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"What is the meaning of this?" asked an old and stoic man, with a long beard and shining aquamarine eyes. He sat over a beautiful chair made of wood, in front of him there was a desk of the same quality, covered in hundreds of papers and documents.

​​

"That's… the transactions are done yesterday, sir," said a young elven boy at the side of the man, seemingly his secretary.

"Are you telling me that Willian just did a transaction of over 5000 Gold Pieces?" asked the man, his eyes clearly showing his disbelief.

"Yes… The reports said that he… Bought over a ton of precious metals, varying from Gold Nuggets of over ten centimeters, large rocks of silver, iron, copper, bronze, and several magic alloys," said the young elf.

"That's… this bastard just made a fortune! And he bought it all so cheap?! And how did they even found so many materials? Who sold this?" asked the man.

"The name of the sellers was… Percy Miller, a Human, Ervas Igni, a Dhampir, and Veronica Igni, another Dhampir…" said the boy.

"Miller? Igni? Those after names… they are clearly not from here nor from any surrounding nation… And they also just registered as citizens?" asked the man.

"Yes sir, Willian moved the strings to make things easier for them in exchange for a few dozen of Gold Pieces… alongside this, they bought the Haunted Mansion…" said the elf boy.

"They bought the Haunted Mansion?! Are they insane?!" asked the man, hitting the desk.

"No, it seems that… they said that they could deal with Undead," said the boy.

"That's… well, they might be already dead if they spent a night there… Sigh. So Willian just made a fortune and could not even share some of the profits, that bastard keeps expanding his monopoly!" said the man.

"Sir Allan, please calm down… I am sure that things have stabilized now. Although those commoners acquired a good amount of wealth, they are not even comparable to our house, nor the smallest merchant family in Seashore Town, our positions are not in danger, I can assure you of this," said the elf boy with sharp eyes.

"Sylph, I trust your words, you're a sharp young elf, and probably older than me… But still, tell my spies to keep an eye on them… Although make sure to stay away from that accursed mansion," said the man, named Allan.

"Yes sir," said the elven, named Sylph, as he walked away.

Allan rested on his chair as he sipped a bit of whisky, sighing as he cleaned the sweat off his forehead.

"Should I really worry about this?" he wondered.

Knock, knock.

"What now?" asked Allan, as the door opened and Sylph entered hurriedly, his eyes seemed surprised.

"What's with that face?" asked Allan.

"S-Sir… There has been another… transaction…" said Sylph.

"What? So soon?!" asked Allan.

"Yes…" sighed Sylph.

"…How much?" asked Allan.

"Around… 5200 Gold Pieces…" said Sylph.

Allan's cup of whisky fell into the ground!

"WHAT?! From where is that Veronica and Ervas getting such a large amount of resources?!" asked Allan.

"Well… it has been reported that Veronica is a master of Spatial Magic, and can store almost an unlimited amount of items inside of her spatial storage spell…" said Sylph.

"Y-You what?! Spatial Magic?!" asked Allan.

"A-And… it seems that the boy wants to… buy a building for business," said Sylph.

"Business?! What business?!" asked Allan.

"…Cooking sir," said Sylph.

"Co… Cooking?" asked Allan.

"Yes… He seems to want to make a Family Restaurant," said Sylph.

"Eh? They just arrived yesterday!" said Allan.

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"I wonder how Selene is not seen as a threat by the entire town…" said Ismene, as she walked alongside the rest of the group after having a hearty breakfast.

Selene was the name given to the conglomeration of ghosts, specters, and other supernatural spectral forces that unified as one and made up the Haunted Mansion.

Strangely enough, after being named, the entire Mansion was classified as a being of its own and even acquired status by the World's System.

"Willian said that the monsters residing inside never get out of the house… and well, they are continuously exorcised every week. The thing is, the exorcised ones are often the ones in the front, there are dozens of hidden rooms where more undead and other monsters resided… Peter, Jonathan, Cecilia, Gustav, and the rest of the gang are always going around, so they were never caught by the bishops and priests… They had been living in the Manor for… a long time. Well, Cecilia is not that old, but she and her family have been living in the manor for some time, since her grand grandmother," said Ervas.

"How do you know this? Can you speak with that Spider even when she cannot speak? I mean, Charlotte is special… But isn't Cecilia just… a normal spider monster?" asked Anna.

