Chapter 274: Antiques of the Mauryan Empire (2)
“Welcome to my shop. What kind of items are you looking for?”
It was made of three floors and looked like a very popular antique shop.
But since the only customer in there was Ian, the owner of the shop directly approached Ian with interest.
A middle-aged man, with half-white hair, naturally approached Ian, and Ian scratched the back of his neck while answering.
“Oh, I didn’t come in here with a specific thing in mind, I just came in because I’m interested in antiques.”
“Oh?”
To please the NPC and gather affinity, lie came out of Ian’s mouth.
“I was walking through the city, and I found this wonderful looking store, so I came inside to look.”
This wasn’t a complete lie.
This particular antique shop that Ian had entered had a far more luxurious appearance, compared to the other shops he had seen.
‘It is basically a lie, a compelling lie with a bit of truth in it.’
And due to the compliments from Ian, the owner of the shop had a smile plastered onto his face.
“Keuh, Looks like my young friend here knows a thing or two. I made this place after traveling for 450 years around the South Islands and collected all the various rare things that it had. There is no other antique shop in the world that is as great as this one.”
The man had extended his hand towards Ian, and Ian grabbed his hand.
While grabbing the hand, Ian had a bit of fl.u.s.tered look on his face.
‘What 450 years? Then he must have lived for more than 450 years, this isn’t a human race?’
Ian looked at the man in front of him, and he looked like an ordinary middle-aged man.
And the man had opened his mouth.
“I’ll introduce myself again. I am the owner of this store ‘Reno Barns’.”
“I am a traveler, venturing towards the Southern Island of Buju, Ian.”
Ian looked at the eyes of the man, and in the same moment system messages started to appear.
Tring-
[Affinity with ‘Reno Barns’—the owner of the shop in Kapila Castle, has risen by 10 points.]
[The probability of buying a high-grade item when buying has also increased by 1.5%.]
Ian’s lip corners went up.
‘Yep, it is always necessary to complement the NPC’s. However, I wonder how the 1.5% will be like…?’
Ian thought that he should buy a lot of items from the antique store.
As a result of using oversight, there were a few expensive items that cost over millions of gold.
But for Ian who hadn’t spent a lot of money in a long time, this didn’t seem like a very expensive price.
‘If I am going to gamble at this antique store, then I should try to get the right thing.’
Ian asked the owner of the shop.
“Mr. Reno Barns. By any chance is there anything that you could recommend to me?”
At this question, Reno Barns nodded his head and answered.
“Firstly, tell me what kind of a thing are you looking for.”
After a minute of thinking, Ian answered.
“There isn’t anything specific that I’m looking for. As I told you, I’m just interested in antiques. I just want to buy some cool stuff, whatever they are.”
Just like he had told Reno Barns, Ian didn’t have anything specific.
He just went into the antique shop to buy something because he could afford them.
‘Some time ago, some guy came and delivered a few hidden cla.s.s items to the antique store.’
That was really a big hit case of gambling, and gambling was meant to be like that, which is fun.
And Ian’s eyes were s.h.i.+ning.
“HuHu,… well… something that will please your heart. Many travelers come to my shop and look for strong and powerful weapons… But you seem different.”
And a system message came on.
[Affinity with the Reno Barns, the owner of the antique shop in Kapila Castle has risen by 10 points.]
And the words from Reno Barns followed.
“Come along, I will show the third floor specifically for you.”
At those words, Ian’s eyes went wide.
‘3rd floor…? Is he going to open an area that no one can enter?’
Ian’s eyes started to look like a kid’s eyes.
A hidden area in a high-level place that no one has ever been to.
A special area inside an antique shop.
This was something that wasn’t expected.
Creak- creak-
As Reno Barns began to move, the wooden staircase began to creak.
And Ian was slowly following him.
‘What could be there? Among the current equipments on me, the shoes have the least abilities… I hope the gamble is good.’
While he was walking, suddenly Ian felt lonely.
And the cause for that loneliness was Kaka.
Ian hadn’t noticed that Kaka who is always behind him, didn’t follow him.
“Hmm…?”
Ian stepped down the stairs and looked around, he had found Kaka who was very engulfed into something at the corner of the first floor.
“Yah! Kaka. Come up, quickly.”
Kaka who was intently watching something looked up at Ian and nodded.
“Okay, Master.”
Kaka immediately flew towards Ian.
And in Kaka’s hand was a book that looked very old.
Ian tried to get a good look at the book and asked Kaka.
“What is that? Why did you bring it along with you?”
Kaka told Ian.
“Master, buy this.”
Ian who wasn’t able to understand what Kaka meant, asked me again.
“And what is that?”
Kaka shrugged his shoulders and replied.
“You don’t get it, Master. You have come to this antique store to buy something, but do you have any idea on what to get?”
Ian could do nothing but scratch the back of his neck.
