The noble customer had gone to his own room as Jeanne was cleaning the dishes of other customers as well. She was handling one of the last customer’s plate when a man called out.
“Jeanne! What is this?” a sound roared across the inn.
Jeanne’s ears perked up and wondered what was happening. The sound was echoing from the room in the back of the inn, which was also one of the living room where Jeanne and her family stayed at night or when the restaurant of the inn was closed. Hearing the sound, Jeanne ran to the room. Stopped at the door and looked towards the man.
“What is it dad?” Jeanne asked. Catching a glimpse of the shiny pieces of silver inside her dad’s palm.
“What are these coins?” Bob, Jeanne’s dad, was confused looking at the coins. The symbol on top of them was not something that he could recognise, even with tens of years of experience as a business owner.
Jeanne smiled at her dad before opening her mouth. “They belong to a very handsome mage. He paid a visit to us today, asking to rent a room to stay for a few nights. Paid with those coins. What’s wrong?” For Jeanne, at a glance, a coin was a coin. The coins that Connor gave her to pay for his stay and meal felt normal.
“Have you even checked the symbol on the coins? What the hell does this stand for? Which kingdom does it belong to?” Bob said, during the daily accounting check for their inn, Bob managed to come across the silver coins that Connor used. Silver coins that had the letters W and Z intertwined instead of the usual symbol of the Kingdom of Aure.
Jeanne scratched her head. “I don’t know dad, but I am sure they can’t be fake or anything. The guy just made them appear out of thin air, he is definitely a mage for sure.” she retorted. Mages were something all Kingdoms worked hard to obtain. It was basically a law in all countries where after a child had reached the age of 11, they were immediately tested for magical aptitude. Depending on how high their aptitude was higher the amount of mana they could gather. Even a mage with the lowest ever aptitude could still work in alchemy shops and wizard towers and still make at least 10 gold coins, if not more, per year. In comparison, an average villager who took the mantle of farming would only be able to earn about 1 gold a year unless their harvest was very bountiful.
Bob snorted. “You’ll never know, silly girl, the thieves have skills that you can’t even imagine.” Bob was speaking from experience. The time he spent managing his shop had helped him grasp the workings of a thief. There were people who could fake coins to look and feel real but in fact, worthless. There were people who could seem like they were pulling something out of thin air, when in fact, it was nothing but sleight of hand.
Bob shook his head and called Jeanne over. “Get these coins to the Alchemy shop, and have them tested if they’re real.” he was not going to take any chances. If he were to deposit the money into a guild bank or use it in some trade and it was found to be a counterfeit, the fines given by the kingdom were too severe.
Jeanne took the coins from Bob and nodded her head before dashing out of the room and the inn shortly after.
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“These look real.” the man answered. Jeanne had already made it to the alchemist and explained the situation to him. The alchemist first looked at the coin close up with his monocle. “The edges of the coin is done professionally. Either the person who faked them is really good at their job or its real.” the alchemist said. He dropped the coins on the table. “Give me a second.” He turned back and took some vials from the shelves. Taking a look at them with his eyes before turning back to the table and putting the vials near the coins.
“These are the same materials they use in the guild banks and various official mints to verify the authenticity of coins.” The alchemist started explaining. “What is going to happen is basically, I am going to drop a tiny amount of this liquid on top of the coin. If the coin starts to smoke and sizzle, it means that the coin was fake. If nothing happens, it means it is made from silver and therefore, real.”
Jeanne nodded her head as the alchemist dropped a few drops on top of all silver coins laid on the table. Though as expected… nothing happened.
The alchemist nodded his head. “Mmm. These are real for sure. Anything else?” he inquired. Jeanne shook her head and paid 2 coppers to the alchemist before leaving. Seeing Jeanne off, the alchemist raised his browns.
‘They are real for sure… but what were those markings on top of it? It was too intricate to be fake but I am certain it doesn’t belong to the Kingdom… eh… whatever.’ the alchemist thought.
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Meanwhile…
‘More than half of these features are locked…’ Connor complained. He has been trying to explore the features of the system and the system shop for the past few minutes.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
‘I only have a few weapons available in the weapons section… Barely a few pistols and SMGs.’ he said to himself while looking at the screen.
LEVEL UP TO UNLOCK MORE OPTIONS.
