Running my hand through my freshly cut hair, courtesy of Becky yesterday at an alarming speed, I make sure it’s all in place correctly as some people I don’t recognize approach me.

“Good morning, welcome to the grand opening of The Barket! All the bark without the bite. Ahaha…”

Awkward silence passes between us as I can practically see them choosing to not respond to that comment.

‘I am never trying to think of a catchy slogan on the spot ever again.’

A taller, sandy blonde haired man in the group clears his throat. “...Right. Uh, cool shop. We all use swords, I was wondering if you had any with some kind of fire enchantment?” He speaks with a British accent, surprising me to see someone so far from home.

‘Huh, that’s the first foreign person I’ve met after The Construct. Oh well, generic taste in weapons anyway.’ Gaining perspective on the type of people I’m talking to, I calm down from the awkwardness slightly, feeling more confident in who I’m dealing with.

“I do! I expected that item to be popular so we have plenty of swords with a whole variety of elements to choose from. I personally recommend the electric ones, the associated stun can be quite effective.”

Bringing the group over to my selection of swords, most made by Argo but the enchantments are my work, I let them look through for a moment.

“Do you have a longer version of this style of sword? It’s just half a foot- I mean uh.” He appears to stop and do some mental math for a moment.

“About 15 centimeters shorter than the one I’m using right now but the ice trait seems useful.” The boy standing in front of me looks to be the youngest of the group, potentially a new recruit into what appears to be the sandy blonde’s posse.

‘That’s a strange correction.’

“Unfortunately that’s the longest ice sword I made, I do have a longer version with a frozen lightning trait though, would you like to try that out?” Finding that one among the various swords on display, I pick it up and hand it to him.

Part of my forge is closed off for the day, but we cleared some space inside so I allow him to go in there and test a few hits on a heavily endurance-enchanted dummy.

“This one is perfect! The lightning gives the ice attacks a lot of reach. It’s kind of killer on the mana though…” He frowns slightly.

“Ah, yeah, getting a lot of power out of the sword can be costly. Something that can help though would be considering having a gem socketed in it. If you buy the sword, you can go over to the counter and talk to the girl there. Her name is Adreanell. She should be able to set you up with a gem that can help reduce some of the input costs.”

“Really? Okay, I’m sold, mostly because my last sword broke yesterday.” He laughs awkwardly.

“Perfect! For that sword and because it’s opening day, how does… 50 Glints sound?” Highballing my number, I don’t expect him to pay that much. The sword may be decent quality but it’s certainly not worth how much markup I’m applying.

The trade window appears in front of us, showing my offer of the sword with a payment cost of 50 Glints as well as the 3 Spark trade tax on his end.

“Wow, that’s a steal! 50 Glints it is.” He looks excited and immediately taps the confirm on his end after placing 50 Glints into the trade window from his bag of holding.

“Uh, sounds good then? Wait, why is it a steal?”

“How much have you even looked in the Construct Shop? Low quality elemental swords, just enchanted ones mind you, are at least 50 Glints usually, 45 if you get lucky and have enough Charisma.”

“Oh.” Checking the displayed cost on the item description itself, I see a value of 1 Gleam 50 Glints on the sword from my 150 Insight milestone bonus.

‘Oops, should have checked that first I suppose. That’s what I get for procrastinating setting prices in advance like Cassandra told me to do.’

“Well, anyway… before we confirm this window, do you want to set a name on the weapon? It lets you do it in the menu.”

“For a weapon like this? Of course. I’ll name it… ‘Frostfang’ That’s a sweet name, don’t you think?”

‘Dear lord these people have generic tastes.’

“Oh yeah, totally amazing.” Keeping a fake smile on my face, we finish the interaction and he finally introduces himself as “Nano”.

“Nano? Nice name, I haven’t heard of someone with that name before.”

He looks slightly embarrassed and the tips of his ears turn red. “Uh, yeah. It was Macro’s idea. Everyone in his group has to rename themselves to a unit of measurement. There weren’t many choices left by the time I joined.”

“That explains why you corrected yourself to meters for the sword measurement earlier. Why is he making you all do this though?”

The kid sweeps his slightly long brown hair out of his eyes and meets mine. “Between you and me, he’s got it in his head that now is the prime time to swap the US from the imperial system to the metric system. I think it’s a stupid focus but apparently, he was a physics major or something before The Construct. The group keeps me safe when we defend the walls though, so it’s worth the name change.”

