Chapter Nineteen - All for credits

Anice was working on her tenth batch of sleeping bags. It was boring but she could not shift her concentration. Thankfully, she was working in Molvin's work space. It allowed a bit of leeway. However, her pride as Mage didn't allow her to err even a bit. After ten batches, she had to pause a bit. She was not high levelled mage. She could feel fatigue accumulating, thus reducing concentration. To pass time till her fatigue reduced, she started chatting with Molvin.

They both had seen the world. They knew of the treacherous behaviour and paranoia of the people. They even had suffered due to coming under the special care of such people. So they didn't talk of what they were thinking. Instead they chatted about long forgotten things, about the ways their mentors had taught the spells, about the adventures big and small. Most of the time, talk was part fiction, part narcissism. But such talk hid the fear they had felt when they got the inkling of the situation.

The village chief was still a dreamer, a naive person. He was more of a doer rather than a strategist. Perhaps at one time, he had enough strength to repel all strategies and ploys. Now .... Molvin sighed. Heroes were not allowed to retire. They had to serve purpose while living and especially when dying. If there was no purpose, don't worry. Some paranoid or power hungry person will think of one and use you- with you knowing or you not finding out the reason. The talk then turned to heaven blessed who came on and off, handing over finished tasks. The speed of their development was faster than they had expected. But a big dip was coming. Without the buffer of resources, potions, weapons and equipments, even they could not develop fast, let alone heaven blessed who were just learning everything, just their kids.

What was the current strength of these heaven blessed? Less than what the kids had. Now these heaven blessed had to be nurtured till they had enough strength of an adult. Would it be easy? Would it be possible with merger resources?

If the development was slow everywhere, it would not have been a big problem. Instead of a month, two months. What's the big deal? Everyone is suffering thus bringing everyone to same starting point. But, not everyone was at the same starting point and that was the problem. So many of villagers got sub- contracts. All had accepted happily because it was a way of growing. Using the surplus to make a nice sum of money which could be used to nurture these heaven blessed. Multiple hits with a single deed. Yeah, now they were hit so much that they had become weaker and weaker instead of becoming stronger than before. No wonder that they got sub contracts. If other places also had these many heaven blessed, the stock stored would be nowhere enough.

Molvin and Anice had no idea that they had been demoted to poorest of the villages. Village chief had exhausted much of the village surplus to get battle ready villagers. Having a strong present had been a necessity when village chief had taken up the position. The things he had done then for the safety of the village. Those who knew didn't talk. Those who could talk had long perished.

Thanks for behaviour like chivalry and helping the needy and the situation of the village, the villagers didn't find enough chances to branch out farther or to find more ways to earn money. If the competition between the villages was about strength and battle readiness of villagers, this village would have earned a good spot.

If given few months, thanks to their basic package for preparing villagers, they could have ensured strong heaven blessed. But no one had time.

Even if the chief was willing, these heaven blessed would not be. Look at the speed they were pursuing while completing the tasks. Not one of them had thought why such tasks were asked and how to get maximum utility from them. The village had suffered double loss.

Anice had no idea about the village's condition or how much the chief had worked in the limited resources available to reach the present state. She was one of the collateral damage. Probably. She huffed angrily on thinking about her current state and went back, not forgetting to swap the elderberry wine Molvin was drinking. His wine would be aged and thus very mellow and strong, compared to the wine she had stored. Whatever the old said about emptying their coin bags, you can bet that they would not have sold some precious things. She knew, just knew, Molvin had more than enough stock of aged elderberry wine.

Meanwhile, the heaven blessed, aka, players had no idea that they had been shortchanged and went on exploring maps, killing monsters, finishing tasks and doing miscellaneous things.

Artha had put the stall in far end of village square, and this time his banner simply read 'Selling items for credits'. Yep! In the face marketing. Anyways his customer base was not the regular players who would not spent credits like dirt inside the game. Once a while splurge would be nice but end result should be brag worthy. He would be dealing with many people. He would show them he was not just selling normal basic HP and MP potions but other items too. After all seeing is believing. He had used his XP on sleeping bags and on few other potions. He didn't have enough XP to upgrade his newly bought trader bag. Nor did he have XP to upgrade his 'Cloak of anonymity '.But he still had time. He could go hunting monsters or fulfill somegather tasks to recoup the XP and upgrade.