Chapter 4: Marcy

“Interesting! There is actually someone who dares to come to this accursed place from their free will.” A smooth feminine voice flowed out of the cloaked figure’s mouth. Teo narrowed his eyes and quickly stepped back to make some distance between them. His grip on the sword’s handle tightened.

“Who are you?” Teo asked cautiously. Although the system said it was the [Mystery Shop], he still didn’t let his guard down.

“Oh! How rude of me,” The cloaked woman apologized. She, however, didn’t move from her spot. “I’m Marcy, a humble shopkeeper in charge of this cursed place.”

“Are you a human?” Teo was curious about her identity. No [Player] had ever talked about a shopkeeper in the dungeons, which made him both cautious and curious.

“Thre are a few things you shouldn’t ask, young man,” Marcy replied edgily. Teo’s eyes widened at how defensive the woman suddenly became. He even felt a little bit of killing intent from her. Realizing that he had asked a taboo question, Teo felt awkward.

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to play it cool. “Just curious.”

“Curious, you say?” Marcy’s voice trailed off. “Don’t you know curiosity often kills the cat?”

Teo narrowed his eyes at the cloaked merchant. He couldn’t tell what expression she was wearing behind her mask, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk and find out. It was not worth it.

“I am sorry.” Teo took a metaphorical step back and apologized. As someone who grew up alone, he had seen many types of people in his short 21 years of life. He learned to judge a person’s value from their demeanor.

The merchant, Marcy, held a lot of value for him. A good relationship with her could be beneficial to his future inside the dungeon.

Marcy had gone silent, acting like she didn’t hear his apology.

Teo sighed in his heart and decided to change the subject.

“So, what do you sell?” He asked, curious about the products she was selling. His eyes skimmed over various items resting on the mat and wondered if he had enough coins to buy any of them. They looked expensive to him.

While working part-time on Gunt’s sop, Teo had picked up a thing or two about appraising items. From one look, he could tell those weapons were extraordinary. Out of curiosity, Teo rested his eyes on a dual-edged dagger and used [Observe].

[Visceral Dagger]

Rank: Unique

Attack: 150 – 180

Crit chance: +20%

Durability: 100/100

Trait(passive):

[Visceral]

Has a 40% chance to inflict [Bleed] on a target.

[Bleed] drains 2% of a target’s max HP every second for five seconds.

Stacks up to 10 times.

Trait(Active):

[Vampiric Wound]

For 10 seconds, restores HP equivalent to 70% of the damage done to a target.

Cost: 20 Stamina/use

A deadly dagger made from a ghoul’s teeth. Due to expert craftsmanship, it has retained some of the monster's abilities.

A Unique item! It is my first time seeing one. Teo gasped in his heart at the rating of the dagger. Even though he worked at an item shop, the highest tier he had seen was Uncommon ranked.

“That’s a wonderful dagger, isn’t it?” Teo looked over at Marcy and nodded his head. “Yeah.”

It was one fine weapon and had good options attached to it. If he had to make an estimate, the dagger would sell for no less than a million.

“Must be very expensive, right?” He wondered.

Marcy showed five gloved fingers of her right hand. “Fifty thousand tutorial coins.”

Teo took a cold breath. Fifty thousand! How many zombies do I have to kill? Can I even afford it now?

“Ahem!” He fake coughed to his hand as a strained smile formed on his lips. “I’ve less than a hundred coins with me. Please show me something that I can afford.”

“Certainly. Here-” Marcy clicked her fingers, making a holographic box appear in front of Teo. It had three columns showing the item name, a brief description, and the listed price.

He skimmed through the list, trying to find something he really needed. Since he didn’t have money to buy most of the good stuff, he’d have to be smart about his spending. Suddenly, he noticed a thing on sale that held a lot of appeal to him.

First floor Map

Price: 54 Tutorial coins

A detailed map of the first floor with marked monster spawn points.

It was a detailed map of the first floor. Without knowing where to go, he could only follow the visible path. But with a map, he could plan his actions and proceed carefully. It’ll make his life a lot easier.

“Looks like you found something you like.”

Teo nodded at Marcy, “Yes. I’ll take this map of the first floor.”

“A smart choice.” She praised earnestly. “The price is listed there. Just click on the name to buy.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be a 70% discount?” Teo raised an eyebrow at the mysterious shop owner.

“That’s the discounted price I mentioned, dear customer. The real price of that map is 180 tutorial coins.” Marcy’s voice was chirpy, just like a bird that found its favorite worm.

“Damn! Why so costly?” Teo took in a deep breath.

The price of the hand-drawn maps inside the base camp was only a few points at most, and the live GPS services only cost about twelve points. Compared to them, it was eighteen times more expensive here.

“Don’t ask me. I’m only a reseller.” Marcy shrugged.

Teo sighed, gritted his teeth, and pushed his index finger on the box.

You want to buy the First floor Map. 54 Tutorial coins will be deducted from your savings.

Confirm?

Yes / No

He then decisively pressed yes.

After he pressed [yes], the holographic box shined like a miniature sun, forcing Teo to close his eyes. Moments later, after the brightness dimmed, he carefully opened his lids and saw a spherical glass object floating just a few steps away from his nose.

Teo wrapped his fingers around the sphere and brought it closer to his left eye. The translucent item could easily be mistaken for a decorative glass ball people use to hang on a Christmas tree. It looked that ordinary.

“How should I use it?” Teo asked the cloaked shopkeeper.

“Just crush the ball and see the magic.”

“Crush it? Like, squeeze it until it breaks?”

“Yup.”

“…okay…!”

Teo switched his gaze from Marcy to the ball a few times before focussing back on the ball. He tightened his grip around the glass item and continued doing so until there was a distinctive cracking sound.

Installing regional map…Complete.

Recalibrating positioning…Complete.

Displaying [Lyria’s Cemetery- Floor 1]

A large, twenty-inched, holographic box blinked into existence, showing a very detailed drawing of what looked like a cave system. On the down-left side, there was a tiny yellow arrow pointing upwards. Clusters of red dots spread everywhere on the map. A bunch of them also surrounded the yellow arrow.

This is exactly like a GPS device. Is the one made this map a human? Teo wondered while observing the map more closely. If the arrow is supposed to be me, then the red dots should be the zombies, right? There are so many of them in here!

He was blinded by the number of red dots filling the map. They were everywhere. However, the pressing issue was the ones around him. A rough count revealed their numbers to be around nine. That many zombies could create trouble for even a [Player]. But the good thing here was, that none of them were close to each other.

I can do this.

Determination flashed on his dark pupils as his grip on the sword’s handle tightened.