“Right. A bit strange but whatever. Does your group have a name? Also, I don’t want to assume but, after you get your gem socketed by Adreanell, you can go over to the glowing blonde girl in the clothes section and ask for a haircut. She won’t charge you much. Fair warning though, it will be over in about five seconds and it’s as terrifying as that sounds.”

He regards his hair for a moment. “...Might be worth it. It’s hard to find anyone I can trust to cut my hair now. Thanks! Oh, and we’re called the SI Unit.”

He plods off happily, leaving me to deal with the rest of his strange group, including another boy named Kilo, a girl named Micro, a man named Centi, and Macro himself. They all heard my earlier offer to Nano so I have to give them similar pricing.

A few request specific enchantments which I apply on the spot, pleasing them and allowing me to increase the price slightly.

‘Whatever, the neutrite cost me 5 Glints each, I’m still profiting and it’s opening day. Probably best to consider this an investment towards the future for returning customers.’

Forgetting one last thing, I yell to them from across the room that they can return any time for cheap repairs.

Feeling notifications waiting for me, I allow them through before more people approach me.

Level up! For finishing your first transaction as well as four others and meeting the demands of the customer, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (3/50)!

Feeling slightly more confident with the level ups, I gesture the next group over. It’s a pair, one in strawberry blonde girl wearing leather armor and the other is potentially male, judging by the build, and wearing some shoddy plate armor with the helmet on.

It’s the very traditional conical face with the feather plume on top. It looks somewhat silly to me to see it in person, but I reserve my judgment.

“Welcome to my section of The Barket. What can I do for you two today?” Giving them a smile, the girl smiles back and the armored one nods a greeting.

“Well, I use bows and my boyfriend here uses maces and shields. We’ve only ever had non-magical weapons so I don’t really know what to look for…” She glances around at my selection of bows mounted on the wall and her eyes fall on the mollustacatto on the display table with surprise.

“Apologies, the uh, crab bow over there is already sold. I have a ton of other really useful bows though so feel free to check some out. The blonde girl over there, Becky, made me some fancy bowstrings with her magical fibers so I have a lot to choose from. Just Inspect a few and come back to me with any questions if you have some.”

“Oh, sure, I guess.” She walks over to the bows on the wall, looking somewhat overwhelmed.

Cringing at my own retail skills, I vow to go back and help her pick once I get her boyfriend sorted.

“So, maces then?”

“Yes.” He looks toward my selection sitting in one corner and walks over in a stilted, almost self-conscious fashion, picking a few up and testing their weight.

Moving over to him again after that awkwardly abrupt answer, I question his armor. “So, your armor looks a bit damaged, is it magical at all?”

“No.” He sounds almost embarrassed.

‘Fuck. Good job, Lucas. You made him feel awkward. Or maybe it’s just because he’s the only person here wearing a full suit of armor.’

“Could I interest you in a free casting of my Repair spell then? It should fix up your armor instantly!”

“Oh, um. Yes, please. I thought more people would be wearing their armor here today…” He sounds relieved but still looks around the shop. Following his gaze, I confirm that he is indeed the sole person wearing armor.

‘Second line of thought was correct then.’

“Well, I’m sure someone else will arrive wearing armor at some point. Anyway, hold still for a moment and just… focus on allowing this to happen. Skills that interact with other people’s equipment have extremely limited effectiveness otherwise. Okay, perfect. Repair!”

A pulse of mana exits my body, taking a far larger quantity than expected, and sinks into the metal suit of armor. With a few pops and plings, the armor looks freshly made.

“There we go, how’s that feel?”

He tests all the joints of his armor separately, making some careful movements and going through the full range of motion his armor allows. “Wow, this is way better. Thank you.”

“Glad you like it. If you want, I can enchant your armor quick too. Just some durability and defensive enchantments. It’ll cost… let’s say 20 Glints.”

“Woah, that’s way less than the enchanters in town are charging!” A few people turn at his sudden increase in volume.

‘God. Fucking. Damnit.’

Cursing myself internally, I smile at him. “Oh, well that’s nice. I’m glad I can... offer cheaper services, I guess. So, you’d like it?”

“Absolutely!” The trade window appears and he confirms the payment with my side showing the expected services.

Using Rapid Inscription, I add all the enchantments in just a few minutes, leaving him with a set of considerably more defensive and durable armor.

“Oh, I can see why you don’t charge as much, the other enchanters can take a whole day to enchant a single thing... Woah, wait. These enchantments are way higher quality.” He looks at all the runic markings across his armor, tracing the neat and tidy markings.

