Doren's smithy .

Don't worry the owner is a friend of mine he won't try to ripp you off like that sly merchant did .

I nodded and we both went inside the smithy or should i say the shop, as we entered i was greated by a scene that was quite different than what i expected , we were in a shop with shelves and racks lined the walls, showcasing a variety of weapons, armor, and some weird tools , there was even gleaming swords, intricate daggers, sturdy looking shields, and various farming implements that caught my eye, everything look as if it was crafted with care and attention to detail .

There was a wooden counter with the most noticable feature about the counter was the drawing of a smiley dwarf with Stars shooting behind him but the only weird thing was that the counter was actually empty .

I turned to Regard and asked : where's the owner of this place , was he not afraid of some thief breaking in , why was he leaving it unattended ? .

Try to take any of those swords on the racks if you succeeded i will gift that sword to you .

I didn't even ask him if he was serious or not and went directly towards a gleaming sword that was to my liking and tried to pull it forcedly but here was the thing that was the reason for me losing conscious for a few minutes, a lightening charge that was way faster than what i can possibly have the ability to react to fired from the sword the moment my hand tried to touch it and after that it was pitch black .

A few minutes later i began to open my eyes weakly and felt like my body was chained up as i wasn't able to move a single muscle , my movements were being restricted , my sight was still blurry and even my ears were buzzing if i was still a normal teenager i would be in a panicked state right now , but i'm no normal teenager any more and this isn't my old world either .

I was calm and collected i tried to fix my current problems one after the other , i'm quite sure that i didn't lose my sight so a few blinks should do the trick probably .

Now on to the next problem the buzzing sound in my ears, weird it's wearing off on its own already now to my freezed like state .

I'm not completely restricted from making any movements as i'm blinking my eyes right now to try regain my sight while i was thinking about how to fix my current situation i began to hear two people talking one of the two voices was one that i was very familiar with it was Regard voice .

The other voice belong to what i believe to be of an elder man but weirdly it was as if he was close to my ears but that can't be possible, i'm currently laying on the ground so for his voice to be so close to my ears, it will only be possible if he was laying beside me , but why would he be doing something like that , but could he be the owner of this place what are they taking about exactly i will try to focus on what they were saying .

This kid wanted to shoplift and i was here just in time to stop him .

Very funnily indeed, but even stopping a shoplift won't be enough to decrease your dept by a copper coin .

Don't be like that we have known each other for a long time , we can always start a new .

We can , but how many times do you believe that we started a new , you even brought a thief this time with you .

Right, Hey kid are you doing okay ? .

He stopped bickering with the other guy and directed the question at me , it was a warm gesture but he was accusing me of shoplifting to wash off some of the debts he have , i believe if i'm stronger than him i would have chocked him until he apologize for my current situation .

Don't ignore me when we are in the middle of conversation .

I'm not a thief though .

Why are you able to talk, the will binding rune is malfunctioning or something ?.

I was finally able to see clearly and now somehow understood what was going on with his voice being so close to my ears , the man or the midget that was talking to Regard was an old midget with huge gray beard and was wearing what looked like those ancient nordic warrior attire i believe they were being called Vikings with the helmet that have horns and all, i can't see his facial features clearly, but i guessed that he was even older than Regard ,

What is going on Regard you were that told me that you will gift me the sword if i was able to pull it .

You didn't now shut up and Heal .

I feel much better already but i was still bound in my place so i looked at the was losing his mind midget saying things like :

Oh, he told you he would gift it to you , like the underworld he would .

He was comically stamping his feet on the ground while cursing Regard and a man named Vouce .

So sorry to interrupt your cursing but can you unbound me from that rune of yours .

Listen to the kid Doren and deactivate that rune of yours .

Alright, alright it is not like it was working that well anyway , he said then just knocked my body once and said something that i wasn't able to hear or understand clearly .

But whatever he did it was quite effective as i was able to move freely with my body again and that feeling of being restricted vanished instantly, i thanked him and began to stand up from my laying position .

I looked down towards the midget and offered my sincere apology .

Don't care about your apology i want to be compensated .

I believe you played around with us enough Rickan , now why don't be a good dwarf and call your grandpa .

Dwarf, so he wasn't just a human midget, i looked at the dwarf named Rickan but he was glowing and his facial features and even his whole body began to change he become taller almost reaching my height , wasn't the dwarves been known for their short stature so how can that Rickan be almost as tall as me and still be called a dwarf .

The boy who stood in front of me now was still wearing the same attire, he had black hair and brown sharp eyes, short ears but long earlobes , he had no distinctive facial features if we forget about his over grown build and his long earlobes,he probably would be no different than a normal human but that boy was currently frowning at the question that Regard asked,as he said in a sad tone :

You are too late,my grandfather is no longer around and he left me all alone .

I thought he meant that his grandpa passed away so i was about to offer my condolences but Regard suddenly struck the boy's head before saying : i told you to stop missing around Rickan, Doren still have at least 50 years to live , beware of me telling him that you wish for his death so badly .

