Chapter 32: Thresholds

There was a sea of equipment just lying in the field. Everything from the sword that had been on Aidylan’s hip, to the bows the archers had been using.

Honestly, Jaxir half expected to be screwed. He had just put in all that effort to kill 30 of them, only to end up giving them four―well, five days to fully recover.

But what he didn’t know was that because of the unique pause circumstances, everything related to him was frozen as well.

The players he had just killed hadn’t even been able to log into their accounts, while the area around their battle had been closed off to others. It became what was known as a "grey zone" and blocked off by invisible walls set by the system.

Jaxir blinked. "Well... this is convenient. Maybe I need to almost die more often."

He chuckled to himself and then started wondering how he was going to manage all of this.

But then he looked down and a ring that must have fallen from Aidylan caught his attention.

―

Name: Enhanced Inventory

Grade: Epic

Level: 10

―

Jaxir suddenly felt like a suction force formed in the middle of his forehead and his soul itself was practically sucked into the ring.

What he found wasn’t one large space, but instead many distinct little boxes of space, each one of which could house one item.

"Convenient, convenient."

The ring was oddly very empty, though. In fact, there wasn’t a single thing inside of it.

What Jaxir didn’t know was that every overseer of the guild was given one of these rings. They were meant to use it to store rare or valuable items that the gold farmers might find, and they were also meant to use it to buy a large amount of items in bulk for the sake of restocking their branch.

These were things like consumables and the like.

Enhanced Inventories were also very convenient because they could connect with other Enhanced Inventories through proximity for easy transferring. Of course, both parties had to consent to this.

This made secret transactions in public possible. Important for a game where PK’ing didn’t actually seem to come with all that many drawbacks.

Jaxir finally didn’t have to worry too much about weight, so he went about picking up one item after another with a bright smile on his face.

Then he finally walked toward the city.

"Registration." The guard at the wooden gates said coldly.

Jaxir blinked in confusion. "... Oh, this is my first time here."

"Then register here." The guard pointed a finger.

Jaxir didn’t resist and just did as he was told. It was quite simple. He just poured his mana into a pen and signed his name.

After that, he was registered and was allowed into the city, but not without a few dirty looks first.

It seemed that his "Bad" moral alignment made the NPCs not too trusting of him.

"I wonder if there’s a way to hide that..." Jaxir mumbled.

He entered into a cute little city square. It was about the only place in the tutorial village that wasn’t dirt roads. It had some stone and a fountain in the middle of it that had definitely seen better days.

The water smelt a bit foul, and Jaxir wondered if people had taken to pissing into it or something.

Still, the fountain bubbled and people hung around it happily enough.

"Um, excuse me. Do you know where I can sell a large number of items?" Jaxir asked an old lady sitting on a bench.

She seemed a bit startled by him, but she eventually pointed a shaky hand.

Jaxir could only chuckle and thank her. It seemed his moral alignment was scaring old ladies too. ℴℴ𝘮

He turned down a road and found a shop with a header that read: "Luxy Lux’s Exchange."

Jaxir entered and a little bell above the door rang.

He blinked.

Up ahead, there was a small woman whose back was so rounded by age she might have stood at four feet tall if she really tried to stretch.

She stood at the counter, reaching up as high as she could to water some plants hanging down from the ceiling. But she looked like she was about to―.

Jaxir reacted on instinct, his Twinkle Mana flashing. He crossed the distance between himself and the old woman, pressing a hand on her shoulder just as she was about to tilt off the counter.

"Oh my goodness, thank you, young man," she looked down at Jaxir from her perch on the counter, chuckling out a laugh through a gummy line of teeth. "Oh my―!"

She blinked as she looked at Jaxir as though she was surprised by something. But then she pursed her lips.

"You poor thing, who gave such a saint a poor moral alignment. I swear despite my old age some folks are blinder than me."

"You can see my moral alignment that easy?" Jaxir asked with surprise.

He wasn’t actually all that surprised, he had guessed as much already. But his last few days with Lue had given him some more insight on how to play the game.

It was always better to ask leading questions of an NPC. You never knew what information they might have.

The old woman chuckled. "Everyone can, child. It is a grace granted by the village lord. Within city walls every citizen knows who to avoid, and the patrols also know who to keep an eye out for. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was following you here."

Jaxir blinked. Was someone following him?

That was possible. He didn’t have a skill to find out and he had been more focused on scoping out the city than watching his back.

From what Lue told him, there were harsh penalties for attacking within city limits with very few exceptions. So he hadn’t really been looking out for enemies.

"I see..." Jaxir scratched the back of his head. "... Thank you for the information. I’m new. I honestly don’t know how I ended up with a Bad moral alignment," Jaxir lied.

The old woman chuckled. "No need to lie to me, child. If you don’t want to tell this old woman, that’s fine."

Jaxir blinked in surprise. "You can tell?"

"Never doubt a merchant’s eyes." The old woman said with a smile, her murky gaze flashing with mana.

Jaxir smiled. "I’m sorry, then. These matters are related to several Gods so I’m not at liberty to say."

The old woman’s eyes widened, and the flash in her eyes became more obvious.

"You... actually tell the truth..." something about the old woman’s manner of speaking shifted as though she took a step toward a much older dialect for a moment.

She shook her head as though she woke up from a dream and then exhaled.

"Okay. What can I help you with today? This old woman has talked your ears off enough."

Jaxir blinked. ’It felt like she was about to split off into a dialogue, but it was cut off... hm...’

Lue had mentioned something about this. NPCs had different thresholds you needed to meet in order to trigger various things. There were only very rare instances of "right place, right time" quests. More often, there was a lot of leg work involved.

But what Lue had also said was that knowing what thresholds you needed to meet were also quite obviously dependent on the NPC.

For a law enforcement officer, maybe you’d help stop a crime. For a farmer, maybe you’d find lost livestock. For a warrior, maybe you’d polish, sharpen, or create a weapon for them.

And for a merchant... you’d of course spend money or bring them interesting things.

It just so happened that Jaxir had quite a lot on him.

He smiled amiably. One way or another, he was leaving here with a quest.

"It’s interesting you ask that, I actually have quite a number of things I’d like to sell, and maybe even more I’d like to buy."

"Oh?" the old woman’s eyes lit up. "What are you looking to sell."

Jaxir’s smile widened as he handed a ring over.

When he saw the old woman’s reaction, he knew he had her.

The question was, what secrets was she hiding?

Jaxir thought it would be easy. What he didn’t expect was that even after selling over 500,000 coins worth of equipment, emptying out everything in his inventory but the Vestigem Cards...

He still hadn’t cleared the old woman’s threshold.