Chapter 294 - Step 3: ? Step 4: Profit (Patreon)

The trek back to the Outpost was uneventful. They weren’t exactly lined up with their journey to the mountains, so they still had to avoid or clear out territorial animals. Reivyn took the opportunity to charge in and let them get a bite or scratch while just berserking through them. The others just stood back and watched, bemused. It would have been a bit more concerning for his parents and fiancee, but the animals could barely do any damage to him before he decimated them, and what little damage they did do, was healed within a matter of minutes.

Reivyn tried his hand at skinning some of the regular animals, but the System didn’t recognize his attempts as using any kind of Skinning Skill. He suspected it had something to do with how difficult it was from the Mana density contained in their flesh, and his other Skills and Stats he used to brute force through it drowned out any kind of technique that would go toward unlocking the Skill.

Sadly, he would have to follow his father’s advice and wait to practice on lower Tier creatures. He didn’t know if Tier 4 was low enough to unlock the Skill, but he had a suspicion that most animals wouldn’t be. There were always the outliers that were under the Mana density, just like one could find those above it. They were usually juvenile, and Reivyn wasn’t keen on killing a bunch of baby animals just to jump start a Skill.

Cooking was a different matter altogether. All he had to do was use a fire and not burn the meat while cooking it all the way through. It was actually a lot harder than it seemed. Without the Skill, there was no kind of assistance from the System, and he had to thread a pretty narrow needle. The Mana had to be burned away enough to cook through the meat, but not so much that it dissipated completely. The meat of the Tier 5 animals cooked in a way that there was only a matter of seconds between undercooked and charred without the Skill.

His persistence finally paid off, though, and he was able to at least unlock the Skill right before returning to the Outpost. He was only trying to unlock the Skill and Level it in the unlikely event he found himself in the wilderness by himself for some reason, though he didn’t know how likely such a scenario would be. The only times he ever went solo for anything was for Dungeon Achievements. Not having someone to watch your back out in the wild just seemed irresponsible to Reivyn.

If one needed to rest in a Dungeon, they could at least backtrack to a safe spot where no monsters appeared, but nothing was certain out in the real world. He had access to wards and items that set off an alarm, but he was only willing to use those with nobody manually standing guard because he trusted his more experienced parents to wake up if they were triggered. Reivyn wasn’t necessarily a heavy sleeper, but it wasn’t always easy to wake up instantly, either.

He would be able to experiment with different types of cooking once he got home. He wasn’t too worried about powering through the Levels. Eventually, just succeeding in not ruining a meal wouldn’t be enough. Teilon had dedicated a lot of effort to raising his Cooking Skill, and he complained in that special way of his that wasn’t really complaining about having to stock up on different seasonings and trying out new combinations all the time just for a little additional Experience.

Ameliyn hadn’t gone to such lengths to raise her Cooking Skill. She had just been doing it for over a decade longer than anyone else in their Party. Refix could do it from his time Adventuring away from his family, but it wouldn’t taste nearly as good as mom’s home cooking. There was just something about it for Reivyn. Maybe it was nostalgia, but it was his favorite.

Wanting to always eat his mother’s cooking when it was available might have been a subconscious block on him working for the Skill. He just brushed that thought aside, though, as it was moot now that he was working on it.

Because they weren’t searching for any specific Natural Treasures, they made a beeline back to the Outpost. That meant their rough estimate of maybe a week of travel was actually conservative. It only took them four days to get back to the little slice of civilization in the Tier 5 Region.

They were all excited to get a nice, comfy bed in a real room, but Reivyn and Refix had a duty before they could relax. They just had the rest of the Party go on ahead to the same inn they had stayed at previously to set things up for them while they made their way first to the guard post.

As Adventurers Refix was in charge, so he took the lead. They flagged down one of the volunteers stationed as a guard through the Adventurer’s Guild after seeing the rest of their Party off.

“I’m not sure what kind of protocol exists for this kind of thing, but we have an incident to report,” Refix told one of the guards near the gate.

The man looked Refix up and down with an appraising look before nodding.

“What kind of incident?” He asked. “Monster horde, beast flood, elite enemy, Natural Treasure, disaster… the list goes on.”