“This is um, opening day price, but tell your friends I offer this service! We’re taking on the dungeon tomorrow but once I get back I’ll be happy to do enchantments!” Leaving him to browse the maces and appraise his armor more, I walk over to his girlfriend who looks no less overwhelmed by my selection.

“Um, hi. Sorry, got caught up helping your boyfriend… What kind of bow are you looking for? I guess a better question would be what’s your skillset like?”

She turns around to me after setting two bows back on their hooks. “Oh um… well, I guess I like to use Geokinesis a lot with my archery. I pull on the earth to either put the monsters off balance or trap them to make for easy targets.”

“Oh. That’s a good strategy. Have you tried Florakinesis at all? Using nature tends to compliment well with earth. You can ask the green haired one over there. His name is Colt, he’s a master at nature magick. Oh, and I have a product called guidedgrasp seeds over in the potions and consumables section near where he’s standing. You should check those out too.”

“That seems helpful, but… for a bow?”

‘Goddamnit, Lucas, stay on topic.’

“Right. Sorry I got caught up in all the other things we have here. Hmmm, something that would compliment your style… Oh! How about… this bow?” Taking one down from the wall, I hand it to her.

Spiralspring Bow

Quality: Medium

Traits: Springlimb, Spiralshot, Highly Durable

Description: This bow made of twisted oak wood grants arrows shot from it a rapid spin. This can impede accuracy to some extents in an untrained individual but will give high piercing power to shots. The fibers of a clusterspring’s stem have been converted into a bowstring, granting extra spring to each shot with this bow, making it easier to apply less force and still have high power shots. Enchantments have been applied to make this bow highly durable.

“You’ll get a little accuracy loss with this bow at first, but that should be less of an issue if you’re preventing your enemy from moving.”

“Wow, that sounds perfect, actually. How much will this be?”

Checking the Inspect-displayed price I offer exactly that. “That’ll be 45 Glints, and if you have any enchantments you want on it I can add those for an additional 20 Glints. Feel free to check out that silver enchanting book on the table for a selection.”

The trade window appears in front of us. “45 Glints is fine with me.” She places the money into the trade window as well as the tax, pulling it from a bag of holding. “I might buy an enchantment after too, but I’ll have to look at the book first.”

“Sounds good, there are some in there that can affect arrow velocity or add curve effects so I recommend looking at those. Oh and I have some arrows on display over there, feel free to look at those too.”

“Thank you!” She walks over to the book and starts leafing through it as her armor-clad boyfriend approaches me once more.

“Hey again, I think I found what I want.” He holds up a pale pink accelerite-handled mace topped with cardarite, the fire metal. “But is there… anything that can be done about the colors?”

Grinning at him, I nod. “I’m glad you asked, we recently acquired the last color of dye we needed so we have a full color selection to choose from and dyes can even be mixed. If you buy the mace now, you can head over to the blonde girl in the clothes section and she can dye your weapon and even your armor for you if you want.”

“How much is the dye?” He looks into his bag of holding.

“I think we decided on… 15 Glints as a standard? If you use a lot more dye the price will increase though.”

“Makes sense. How about the mace?” He gives it a small test swing into the open air.

“How does… 1 Gleam 45 Glints sound? That one was tough to make. Probably won’t be making too many flanged maces in the future unless it’s a specific request.”

“Wow, that’s really affordable for how much better this is than the shit at the Construct Shop. I’ll buy it!” The trade window appears and we finish the transaction quickly. Afterward, I offer for him to look at enchantments with his girlfriend. Most weapons in stock just have durability enchantments in case someone is looking for something specific.

As he walks over, he turns his head to me. “I probably shouldn’t say this but… most people working on the walls are the ones buying here today. We make more money off drops than we know what to do with.” He glances side to side to make sure no one was listening and moves to the table with the enchanting book.

‘Oh. I didn’t even think about that. These people are constantly fighting stuff, of course they’ll have a lot of money.’ Mentally facepalming, I address my waiting notifications once more.

Level up! For working to find your customers the perfect weapon for their style of fighting and properly delegating business, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (4/50)!

‘Huh, I just may reach the second milestone today if I try hard enough. Though I don’t imagine it’ll be this easy to level up all the time.’

Turning back to my side of the store, plenty of people have simply come in and started browsing.

Addressing a few of them, I help each pick out their associated weapons, one guy even tries out the counterite bracers and manages to break his own nose. It’s fortunate for me though, I get to practice Transfusion, using blood from Hemomancy instead of my own Palemetal Blood of course.

