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Quest Trigger Requirements:

Accepted Mercenary Participation – Satisfied
Minimum level 600 – Satisfied
Commander: Wine, Participating number: 29,760

Quest information: To assemble before 16:00 at the central plaza of York castle, which the commander has designated]　

Not long after we had registered as a mercenary, a quest was given to us. Considering that the war breaks out at 17:00, it’s an appropriate time to put up.

“We still have time, it seems. What should we do until then?”

Katalina asked, after calculating the time remaining.

“If we log out, the quest is automatically cancelled for us, so I think it would be best to stay here and do something until that time.”
“Yep. Well, hunting would take away too much of our stamina, so let’s leave that out.”
“I know that much at least.”
“Oh~ is that so? That’s amazing, Ellie.”

Katalina stroked my hair gently as if she was talking to her underling. However, I didn’t find it too unpleasant.

“Would be great if you put your hand away.”

Slightly subdued words come out of my mouth. Katalina became surprised hearing it and quickly pulled her hand away from my head.

“You’re so high strung, Ellie.”
“You’re the one making me like this.”
“Tsk. Your love for me has faded away, it seems.”

It’s because… Everyone was looking at us, which I was late in realizing. Katalina didn’t seem to notice it, perhaps because she’s used to not worrying about her actions while her ID and face aren’t shown in public, but I still felt as if everyone was recognising who we were.

“Then bye.”

I hurriedly left the area. I thought ‌since we’re here in London city, I should at least have a look around the city.

“Ahh! Ellie, wait for me!”

Soon, Katalina ran up to me and grabbed one of my arms. The way she did made it look like we’re a couple, having arms interlocked.

“Uhh…”

Surprised, I tried to pull my arm away from her but it was impossible to pull away since Katalina was practically holding onto my arm with all her strength. It was depressing to think ‌I didn’t even have the power to pull away from a girl’s arm now.

Thinking about it, there were many problems that arose from having much less strength than before. Even just lifting a slightly heavy object makes my arm strain heavily. It makes me feel really depressed¹.

But the one thing that reassured me was that the people looking at us weren’t casting suspicion at us. If we were both men walking around with our arms interlocked, it would have gathered suspicion and weird looks, but there are plenty of women that walk around arms interlocked. It’s not like all those many women are all actual couples, right…?

No, there’s no way. I remembered that uniquely, even in the conservative land of Korea, you don’t really find women who interlock arms when walking to be weird, as opposed to when men are doing the same thing.

“It was my wish to one day walk together with Ellie like this, and now it’s really granted.”
“It was your wish?”
“Yep.”

It made me think ‌she’s aiming way too low for her wish. But still, looking at Katalina’s face, she genuinely looked thrilled. It seemed to me that she meant something else with our arms locked together than how women usually interpret it.

‘Arms locked, huh…’

It had also been an extremely long time since I walked with my arms interlinked with someone. I didn’t think I would have it happen to me ever again. It’s really hard to predict what could happen to people in the future, isn’t it?

“Hahaha.”
“Hehe.”

As if just in time, I saw a male and female couple nearby. They were smiling and laughing constantly, as if something was hilarious as they whispered to each other. Even though it’s not reality and within a game, I still felt jealousy towards them. Looking at their equipment, I could easily tell that they were low leveled and haven’t been long since they started. Perhaps they started playing the game together as a couple.

“Hmm.”

Katalina remarked, as if she noticed me looking at them. She turns towards them, following my gaze.

“Newbies, huh?”

She sounded as if she was disinterested, but her expression looked very discontent.

“Ellie. Ellie, do you like men?”

It was a sudden question.

“?!”

Hearing the question that I never expected to hear, I couldn’t find the words to say.

“Well?”
“No!”

As Katalina repeated her question to me, I immediately replied with a serious expression. My goodness, as a man who loves a woman, how could I ever like a man? I’m a healthy(?) 30-year-old man filled with vigor who has a straight sexual orientation.

… I mean, I WAS a man.

Only then rationality came back to me and made me realize just what kind of statement I had made and what that statement meant for my current situation.

“Yay! Really? Honest? Now I know that you’re on my side of the world!”

She had a beautiful smile on her face. Fine, you look real happy there, but it seems that I’m making some kind of misunderstanding. How can I fix this?

How am I to explain that I was originally a man but ‌my soul was transferred into Elizabeth’s body and therefore it’s actually a natural thing that I like women? I try my best to think of an explanation.

I presume that there could only be two ‌outcomes. She’ll either think I’m joking, or send me to get my head checked at the mental hospital.

