A Medici Branch in Verin

After a grueling couple of hours of cleaning, they had managed to clean the guildhall up. Erik gave a loud clap.

"Alright, thanks for helping everyone! Y'all are free to go!"

Everyone responded to Erik's energetic voice with a groan and they all went to go sleep off the hangover. Some had rented rooms upstairs and walked up the stairs, while a few went back to their families.

While wiping his brow of the sweat, Leon admired Erik, since Erik had done a lot of the work yet a bead of sweat couldn't be seen on his body. This showed that his physical abilities were in a different dimension compared to Leon who started to sweat, plus Erik was the most energetic person present even though he drank the most out of everyone. Although his big body helped with it, Erik had a well above average metabolism that made his huge body eat through alcohol like nothing.

Looking over at Leon, Erik gave the lad a hard pat on the back.

"You did good Leon! Now remember to get yourself ready for the journey, I'd hope you left within a couple of days so prepare yourself!"

With that, Erik walked up the stairs, most likely to his office on the fourth floor. Seeing this, Leon took out a big bag of monster cores, which he had stored in his storage space in the guildhall. Any member had a personal magic compartment, that utilized rare space magic to create spaces to save space. Members of the guild could choose to pay money for bigger storage, but Leon still had the original size one they guild gave which was the size of a school locker.

Hearing Erik telling him to get ready, Leon also agreed and decided his nonexistent finances needed a boost, so he decided to sell his monster cores from the various quests he had taken since he returned to Verin. The group split cores they found 50/50 as best as they could, other times like the hobgoblin they would just nominate who got the cores since there wasn't enough for 4 of them.

The bag Leon had in his hand had mostly small goblin cores, but a big bulge at the bottom of the cloth bag signified the hobgoblin core he had gotten. Even though it had been a little over a month since he had started getting cores, Leon was usually so busy he didn't even turn in his cores, but with the need for money, he decided now was a good time.

The only store he had sold his cores to was Dominic, which felt like ages ago because of everything that had happened to him since then. However, Leon quite liked Dominic so he decided he would sell his cores to him again, plus his shop was quite close to the guildhall.

After a minute of walking, Leon ended up on the street where a bunch of shops, including Dominics, were situated, however something strange was happening. The shops next to Dominic's were closed and boarded up, while Dominic's had a cloth covering the name of his shop. Being quite perplexed, Leon walked up and looked through the window, but found that it was also covered up.

'Huh, that's quite weird, what's going on? Should I just knock and go in or should I just find another shop to sell my cores too?'

Before Leon could decide, a person tapped him on the soldier, when Leon turned around he saw two familiar faces. It was Aman and Susan!

Leon was so shocked he could barely believe his eyes and had to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming or not.

"What are you guys doing here?"

Seeing Leon surprised, Aman laughed.

"Hahaha, I could ask you the same, Leon. The set of shops behind you are the new shops we just bought for the Medici branch here, after all, that is what my father wanted me to do here."

Hearing what Aman said, Leon's feeling of shock was once again renewed.

"You bought this shop? What about Dominic?"

For the first time in this exchange, Aman was the one surprised.

"You know Dominic?"

Before Leon could answer, a short man with a monocle, top hat, and bushy white mustache opened the front door to the shop, it was none other than Dominic. Before he even looked, he was already talking.

"Aman, I heard you call my name? Did you need me or someth-"

Dominic saw Leon and gave a wide smile.

"Leon! How is it going!"

They both looked at Dominic with confusion for their own reasons, seeing this, Dominic guessed what was going on.

"You guys know each other?"

The both of them gave a slow nod and Dominic confirmed his suspicions.

"Ahhh, that's why you guys looked like someone had told you a shocking secret. Here let me clear this up. I met Leon here when he was looking for some cores to sell off and I took them off him. I was in a slump, so his presence was refreshing for me! Then I met Aman here, I'd say two weeks ago?"

Leon still looked puzzled.

"But what's happening with your shop?"

Aman answered first.

"Oh, I'm not sure if you knew this, but Dominic was actually a pretty successful merchant in his days and even did his business in Orisini. We were looking for land to buy and turn into our branch, then we found Dominic here. So we made him an offer that we would absorb his shop and buy the surrounding shops to increase the size and make this our branch location. All he would do would work under the Medici name and work for the branch, since he was quite accomplished his ability didn't need to be examined which made this perfect."

After he had processed everything, Leon looked up at where the title of the shop used to stand.

"So the cloth up there is?"

Aman managed to reveal part of the cloth and it revealed the symbol of the Medici family, that Leon had seen extensively in Orisini. As both parties were satisfied, Aman opened the door to the shop and gestured for them to come in.

"Come on let us discuss the construction and layout Dominic."

With that, the two of them walked in to talk, which left Susan and Leon outside. Leon had a good impression of Susan as she was quite loyal as she stayed and fought for Aman back in Orsini, which even got her injured.

"How's the injury?"

Susan flexed and stretched both of her arms.

"Good as new! Although it might take a while for a normal person or lower-ranked adventurer to heal up, my tough body managed to become usable again after about a week of healing and completely healed after another week."

Hearing this, Leon gave a smile as he was glad she had healed.

"So how's Aman faring with life here in Verin and away from Orsini?"