With his freedom returned, Ryu was finally able to continue with finding some new clothes. He wasn’t all that comfortable walking around dressed like a slave, and the mixed looks of pity and amusement from people passing by didn’t help.

Ryu wasn’t dumb, he knew that if he saw another player walking around in rags he’d be staring as well, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. So he walked quickly to the nearest store to sell some of the stuff Dot had picked up while leveling.

[Arctic Wolf Pelt * 206]

[Large Canine * 72]

Ryu didn’t have the skills to process these materials, and although it could be done manually, he didn’t want to waste anymore time. Thus, he headed for the docks. Along the way he passed by a couple girls, who were clearly staring at him until he stared back, causing them to look away and whisper to one another.

“Is he a newbie?” said one of the girls.

“I dunno, it says he’s level 29?” said the other girl.

Ryu ignored their discussion and kept walking until he reached the docks.

It was quieter than he was used to seeing it, with only a single ship present, but he didn’t mind. He liked being able to hear the ocean, and it also made finding the NPC he was looking for a lot easier. It took a second for Ryu to spot his target, a bearded man inspecting boxes that had just been unloaded.

Ryu approached the man who greeted him once he got close enough. “Aye traveller, whadya got for me today?”

NPC’s were always easier to talk to for Ryu. Some could be remarkably realistic, where’s others, like this one, were almost completely scripted. Ryu liked it that way.

Two boxes popped up, side by side. One for Ryu’s inventory and the other for stuff he wanted to sell. Ryu selected the wolf pelts and canines and hit “sell”.

[You will receive 11,036 GP for this transaction.]

“Wow…”

It was almost enough to recoup the cost the short sword at his hip. Ryu confirmed the sale and his balance immediately went up, though he knew it’d be going down soon when he bought some new gear.

“See you again traveller!” said the man as Ryu departed.

Ryu headed back towards the plaza where most of the stores were located, however rather than going to a NPC shop he stopped and scanned over the many players advertising their wares. Some were selling loot they’d found from culling monsters where’s other were selling gear they’d crafted. Ryu normally avoided player stores since it took too long to investigate them all, but that wasn’t an issue anymore.

It was impossible for him to see everything, but now he had an idea of what was where. A thin leather chestpiece for 4,000 GP, plain brown trousers for 600 GP and boots for 800 GP, all in all, it was significantly cheaper than buying from an NPC.