“Is… is that so?”
But Ian wasn’t a fool.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think about this through.
It was because he thought that Kaka who always showed unrivaled abilities in the gaming sphere might have an ability to recognize rare objects in an antique store.
“Anyway buy this, Master.”
“Uh hmmm…”
Still, Ian thought that if Kaka was so interested in an object, there could be something special about it.
And at once Ian checked the information.
[Name: Incomprehensible Ancient Records / Cla.s.sification: Miscellaneous /
Rank: ??? / Price: 875000 gold.]
Ian confirmed the price more than the other stats, in all honesty, he was a bit worried about how pricey the antique object was labeled.
‘This isn’t even a piece of equipment, and almost a million gold just for a piece of old paper?’
87 million gold wasn’t a big price for Ian, but he wasn’t sure if the paper was worth such a high price.
But Ian wanted to believe Kaka’s decision and decided to gamble for once.
“Kay, I get it. Hold onto it for now. Let’s buy all the things at once.”
Kaka nodded with a bright expression.
“Thank you so much, Master.”
Kaka landed on the shoulders of Ian, and Ian began to move up the stairs along with Reno Barns.
Reno Barns also stopped moving and looked at the two with interesting expression when they were discussing over the object.
And Reno Barns who started to walk again, looked back to see if it was something that he was thinking about.
His gaze fell on the shoulder of Ian where it was.
“Hmm…? By the way, the guy who keeps following you… looks like a ‘Karga Phantom’.”
At these words from Reno Barns, Ian’s eyes s.h.i.+fted with nervousness.
‘Hmm…? Did he discover Kaka’s ident.i.ty…?’
It had been a few months since Ian had been with Kaka.
But till now, not the users nor the NPC’s were able to identify Kaka’s ident.i.ty.
Instead, they were very far from identifying it, and most of them just thought of Kaka as one of Ian’s familiar.
But unlike the nervous Ian, Kaka had still held the same expression.
Kaka opened his mouth.
“Oh right, the people who are selected can recognize my true ident.i.ty.”
Reno Barns started to climb the stairs with a slight smile on his face, but Ian was still puzzled with what had just happened in front of him.
‘What are these two talking about?’
Kaka who realized the worry in Ian’s heart spoke short words of comfort.
“Don’t worry too much, Master. You’ll know soon.”
Although he was curious about the ‘selected ones’ that Kaka had mentioned, it was much more important to enter the hidden floor of the antique store.
* * *
Kw.a.n.g- Kwakw.a.n.g-!
On a large plateau, battles of large scale were taking place.
There were powerful explosions that were happening here and there, due to this mountainous terrain which started to map out.
The rocky terrain that had formed and the rock slides that were happening because of the combat skills could be considered as a grand scenario.
However, it was a spectacular sight only from the viewer’s point of view, and the users in the field were tasting death.
This was taking place in the Northern Continent on the Plateau of Libellia.
“For now, retreat to the defensive combat style! This place is so difficult!”
After Ian had disappeared, the battle of the Northern continent was in the hands of SooHee.
And she was drenched in sweat with her equipment all tattered, but her eyes still held the will to fight.
‘Phew, just a little more hard work, and we’ll be able to protect Libellia Plateau today.’
Two days after Ian had vacated his post.
Tobolldae was forced to deliver the Surangka plains to the monster, because of their fiercest attacks.
But the situation wasn’t so bad, it was a strategic retreat so the users didn’t feel deceived or let down.
‘Ian definitely played a big role.’
The Surangka plains was a bad mapping for the battle as it was a gra.s.sy plain with no obstacles for defense, in short, it was a bad place to deal with rambunctious Asmodians and monsters.
On the other hand, the Libellia Plateau was a good place to effectively defend oneself from the opponent, if their strategy was well planned and executed.
SooHee had a lot of experience in the battlefield along with Ian, and she used this knowledge to block out the monsters from the Northern region.
‘But with this current situation… I doubt if this will last longer than 5 days.’
Since the Dimensional war had begun, they were on the verge to stop the third wave.
The level of difficulty that was being felt from the beginning was very different.
‘Phew… once they reach this point, it will be just a matter of time before they reach the empire.’
The Libellia Plateau was the immediate place of retreat from the original map of Surangka, there were still three more maps remaining on the borders of the Empire.
But, the remaining maps weren’t suitable terrains for blocking the attacks that came from the rampaging monsters. They weren’t wide enough areas to battle.
SooHee thought that once the monsters managed to pierce into the Libellia Plateau it would be a matter of a day or two before they reach the empire borders.
‘Ian needs to come back before that happens…’
Ian had said that he would definitely come back, and the ranker of the Northern Continent believed those words.
The Dimension war had to end with the victory on the side of the Toboldae union.
If they couldn’t manage to do so, the whole Northern Territories were bound to disappear.