Severin was fuming.

‘Urgent Task my ass. Shouldn’t I get an especially big reward if it was oh-so urgent? Just wait and see which idiot will comply with these requests the next time.’

Usually, when he felt the System had scammed him once again, Severin wouldn’t shy away from venting his frustrations out loud. Now, however, he was situated in front of, basically, a whole guild’s raid group of customers. It took all the willpower he could muster to not explode right there and then and not make a fool of himself.

He tried to gather his thoughts and calm himself down. While it certainly wasn’t his strong suit, he was still required to act as a good host.

Luckily at this moment, two youths appeared and, after a silent greeting towards Severin, started to question an enthusiastic Andreas; They were effectively buying Severin some time to fix his attitude.

Severin had almost forgotten that Timothy and Miriam had accompanied the Lion’s Head’s group since they temporarily had split up with the old [Berserker]. But now they were as loud and curious as ever.

“What do you have there? What’s that black thing?” Being slightly taller than Tim also allowed Miriam to spot the unfamiliar object slightly earlier than him.

“What? A new product!? Let me see.”

“Yeah, show us!”

Not only by the sound but also by the looks of it did it become apparent that the duo had settled in well with the group of adventurers. At least judging by the way they dished out friendly nudges as they naturally joined the circle of people.

As it turned out, fighting side by side oftentimes accelerated the forming and deepening of bonds.

As Andreas, with interruptions and comments from Xander and even Emily, proudly explained the benefits of his new treasure, Severin took this opportunity to calm himself down by silently talking himself into believing that he hadn’t totally been scammed by the System, after all.

‘I mean, it did unlock the V.I.P. feature,’ he grumbled to himself.

‘Still got two more of these cards. That alone has to be worth something. Most importantly, there doesn’t seem to be any requirement which has to be fulfilled for me to be able to give them away.’ In his mind, one of these was already reserved for Samuel; But he quickly thought again. ‘At this point, they are basically assets. Randomly giving them away just based on sympathy won’t do. Not if I might be able to trade them for…well something!’

Somewhat appeased by his self-deception, Severin turned his focus back on the discussion at hand just at the right time for him to hear Timothy make an objection.

“The discount is all well and good, but about the five extra usages… didn’t Xandi here already show us a working alternative?” He gave Emily a meaningful look. The meaning was clear.

Hearing that, Xander couldn’t help but nod inwardly, whereas a shadow seemed to appear on Andreas’s face. As well as on Severin’s.

“You can try,” the latter dared them, obviously very unamused by Tim’s bright idea. It wasn’t that Severin categorically opposed the idea of people reselling certain items or services. The concept, of course, wasn’t foreign to him. And as long as it wouldn’t bring him any trouble or hurt his own revenue, he didn’t care all that much. But…

‘Dream on! I just received these V.I.P memberships and you talk about wanting to diminish their worth? Don’t tempt me into finally trying out the blacklist function!’

“Ha.Ha. Just a joke!”

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The idea was quickly waved off.

Seeing Severin’s uncharacteristically grave expression and hearing his words which seemed to carry a hint of poison in them, even the slowest of the bunch got the message. A message which greatly relieved Andreas who had to try hard to keep up the appearance of a proper guild officer instead of acting smug and self-satisfied.

Having turned the situation kind of awkward, Severin knew it was up to him to defuse the situation.

Ahem

“We actually do have some new products, though.”

That sentence indeed managed to distract everyone as they immediately perked up.

“What?! Really? And you’re only telling us now? What is it?”

“Let’s just check it out ourselves! Quick!”

This time it was Tim who beat Miriam to it, and got a headstart on her as they started to race each other to the shop, all while still bickering.

“What are you so excited about? This time it’s certainly something for us casters!”

“You wish!”

“Yeah, I do. So what?! Need even more benefits to beat me?” The mage kept taunting the girl.

The [Duelist] followed closely behind them, taking care to not get caught in their crossfire.

Only Andreas tried to preserve some of his dignity as he urged Severin to lead the way inside.

“That reminds me! We brought back some items which need identifying. If you would be so kind…”

“Haha, of course,” Severin exclaimed. This news pleased the [Shopkeeper] immensely as he would finally be able to complete the long-overdue quest. Thinking about the promised reward, the ability to adjust his cut of the profits, he was tempted to refuse to sell any other items until that task had been taken care of. Instead, he gave up the idea and answered, “My assistant will help you with that.”

That answer came as a surprise to the assistant in question as well as to Andreas.

Emily was quickly beaming with joy, though, whereas the [Warrior] was visibly shocked.

“Really?” He didn’t manage to hide his doubts. Until then he still considered Severins act of hiring the girl more as an act of charity than anything else. He wouldn’t believe it if anyone was to tell him that the girl had had a class all along. Not when considering her previous appearance. But just as little did he believe that Severin gifted the girl with a class orb just to enable her to help out in his shop.

“I’ll do my best,” the girl promised, not addressing any of the man’s concerns and deciding to prove herself with actions rather than words.

Severin’s reason for leaving this task to Emily, besides the obvious one being that this was now part of her actual job, was that he wanted to find out whether or not his employees could help him make progress with a quest.

Andreas decided not to pry. He would learn the truth soon enough. Besides, right now there was something else that was way more important to him than that.

The moment they caught up to Xander and the two youths and reached the door, Andreas felt he was having a déjà vu.

The excited cries and shouts. The pushing and shoving. The incredulous looks on everyone’s faces.

The last time he was greeted by such a scene was when they had discovered the item combinator. An almost godly device that allowed them to create previously unheard-of item effects for a pittance.

So what could possibly agitate those very same adventurers, who now should have a certain standard by which to evaluate any new items? Was it a similarly outlandish new magical device?

The answer soon revealed itself.

“Ten percent to the highest stat!”

“Four percent to all stats!”

“Quick! Combine them! What are you waiting for?!”