Andreas was taken by the concept and seemed to slowly regain some of his previously drained energy.

“Haha. That would make things much easier to organize. And items that won’t get any bids will just get stored in the guild bank instead. Or be sold together with the lesser quality stuff. No one will any longer just claim stuff because it’s free. And most importantly, it would also give me a tool to keep certain people in check. I love it!” Andreas’s eyes almost glistened as he said that. Severin was confident that he knew of at least one such person Andreas was thinking about.

“If they don’t behave…Hehe… they have only themselves to blame if they can’t afford any more loot in the future! Someone other than Frank or me deciding to pull a monster? Say goodbye to your DKP! Disobeying an officer? Minus DKP! Coming unprepared? Don’t even think about it! Hahaha!” The initially faint mumbling became ever louder and Andreas seemed almost manic as he started to laugh like a madman.

Severin felt Em’s small hands grab his arm as both of them slowly tried to back off.

A few of the other people also looked over, but they were too far away to have heard anything of the exchange. They didn’t yet know what was in store for them.

‘I’m sorry everyone. That wasn’t what I had in mind when I made the suggestion. I swear!’ In his thoughts, Severin apologized for creating a monster.

“Hey wait! Don’t you have some more ideas? Anything?” For a moment Severin thought the man would leap right at him.

“No!” Severin snapped in return. Even if he originally might’ve had any other ideas, he already regretted his actions. Seeing the officer take delight in the prospect of getting back at some of the more unruly guildmates, made him feel sorry. Even for someone like the [Duelist]; He didn’t hate the man enough to let twenty other people suffer just to teach him a lesson. And besides. Most of his grudge had already been buried anyway; Not the least thanks to him introducing him to Em.

“Too bad.” The regret in Andreas’s voice was real, but at the same time, he was coming back to his senses.

Sigh

“I’d first have to run it by the leadership anyway. And it would probably be more efficient if the main group adopted it as well.” He shook his head and said while observing the other adventurers, “They know how to behave when it really matters, but on other occasions…I mean you just witnessed everything firsthand...Well, never mind all that for now.

Hearing Andreas’s offhand comment Severin was suddenly very intrigued.

‘So they have another raid group, huh? Thinking about it, it should’ve been obvious. Especially when he kept mentioning a guild leader from time to time. No way that guy isn’t leading another group. And they should probably be quite some levels above everyone here. Otherwise, there would be no need to put his son Harold in a different group. Guess I’ll meet them too, sooner or later. And these guys should have even more money to spend, no? Hehe. Maybe I should…’

“Mind telling me how you came up with the idea?”

“Huh?” Having his thoughts interrupted after spacing out, Severin was momentarily a bit slow on the uptake.

“Oh. The DKP stuff? Ha.Ha. I didn’t actually come up with it myself. It’s just something we adopted back then.” Severin felt a pang of nostalgia thinking back to the countless nights he had spent in front of his computer, playing video games with his friends.

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“Oh?” Not only Andreas, but Emily as well perked up when she heard this.

“So you also used to be an adventurer like them?” She looked at him with a mixture of awe and disbelief. “Ha.Ha. Something like that.” It came close enough to the truth that it didn’t feel like a complete lie to him. And, without revealing information he wanted to keep secret, at least for now, it was probably one of the better excuses he could come up with. That didn’t mean, however, that he was very comfortable in his skin at that moment. He waved them off, indicating he didn’t want to further talk about the subject. If he were to accidentally be exposed as a fraud, he wouldn’t know what to do. “That was a long time ago. I’m just a shopkeeper now.”

“Have you also been in a guild?” Emily either didn’t catch on to Severin’s, not all that subtle, attempt to change the subject or just didn’t care.

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly but refused to say any more on the topic.

Andreas decided to help him out, as he knew there were a lot of reasons for an adventurer not wanting to talk about their past; He hadn’t missed the earlier hint of sadness in Severin’s eyes either. Andreas thought he had a good idea why Severin was so reluctant to talk. Annihilated guilds, for example, by a difficult raid or a competing guild, were common enough for him not to push the matter. He stopped Emily before she got any other chance to bother her boss further and instead brought up a different question which he thought Severin would be more willing to answer.

“What does this DKP even stand for?”

He answered without thinking, “Dragon kill points.”

The moment the words left his mouth he regretted it.

“You killed dragons?!”

“A Dragonslayer? You?”

Severin started to panic and stumbled over his words. “Well, kinda. Wait, I mean…no!”

That didn’t stop Andreas from looking at him with a sense of newfound respect.

“No need to be modest. I understand,” Andreas said as he gave him a knowing look.

‘What do you understand?! Don’t give me that look. What’s wrong with you?’ He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

While Severin truly didn’t seem like some ex-bigshot-adventurer, be it his clothes, his figure, or his overall demeanor, it explained a lot of things in Andreas’s mind. All the never seen before items. The protective barrier, which seemed like something even small cities couldn’t afford. All those things had to come from somewhere, and him being a decorated, high-level, adventurer was a more plausible explanation than most.

Emily on the other hand was a bit more skeptical. After all, she also had access to the System and had seen Severin’s status screen. Nowhere did it mention any other class than [Shopkeeper]; Besides the [Alchemist] subclass, of course. And both their levels didn’t seem to belong to some heroic adventurer, either.

But even if it wasn’t for the threat of severe punishment if she went against Severin’s apparent interests, she decided it was better not to voice her doubts in front of other people.

Though that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t ask him later in private. Probably.