Still cursing, Severin pulled his shirt over his head and wrapped his hands inside.

And then leaped after the small red metal ball.

“Hours! I wasted hours. For this! And now look at me. Scarred and scorched and fumbling on the floor like some… fuck!”

Severin caught the ball with his makeshift gloves and quickly turned the two dials back to their default positions, but not without burning himself one more time in the process. The next moment, the sphere not only immediately stopped radiating its heat but instead felt like it had never been hot to begin with. Almost pleasantly cool even.

With disgust Severin stared at the thing, and for a moment considered tossing it away. In the end, he refrained from doing so and instead kept pressing it on a spot that was especially hurting.

But there were things that hurt more than the cuts and burns he had incurred.

“Half a gold…” he reminded himself, readying himself for another rant.

But even the far too low price was only part of the problem. There were so many more issues.

Like the fact that no one in their right mind would buy one of these things; cheap or not. Maybe one at most, if only for its novelty and because as customers used to a certain standard of quality regarding Severin’s products, they wouldn’t believe anything he sold would actually be as useless as it sounded. That had to be the only reason they would ever give the thing a try. Only to be utterly disappointed.

“And then they’ll burn themselves and sue me for damages!”

But what should he do? Or rather, was there anything he could do? His gut reaction was to simply not bother with it. Write it off as a dud and be done with it.

But that would mean his newly acquired sub-class would stay at level one forever. And that obviously wouldn’t do. After all, not all the recipes he would unlock could be as useless as this. Right?

‘So then, I’ll just keep crafting and simply not sell any of them. Means no [Shopkeeper] experience from the sales, but who cares? Since that experience depends on the earned amount of gold, I’m not losing out on much, anyway.’

But he knew that the System provided supply of materials also had its limits. Once he reached a seemingly arbitrary number of stocked goods, there would be no replenishments.

‘Then again, I know it has something to do with the store’s overall storage capacity. I already once managed to raise those limits. If necessary, I’ll open up a second floor and hope extending the store will do the trick a second time.’

In reality Severin didn’t believe it would be quite this easy to outsmart the System, but on the spur of the moment this was the best he could come up and the thread of hope that kept him from completely losing his composure.

Knock Knock

Half irritated by the sudden interruption which disturbed him in his state of grudging acceptance, and half relieved by the unexpected distraction, Severin swirled around.

“What is it?” he asked the old man whose head had popped up in the crack of the door. The unintended harshness of Severin’s voice did not even register with the man. He was too excited. And too perplexed by the disheveled sight Severin presented with his upper body still exposed.

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“Sorry for the disturbance, boss. It is just that… There is a group of people asking for you. They were quite determined to speak with you. I think it is urgent.” And then, after noticing Severin narrowing his eyes, quickly added and with the reverence of a most loyal citizen of Malcos, “The eldest Princess herself is amongst them!”

“Did she say what it’s about?”

A shake of the head.

“Well, it does not matter. Go ahead, I’m coming.”

...

“Aah, there you are, boy,” were the words that greeted a fully clothed Severin.

On a different day, his habitual checking of the map in the periphery of his vision would have prevented Severin being caught off-guard by probably the only person he tolerated calling him boy.

“Samuel!”

“You kept us waiting!”

On a different day, Severin would have immediately grasped what was going on. That only Richard-who, some people rumored, was still too embarrassed to show his face after he gave that one particular interview during the Games- was missing in this lineup.

On a different day, he also would have retorted that not even half a minute had passed since he had been called over by Krill.

But today he instead said,

“Andreas. What’s going on? What’s bringing you guys over?”

“This,” answered the third member of the group, producing a black matte card which must have been signed over to her by her father. “It speaks of a new product.”

Only then came the realization.

“Right.” So much for the distraction I hoped for. “Well, the thing is…” he began to fidget uncomfortably.

“Stop teasing us, will ya”

Sigh

Severin would have preferred some time to prepare himself for this occasion. Or maybe he could’ve passed of the task to Krill or Em altogether.

But now there was no escape.

Reluctantly, he revealed the item in question he had still been clutching tightly.

Expectant gazes.

“Well?! What is it? What does it do?”

And another sigh.

But ultimately, he explained what he knew.

“It is a [Heating Sphere]. See those two dials? You can twist the two halves. This one here regulates the temperature. The other one the duration.”

Severin paused for a moment and considered.

In the end, he refrained from badmouthing his own product as a potential fire hazard. But warned, “There is a short delay before it activates. Short,” he repeated with emphasis.

“And though in theory you can turn it off prematurely simply by twisting one of the dials back to their initial position… well, depending on the current temperature… you get the idea.”

“Right. So. Uhm. Anything… else?”

Severin was met with very limited enthusiasm.

Making him want to disappear into the ground.

“There will be a freezing version of it available as well.”

“…”

“It’s only half a gold each.”

“For real?!” a new, somewhat familiar, but most of all very excited, voice suddenly cried out, immediately dispersing the awkward silence and forcing its way into the conversation. “That sounds amazing! Can you show me?”

The original audience, taken aback by the sudden shout just as much as Severin was, turned around as one, and gave way to the sight of a stout woman with a delighted expression her face which stood in stark contrast to the look of disappointment the other three had unwittingly displayed until just a moment ago.

“Milly?!”