“Hmm, it would probably fall under elite enemy and disaster?” Refix glanced at Reivyn for his opinion. Reivyn just nodded solemnly. “Okay, so we were at the Slime Mine in the mountains, and the base camp of Adventurers hanging out around the Portal was wiped out by a high-Tier monster.”

“Okay. I’ll take you to the bossman. That kind of thing is above my pay grade.”

While many of the veteran Adventurers who signed up for a tour of guard duty had previously seen military experience in their youth, they were much more laidback as Adventurer Guards. They didn’t have ranks, and they referred to each other by name. The “bossman” was likely the highest Leveled Adventurer Guard at the outpost and likely acted as liaison to the Adventurer's Guild. The guards and patrollers were independent, but they were technically employed by the Guild.

“Sure,” Refix agreed.

The guardsman turned and waved for another guard nearby to come take his spot standing near the gate. Instead of leading them into the guardpost right there, though, he turned again and headed into the interior of the Outpost. It didn’t take long to realize he was taking them to the Adventurer’s Guild.

Reivyn assumed he was escorting them rather than just telling them where to go in order to expedite the process. There was no reason to delay such news, but bureaucracy would rear its ugly head during the worst of times. Reivyn was of the opinion that the vast majority of bureaucracy existed for the sole purpose of getting in the way of real work.

The guard led them into the Guild Branch and waltzed right past everyone to the back hallway. Reivyn and Refix kept pace with him, walking just behind him, and nobody said a word to them. The guard knocked on a door, waited just a moment, and then entered without preamble.

Reivyn and Refix followed the guard into the office. It was fairly bare bones with only a few trophies as decoration and a desk with some scattered paperwork on it. There weren’t any bookshelves lining the walls with scores and scores of books on various doctrines or laws. Things were pretty straightforward in the Upper Regions. If the guards weren’t effective or tried to abuse the little bit of power they had, the law of the jungle would correct that problem quick and in a hurry.

The three men entered the room and stood in front of the desk. The man behind the desk tossed a pen aside and looked up at the guard with a chipper attitude.

“Whatcha got?” He asked with a smile.

“Incident report from the Slime Mine,” the guard declared. “These men just came from there. I’ll let them tell it.”

“Sure, sure,” the older man waved the other guard away. The escort gave them a quick nod before retreating and closing the door behind himself.

“So what’s the issue?” The lead guard asked.

“All the Adventurers making camp around the Slime Mine Dungeon Portal were wiped out by a High-Tier monster,” Refix said bluntly.

The man’s smile slid off his face and he instantly turned serious.

“How many Adventurers? What kind of monster? Do you know why? Is it headed here?” He fired off several questions.

Reivyn felt a bit of kinship with the man when his first question concerned the Adventurers who had been killed. The man would have made a good leader in his Mercenary Company.

“We have no idea what the monster was,” Refix shook his head. “But, have you ever seen or heard of those Portals in the Wilderness? The ones that rookies think might be Dungeons?”

The lead guard sat up straighter upon hearing that.

“One of those tentacle trap things?” He asked. He visibly shook in disgust upon mentioning the creature.

“Yup. When we left the Dungeon, one of those Portals was floating over a pile of bones and a pool of blood. There were no more Adventurers to be seen anywhere, and I would have to guess there was probably sixty or seventy victims.

“We ran into one of those Portal traps in the Wilderness on our way here, and I’m pretty sure it was hunting us. It tried very hard to eat my boy, here,” Refix casually gestured toward Reivyn. “The scariest thing about it was that it followed us into our Dungeon instance after we retreated back into the Portal.

“According to the System, they’re like a hive-creature. They’re a small fraction of a larger whole, and from context, they can communicate with each other. We saw a horde of thousands of them crawling toward us from beyond the Dimensional Barrier.”

The guard leader’s jaw dropped a bit upon hearing that bit of information.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” he muttered.

“Neither did any of us,” Refix agreed. “They can combine together, too. That’s another thing we saw, because apparently there’s a Dragon in the Slime Mine?” Refix spread his hands wide and said it like a question. “That’s the only reason we were able to escape. The Dragon hiding underground took offense to one of those tentacle monsters intruding in the Dungeon and screaming at us. Must have woken it up from its nap.

“Anyway, the Dragon and the monster were fairly evenly matched in a fight, but the Dragon was slowly winning until another monster appeared out of nowhere and fused together with the first. We managed to wait it out until they were both almost dead and finished them off.

