.

nWhoa.

nOf the draculkar players alone, there were hundreds replacing their starting weapons and selling them.

nEnchantable, levelable weapons, hundreds of them, from various battleclasses.

nMost costing less than twenty drax each.

nEven at those prices people currently thought it was extortionate. Who'd buy starting gear? Only a fool.

nHe glanced at his post-vault, grimaced. As a Silver Token member of Orddet's, he had 500 slots. Unfortunately, they didn't stack items.

nHow many towns and cities were there in the draculkar kingdom, anyway? Maybe if he bought enough, every town would pile the items in crates rather than individual packages before delivering to Krow's trade-vault?

nKingdom accounts had to deal with delivery fees, so he reserved 10,000 drax for that.

nThen set up public buy-orders for every Starfall weapon and item possible. The Orddet's branches in various locations would gather the items to fill the buy-orders before delivering.

nA couple thousand of the things would only make a semi-massive dent in his current budget. Less by far than the Bracer's cost anyway.

nWhen Yhulanve entered the room with a soft knock, Krow was standing, his arms crossed, and watching as players lowered their prices to match the public buy-orders that had been announced to the kingdom catalogue.

nHe'd qualified for the Infinity Catalogue and the Bourse already, as four hundred items and rising were earmarked for him by the system.

nThere were so many that he'd transferred 1000 ecru from his living expenses to support the order. That was another 100,000 drax.

nIt felt a little like excitement, a little like disbelief, as he watched the numbers rise.

nIt felt like, what was he doing?

nHe wasn't planning on learning Enchantment for at least two months. He also needed ethermica cubes or ethermica dust to level up an item without spirit-binding it.

nEthermica, a crystalline material colored ice-blue and lavender, currently, went by 10 drax per fist-sized cube in the Bourse. He had buy-orders for that too.

nHe was pouring out cash by the buckets for this, and wouldn't see profit for months on months.

nNot to mention, his living expenses budget was now down to the 600 ecru or so that was his whole bank account. That meant he'd need a realworld job in three months if his hunting couldn't become profitable.

nHe'd experienced something close to poverty.

nIt couldn't be called poverty, what with his refusal to sell the apartment he was still considered a property-owner.

nHe'd nearly starved himself for that apartment, the memories within. Even preserving the shkav-ridden furniture!

nObsessed with the past.

nHe never wanted to be that close to starving again.

nBut these numbers….

nNow he was seemingly throwing away everything. His fingers drummed agitatedly on his crossed arm, eyes a little frenzied behind the blankness as he stared at the orders that were filling, the numbers that were ticking down.

nHe probably should look away. Armor. He should check the armors again, now that he had a greater selection in the Bourse. The accessories and Spells too.

nHe couldn't look away.

n

"I have your Tradebook.

" There was something odd in Yhulanve's measured tone. Alarm? Concern?

nWho would know, her face was as ever like stone.

n

"Thanks,

" Krow mentally gripped his thundering heart, ordering it to calm down, and prodded his brain into working. Space! That's right, he needed space.

"Orddet's doesn't sell deeds?

"

n

"We can assess property, and yes, we handle deeds.

" She placed the Tradebook on an end-table near the door. Not moving closer.

"But here, by the Cyzar's laws we can't deal in property sales. You'll have to check the Kingdom Realty for that.

"

nHe blinked.

"What?

"

nThat was a thing? He knew he bought his first warehouse in Zushkenar off the Catalogues. But the local markets here in Nyurajke didn't have the familiar roster of deeds.

n

"The Cyzar likes to keep his lands in draculkar hands.

" An unreadable smile briefly curved Yhulanve's lips.

"And Orddet's is not a draculkar business, as it has its roots in several other nations. The Kingdom Realty is the only public agency allowed to buy and sell property in the Cyzar's domain. Private sales and transfers of deeds are of course allowed, provided the buyer is draculkar. Only the low borderlands can be sold in freehold to outsiders.

"

nWhat.

nOkay, there was obviously something he was missing.

nHe remembered very clearly Gojo saying he sold his city estate to a crazy mafmet before he then bunked from the draculkar highlands entirely. One of the rare few moments where there was time to laze about, and people were telling stories in the dying light of afternoon.

nThere were no draculkar cities in the borderlands.

nThis was true in both game and game-made-real.

nObviously there were differences between the game and real Zushkenar.

nHow much of his memories were actually applicable to Redlands?

nHe glanced at the holo, anxiety again threatening to overwhelm.

nHe breathed slowly, rhythmically.

n

"Thanks for the clarification,

" he forced a smile at Yhulanve.

"I suppose I'll return here to sign something designating which warehouse to take the vault overflow?

"

n

"You can do that by entering the warehouse number and address into your records using any terminal.

"

nKrow glanced at the tradebook.

"Speaking of which…

"

n

"In all, 1500 drax will take care of everything.

"

nAh, there was the gouging he expected. He only paid 100 drax to upgrade his Bronze Token before. And a tradebook…actually he bought an old one from Craftmaster Ortholian.

nIt was easier to earn money in Redlands.

nHe paid.

n

"If there is nothing else?

"

nKrow shook his head.

n

"It is my understanding that you've not been in Nyurajke long.

"

n

"Not two hours.

"

n

"Then I wonder. You seem to have made yourself interesting to someone.

" Yhulanve bowed briefly.