It was a situation that even I had a hard time in believing, and if you considered the wealth that Elizabeth has, it would be easy for her to completely fabricate a whole person’s life convincingly, so it would more likely end up that way.

While thinking‌, I turned to the side to look at her, and Katalina was deep in thought‌. She looked like she was in deep contemplation, before she seemed to have made a serious decision.

“Then I should make sure to keep other women away from you.”

You should keep your inner thoughts to yourself.

I think I’ll have a headache at this rate. If I keep getting pulled around by her like this, the only one that’s going to be tired is me. Her arms interlinking with me felt like they were handcuffs locking my arms.

But why is it ‌I can’t pull my arm away? Is it only because I lack the strength? Or perhaps something else? I kept asking myself, but I couldn’t find any obvious answer².

“Come and look, we’re selling rare tier materials for cheap!”
“We have a range of useful special tier items lined up, look inside!”
“Buying iron ore, silver ore, and gold ore. Bulk sellers welcome!”

Soon, the busy streets were out of my sight and in my view was a bustling business zone. One of the interesting things about the business zone is that there are many stands lined up making it look like an organized market back in Korea. I’m not sure whether markets with stands exist in England‌.

In any case, the business zones ‌in the Korean servers of Blue Sky looked more like it was in a poor town as sellers wouldn’t have a proper stand, but lay out the items they’re selling on a piece of cloth on the ground in front of them. As I had spent a lot of time going around places like that, seeing this market which was much more organized was a fresh experience.

“It’s been so long since I came to London city’s central market. I think it’s been 3 years since I’ve last been here.”

Katalina also looked around with an interested expression like me as she spoke. 3 years, huh…

That sounded right. It was around 3 years ago when the fansite auction system became activated in Blue Sky, although the exact timing is different between each country.

For the average user like me, I had to visit the business zone often to sell my various materials, but the only things Katalina would bother to trade are items of high value. It would be better to go to the auction sites rather than markets like this one.

As opposed to items that are often traded or are traded cheaply, items that are at least unique tier vary their prices heavily depending on the fluctuations of the market, and since it doesn’t get traded often to begin with, it makes it hard to predict its prices. The person who’s buying may not find it a problem, but the person who’s selling it may have a big loss in terms of both time and money if they were to put it up in the market and wait for a buyer. Therefore, most of them just find using the auction market to be the way to go.

There is a downside that you have to pay a 10% commission charge for putting up on the website, but it’s worth accepting the loss to put it up.

“Please come and have a look.”

Though it’s not as aggressive as shop employees forcibly pulling you to their shop like it is in Korea, there are still many stands and shops all vying for the attention of users. Auction houses are only profitable for high-value items, selling cheaper items at the market instead is more cost-effective. Moreover, most users only want to deal with cheap and affordable items anyway.

Naturally, this was the reason there are so many people here in the market.

As we move into the deeper part of the market, we see a different landscape in front of us. As opposed to the average stands and shops previously, there were more shops selling casual attires and jewelry shops all around.

“Luxury market district, huh…”

Katalina stared with wide eyes and interest. To be honest, most of the items she looked at with interest were because the sheer variety of items fascinated her, she ‌wasn’t interested at all in buying any of them since they were low quality, with items only at the special tier and lower.

“Seems like they definitely drew a line between common and luxury shopping districts.” I’ve already seen this kind of splitting often back at home, but since Katalina was seeing this kind of thing for the first time, I commented with feigned interest.

“You’re right. If there was anything I needed, I would have always requested it from our crafting users, so I never felt the need to come into a place like this. I didn’t know that there are so many jewelry shops and casual clothing shops.”

As expected of her as a woman, Katalina’s eyes glistened again seeing all the clothing and jewelry around her. If I’m not careful, she’ll end up wanting to have a shopping spree inside the game. I tried to find any other place we could go, and I can forcibly redirect Katalina’s gaze before it gets worse.

“Hmm?”

Author’s note:
Ugh, made a mistake and messed up the chapter numbers; Sorry about that.³

1. Silva: Does real life strength matter in a game? Aren’t your strength determined by the digital values inside the game?
   Annnnnooooonnnnyyyymoouuussssss: She’s talking about IRL here, just making comparison between power she had previously and now, not the in-game-stats.
   Considering that every character is exact equivalent of their IRL counterpart (if you’re a guy, you’ll always be a guy in game)… The author didn’t point it out specifically so it is currently unknown. Perhaps later on, a frail-looking female character would lift up something heavy easily to show that it depends on their in-game-stat.
   Robinxen: 6am brain go brrrrrrrrrrrr
2. Silva Of course it’s because of something else. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
3. Are YOU really saying that author? The chapter numbers has been a mess since chapter 22