Chapter 4: Trading and profiteering
When Xhemile finally woke up again, she stood up and walked to a small bronze mirror in the corner of her room. There she looked at herself for the first-time since she was transported here. Her black hair was a mess, filled with sand and sweat. Her face didn't look better, she was dirty all over, but she still recognized her white skin as well as her green eyes and heart-shaped face with a cute nose attached to it and her light reddened lips. She then looked at her clothes and started to remove them, they wouldn't help in this hot weather. Underneath all her clothing she was still a 1.60 meters big woman, but she lacked big assets like her subordinates, mainly her b-sized breasts along with her small but perky butt. She took a brush from a drawer and began to clean her hair of sand and straightened it out. After that she took out another brush, confused she felt the hair of the brush, which was softer to the touch and apparently used to brush sand off the body. After cleaning herself as much as she could without water, she dressed herself with a long plain white dress which covered her entire body but still showed her not very present body shape. After that she glanced at the sun to estimate the time. The sun would be up for another couple of hours. She looked at her system notifications and scrolled them through.
{Skill learned [Apprentice Spearmanship Rank 0]
[You have killed something with a spear and now can wield it better than before.
+1 (ATK) for spears.
+ 2% thrust speed.]}
[You leveled up
5 undistributed stat points.]
She thought about the skill and the system explained the ranks of the skills. When a skill reaches Rank 10 it will evolve to a higher form in this order.
[Apprentice -> Trained -> Basic -> Without title (example (Construction Rank 1)) -> Advanced -> Expert -> Master ->???]
She looked for more notifications.
[Subject (Nane) killed 4 [desert dog] of Rank 0
Gained lord power]
[Subject (Nour) killed 4 [desert dog] of Rank 0
Gained lord power]
[Subject (Nanu) killed 3 [desert dog] of Rank 0
Gained lord power]
She then left her room to ask her subjects for the optimal distribution of her stat-points. After finding all her subjects inside the main area of the small castle she sat herself next to Nane and asked about her status-point allocation.
“My Lady, it would be best if you increase your strength, constitution and dexterity first, to at least eight points, this would make you a strong woman.”: Nour answered. Xhemile followed their advice.
{[Status]
Name: Xhemile Sanders
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Class: Lady
Territory: (Unnamed)
Level: 1
Stats:
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Unallocated: 5->1
Strength (Str): 4->6
Constitution (Con): 4->6
Dexterity (Dex): 4
Intelligence (Int): 9
Wisdom (Wis): 5
Charisma (Cha): 4
[Skills]:
(Apprentice Desert adaptability Rank 1) (Apprentice Desert maneuvering Rank 1) (Apprentice Spearmanship Rank 0)
[Structures]:
(Derelict Sandstone Outpost Rank 0)
(Summoning Circle Rank 0)
[Subjects]:
[Rank 0
Workers: Nane, Nanu, Nour]}
She then opened the screen of her Storage.
{[Storage]
[10 Liters of water] [110 units of desert dog meat (Rank 0)] [10 units of desert dog meat (Rank 1)] [60 units of desert dog bones] [33 units of desert dog fur Rank 0] [3 units of desert dog fur Rank 1] [24 units of desert dog teeth] [12 units of desert dog intestines] [12 units of desert dog tendon] [1 earth crystal]}
“How much meat do we need for a week of surviving.”: she asked her subordinates.
“We need at least 84 units of meat for a week, my lady. If we ration it, we only need 56 units.”: Nour responded.
“Is someone against me selling 30 units of meat on the Lord Market Space? I would exchange wood for it and later mud and reeds.”
Xhemile looked at her subjects, but they all nodded to each other and Nane responded:
“You can sell it, my lady. We need the wood to cook the meat, as dry aged meat needs weeks of hanging before consumption.”
Xhemile nodded back, showing her understanding. She opened the screen of the Lord Market Space.
{[Lord and Ladies trading platform]
[You gain 1 unit of desert dog meat -> you lose 5 units of wood]
[Would you like to change your name or publish it under your real name? The name change only affects the chatting platform, chat with friends and trading platform.]
“Err... should I change my name?”: Xhemile asked concerned.
“My Lady, it would be best to change it to a suitable name which would protect your privacy as well as your risk of getting too much attention and recognition later on.”: Nanu expressed seriously.
“You are right, but what should my name be?”
“My Ladys name should be something grand like ‘the empress of the golden sun’ or ‘Empress of the deserts’ or ‘High lady of the Karomama Tribe’ or Empress of cute-UGH!”: Nane stopped her last suggestion when Nour slammed her elbow fast and hard into her stomach.
“My Lady, you should choose your name as you need to use it.”: Nour said, pretending as nothing happened as Nane kneeled on the ground rubbing her stomach glaring daggers at her.
“You are right. I need to use it.”: Xhemile stated determined.
She thought about cool sounding names and other things. So, my name should have something indicating that I rule the desert, also should show a big name for later, like empress or queen but I would like it if the ‘Karomama’ also was there somewhere. She thought about it for minutes and then opened her screen to name her castle.
{[Castle] [Name changeable!]
[Rank 0]
[Castle heart durability 100/100]
[Upgrade
100 units of mudbricks
50 units of wood
50 earth crystals]}
She then named her castle ‘Karomama Castle’ and changed her name to ‘Queen of the forsaken deserts’. She then looked at her subordinates who looked content with her new name. She concentrated again on the screen and published her trading request.
{[Marketspace]
[Trade offer from the ‘Queen of the forsaken deserts’]
[You get 1 unit of desert dog meat -> you lose 5 units of wood]
[Remaining trades 30/30] [Remaining offer time 1:59 hours]
She then opened the chat channel.
[Messages]
“Hey guys did you see the new trade offer?”
“The offer from the ‘Queen of the forsaken deserts?”
“Yes, she is offering food at reasonable prices.”
“What? Really?! I need to go look!”
“She has a kind heart. Different to those profiteering evil people!”
“What, she wants wood? But I don't have any wood around!”
After reading the first messages, she closed it again and looked at her trading stock. The meat was sold out in minutes. She easily gained 150 units of wood from that. She also received insane amounts of friend requests. Some were begging her for food, others demanding to share her stock or reduce the price, there were also people trying to flatter her and others threaten her to increase the prices because they would drive in large profits with their overpriced trades. She just ignored those and blacklisted everybody who threatened her, she also declined every friend request as nobody was genuine trying to make friends with her.