The Notorious Misadventures of an Alchemist and a Phoenix Chapter 38

The well-established and popular Alchemy bank that distributed potions and elixirs like water was now shut. On the front door, wooden planks as thick as a donkey's hindlegs stopped anyone from entering.

At first, people were confused. The unexpected sight at first caused a mild irritation in the merchant and yet, as the weeks went by the worse it became.

It all started five days after Noah was kidnapped. Of course, no one cared that Noah was in all kinds of mess, in their eyes he was just an expendable apprentice and not the owner and manufacturer of potions.

The merchants at this time still collected their potions from the ever-filling caskets and yet this was the beginning of the end, Special orders were piling up and the merchants started to blame the old woman who appeared to run the shop. The merchants became brave and irritated as they started to bully the old lady into completing special orders, they completely forgot where they were.

Fourtantly for them, Margo was a solid woman who didn't care what was said as long as her side hustle of brewing meat soup and brisket wasn't affected.

It was when a frustrated merchant knocked over a roasting joint and demanded his orders to be severed, Margo didn't scream, she didn't hit the merchant, all she did was pull on a rope. The merchant was perhaps a little too young and entitled and didn't understand what he had done. However, the other merchants uncharacteristically started to wonder away from the youth, giving him a lot of space.

The youth while screaming at Margo and demanding to be compensated for spots of fat that had splashed on his shirt didn't realize that the room had become darker. The noise the young merchant was making had covered up the weighted steps of golem number 2. There was no fighting against a golem, especially if you are a merchant and that was how a young merchant was shamed out of the store.

Unfortunately, young people are quite often stupid creatures. Instead of viewing what had just happened and measuring out a response that would better the situation for himself, the young merchant waited until the store was closed and firebombed it. Sometimes when children have amazing powers their mentality isn't mature and their feelings are hurt, they do not think about how their actions have consequences. And so, because of one merchant's feelings being hurt and risking Margo's life, the Alchemist Bank closed its door

"Who cares" exclaimed most people not realising just how ingrained the Alchemist Bank was to the city's and country's success. However with Alchemist Bank cessing to do business the merchants that came from all over the multiverse for cheap potions to sell on other worlds for healthy profits stopped visiting. This meant less tax, less money being spent and less cash being spread. It didn't stop there, the Alchemist Bank was the number one place to sell plant, monster and alchemist ingredients for a healthy profit, without that, most people would sell their ingredients as close to where they lived as possible. Again this meant zero tax revenue on the teleporting gates from people looking to sell their wares at the best price possible, and zero cash being spent on any number of products that would produce more tax.

Everyone was taking a hit in profit and yet not everyone knew why.

Another week would go by before the next blunder hit

Some council members who weren't in touch with the day-to-day efforts of the normal people got worried about the lack of cash coming in. The other council members who helped to run the city just said to ignore it and allow the mundane people to level out the problems. He didn't do that.

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First, he sent investigators to probe the problem, and when I say investigator I mean cheap young thugs that went on to pick on Margo. They returned with black eyes and swollen lips thanks to Margo and her many years of stat accumulation.

If it's one thing that governments were good at it was doubling down on mistakes and escalating problems, this was no different. Somehow, the council member sent a goddamn golem, which promptly got golem napped by three powerful messed-up golems who knew how to fight. Some of the residents watched the fight and were amazed that a golem decked in battle armour could lose so easily. The battle golem was thrown around like a naughty child and the last anyone saw of it was when it was dragged into the Alchemist Bank. Long groves in the ground showed where the battle golem had gripped onto anything it could, the front door had giant chunks missing where the battle golem had tried to stop its remarkable descent into the clutches of golem number one, two and three powerful hands. The door was quickly fixed and the battle golems equipment was found on the side of the road.

Losing a battle golem was a great loss. Those things lasted in apocalyptic skirmishes but now it was gone. What followed was the same nasty letters from people who didn't have an answer and hoped a stern word and lots of threats would get them what they lost. Unfortunately, those letters just collected dust on the counter, unread and useless.

And then it hit the fan. With fewer visits and less business morale dropped like a fat kid falling over, and then it rose terribly when gangs started to take what they wanted and rob, and just like a diomino effect everyone who was stupid or had a little power joined in. It didn't even matter that the thieves guild was dishing out fines to stop the stealing which no one was willing to pay. It just goes to say that politics have no power unless the people are willing to play along and they weren't willing.

Noah only knew this when he tried to enter the city and witnessed gangs of thugs robbing and no amount of flashing his thieves guild card was going to stop the mob. Noah wasn't sure if he could make it to his shop before some other yob kidnapped him and sold him to slavery or even worse sold him as a teacher. Either way, Noah wasn't going a single step further into the city.

Sitting on a stone just off the walking path Noah pondered on his next step. If only he could get to his shop everything would be sorted but judging by what had happened in the last month many cluster slug moments had happened. And it was like the gods were listening to Noah's thoughts because a group of thugs who had no right to be there turned up and started to hassle Noah.

Noah dead-eyed the situation, he couldn't fight back because of his stats and when the group pushed him he just rolled with punches. The group took the small pouch of cash that the Dwarfs had given him for travel expenses, they looked over the bigger bag of Observer eye ball steams which earned Noah a new beating for being a creep

Noah just lay on the floor. Anger flowed through his veins with the pain from the punches he received. Noah wanted to tear their smug faces off. A magic missile would do the job but would it be enough to scare the whole group, properly not. It was better to do nothing than take an extra hard beating from annoyed bullies

Noah was left alone when the thugs had become tired or bored. There he lay on the ground with a fresh fat split lip and two swollen black eyes. It dawned on Noah that despite being kidnapped, placed in a war against monstrosity imps, kidnapped again and escaped from hell only to be kidnapped for a third time by Dwarfs and earned their respect by becoming a weapon that fought the deep of the horrors of the world, this....this was the first time he had suffered. Men were an asshole. Mankind had become the Karen of the multiverse and Noah had a taste of mankind's special brew of violence without reason.

With his eyes swollen shut Noah was only barely aware of a shadow. A load thump landed beside Noah and clasped on Noah's legs. A strong smell of egg and rubber wafted across Noah's nose making him scrunch up his nose and wince at the pain of his wounds.

"You look as bad as I feel" spoke the Phoenix

"It's been one of those days" answered Noah

No one said a thing after that. The Phoenix had caught up to Noah and both have had a hard time adventuring. They just lay there for anyone to see, ready for the world to take an extra hard dump on their heads, as expected.