Sorry , sorry my grandpa didn't die but he already went back to Terra after hearing about the guild master Zoren Toll being transferred to Hollen out of the blue , he told me to tell you that he already left and asked me to take care of the smithy , said the now smiling and embarrassed boy while caressing his head but i can still see some melancholy in his eyes and complexion as he mentioned his grandpa departure .

But to go back to Terra now of all the times , is things here really becoming this serious , i wonder .

I don't know i'm just telling you what he told me, you can leave now .

Not so fast we aren't here for some reunion ,we are here to equip this young man here with the finest equip you can afford to part with for a manageable amount of money .

And how much money does this reasonable amount is going to be ?.

No more than 50 silver coins .

Regard .

Don't worry kid i got this .

50 silver coins , huh okay , i will listen to what you want since there is no other customers around , tell me what kind of equipment are we talking about here ? .

An armor, a sword , and if possible a magical tool to hide his status from the prying eyes .

The boy just opened his mouth wide and looked at Regard as if he was looking at someone crazy but why was he like that i have no idea but the suspense didn't continue he moved to the counter and reached for something that was in the shelves of the counter, it was a gleaming steel crossbow loaded and ready to shoot and aimed it at me .

What are you doing Rick, don't point such a dangerous weapon at a customer .

A customer ?! With what you want and what you offer to pay, you might be here to steal the equipments instead of to buy it .

Then why are you pointing towards the kid ?.

I know well enough that i can't take you on old man Regard, but you need the equipments for him then if i killed him both of our problems will be over .

Hey, what did i do he was the one who asked for all of that and i'm here to only ask for a sword that is worth 15 silver coins maximum , i told him hurriedly as i don't know why my back was now dranched just after he pointed his weapon at me but one thing for certain the current me will have no chance in stopping his shot if he decided to shot me .

15 silver coins for a sword and you came here , did you think this was a junkyard or something , he was only getting more enraged at my words , and what with that twisted logic of his , i tried to ease the situation and apologize in hope of him calming down a little , but Regard was faster than me as he said :

If you shoot the kid you will lose a big proposition , i can assure you that the opportunity i'm taking about here is related to that sly guy Silver Wallace .

His words was so effective that Rickan dropped the gun from his hand and his facial expression changed from the angry and tensed boy to one that was more welcoming now .

Tell me more about that big proposition you mentioned , old man Regard .

Your grandfather's was in debt to that Silver, his debt even began to accumulate increase rate until the amount of debt became 1 mana stone , isn't that right ?.

What is my grandpa's debt have to do with the opportunity you mentioned and what was this guy role in all of this ?.

Believe it or not but that kid is going to exempt you and your grandpa from being in debt by paying your debt to Silver .

After Regard finish saying this part , i saw Rickan reaching for his gun again but then Regard continue on saying : you see, coincidentally Silver Wallace is currently owing this kid a 1 mana stone , let him tell how that come to happen and i believe you are smart enough think of the rest .

Tell him about your encounter with Silver Wallace , don't worry we will get you well equipped for your hunting task .

I told Rickan , about my encounter with him and how that Silver scammed me of my mana stone with a skill book that was only worth 50 silver coins or so .

He burst on laughing and didn't even ask for a proof , he only kept saying yeah that's Silver alright before continuing on laughing .

So how do you want to do this ? .

Ofcourse we will use the purchase power of one mana stone to choose the equipments that we like .

Sorry but that won't do for me, you know that i must hand over 25 percent of whatever products i sell and with how much you want to spend i won't be able to make any profit like this even with the debt being gone , i can utmost offer you a purchasing power limit under 7 coins and you will just have to deal with that .

I believe that you are tr... .

Okay, we accept .

Kid ?! .

It's already beyond my expectations to be able to spend so much on my equipment, i came here expecting to be only able to buy a sword but now i have the purchase power of 7 gold coins and i can even take advantage of that sly merchant who scammed me, i can confidently say that i won .

It's your call , okay Rickan give us some good quality products that are worth 7 gold coins that's our final offer .

Rickan didn't reply he just asked me about my preferred weapon and i told him i like to use swords, he directly began to rummage through the racks and in the shelves and came back with a few items ,3 swords one was a shortsword and the second was a longsword and the third was a greatsword , two sets of armors a leather armor and a black scaled armor last but not least a strange looking compass , why was it weird well it was because it looked more like a golden circular hairpin and the sides that were pointing North and South were shaped like snake head with a red gem imbued in one of each snake head eye the red gems were imbued in opposition to each other it looked quite magical with its weird design but he said that it was a disguising tool weirdly shaped as a compass ., i marveled at how was he even able to pile those up , they looked to be quite heavy .

Chose which one do you like, those three swords are all priced at 3 gold coins, and the armors are too , consider the disguising tool a gift from the house otherwise its price is even higher than the swords and the armors .