Reborned Top Gamer: Spell-Swordman Rule the World

36 Changes In Hospitality

The party was a rousing success, everyone got along and liked each other. Hogan got very drunk and was taken home by Michael. Ailsa and Walt were the last to leave the bar. It had started to rain but they both had umbrellas and opted to walk instead of taking accelerate.

“So,” Walt started as they mad their way home “remember when we were playing and I said after we were done, you can choose to stop?” he asked her. She looked up at him with wide eyes and it took her a while to remember. The thrill of winning had caused her to forget all about the tribulations of the battle.

“Yeah…I remember,” she said and chuckled.

“Well? Do you want to stop?” he asked her, although he was afraid of her answer. If she said she did not want to play anymore, he would respect her wishes and disband the team. It would no doubt upset the rest of the team, but the only reason he was going on with life was her. If she was not there, there would be no point to playing or living, to him.

“No!” she said and giggled, then grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to her “I mean, I got really emotional because of the stress but we won! Besides, we have a whole team now and we can’t just split up because of me. Also, I love playing and I love playing with you,” they had stopped by this time and she was standing in front of him. Wordlessly, he leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead. He honestly believed the worst part was over.

Green Light team resumed playing the next day. Hogan was reawakened in Land of Origin, so he was not with them in Shewhart town. Scott was also there but when they questioned him about the reason he did not show up for their party, he was very dodgy and gave flimsy excuses that everyone except Walt seemed to be okay with. Walt was still a little suspicious of Scott but believed that he was a good guy, so he gave him the benefit of the doubt. If he were to do anything sketchy again though, he would have some questions to answer.

“I think we should first convert the materials to equipment. There’s a vendor that said he would do it for us, half the price.” Walt told his team mates and Miranda laughed.

“The perks of being champions,” she said.

The vendor was located within the square of the town. He was a special access player that acted as a merchant instead of an adventurer. He was a Gusbrain player. His role was to make the game to have a higher sense of realness, instead of being a system prompt that only gave generic questions. A lot of the other merchants, town leaders, bosses and a few fillers were also special access players. Special access playing was not available to the general public.

“Hi,” Walt said to the vendor when they arrived at his stall. He was a short, thin man with a long beard and a wispy mustache. He had a turban wrapped around his head and several rings placed on his fingers. The smile on his face disappeared as soon as he set his sights on Walt and the rest.

“What do you want?” he snapped. Walt frowned and looked back at his team mates who gave him quizzical looks and confused shrugs.

“We want to convert our magical items-”

“A thousand gold pieces,” the merchant interrupted before Walt could even get the rest of his words out.

“A-a thousand? A thousand?” Walt repeated and looked back again, completely dazed. He turned his attention back to the merchant who was now fidgety “the regular rate is five hundred gold pieces, and you said you would do it for half…we are Green Light team. Don’t you remember us?” he asked. The merchant scowled and looked around them, like he was searching for something.

“Alright, five hundred gold pieces,”

“But you said-”

“Five hundred! Take it or leave it,”

Walt clenched his jaw. He should have predicted something like this happening. Since Felix was unable to eliminate them from the game, Heather was trying to frustrate him out of it. How he managed to influence a special access player, he could not know but what he did know was that Heather was a vindictive psychopath and he will stop at nothing to reach his goals. The whole inflated price fiasco was only the beginning. Much to the annoyance of him and the whole team, he counted the gold pieces and handed them over to the merchant. He accepted them, counted them gladly before he took their materials to start working on.

“It might take a few hours,” he informed them before he left.

“What was that all about?” Jenny asked when they were alone.

“This stinks of Heather,” Walt said with a low, low voice.

“Who?” Michael asked.

“Our old boss at Minan,” Miranda grumbled, she turned her attention to Scott who stood with his head hung low “you, do you know anything about this?” she asked him. He widened his eyes at her, in shock and shook his head vehemently.

“No, I swear! Heather is insane, he would do anything to get what he wants,” Scott replied but Miranda still eyed him warily.

“I trust him,” Ailsa said and placed her hand on Scott’s shoulder “what we should really be worried about is how far this will go and what the hell we can do about it,”

“Well, if it’s the Heather I know, and I think it is, this is not the end of this. There will be more petty problems like this but we can’t let him break us, he can’t win. No matter how tough it gets, okay?”

“Yeah,” Ailsa said.

“Okay,” Michael replied.

“What if we’re just overreacting,” Jenny said and glanced at each of their faces “I mean, vendors are fickle and he might have just not wanted to give you that huge discount anymore. I think that we are still a little on edge because of the whole Felix thing,”

“So, what do you suggest we do?” Miranda asked, she reasoned with Jenny a little but the vendor had seemed way too suspicious.

“Let’s see other vendors. We need to revamp our wardrobe and buy some other equipment. This guy won’t be done for an hour or two, I think we should look around and see. Who knows? Maybe this guy is just really greedy, I mean…did you see all the rings on his fingers?” Jenny said and laughed a little but no one joined her, so she stopped.

“You may be right,” Walt said after running his hand through his hair “there’s no harm in trying,” and with that, they went through the entire square, from one vendor to the next. Each one worse than the previous one. Some gave them outrageous prices for the cheapest product and some even outrightly refused to do business with them. By the time they were done going through all the stalls and got back to the first vendor’s stall, they were mentally exhausted from all the rejection.

“Maybe it’s this town…” Jenny tried lamely.

“Oh, you’re going to put a positive spin on this too?” Miranda asked, then snorted rudely.

“Shut up Alice,” Jenny snapped at her.

“You shut up,” Miranda snapped back and the two stared down each other. Ailsa quickly stepped in their midst and placed her hands on both their shoulders.

“You can’t fight, this is exactly what that bastard wants. Once you start fighting, he wins. Is that want you two want?” Ailsa said. They both felt ashamed and quickly apologized to each other. Ailsa suddenly wished she could punch this Heather character down to the depts of hell where he belonged.

“Alright! Here you are,” the vendor’s voice rang out to them. He emerged from his tent and handed them their new equipment. The level of their new equipment was ordinary high red. Red was the highest level of equipment that they could get and it had sub levels of; legend, epic, ordinary high and ordinary low qualities. The power of their yellow epic equipment paled in comparison to the one the vendor clutched greedily. After they took their equipment, they made their way out of Shewhart town. As they left, people gave them queer looks that made Walt’s hairs stand on end.

“I want to go and meet Hogan at the Land of Origin,” Michael announced when they were out of the town.

“I’ll come with you,” Miranda said.

“No,” Michael replied, holding his hand up “more of us should stay together. Hogan and I will meet up with you later,”

“Okay, but try and communicate with us as much as you can,” Walt told him and the two shook hands. Then Michael went off, leaving the rest of his team mates to decide their next move.