"Welcome to Orddet's, Ilas Krow. May we prosper eternal.

"

nThe portiere dropped as she left, the embroidered cloth swayed slightly before stilling from the activation of the security measures.

nKrow walked to the doorway, his fingers touching the cloth softened it again. Boldly, he walked out, stretched imaginary kinks in his muscles, turning this way and that with brief calisthenics.

nAha, yes, there were a couple of people eyeing him. There was only calculation in their gazes. Before they could move, Krow finished twisting his waist here and there, and returned to the private room casually.

nThey were loitering at all access points to the gallery.

nHe had a feeling he'd be tailed to his visiting-house.

nHe already knew something like this could happen, but Yhulanve's warning was appreciated.

nKrow took up the Tradebook as he passed.

nTradebooks were portable trade terminals. They weren't 'books' precisely, but a metal and crystal tablet protected by a book-like cover.

nHe opened the Tradebook. It was a single slab, with a recessed area for the Trade Token.

nHe placed it in his Inventory.

nHe waved away the buy-orders, leaving them to continue running in a corner. He'd capped their allocated funds at 100,000 drax in any case.

nBecause of Stormglide, his MND was in fact the most important. As a rank-six spell, it needed at least 500MP to activate.

nHe only had half that, with 19 MND.

nKrow eyed the items in the holo, face slowly falling.

nTo have 500MP at his level, he needed 41 MND.

nWith an Aptitude of 11, that was still lower than what others needed to gain 500MP.

nBut still!

nWith the cheapest 12 MND item in the Bourse costing 85,000 drax, he'd spend practically all his game money just for Stormglide!

nWhat about his armor and Spells?

nGah.

nThis was like being gifted a car, then realizing your license expired five years ago and then being told at the licensing office that there'd been new policy and road laws since then, and because of that you need to retake driving lessons, both theory and practical, for three months. Of course, you had to pay for everything yourself.

nKrow exhaled a long breath.

nCars were really expensive, huh?

nThe cheapest 12 MND item was Whisker Necklace. It was cheaper by 20,000 drax from the next cheapest MND item. Krow suspected it was because it was…well, it was ugly.

nHe test-equipped it.

nA life-size figure of him appeared in the holo, feet and thighs sunk into the table surface.

nKrow laughed at the bursting mass of bristling hair around his neck, like he had a gristled white beard on his jawline and hair was growing out of his neck.

nHorrifying.

nIt didn't go with the lean youthfulness of his draculkar avatar at all.

nHe gestured to a mask he had on watchlist and added it to the test-equip holo.

nNot very much changed. But at least this way, people didn't know the face of the person who'd wear bushy scraggy hair under his chin?

nHe spied a gorget-necklace, one of the larger ones.

nHm.

nHe added it, curious.

nA smirk grew under the mask. That didn't look so bad, actually. The gorget hid some of the lower neck hair.

nIf he added a particular style of studded leather pauldrons, ones that were layered and bulked a bit higher at the neckline…he took a random set from his watchlist.

nHe grinned. It looked like he was wearing furry armor instead of a beard.

nThe white even went with his gloves

nHe tilted his neck side to side, up and down.

nNot bad?

nEh, who cared.

nDid he join this game for a beauty contest?

nHe waved everything away, and decisively bought the Whisker Necklace.

nHe also bought a gorget necklace in dark grey and white. No armor capability, but with a pretty nice HP recovery.

nAdd his watchlisted Dusk Illusion Mask Earclips and just those three items was 100k down.

nHe had to look a little harder to find a pauldron set he could buy, but soon the grade A Rare Lightless Kraken-skin Pauldrons joined his soon-to-be armor set at the cost of 58k drax. It was a shadow item, which was all the better.

nThe moonlight pearl inlays that accented the pauldrons were concerning, but Krow didn't worry about it long since the pauldrons were classed as stealth equipment.

nWhoever made the water-aligned Seeping Coral Greaves was kind enough to include knee protection.

nHe got the air-aligned Mindflayer's Belt for its MP-recovery and floral-aligned Bonewood Gauntlets to replace the Plague Doctor's Gauntlets he was still wearing. The new gauntlets were white, which he only realized after buying them for the 6 VIT.

nAfter those purchases, Krow had to replenish his account with drax from his inventory to buy the Firecoil Spell Scroll 3 Rank, Double Jump Spell Scroll 2 Rank, and the Shadowbind Spell Scroll3 Rank – all costing a total of 28,000 drax.

nHe wanted to buy Shadowbind II Spell Scroll 5 Rank, which was the mastery upgrade for the rank-three Shadowbind spell, but he now had less than 50k drax left for the warehouse.

nThat had to be enough. A warehouse….there was literally nothing in it, right?

nHow could it be as expensive as armor?

nHe retrieved his Silver Trade Token from the terminal, walked to the balcony and breathed.

nHis items would take a day of delivery, according to the system. As for the buy-orders, they'd keep buying until the 100,000 drax ran out.

nNo need to stress for now.

nNo stress at all.

nKrow breathed.

nHe rested his arms on the balustrade, eyed the space below the balcony.

nOrddet's was on the very edge of the floating platform. There was a hanging bridge that ran under said platform, and below that, about thirty meters below where he was, actual ground.

nSatisfied, he straightened, took out a grapple-hook, and vaulted into free fall.

n*

nEnd Chapter

n*

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