After a few customers and sorting out the archer girl and her boyfriend’s enchantments and arrow purchases, I manage to get the notification I’ve been waiting for.

Level up! For continuing to adjust your behavior and learning how to tailor yourself to each customer as well as selling a large variety of different weapon types, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (5/50)!

For reaching your first Talent milestone in Fledgling Shopkeeper, you have been rewarded applicable stat points to Intelligence, Willpower, Charisma, Insight and + 30 XP. In addition, you have been granted the Perk: Disarming Presence.

‘Disarming Presence? That’s an interesting sounding Perk.’

Perks:

Disarming Presence

Description: Your kind disposition has become your presence. Those you interact with will find you to be friendlier and easier to trust. This Perk scales off of your Charisma and only assists in the process when you act kindly and will be resisted by the stat: Willpower. Charisma increased by 2. +2 Charisma per level up.

‘Huh, that seems useful. So many combat Talents have Willpower as one of their stats given though and my Charisma is so low… Hopefully it helps anyway to a lesser extent even if they have higher Willpower. Well, let’s try it I guess.’

Making sure the Perk is active, it’s passive but even most passive Perks can be disabled if you don’t want them in effect, I approach a man wearing leather ranger armor who is frowning at the various arrows I have on display.

“Hi there, would you like any help deciding on some arrows?” Smiling at him, he looks back at me and his expression shifts to mimic mine.

“That would be great. You have quite the selection, it’s a bit… overwhelming. I’m used to just normal arrows from the Shop.”

“Ah, yeah, I kinda went crazy experimenting with arrow types. What’s your general battle style like? That may help me think of what arrows would work best for your build.”

He looks up in consideration for a moment. “A lot of my battle style revolves around this fusion Perk I have, Shade Arms. Basically, it lets me reload arrows really fast and any arrow I fire, two more spectral duplicates come out.”

‘Wow, he really came out with that Perk info quick. Disarming Presence is useful.’

“Oh, mind showing me it in action? We can practice with these galvanite arrows on the dummy in my forge. I have plenty of them and you probably won’t damage them anyway.”

“The yellow ones here? Okay.” He grabs three of the galvanite arrows, putting two in the quiver at his hip. “Watch closely, I’m pretty fast.”

We clear people out of the way and he nods to me.

Taking what must be a mob drop bow off of his back, it’s made of some strange orange wood and it glows with power, he nocks the arrow and my eyes widen in surprise.

Two more spectral arms hold on to the bowstring in tandem with his. Semi-transparent duplicates of the galvanite arrows appear on the string as well.

He fires the arrow and immediately a shadow arm moves to grab another arrow from his quiver, reloading it as soon as the last arrows leave the bow. All three shots land on a target on the dummy with surprising accuracy, dispersing an orange glow of energy off of themselves upon landing.

He fires the other two arrows in incredibly quick succession, gaining some applause from those watching.

“Wow, you even aimed for vital points. Looks like the spectral arrows pick up the electrical element too.” They fade away quickly, leaving only the real arrows left, but not before I see sparks of electricity arcing off of them.

“I’ve never used elemental arrows so I had no idea. What would you recommend, then?”

“Hmm, how about these detonite arrows? You’ll get three explosions for the price of one. Oh and maybe these Medusa fang steel arrows? I imagine tripling the paralysis effect will be really powerful, especially because these arrows are single use.”

“Those both sound good. High damage and some crowd control. How much are they?”

“Each arrow is 3 Glints, but if you buy at least 25 I’ll shave 5 Glints off the price. Oh, and can I interest you in these sendite clips? They let you mentally guide the arrow a bit which gives you more control. You’re a good shot, but it never hurts to be an even better one.”

“That’s not a bad price. I’ll take 30 detonite arrows and 10 medusa fang steel arrows. How much are the clips?”

“Oh, they don’t take much metal for me to build at all, just 5 Sparks each. They’re reusable too provided you don’t lose the arrow. Might be a little less reusable with the detonite arrows, admittedly…”

“Wow, that’s not expensive at all. They sound useful, I’ll take five of them and come back later if I like them.”

“Perfect. Let’s do it.” Finishing the trade window, I receive 25 Sparks, 15 Glints, and 1 Gleam, shaving off the 5 as promised for buying over 25 arrows.

“Thanks so much!” He walks off with a far happier expression than he came in with.

‘Wow, this Perk even makes others feel better, how useful.’

Level up! For using your Disarming Presence tactfully and securing a better sale than you may have otherwise as well as building higher rapport with your clientele, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (6/50)!