“Some other Space anomaly shattered the veil and sucked the rest of the monsters crawling toward us out somewhere. We have no idea what that was about, but we have our own Space Affinity expert who Jumped us through the Veil out of there. It happened only four days ago.”

“Sounds like you made good time,” the guard leader said. “Your Space Mage must be pretty talented.”

He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as he thought for a moment. It only took him a few seconds of contemplation before he sat up straight and put his hands back on the desk in front of him.

“Okay, because of the nature of the incident and possibility of a disaster heading our way, I’m just going to assume everything you’ve told me is true,” he said. “Of course I’ll be sending a team of Scout Classers focused on speed to verify the information. Trust but verify, as they say. I’ll increase the patrols and inform the guards to be on the lookout, but there’s no reason to panic everyone else with the full news just yet. I’ll just make sure the tragedy is spread, but not the gory details.”

Refix clapped his hands together loudly, a grin on his face.

“Ahh, I love competent people,” he declared. “Come to the inn we’re staying at later and I’ll buy you a drink, good sir.”

The guard leader laughed as he stood up. He walked around the desk and clapped Refix on the shoulder. Reivyn was surprised to see that he actually nudged his father off balance slightly with that simple gesture.

“I’d never say no to a free drink! I’ll see you there, after I’ve taken care of business,” the man led them out of his office and immediately strode away to get things done.

Since they were here already, the duo went ahead and paid off their Skill Shard loan. They hadn’t spent a lot of time hunting for Skill Shards, but they still managed to profit a couple dozen after paying their loan back just from this one expedition. That was on top of the Skill Shards they would be able to trade their mined materials for.

Reivyn and Refix exited the Adventurer’s Guild and paused in the street for just a moment. Refix glanced at Reivyn.

“Did you notice how strong that guy was?” He asked.

Reivyn thought about it for a second before shaking his head.

“I didn’t get a passive read on him, and it’s kind of rude to toss an Identifying Skill at someone for no reason,” he answered. “I did notice he had a kind of heavy hand,” Reivyn pointedly glanced at Refix’s shoulder.

Refix nodded with a chuckle.

“Neither did I. Do you know what that means?”

Reivyn’s eyes widened just a bit.

“It means he’s probably high-Tier 6, possibly Tier 7.”

“Yup! I would say, barring a large number of those meat monsters showing up, this Outpost is pretty safe.

“Alright, let’s get back to your mother and the others. I’m famished, and I definitely don’t want to try anything you’ve been cooking up.”

“Ha. Ha.” Reivyn rolled his eyes, but he still followed his father back to their inn.

—

The news of the tragedy at the Slime Mine spread like wildfire. The guard leader had said he would inform everyone, but true to his word, nobody was panicking over a potential avalanche of tentacle monsters coming for the Outpost.

Reivyn spent his days training in the training yard and walking through the open markets to see what people had to offer from their own expeditions. He noticed that after the first day back, several of the more dedicated blacksmiths had bought up all the metals available on the market. The others who were a step too slow were out of luck.

This gave Reivyn an idea. While the rest of his Party took turns progressing their Bloodlines, Reivyn concocted a plan.

There was no infusion of metals into the market, but that didn’t mean people still didn’t need them for various reasons. Be it making new gear, repairing old gear, or training Skills, craftsmen needed the requisite resources to make things happen.

Once the rest of the Party had finished their rituals over the course of several days and had recovered, Reivyn led the Party to the open market and showed them a little booth space he had secured.

“Here, let’s place our metals on display,” he said to Refix.

Refix carried the jointly owned resources they had accumulated, so he was the one who had to retrieve them from his storage bag. Ameliyn carried the metals squirreled away for the twins.

Reivyn knew that nobody else was selling any Tier 5 metals currently, and sure enough, after only having theirs on display for a scant few minutes, a man dressed in expensive attire approached them.

“Ahh, I see we’ve finally received a Party returning from the Slime Mines,” he said, casually grabbing an ore, hefting it, and inspecting it. “We’ve got a hefty backlog built up over at the Fire Irons Blacksmith.

“I’m willing to purchase your entire inventory in bulk. How does a 15% discount sound for the bulk purchase? The normal market value for purchasing an entire delve’s worth of materials is a 25% discount. My offer is giving you guys a 10% profit.” The man smiled as Reivyn felt a tug at his soul.

