Billy began listing the news that he could remember off the top of his head, “The biggest news in the town is the auction at the mayor’s place. They apparently found an ancient ruin somewhere up in the hills and the mayor wants to auction off the antiques from the ruins. The money from the auction is supposed to go into building a large theater to watch performances and fights.”
He then got close to Richard’s ear and whispered, “There are rumors that the mayor is just using the theater as an excuse and the money will go to pay off his gambling debt.”
Richard nodded. It wasn’t a surprising revelation that a politician was trying to embezzle public funds. It didn’t matter if it was the medieval era or the modern times that he lived through in the past, the politicians are almost always the same.
It helped that it was ambiguous about who owned the antiques excavated from ruins so there was plenty of space to maneuver for the mayor. Politicians thrived in ambiguity.
“What else?” Richard continued to ask.
“Hmm. Let's see… oh, right! There is also a rumor going around that the Thieves Guild is getting involved in the auction. Someday when I become the leader of the Runners Guild, I will also go to those fancy balls and auctions.” Billy got lost in his fantasies in the middle of relaying the news.
“Thieves Guild? Thieves have a guild too?” Richard asked in surprise.
“Oh, you don’t remember. Well, the larger cities have all kinds of guilds including the Thieves Guild. I heard they need licenses to steal and all. We don’t have them in Sherry town though. There isn’t anyone rich enough to rob around here and robbing the travelers is the job of bandits. They are very particular about that.” Billy explained.
(A long time ago bandits used to be a part of the thieves guild. However, an incident caused the rift and separation of the two groups. The 16th guild master of the Thieves Guild, Longus Quickfoot, came from the prestigious thieving family of Quickfoot. Having been born into thieving nobility, Longus despised inelegant forms of stealing money.
He strictly adhered to the Quickfoot family motto of, ‘Elegance. Extraction. Escape.’ So he decided to organize the scattered thieves’ guild into a single structure where inelegant forms of thievery like banditry through coercion and force were ostracized.
The ostracized group banded together around the legendary bandit Thud Longfist. He achieved his legendary status due to his face which was so scary that people handed over money without being threatened.
In fact, Thud Longfist was born to a family of poets as Thaddeus Linkletter. But as he grew up, his large body and scary face terrified people so much that he had to leave home and run away into the woods. His first act of banditry was entirely accidental.
After starving for days in the woods, he couldn’t bear the hunger and walked toward the road next to the woods. There, some merchants saw him blocking the road, handed over everything voluntarily, and ran away. That was how the legend of Thud Longfist began. Other bandits who came to hear about him just started banding together around Thud naturally and so Thud was pushed into becoming a bandit leader.
Even his rivalry with Longus was something that had been manufactured by his followers through a series of misunderstandings. He just couldn’t find the right time to explain himself and continued failing upwards until he became a rival to the guild master or the thieves' guild.
Whatever the reason, two factions formed around Longus and Thud which continued fighting over their ideological differences until Longus in the bid to prove his superiority stole the bandit faction’s entire treasury. This sparked the three-year thieves' war that divided the bandits' and thieves' factions into two different organizations.
The bandits and thieves have had separate job descriptions ever since. So you wouldn’t see a bandit sneakily trying to pick a pocket or a thief threatening you with a large cleaver or beating you with a club to take away your money.)
Richard was confused about the things like thieves’ guild and license to steal but he decided to move on for now. “So you’re saying that the Thieves Guild from a larger city is coming to participate in the auction?” He asked.
Billy squinted his eyes and looked at Richard’s face, “Why would the thieves attend an auction? They are obviously going there to steal the antiques.”
Richard felt offended by the way Billy was looking at him. How would he know how the different guilds function? Since there was a proper organization that seemed to even hand out licenses, he just assumed that they were going to legitimately participate in the auction.
“When is this auction anyway?” Richard continued asking while walking faster.
Billy kept up the pace, “The day after tomorrow. Today there will be a public appraisal and the day after tomorrow is when the auction will happen. Many people from big cities are expected to participate.”
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Richard tensed up a little, “Shit! That just means more work for me. I’ve just started working too. What a bad luck. Anyway, do you know anything about how you can enter a wizarding school?”
Billy looked at Richard in surprise, “What? Do you want to become a wizard? You have to have a magic aptitude first. And if you have it, you either need to be very smart or very rich. You don’t have a chance with all three of those.”
Huh? What does it mean I don’t have all three?
Richard paused his steps, turned to his side, and asked, “How are you sure that I don’t have any magic aptitude?”
“You forgot that too? A professor from the Arcane Institute came by the town and checked all the kids’ magic aptitude last year. He said you have no magic aptitude. Mine was slightly above average but I failed the scholarship test and I didn’t have the money to pay for the entrance. The professor took Bullshit Barry though. We all thought that he was just good at running his mouth but he turned out to be smart enough to get a scholarship. Come to think of it, didn’t you owe him some money too?”