At the end of every page, this text was written in bold. Telling him to level up if he wanted to be able to purchase different variety of weapons.
LOOTBOXES
Weapons
Armour
Vehicles
Deployables
Misc
‘For sure…’ the first option in the shop were loot boxes, written in all uppercase and bold letters. Connor found out that currently, he only had access to one loot box that cost 10 gold. According to the page, it was a vehicle loot box that had various items ranging from a simple bicycle to a PL-01 tank.
‘Yeah… staying away from lootboxes. I don’t want my life to turn into a gambling frenzy.’ Connor said before switching to weapons screen, this was his second look, during the first look he only wanted to see how many items he could purchase, this time, he was planning to use it for sure.
P90 Submachine Gun: 15 gold
Desert Eagle: 15 gold
Steyr AUG A3: 50 gold
‘What are these prices?!’ Connor shouted inside his mind. ‘What a fucking scam. People are complaining about the lord in town, wish they could see this. The developer who decided on these prices should be nothing less than a Scam Lord.’ A good pistol and SMG was priced nearly the same, while assault rifles costed a lot more. He didn’t even check any other pages that he had access to, as the fears of emptying his wallet out welled up.
Connor then checked the vehicle page, seeing that the only vehicle he could purchase at his level was the bicycle he saw in the loot box which cost a whopping 5 gold per bicycle.
‘Bicycles… Hold on…’ Connor suddenly remembered. ‘Medieval times… knights… lancers…’ he suddenly started laughing. ‘I can’t even imagine how it would look if a cavalryman had a lance in his hand while driving around on a bicycle.’
‘That aside… 5 gold for a bicycle… Considering it is a silver per night for the inn… Wait, how much silver does a gold equal in the first place?’ he wondered and checked out the wallet page once again.
Balance: 4 gold 95 silver 0 copper
‘So… considering I paid 5 silver to the maid… According to my balance 1 gold is about 100 silver. Probably safe to assume that 1 silver is about 100 coppers. ‘ Connor was thinking. ‘5 silver… I wonder how much I paid for the meal. I should ask the maid later on.’ he decided.
Connor then navigated back to the shop page and opened the Armour tab. The page had various body armours and helmets for a soldier to wear at different prices. Some of the armours were marked as heavy but according to the shop offered better protection in varying levels ranging from 1 to 5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. From what Connor could see, he only had access to a few light armours and just one helmet.
Black Threaded Body Armour
Price: 3 gold
Weight: 2
Protection Efficiency: 2
Woodland Camouflage Helmet
Price: 3 gold
Weight: 1
Protection Efficiency: 2
‘Weight is understandable… but protection efficiency… against what? Knives? Bullets? Tanks? Nukes? Arrows? Mages? Urgh… so many variables that I don’t want to test.’ Connor cursed at the scam system once again.
Seeing that he did not have any other armour worth looking, he switched to the Deployables tab.
Please level up to unlock this feature.
‘Fine…’
Finally, Connor mentally clicked the last menu option, Misc. In the tab that opened, he found out there was a lot of stuff. A lot. Things such as a single bullet, a magazine, ropes, medipacks, backpacks, syringes, lighters even toothpicks.
‘Some of these are pretty cheap.’ Connor thought, for a system that liked to mess with prices some of the essential items were relatively cheap. A rope, for example, that could have hundreds of different uses just cost 5 silver.
‘Hold on… 5 silver… I have 4 gold and 95 silver remaining, 4 gold would make 400 silver so about 495 silver in total… Come to think of it, other than the initial newbie rewards I got how am I even supposed to earn gold?’ Connor sighed.
‘I hate this… When will they realize I am stuck in a place like this and get me out…’
Connor laid down on the bed he was sitting. The screen moving in front of him just as he looked at the ceiling.
‘Am I going to be stuck here…’ he sighed again. ‘Its been hours and even the sun is going down.’ he thought to himself while he glanced out the window in the room. He started to take a look at everything in the room one by one.
‘A bed, a drawer, a desk… Hell, there is even a candle on the desk.’
‘Urgh… I guess we’ll see what happens.’ he said while closing his eyes. It was an interesting feat as video games, VRMMO or not, were not made for people to sleep in them. Usually, as soon as players were done for the day, they would simply logout and log back in another time. Before even realising he was tired, Connor fell asleep.