The man was obviously using some kind of Social Skill on him for his negotiation. Reivyn didn’t have any merchant Social Skills, but his other Social Skills that he did have provided a bit of assistance to him. Plus he had a naturally powerful soul. He could tell the man wasn’t lying about the normal bulk purchase being a 25% discount, but that was then. This was now.

Reivyn shook his head and smiled in a friendly manner, activating Gab and Silver Tongue.

“While that sounds mighty generous of you, that’s for Parties in a hurry to offload their goods. We’re not in a hurry.”

The man’s smile faltered just slightly. Without his Divine Sense, Reivyn wouldn’t have even noticed. Another thing he picked up was a small bead of sweat appearing on the man’s forehead.

“Alright, I can see that you’re an astute young lad. With that intelligence you should also be able to see that we at the Fire Iron would make best use of your ores. I’ll only ask for a 10% discount. That’s a 15% profit for you.”

Reivyn’s smile grew imperceptibly wider.

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing off to the side. “I’m sure all the blacksmiths say the same thing. If we’re the only ones selling ore, and you buy the whole lot in a bulk purchase, what are the other blacksmiths going to do?”

“I don’t care… Eh hem, what I meant to say is, I’m not sure the other blacksmiths will be able to help alleviate your burden with the same remuneration we can. Five percent.”

“Ceirdig, you dog!” A man shouted in the distance.

The new man came rushing up with huge strides, a storm cloud on his face as he stared at the man in the expensive attire. Reivyn Sensed more sweat pop out on the first man’s forehead. The newcomer turned to face Reivyn.

“I’ll pay full market price!” He declared. “No discount needed, even for a bulk purchase!”

“Jerolt, you slime,” the first man sneered. “Don’t intrude on a business transaction already in play.” He turned back to Reivyn. “I’ll give you a 5% markup for the whole lot.”

“Ten percent!” Another, new voice boomed as a third person walked up to their booth.

Reivyn turned to his friends and family and gave them a wink and a smile. Teilon looked like he was trying and failing to hold in a laugh, Kefira smiled up at him, and his mother rolled her eyes, but he could Sense the corners of her mouth flicker up toward a smile briefly.

The three men started bickering with each other over the price, occasionally shouting a new markup to Reivyn in between, and the purchase dropped from bulk to just large. More people started showing up to the commotion, and some of them joined in.

Eventually, a consensus was reached among the various blacksmiths and others who were in need of the ores to pay a 120% markup, but they would be selecting individually instead of purchasing everything.

Reivyn remained calm with the same smile plastered on his face throughout. He simply nodded once they had reached the price everyone was willing to fork out and began selling their ores to those who needed it.

The Party quickly dispersed their goods and left their booth behind with high spirits. They had managed to secure just over double the Skill Shards they had anticipated making from their Dungeon Delve. Everyone in their Party would end up receiving fifteen Skill Shards, with a few in abeyance for the twins, after everything was said and done.

Once they were back at the inn, Teilon gave him a thumbs-up with a ruthless grin before being whisked away by Kimberly. Kefira locked arms with him and sat down at the tavern area.

“Don’t you feel bad driving the prices up like that?” She asked him.

Reivyn gave her a puzzled look.

“Me? I didn’t raise the prices,” he shook his head. “I never even said a price. They’re the ones who raised the prices.”

“Yeah, but now they’ve had to spend far more than usual to get the same resources as usual. They might have a hard time with their finances for a bit of extra profit for us.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t see those first three guys sweep through the open market a couple days ago and buy everything available in bulk. With that 25% discount,” he gave her a pointed look. “I’m sure that even after purchasing what little they did from us at more than double the cost, they’re actually still ahead financially.

“And not letting the big players buy everything up at once, I allowed others who needed those metals an opportunity to get some. Everyone paid exactly what they were willing to pay. I didn’t impose a price on anyone or force anyone to buy.

“Not letting them take advantage of us isn’t the same thing as us taking advantage of them. That 120% ‘markup’ is the actual, current market value. I don’t feel bad at all.”

Reivyn finished with a grin as he signaled for one of the Adventurers acting as a waitress. Kefira simply shrugged and snuggled up next to him. She hadn’t been upset with him to begin with. She just wanted to understand his mindset.

They enjoyed a nice, relaxing evening.