Contractbound

Graham had packed both his remaining scrolls today. One belonged to the Deity of Lies and Attraction that he had got from Mevrouw Cornelia"s death and the other one was the unknown scroll that he had found in her house.

"From the Deity of Lies and Attraction," replied Graham audibly, so everyone there could hear him.

The man with the confused mask seemed to have lost interest in an instant. The same was true for the other three people who had originally gathered there. They appeared to be a Contractbound of a higher rank since they needed the wraiths remains. The scroll he was selling was only an Earl rank one after all.

Graham didn"t know what Deity the other scroll was for, and he couldn"t divine it. To get the information from it, he needed to have pleased three Deities, which would take him a long time to accomplish. He could try to show it to these people in front of him, but if it turned out to be a very valuable one even for himself, he was afraid that he would be targeted by bad people once he was out of the safe zone, so he held back from selling it for the time being.

"I"m selling the scroll of the Deity of Lies and Attraction!" shouted Graham again to get the attention of people walking by.

The four that were originally there had moved somewhere else to continue their shopping trip, leaving Graham with his two companions. He kept repeating the same line to get a buyer.

"I"m selling the scroll of the Deity of Lies and Attraction!"

Luuk was watching from the side, looking at people walking by. When they heard Graham"s shouting, they paused for a second and then continued to walk away from that spot.

"I thought contract scrolls were rare. Why is no one buying yours?" he asked Graham curiously.

Ivo, who had just become a Contractbound recently, was also curious about the answer.

"They are indeed rare, but this particular Deity is rather infamous," he explained while remembering his encounter with Mevrouw Cornelia and what she had done to the Bakkers" family.

"Why?" Luuk"s curiosity grew bigger.

Graham took a deep breath.

"Do you remember the family ma.s.sacre case?" he asked while looking at both his companions.

Luuk and Ivo seemed to be thinking for a while before finally the former nodded.

"The Bakkers were the victims, right?" asked Luuk in confirmation.

Graham nodded, and before he was able to speak, Luuk interjected.

"The actual culprit was a Contractbound of this Deity?"

"Yes. You"re sharp, I must give you that," complimented Graham, and then added, "That"s why. People who know about this place should have some knowledge about Contractbounds, unlike us who became one by chance,"

"That is true. Even when I was still a normal person, I knew some about some Deities because of my exchange with people here," added Ivo, confirming Graham"s conjecture.

"Selling the scroll of the Deity of Lies and Attraction!" Graham went back to shouting.

His deep voice wasn"t m.u.f.fled by the mask at all, even though there was no mouth hole. There was someone who was still some distance away from the common hall who heard his voice and came closer quickly. It was a man wearing a beautiful peach mask with floral patterns and flower petals under the chin part, covering his neck. His manner of walking matched the mask he was wearing; it was graceful and effeminate. The man was wearing

"Are you selling the scroll of the Deity of Lies and Attraction for real?" asked the man with a manly but strangely gentle voice.

"Yes. Twenty guilders and it is yours," replied Graham to the point.

"Deal," he said shortly.

Graham was taken aback. He hadn"t expected the man would accept just like that, especially since he had jacked-up the price more than normal. If he had known, he would have asked for an even higher price.

"This is the contract. You can check for its authenticity," said Graham weakly.

He opened the scroll in front of the man and let him see the sigil. It didn"t matter to him if pa.s.sersby could also get the knowledge of the ritual materials and procedure because, in the end, they needed the scroll to perform the ritual.

The soft man took out twenty guilder bills from the pocket of his loose pants and gave them to Graham. Graham received the money and handed the scroll over to the man, marking the end of their successful transaction.

"It"s been a pleasure dealing with you, Mr. ...? asked the man with a soft tone.

"Gemini. Just call me Gemini," replied Graham with a made-up name.

He had thought of that pseudonym ever since he bought that mask. It felt very fitting for the current situation where he didn"t want people to know his ident.i.ty. The name sounded simple but had a mysterious charm to it.

"It"s been a pleasure dealing with you, Mr. Gemini. You can call me Virgo," said the soft-spoken man.

"The pleasure is all mine," replied Graham politely.

After exchanging pleasantries, Virgo left the hall with a scroll tucked to his pocket. Contract scrolls couldn"t be destroyed, so it didn"t matter how one stored it. Graham then turned to Luuk.

"You two shall also address me as Gemini while we are in the bazaar," he demanded.

"In that case, call me Capricorn," replied Luuk with a name taken from the mask"s name.

Ivo only nodded. He didn"t seem to have a pseudonym he wanted to go by, and people there usually address him as the gang member there, so he didn"t feel the need to change it.

"Now I"m done here. There is nothing I need to buy currently," said Graham.

"Same here, but I want to go around to take a look," said Luuk.

"Then we will do just that," Graham accepted the idea.

He picked up his briefcase and followed Luuk who had gone ahead. They walked leisurely while looking around the alley filled with various stalls and stores. It was not a very big alley, so when someone stopped to look at an item on sale, the others had to move around them with difficulty because there were a lot of people there. Another bad thing that a big number of people gathering in a small s.p.a.ce caused was the smell of sweat. Although it was getting colder and colder as they were approaching winter, the smell was still present and lingered.

"Can"t you guys just use your ability to steal from someone here?" asked Graham jokingly to the two Thieves accompanying him.

"I wouldn"t suggest doing that. I saw someone attempting to use his power for whatever reason and a lot of the guys like the one in the common hall, the one who was watching over the place, jumped at him and took him somewhere," replied Ivo with a very serious tone.

"So they are like the security here. How do they detect abilities being activated I wonder?" said Graham quietly while thinking.

He could try to use divination later, but he needed more information, otherwise, it would just fail because those people were most likely much more powerful than him.