While Billy was continuing to ramble on and on, Richard felt like his entire world was crumbling. Everything started to look bleak with a tint of black and white. All his hopes and dreams of becoming a wizard and using magic were shattered with the news that he has no aptitude for magic.
What is the point of thinking of ideas for saving money when I can’t even get into the magic school?
The sticky darkness of hopelessness was beginning to settle in his heart when a small sprout of hope arose in his heart. Right, the one who was assessed last year was Richie, the boy who died. He wasn’t that boy, his soul had traveled from a different world to this world. There was still a chance.
Richard held Billy’s hands suddenly and shook him, “Hey, how does magic work here? Do you use magic with your body or do you use it with your soul?”
Billy was startled by Richard’s sudden change in temperament. His eyes looked crazed, so he pushed Richard away and took a step back. “How would I know something like that? Ask a wizard or something.”
Ask a wizard… ask a wizard… wizard. Richard stood there mumbling to himself while thinking about where he would go to find a wizard. There was some anticipation in his heart but the fear of failure was gripping him and telling him not to seek answers that might hurt him.
Billy looked at Richard with a mix of worry and fear. “Hey, Richie. Are you okay? You didn’t really lose your marbles along with your memories, right?”
Billy’s concerned voice brought Richard back to his senses. He couldn’t rush things and obsessing over it wouldn’t solve anything either. He took a deep breath to calm his mind.
I can slowly think about the solution to this problem. Let’s not waste this life by rushing into things.
“I am fine. I just got a little excited to hear that I have no magic aptitude.” Richard answered with an excuse that was not really an excuse.
Billy nodded in understanding. “That’s understandable. Last year when Vinnie was told that he didn’t have the aptitude for magic, he nearly stabbed the wizard. Other kids broke down while crying too.”
The aptitude for magic was something random. Even between twins, there could be cases where only one of them has it. But having the aptitude for magic could change your life completely. Wizards were one of the most revered class of people in the world. Who wouldn’t idolize people who could do magic?
Wizards were people who had all the fame and fortune in the world. So, it was understandable that all the kids wanted to become wizards. And it is also understandable to lose your sanity a little when all your hopes and dreams shatter right in front of your eyes. At least it was understandable for Richard.
Robert and Billy continued to walk toward the Bear & Beer Inn while Billy listed the miscellaneous news from around the town. The daughter of a merchant ran away from home. The poet from the village next door went missing. A new couple had bought a house on the hillside. And all kinds of other news kept pouring out of Billy’s mouth.
Although most of the things were unrelated to him and had very little useful information, Robert continued to listen to Billy with interest. Most of the gossip was interesting in itself but he could also gleam a lot of things about the local culture, traditions, and values from those tidbits.
When they reached the inn, Richard sneaked a bowl of stew and a piece of stale bread out from the kitchen by saying he was hungry after walking around. He took the bowl to the back and gave it to Billy before sending him off.
After returning to the kitchen, Richard was handed a mop and a bucket by Willum. “There will probably be quite a lot of guests staying at the inn from today. Go clean up the empty rooms on the second floor. Mop the floor, remove the cobwebs, and dust off the beds. I don’t want to hear the city folks complaining about standards and cleanliness.”
As Richard was walking away with the mop and the bucket, he could hear Willum mumbling from behind, “Pompous bastards. What more do you need when you have a soft bed to sleep in and four walls covering you from the wind and rain…”
Although Sherry town had an image of being pretentious to the villages around them, the people of Sherry town themselves didn’t feel like they were ‘city folks’. To them, the people coming in from the big cities were the pretentious ones. It was a long chain of inferiority complexes.
Richard was lost in thought as he mopped the dusty floors of the guest rooms. It didn’t matter if he had the magic aptitude or not, either way, the fact remains that he was poor and needed money. So he had to quickly come up with a money-making scheme to dig himself out of poverty.
So, what could he do to earn a lot of money? Any business starts with addressing the pain points of the customer. The biggest pain point that came to Richard’s mind was the pain in his legs from all the walking. The answer was thus simple. The first invention that Richard will utilize to make money is a bicycle.
He had seen a lot of carriages, carts, and horses but he hadn’t seen any other modes of transport. The dwarven blacksmiths seem to have excellent skills at handling iron. So, he thought that making a bicycle was possible. He also had his first customer base in mind, the Runners Guild.
For a guild of couriers, messengers, and errand runners, speed is key. The bicycle could become a revolutionary tool for the Runners Guild. Richard could already imagine runners on bicycles going around delivering news, letters, and parcels on their individual bicycles.
Richard began laughing to himself while thinking about all the money that he would make in the future.