Anton’s father and sister finished eating their lunch but before they left to continue their business in the village hall Anders asked his son about his opinion on hiring the man and his son as their guards.

“I’ll abide by whatever your decision will be Father. You know more about these things. What about their traveling situation?”

“According to Lucas, that’s the man’s name, they have their cart. He and his son Devon got their horses, and their cart will be pulled by a single horse. His wife’s name is Nemina and his daughter, she is your age, is called Lunelle. Since you’re fine with my decision, I’ll talk to him. I will also tell him that you’re a mage so they will know who and what they’re protecting.”

“Fine with me father.”

Anton, his father, and Anna went to the village hall to continue their business. He sat down beside his father and watched him buy broken weapons and armor from the farmers who traveled from the surrounding farms near the village. He saw Anna doing the same thing with the women but the things that she was purchasing were old, torn, or worn-out clothes that used to belong to either rich merchants or nobles. He wondered how the villagers got hold of those clothing and why they were keeping them.

Anders received sellers about every thirty minutes which according to his father was a sign that almost all of those who wanted to sell things to them had already done so. After about an hour Anton saw a man wearing leather armor enter the hall.

“That’s Lucas. I’m going to talk to him and his son in the inn. It will take us an hour or so since I will also be treating them to lunch. Stay here and accept the things that the villagers and farmers will sell you and tell them I’ll be back after an hour to tell them how much I will be paying for their things.”

Anton nodded and waited for the villagers and farmers for their things. Twenty minutes passed and an old farmer and his wife came in carrying a bundle. The farmer walked towards him.

“Young man, are you the one who’s buying all those old broken weapons and armor?”

“Yes, grandfather. Do you have something to sell us?”

“I brought a couple of swords but I don’t know if you’ll buy them. They’re too worn out and the other one is broken in two. I’m kind of ashamed to even show you these old things but I need the coin.”

“You don’t have to be ashamed grandfather. We will buy all weapons and armor even if they’re too old or too broken. We’ll pay a good coin for them too.”

The old farmer then took his things from the bundle that he was carrying and the weapons were indeed very old and worn out and one sword was broken in two.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“We’ll buy your swords, grandfather. We will need to wait for my father though he is talking to someone and will be back after an hour.”

“We’ll wait here. We traveled a couple of hours to sell these old things and we’re happy that you will still buy them. I wished old Norman had come with us. He was too ashamed to bring his broken sword as well.”

“That’s a pity. We’ll buy everything even if it's too worn out or broken. I wish the surrounding people didn’t hesitate. Selling these things to us is better than keeping or throwing them away.”

Anders came back and Anton told him about some of the farmers surrounding the village hesitating to sell them their weapons and armor because they were ashamed that it was too worn out or broken.

“We should hire someone to send the message to the surrounding people Father. This old grandfather is also selling his things and I told him we’ll buy it even if it's too old or broken.”

“My son is correct old sir. I thought I made it clear when I had someone send out the message to people.”

“Your messenger did arrive and told us that someone is buying old weapons and armor but they didn’t mention about you buying too broken things as well. I reckoned that a lot of farmers would have come if they’d known.”

“Well, we’ll stay here in the village until tonight so if those farmers receive the message, they can still come here to sell their things.”

“Father go ahead and pay someone to send the message. Our coins will help everyone a bit.”

Anders smiled at his son and the old farmer told Anton’s father that he had raised a good son which made Anton flee the hall and he could hear the farmer and his father laughing. He went back to their room to continue playing the game at least until dinner.

Anton’s father told him that he hired Lucas and his son to be their guard and they would talk about their employment later during dinner before he left.

Before that dinner though, Anton was able to defeat the boss of Act III, Mephisto, reached Pandemonium Fortress, completed Outer Steppes and Plains of Despair, and also defeated Izual. He reached level twenty-eight and two more levels he would reach level thirty. He spent three hours doing all of those and Anton spent about an hour practicing mana manipulation outside the Rogue Encampment.

After practicing his spell Blizzard so many times, he was beginning to become confident in using the said spell in the real world utilizing it to summon huge amounts of water filled with mana. A few more hours would still help though.

Anton minimized the game and went downstairs when he saw that it was seven in the evening. When he arrived in the common area, his father just arrived together with Anna, their new guard Lucas, and his family.

Anders chose a corner in the common room where they have a modicum of privacy since they would talk about sensitive matters. They asked the inn waiter to join a couple of tables together and they ordered a lot of food.

“Anton after dinner I would go ahead and talk to the innkeeper about our request for their cook to prepare a lot of food for us for you to store before we leave tomorrow,” Anders said to his son.

Anton’s family sat at the table to wait for the food while Lucas and his family joined them. He saw that Devon and Lunelle were staring at him with eyes very wide while Nemina, Lucas’s wife was polite enough not to do the same thing. An urge came to Anton to suddenly shout “Boo!” at the two young people but held that urge off since he didn’t want their new relationship to start on a sour note.