‘Oooh, nice. I hope the next interaction goes just as well.’

The next interaction ends badly as I speak to what must be a middle-aged woman. The Construct seems to revert the aging process, or stats in general do. You can usually tell by someone’s eyes that they’re older than they look, but stats do wonders for physical appearance.

“I want to speak to the manager!” The women in front of me tucks part of her hair, styled in a bob, behind her ear.

“...I just told you, I’m the owner.”

‘God damnit, how high is this lady’s Willpower?!’

“Yes but I want to speak to the manager of this establishment.” She taps her foot impatiently.

“I understand you’re upset but I just sold my last halberd, there wasn’t a high demand for them and I already have my golem working on making an extra just for you. There are no managers, just us co-owners and we just opened the place.”

“Well, I want a refund!” She huffs, crossing her arms.

“You- you haven’t even bought anything yet!”

“Then how about a discount?” She glares at me and I feel a strange pressure on my mind.

‘Oh no you just didn’t, bitch.’ Pushing back with my own Disarming Presence, really throwing effort into it, I see the corners of her lips quirk into a smile before she forces them back into a scowl.

“We’re already having some opening day sales, I can’t lower the price as it’s already a steal at its current price.”

“Hmph. Fine. But I’ll have you know I’ll be leaving a low star review on the internet.” She takes out an ancient-looking smartphone that won’t even turn on and begins to fiddle with it.

“That’s a baseless threat and you know it. The internet doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“Well, then whatever you young ones are calling the internet these days. I’ve been too busy fighting monsters to try and figure out why this damnable phone won’t turn on.”

“...I literally fought a world boss, technology doesn’t work because mana messes with our current wiring. There are already some people working on seeing if the magical metals can work as replacements.”

“How do I get to the Google? Show me.” She puts the phone in my face.

“Were you even listen- nevermind. I apologize but I have other customers I need to help right now. Shop around a little and your halberd should be ready in about an hour or so.”

“Back in my day, that halberd would have already been ready, I know you have more in the back!” She points a finger towards my forge.

“...I assure you we don’t have any more and I’m almost positive you weren’t buying halberds before all of this. Anyway, I have to attend to other customers, I apologize once again for the inconvenience. Please consider checking some of our other sections of the shop while you wait.”

Feeling a headache coming on, I turn around and massage my temples, feeling slightly happier upon receiving a message.

She huffs again but walks off to browse Becky’s clothing.

Level up! For dealing with your first problematic customer successfully, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (7/50)!

‘Well, at least that got me some progress.’

The rest of the day goes mostly pleasantly. Karen, the woman who gave me a hard time and even managed to make Becky want to tear her hair out, buys her halberd, huffing and puffing when I won’t give her a further discount.

One man cuts himself on the incredibly sharp sword, Relentless Cut, so I have to heal him as well.

Plenty of customers end up paying more and leaving happier, probably due to my Disarming Presence making me better at interacting with them. Some do get brave and start haggling, however.

I’m slowly gaining a better idea on how to price things and taking advantage of making limited time offers like shaving off small amounts from the price if they buy more products.

By the end of the day when we have to close up shop, my weapon stocks are considerably lighter but I have a much higher coin total. Feeling a notification tickling the edge of my mind, I allow it through, quite excited to see it.

Level up! For making it through a non-stop busy first day and earning considerable profits off of your products, your Talent: Fledgling Shopkeeper has reached (10/50)!

For reaching your second Talent milestone in Fledgling Shopkeeper, you have been rewarded applicable stat points to Intelligence, Willpower, Charisma, Insight and + 60 XP. In addition, you have been granted the Perk: Tidy Up.

‘Hmmm, let’s see what that one does.’

Perks:

Tidy Up

Description: Instantly organize and clean up an area to your specifications with the application of mana. This Perk can only be acquired if the individual has the Skills: Telekinesis and Clean. Charisma increased by 2. +2 Charisma per level up.

‘That sounds surprisingly useful. Let’s try it.’

Looking at the disarray of my work area, especially due to the extremely busy first day, I activate the Perk. Instantly, I can feel my Telekinesis activate and the Perk seems to guide the Skill along.

All the weapons around me float up into the air and return to the appropriate areas they should be in, setting themselves back on racks, or hooking back on to hooks. The dust on the floor Cleans away, disappearing, and the weapons all return to a polished surface.

“Wow. Can you do that for my area too?” Colt walks up to me and gives me a kiss.

“Of course, I can do the whole shop. It’s a Perk I just got called Tidy Up. You get anything cool today?”

