Chapter 222: Runes!

Anyway, he shook his head of the thoughts and proceeded on looking around.

The merchants here were, according to Leez, travelling merchants who would rent out a spot in guilds whenever they went to a town or a city. The merchant guild had the most properties among the three major guilds, and understandably so.

The merchants could rent the spots on a daily or a monthly basis, and the cost varied depending on location and the branch.

The shopowners seem to be the distributors or the artisans themselves, which made sense because if it were just middlemen, then they might as well just sell on the markets outside.

Here, there were several potions that might not be available in the pharmacies. There was also some equipment, skills, food, and other materials that were definitely of much better quality than those available outside.

Then he was dragged to the equipment zone, where weapons higher level than D-class were sold.

He looked at the costs of Class C weapons, which on this floor seemed to be the main offering.

The cheapest ones cost a whopping 500 gold! He was a bit surprised. In the [Hearth Market], the Class D and Class E weapons were more expensive than the market, primarily because they had higher durability and more functions.

The Class C weapons there, though, if he remembered correctly, were around 300 gold and 1000 hearth points, making the outside-sourced C-class equipment more expensive for a change.

He wondered why.

If only the weapons weren’t bound to him, he might’ve shifted to being a merchant instead.

That was probably the point why they were bound to the innkeeper in the first place. If they allowed him to resell, then he’d be too preoccupied selling stuff!

What a pity!!

A Class C sword was also there, presented as the main feature for this floor. The price? 650 gold!

Ugh. he didn’t even want to look.

This also made him look forward to the blacksmithing workshop. He was also looking forward to the skills associated with the shop being taught to his staff.

“Wow, it’s been a while since I went here,” Marcus said, looking around with that dorky grin on his face. Nona stared at him.

“Do you even have money?”

“I like looking at things and imagining I’ll get them. Power of visualization, y’know?”

Leiah shook her head and then looked at Finn. “The higher-level weapons, runes, special potions, mid-level skill scrolls, and above would be found on the second floor,” she told him.

“Can anyone access those areas?”

At this, the adventurers just raised their arms as if to show their status gems.

“We just scan this for our identity,” they said. “It’s one of the perks of adventurers and mercenaries. Otherwise, this area would just be available to members of the merchant hall as well as nobles.”

“I see, good to know.”

They climbed to the second floor and were greeted by the guards. They were especially passionate with Leez.

“Ah, Miss!”

“Milady!”

His eyebrows rose as he looked at Leez. Leiah caught his expression and sighed.

“Didn’t we tell you? She’s the daughter of the Merchant Branch Master.”

His lips twitched upwards. “…I see…”

Well, that made sense. She seemed to be doing her own ventures (the contract had her name, rather than the guild), but it was also great to know they had additional backing. This made the deal even more worth it.

The second floor was much less boisterous, but it was more spacious, and its decorations were much more luxurious. There were no more individual merchants, and everything was a showcase, protected and covered with glass.

He touched it. “So we have glass already here?”

Leez looked at him, seemingly impressed. “Yes, a few territories deeper in the safe zones produce it. Such clear and thin glass panels are very expensive, however.”

He nodded, and they perused the items together.

The arrangement was that they would place their bids in a locked pocket associated with the item, and then the bidders would be summoned at the end of the day or whatever date was indicated in the platform.

This would usually be set by the seller, who could be an individual who sold items through the Merchant Guild or the guild itself.

There was really a variety. There was a section for materials, a section for defense equipment, an area for weapons, and the like.

There were more Class C weapons here, and there were also a few Class B weapons. As expected, the prices were dizzying.

Eventually, they arrived at the ’rare item’ section where runes were. “Ah, there’re only a few runes left, it seems,” Leez said. “Though we probably didn’t have much in the first place.”

He took this chance to learn more about runes. There were a few varieties: a small barrier rune, a defense rune, an agility rune, and two small space runes.

There was a gem embedded in the box. Apparently, one could connect any appraisal tools there to see more details. It was very interesting.

Of course, as someone who had an appraisal skill, he just had to use a bit of mana to see its functions.

He studied the products more and recalled what he knew about them. Runes were reusable tools that could be used over and over until they were destroyed.

However, after the energy was consumed, there was a cooldown wherein they’d need to gather enough essence to work again.

This could be hastened by using essence cores, but it’d need a converter tool, which looked a lot like that item the guild used to activate his status gem.

Of course, this tool was also very expensive and was part of the second floor’s offerings.

He wondered if there was a way to convert energy without it…

Well, that wasn’t his problem for now. He did not even have a single rune in his possession yet.

…

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A/N: I learned a lot when writing this story! This genre (business management in apoc/fantasy settings) is something I really like, so my next work will probably be under this subgenre. Hope to see you there, too!

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