After Miriam and Timothy unintentionally made him look like a fraud in the eyes of the elven innkeeper, Severin counted on the pizza’s tooltip and its taste to convince her otherwise while at the same time winning over her son.

But as far as the actual buff effect was concerned, he didn’t have much expectations.

Even if classless people were subject to the same stats and attributes as classbearers, they had to be so low that an increase of a few percent to any of them shouldn’t be noticeable at all. In fact, he himself never physically felt any difference having a few additional HP or a point in strength. It might be different for adventurers or people of a higher level, but Severin could only tell he was currently buffed because his status screen told him so.

And in his opinion, that was not something regular people would have access to.

It turned out he was wrong.

The son’s excited shouts and the mother’s grateful but somewhat guilty looks made it impossible for the group to immediately leave. Settling the bill and paying for their rooms was only possible after repeatedly rejecting her offers to upgrade their rooms to double rooms, free of charge.

Even when she finally conceded and took their coins, she still insisted on giving them her best rooms.

Best in this case-she explained- simply referred to their location, farthest away from the stairs and on the top floor.

Initially Severin thought the opposite would be the most convenient, but changed his opinion and readily accepted Milly’s goodwill, when she abashedly explained that his estimation was only true for the more upscale establishments that either noise canceling or at least noise dampening enchantments installed.

She proudly added that while she could not compete with some of the better-known inns and hotels in terms of facilities and services, she could at least guarantee that she was in no way inferior to them in terms of cleanliness. As if to prove her claim, she invited the [Shopkeeper] and the two young adventurers to inspect their rooms.

Severin politely declined.

Maybe if he had any real luggage in his inventory, he would have humored her under the pretext of wanting to stow some of it away inside the room.

But none of his items lent themselves to this. Neither the jelly cubes, nor the bottled oils and elixirs.

And most certainly not the large amounts of supposedly perishable food, that, contradictory to what his customers suggested, still hadn’t lost any of their taste or effectiveness while stored inside his inventory.

Above all, Severin knew that the woman, by her own previous admission, could hardly afford to waste time like this, anyway.

Hinting at this, the group finally managed to convince Milly to let them go.

..

Standing outside, Severin deliberated on how to proceed.

He first opened the System menu and checked the questlog.

During their meal, Severin had talked a bit about his store and, with the help of both Timothy and Miriam, roughly described where it was located.

Despite that, he now found that the status of the vaguely worded task asking him to promote his store hadn’t been updated at all.

Was it because the System, rightfully so, didn’t consider her a potential customer?

Because the scale of his impromptu advertisement wasn’t large enough? Or maybe because he couldn’t actually pinpoint the location of his store, let alone give directions, even if he wanted to?

Whatever the case, the result wasn’t anything unexpected, and he figured for more success he might as well try visiting one of Hanvia’s local branches of the Adventurer’s Society.

To his understanding, those establishments had to be packed with potential customers, and getting a hold of a map depicting a certain land bridge shouldn’t be impossible either.

That reminded him.

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The agreement he had with Magda stipulated that the Society branches operating on exactly that land bridge, which was commonly referred to as the Golden Mountains, were contractually obligated to promote his wares; the results of which he expected to soon be able to see reflected in his balance sheets. Not only that, but Andreas’ group was also bound to return any time now.

Severin took a look at the corresponding menus and confidently estimated that based on the revenue of his store, neither new nor returning customers had found their way to his floating mountain.

He didn’t find anything else that seemed of the ordinary, mentally swiped away the bluish screen, and was about to excuse himself and go on his way.

“Do you want to join us?”

Severin was taken slightly off-guard and wasn’t sure whether the invitation was entirely sincere or only made out of politeness. He still considered it earnestly, without having to ask whereto they were actually headed.

Since he had already decided to take things slow, time was not a factor he had to take into consideration.

On the other hand, it might not be a bad idea to stick to someone who was at least somewhat familiar with the place. Plus, it couldn’t be ruled out that on their way to or from, the two might just make a stop at the Society or some other places that were of interest to him, anyway.

In the worst case, he would simply follow them to a place packed with potential customers and see if he could find any opportunities.

All things considered, the decision wasn’t all that hard.

“Sure,” Severin agreed and let Timothy lead them towards the Colosseum like arena, that, thanks to the many helpful street signs with their unambiguous pictograms pointing them in the right direction, was impossible to miss, to begin with.

By now the city had truly woken, but the streets were spacious enough for the group not to be slowed down by the droves of people going along their business. Even if they did, Severin would not have minded as there were still all kinds of novelties that demanded his attention; it was impossible for him to grow bored in this environment.

From the magic shops that sold common household items, such as magically enchanted cooling and heating stones, to the pair of centaurs who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and passed him at a trot, which, after the initial shock, made him think back to the large double doors leading inside the Society’s faculties back on his mountain.

Around an hour later, and the group found themselves standing in the shadow of a huge stadium. Another set of signs, this time in written form, pointed them towards a side entrance, with the person manning the ticket booth looking more like a guard or maybe a thug than a ticket agent.

“Three people? Six gold.” Said a bored voice.

“I don’t…”

“Doesn’t matter. Two gold a person. Classbearer or not, makes no difference.”

Realizing there would be no use trying to negotiate with the woman, almost reluctantly and while grinding his teeth, he handed over the money.

Severin reacted this way not because the price actually affected him, but because he felt the amount was grotesquely disproportionate to the few silver coins he paid Milly.

Seeing and most certainly misunderstanding his behavior, the rough-looking attendant decided to ignore Severin and instead turned towards Miriam and Timothy, who looked more like their typical clientele.

“Then to give you the quick rundown. Too many people currently in town and the individual rooms are all assigned to the participants. Meaning you’re limited to the shared open space which currently is pretty packed.

Both equipment and sparring rings are therefore scarce at the moment.

So, for now it’s first come first serve.

Only exception is the big ring in the middle. That one is reserved for settling grudges and wagers. Higher the stakes, higher the priority; pretty simple. And these days it’s always occupied.

That should be all.

Oh, and don’t even try to sneak into the restricted areas because you want to meet your favorite fighter or some shit like that. Unless you want to be mistaken for an opposing team’s spy, that is.

Now off you go.”