“Yeah, I got a Perk called Tough Sell. It’s kind of like your Magnum Opus except for shopkeepers. Three times a day I can activate it and I become way more convincing when I’m selling something.”

“That sounds useful. Did you test it out at all?”

“Yeah, I used all three uses already and got some really big sales. We’re gonna need to spend some of tonight restocking the shop for Pasivier while we’re gone.”

“Yeah, part way into the day I set up Argo in my forge, he’s already making some more stuff, I’ll just need to add the finishing touches.”

“Oh, yeah I saw you dealing with that one lady. It looked pretty frustrating. By the way, do you have some other Perk active? I feel some kind of… tingling at the edges of my mind.”

“I do. It’s called Disarming Presence. It basically makes me seem friendlier and more trustable. It tends to leave others feeling pretty happy too, so it’s a nice Perk overall.”

“Ah, that’s a good Perk. I imagine it scales with Charisma? I’m resisting it pretty strongly passively, so… Willpower?”

“How’d you know?”

“I got Natural Presence today. It makes everyone think I’m a natural at what I’m doing, so they trust me to do my job better than I really can. It’s kind of similar to yours, but different at the same time. It scales the same and is resisted by Willpower too. It seems to make people calmer.”

“That’s cool that we each got different ‘presence’ Perks.”

“Yeah, I thought so too. Anyway, we should really get this place clean.”

“...And by that, you mean, I should get this place clean.”

He smiles widely at me. “Yup!”

Sighing, I turn to the rest of the shop and Tidy Up each section. It has a limited range so I can’t do the entire shop in one use.

Finishing the job, we hear a knock on the door. Opening it, Gabe comes in with Selena and their children Daniel and Maria.

“Oh, hey you guys!”

“Hey there, Lucas. Sorry we couldn’t make it to the grand opening any earlier. There was a problem with the walls that I had to address and then there was this school event… anyway, how did it go?” Gabe grins and they all step inside to look around.

“It went great! I made a lot of money today and got some nice new Perks. I’ll tell you about them later. For now, I have a surprise for Daniel and Maria!”

The two children turn around, eyes expectant upon hearing the word “surprise”.

Taking out my creations for both of them from my hold, I hand Daniel the Artisan’s Muse, the clay cutting wire made of accelerite and sendite.

“Woah! This is so cool!”

“The sendite lets you guide your throws with the wire, I saw you had some accuracy problems before. These little notches are for winding the wire around if you need it shorter. Oh and let me explain the sharpness toggle…”

Going through that process with him, he promises me to only use the wire in self-defense. His mom will be holding on to it most of the time unless he’s practicing or they can’t avoid him using it.

Turning to Maria, I take out the knitting needles I made for her.

“They’re made of a metal called ocelite. It lets you do rapid motions really quickly, so I figured it could up your knitting speed a lot. I attached some small bits of this purple metal called teletite too. It should let you control these knitting needles with your mind to make them float!”

Handing them to Maria, she mentally focuses on it and the needles float into the air. She produces some yarn from what must be a storage Perk and begins knitting at rapid speed with them.

“What do you say, Maria?” Selena side-eyes her.

“Thank you!” She grins toothily at me.

Smiling back, I chuckle. We agree on the arrangement as Daniel, though to a slightly lesser extent as Maria’s needles aren’t as innately dangerous and knitting is a hobby of hers so they’ll get functional use quite often.

“Oh, and these ones have a rune setup that reveals the sharp part. Just put some mana right into this rune here and… voila!” The rune activates, pulling up a sheath of metal to reveal a wickedly sharp needle point.

“Just uh, don’t do that unless you need to defend yourself, okay? And not from people, just monsters.”

“Okay, Mr. Hero.” Maria returns to her knitting while walking around the shop, looking at all the products.

Blushing at being called “Mr. Hero”, I shake off the strangely warm, fuzzy feeling.

The dinner table is packed tonight so Colt makes another to fit everyone and we have a large feast to celebrate such a successful first day. Afterward, everyone heads home with full stomachs and happy hearts.

We all agree to spend some of tonight working fast to make some more stock for the shop as tomorrow is dungeon day.

Most of the work I do over the night is fairly simple, rapid stuff so I gain no levels as I don’t really challenge myself at all. Colt restocks the potions while I make more weapons with Argo’s help.

Heading up to bed afterward, I fall asleep quickly despite feeling somewhat anxious.

Waking up in the morning, I turn to Colt in bed. “You ready for today? It’s dungeon time.”