They continued walking relaxedly and went past a stall selling street food. Graham was rather hungry so he bought a portion of waffle with chocolate and ate it while walking.

There were indeed a lot of stores and stalls there selling various stuff. There were preserved remains of dead people being displayed inside a gla.s.s case that was visible from outside through the store window. Various body parts were there, and there were multiple ones of the same body parts. They most likely belonged to people with different jobs and t.i.tles when they were alive.

On their left, there was a store selling bullets of various diameters and probably effect too. Graham then remembered that he had used up all his bullets, so he could always buy some more, although he was rather reluctant to buy them there. The bullets sold in that black market were more expensive than those sold at Cadhla"s store. He stopped and entered the store and the seller, who was wearing a deer mask, stood up right away.

"Do you have blood bullets for a .31 calibers revolver?" asked Graham.

He observed the seller and felt rather ironic that an animal that was commonly hunted was selling ammunition.

"Yes, and we also have other kinds, like paralysis bullets and demolition bullets," said the deer-masked storekeeper.

"How effective is a paralysis bullet?" asked Graham curiously.

He had never heard of that bullet before but he could guess the effect based on the name.

"If the enemy is weak, it can paralyze them for up to three seconds, but if they are strong, probably only one second or even less," explained the storekeeper.

It was an extremely useful bullet for controlling his enemies in a battle, especially if fighting beasts that he couldn"t control with his abilities.

"How much are those? And how much is the blood bullet?" asked Graham.

Luuk, who was not interested in bullets because he had no gun, walked out of the store to find another interesting thing to look at, followed by Ivo.

"Blood bullets are two and a half guilders apiece, paralysis bullets five guilders apiece," replied the storekeeper.

Graham"s face showed dissatisfaction under his mask, which couldn"t be seen by the storekeeper thankfully. He didn"t expect the paralysis bullet to be double the price of the blood one.

"Why is the paralysis bullet so expensive?" he complained.

"They work on all kinds of enemies, and they are very difficult to make. In fact, I only have three here in my store,"

Graham didn"t buy the bullets right away. He wanted to check the price in other ammunition stores there first before buying the cheapest one. He couldn"t use divination because he was afraid that the black market watchers would jump on him.

"Alright, I"ll think about it first," he said as he left the store.

He went out and saw Luuk and Ivo in front of a gemstone seller. He didn"t bother them and went his own way to find another ammunition store. It was located only about ten meters away from the one he had just left from. He walked towards the store hurriedly while avoiding some people who were flocking a stall.

Graham entered a store that was much smaller than the previous one and reeked of gunpowder. The store owner, who was sitting behind the counter, was a short, thin man wearing an upside-down mask. He approached the counter to ask the owner.

"Do you have paralysis bullets?"

The short man looked up at Graham who was much taller than him. If they stood next to each other, the man would look somewhat like a dwarf.

"Sorry, but we are all out of that one," answered the store owner.

Only then did Graham realize that the person in front of him wasn"t a short man, but a boy. Although the boy"s body was a big give away, somehow he subconsciously thought that it was a man when looking at the mask.

"Kid, how much do you sell blood bullets here?" asked Graham with a completely different manner of speaking.

"They are two and a half guilders apiece," answered the store owner shortly, seemingly annoyed.

The price was the same as the "deer"s" store, so he wasn"t interested in buying here.

"Thanks for your time," replied Graham, and then walked out of the store.

He walked back towards the first store and noticed Luuk was still standing in front of the gemstone stall while Ivo was looking at something else not far from there. He left them alone and quickly entered the bigger ammunition store with a deer masked man standing behind the counter.

"I"ll take all three paralysis bullets and six blood bullets," said Graham straightforwardly.

The deer masked man took out the bullets that matched Graham"s gun requirement and placed them on top of the counters. Graham came closer and picked up one bullet and sent his spirituality to it. The bullets glowed red on the tip, which meant it was the blood one. He then picked up the one on the other end and did the same. This time, it glowed yellow.

"This is the paralysis bullet?" asked Graham.

The store owner nodded.

"How much is the total?" he already knew but he asked anyway for formality.

"Fifteen guilders for three paralysis bullets, fifteen guilders for six blood bullets, so the total is thirty guilders," replied the store owner quickly.

He gave the deer masked man his money and took all the bullets and stuffed them inside his briefcase, dividing them into two separate containers neatly. He had to part with the money that he had just earned and felt bitter about it. He could still sell the purple crystal fragments that Leyaks left behind if he needed to, but he wanted to keep hold of them for now.

Graham left the store quickly after organizing the content of his briefcase to see what Luuk was up to. Outside the ammunition store, not far away from there, Luuk was still talking to the gemstone seller and in the end, he bought a red square gemstone that Graham didn"t know.

"What did you buy?" he asked curiously as he approached Luuk.

Ivo saw the two men standing together and quickly came back.

"This one can give my weapon a minor burning effect on attacks for ten attacks max. But I need to find a Jeweller to embed it on my knife-- or I can become a Jeweller myself," he explained.

The effect was interesting, but it only worked for ten attacks and they needed a Jeweller"s help to make it work, so Graham was not convinced. He wasn"t interested in asking about the price either because he was still bitter about spending so much money at once.

"Is there somewhere we can buy enchanted equipment here?" asked Graham to Ivo who was now standing next to Luuk.

"Yes, but they are very expensive if you buy them at a store. And the effect is minor as well. It"s better to wait for someone in the common hall to sell one of those," he explained.

"How expensive do you mean?" asked Luuk curiously.

Graham stayed quiet and braced himself to be shocked.

"The cheapest is forty guilders and the most expensive can go as high as seven hundred guilders, from what I"ve seen," he said casually.

Graham and Luuk were baffled after hearing the price.