"Yeah we can more or less hear the voice of their desires," said Veronica.

"O-Oh… So that's how you can communicate with them?" asked Leonidas.

"Yeah, more or less," said Ervas.

"Actually we never understand Peter he's pretty crazy," said Ervas.

"Eh?! Then why do you treat him as if he were normal?" asked Percy.

"What's wrong with that? We have to be nice with him," said Ervas.

"Yeah Percy, relax," said Veronica, petting Percy's shoulders as the party walked through the road that connected the small hill where Selene was at the top, which was surrounded by a small forest of pine trees.

There was also a graveyard at the back of the Mansion around 60 meters from it, which supplied the Haunted Mansion with fresh Dead Spirits and often occasional zombies that wake up from their tombs and walk inside the Mansion to never get out.

"That graveyard… Do they keep putting people's corpses there?" asked Alesia.

"Yeah, although the rich get their own graveyards, the one we got at the back is for the common folk… And yes, Selene seems to be capable of influencing the corpses buried in there, and even the dead spirits that roam that place… However, because the commoners do not have another place where bury their deceased and the aristocrats do not really care as it doesn't affect them, they had left it be… Undead Monsters rarely get into the town and had only been seen to enter Selene. It is as if she were a nest that attracted any kind, supernatural creature," said Ervas.

"Wait… I see why they haven't simply burned out Selene then…" said Desephise.

"Oh? Why? I also wondered this…" said Jason.

"It's because the aristocrats use her as a way to catalyze the undead and monsters inside, and then each week they send people to exterminate them slowly… I guess? Well, it still pretty irresponsible… And I can't imagine normal people getting to live there…" said Desephise.

"Well, according to the Ghosts of the previous families that resided there, the first time they got into that mansion the place was always cleansed off monsters for the most part, but they quickly began to appear again... Although most of the time they did not do anything to the residents, the families themselves killed each other after falling insane… Oh, and a few others were killed by rival aristocratic houses and then made it seem as if the monsters did it! What a bunch of assholes! Peter and Gustav are such sweet boys, they would never dare to harm anyone!" said Veronica.

"I believe the people of this town would disagree with you, Veronica…" said Jason.

"Anyways, let's go back to Willian, so we can register some of you right away," said Ervas.

"I'm registering first then with Ditoyle," said Kireina.

"Kireina, you don't have to force your way through," said Ditoyle.

The party moved through the streets, making their way back to the Merchant Guild.

The elf girl that greeted them before immediately noticed them, and it seemed that Willian had told her to move them immediately to the floor above, where Willian's office was.

A of the people waiting in line glanced at this scene with a bit of jealously, some of the people there have been waiting for hours to be attended and they managed to get through everything quite easily.

"Who are these people?"

"I think I saw them yesterday…"

"It's not fair that they get to go up without getting into the line!"

"That's how business works I guess, those with money get better treatment."

Ervas and Veronica's group gave no attention to these comments, as they walked towards Willian's office, where they were greeted by the old and fat man.

"Welcome back, Ervas, Veronica. I am guessing that you want to register more of your friends as citizens?" asked Willian.

"Indeed, how many documents you got us?" asked Veronica.

"Ah, I see that you are direct… I have three more documents, this is the most I could do in this little time," said Willian.

"I see… Alright, guys, we'll decide who gets first with rock, paper, and scissors!" said Veronica.

"Eh?" asked Willian, as he glanced at the group of demi-humans and one human play rock, paper, and scissor until three people were left victorious.

"Alright give me that document," said Ismene.

"To think that I won… I must have lucked out," said Anna.

"I guess we Squirrel were lucky today… hehe," laughed Ditoyle.

"Very well ladies, please state your race, name, after the name (if you have one), date of birth, age, and if you want to, occupation," said Willian, as he quickly wrote down everything the three women told him in each document.

"Chieftain? Is that an occupation?" asked Willian.

"Yes? Of course, it is," said Ismene.

"I-I see… alright, it's… done," said Willian signing the documents and then distributing the citizenship cards to the three squirrel women.

"Thanks," said Ismene.

"Oh nice, it's shiny," said Anna.

"I don't know why but this makes me quite happy," said Ditoyle.

"Now, we'll like to sell some things and buy others," said Ervas.

"Eh? S-So soon?!" asked Willian.

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