Severin quickly decided to excuse himself for the night, not allowing anyone to ask any more uncomfortable questions. Things had already gotten way out of hand. He didn’t even give the girl a good opportunity to follow after him. According to Severin’s map, she instead stayed with Andreas for a bit longer before retreating into her own room.

The [Shopkeeper] didn’t immediately go to sleep. Instead, he walked through his store and checked all the items in his assortment to make sure he didn’t forget any, as he made some simple calculations to predict the profit he would make off of Andreas’s group this time around.

“If I round everything down to account for some leftover items, they may have and that don’t need replenishing, or because they just don’t need every single one of the oils, I expect them to spend about thirty thousand gold just for the regular items. Adding to that, the coins I already had as well as the money Em earned today identifying items…”

Sigh

“Maybe forty thousand in total. Still, a long way to go. Then again, the extra purchases for the items to use with the combinator, as well as its activation cost, should earn me another good chunk of money. But it’s harder to predict how exactly they’ll use their daily charges. The stat boosters and their possible combinations should be rather popular amongst them, but they might still prioritize potions instead. And these don’t actually amount to very much anymore. Just one of the new elixirs is worth more than all the currently available potions a person can buy in one go together.

And for whatever reason, besides Xander and a few of the other people, no one else used the combinator today. What’s up with that?” Severin became anxious, thinking about the last bit.

‘Maybe I should go back and remind them; If it wouldn’t look so desperate.

But reaching even just the minimum amount of one hundred thousand gold is already hard enough as is…’

The following morning, some of his worries were alleviated. Only partially, though.

“We plan to stay for the next couple of days. A bit of rest and downtime before trying to conquer one of the raids we’ve previously been stuck on. Fully stocked with your consumables and with the benefits we earned during this last incident, I believe our chances are rather good. At the very least we’ll be able to make it out again without losing anyone. But we’ll definitely be stuck inside for a few days. Maybe even a week or two. But definitely longer than the time we needed for the dungeon break, that’s for sure.”

Hearing that, Severin was astonished. What scale had that raid to be for twenty people needing to spend multiple weeks inside? Didn’t that suggest that it might span an area that was larger than the previous battlefield? Severin wanted to ask about these things but felt it would destroy his newly gained image of a dragon slayer. And, in turn, provoke other unwanted questions. So, he kept his mouth shut in hope that Emily would be curious enough to ask these questions in his stead. Apparently, she wasn’t; Very much to Severin’s frustration.

The officer continued, “So I figured if we have to wait for Harold’s return anyway, and without any other pressing issues, we might as well rest here and take this opportunity to make use of your combination machine as much as possible. Four days should be enough for that purpose, I reckon. Forty activations. Since the resulting items, sadly, still have carrying-capacity limitations in place, that many items should be enough for each person. That being said,” Andreas suddenly looked at Severin with a look of overplayed indignation, “when do you intend to build some form of shelter for your customers? So far out in nowhere, not offering any kind of lodging just won’t do! Unless you don’t mind us setting up a more permanent kind of fortification, ourselves?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Ha.Ha.” An awkward, noncommittal laugh. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

‘If only you knew.’

“In fac…”

Slap

A small hit to the back of her head. Just when Andreas was distracted, shut Emily up.

“Soo. What are your plans until then?” Severin asked innocently, as if he wasn’t aware of Em’s annoyed glares.

“Besides resting, you mean? I suppose a few of the guys will take a look at some of the more obscure dungeons in the vicinity. To prevent another dungeon break, these should all be cleared out, anyway; And rather sooner than later. Though I guess that’s something the Adventurer’s Society will take care of.”

“Oh? How diligent you guys are,” Severin joked.

‘Good! So, it seems before leaving for good, they’ll be consuming some more of the regular items. That’s something, at least. Still… with Samuel still gone, there won’t be much for us to do. I wonder what Miriam and Tim will do this time around.’

“It’s not diligence that drives them, it’s loot,” the [Warrior] laughed before he continued.

“Tell me when you guys are open for the day. Since we have a bit of time, we don’t actually have to do it all in one go. As long as everyone gets to use their daily charges, we don’t mind splitting the remainder of the order over several days.”

“Don’t worry! We got this!” A chance to prove herself seemed to energize the overeager girl.

“Hmm,” Severin nodded in agreement. “We might need a break or two, but ever since I upgraded my tools and got Em’s help, something like this shouldn’t be too much of a hassle anymore. We’ll be fine,” he echoed Emily’s sentiment.

“Then don’t mind if we do!”

“Why did you stop me earlier?”

The morning and noon were busy. Severin’s [Employee] served the customers while he himself was solely focused on crafting. Not fast enough, however, to completely counteract the constant stream of disappearing inventory. During the afternoon, after announcing a short break and temporarily closing shop, Emily also started to help out crafting items. At that time, she took advantage of the situation that both of them were alone and brought up the earlier incident.

It took him a moment to even understand what she was referring to.

“You mean…”

“The slap! Why did you do that?”

“Hahaha,” he ruffled Emily’s head, almost causing her to spill a potion in the making. She became even more annoyed at him.

“Boss!”

He conceded. “I just didn’t want to unnecessarily raise their expectations. You heard them. They’ll be gone for quite some time. And yet there probably won’t be any lodging for them even once they’re back. Don’t forget we won’t make any money during that time.“

The girl didn’t seem convinced by that argument at all.

“So what? Isn’t it still better to let them know that it’s something we’ve planned and are working on? That’s Customer communication.”

He almost choked. “Where did you hear that expression?!”

“Hmpf,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I pick up things.”

Seeing Severin gaping at her with no apparent intention to further defend his questionable decision, she thought it was a good opportunity to press him on another matter instead.

“Did you truly kill dragons?”