| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 4014 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2333 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
The two hours passed by in the blink of an eye. As soon as I logged out, I called one of the lawyers from the household’s law firm. After giving a brief summary of the situation, I asked for them to log into Blue Sky.
“I will take care of all the procedures related to the law such as recording of video myself, so you only need to focus on the trade itself.”
“Thank you.”
The elderly smart looking gentleman who seemed trustworthy was a lawyer that even the legal circles admitted to having a very high win record. Usually, he wasn’t one to care about online trades such as this one, but because of my request and the enormous sum of money in exchange, he agreed to work for me.
But the one thing that’s funny was that even that stuffy old fashioned man also had an account open in the Blue Sky game.
“Hoho. Don’t be so surprised. I’m just another user who loves Blue Sky just as any other.”
Perhaps having seen my surprised look, he threw me a hearty laugh and smiled widely.
“It seems I was being rude.”
“It is fine.”
Hearing my apology, he accepted it right away in a cool manner.
“Actually, considering the price of the mansion as well as the fact that it’s extremely difficult to catch any opportunities, it’s amazing that you were able to acquire one in the London city area of all places, Miss Elizabeth. Then again, you have the top number of real estate owned in the server, so that probably was expected.”
Did he know that the castle in the sky which was much more amazing and spectacular than a mansion in London was actually mine as well? If he did know, he wouldn’t have said that about the mansion though.
In any case, I simply replied with a smile to his gaze of jealousy towards me.
[Miss Artoria? We’re ready. Are you able to do the trade?]Finally, the whisper message I’ve been waiting for had arrived. Looking at the time, there was just a bit over one hour left until the agreed time. Once again, I had a favorable impression on her for being able to be prepared like this all within one hour.
[Sounds good. We’re ready on our side as well. What would the coordinates of the mansion be?][Okay. The coordinates are X: 56,476,744 and Y:54,556,733. Please send me another whisper once you arrive at the entrance.]
[All right then.]
Having a rough guess from the coordinates, it looked to be at the center of London city. As my home was in the central area of the city, it was very close to my current location.
“Now then, we should leave to get this trade sorted. I will be using the Robe of Concealment.”
“Sure.”
As it would be troublesome if the word that this mansion was my home got out, I put on the epic level customized Robe of Concealment that not only hides my face but my real ID as well. Though it wasn’t an item that allowed you to increase your stats or skills by wearing it, it was still the best item for anyone who wanted to remain secret and hidden.
Coming out of the mansion, the lawyer and I went towards the destination that was just around the corner. It was so close that we didn’t even need to make use of the Teleportation gate at all.
“Huh. So it was here?”
It only took one or two minutes of walking to arrive at the location that Jasmine indicated. It was so close that we were practically neighbors.
It reminded me just how small the world could be. I wondered how I wasn’t able to figure out that she lived so close to me, but considering that the ownerships of residences were private and hidden from the public’s view, I nodded my head in understanding. It wasn’t like this neighborhood was actually in reality, and there wasn’t much reason for one to try and visit random residences. Even if Jasmine had lived right next to my home, I would have never known.
[I’ve arrived.]Stepping up to the entrance of the mansion, I sent Jasmine another again.
[Ah, you’re already here? It seems like you were nearby the area.][Fufu, it ended up that way.]
Soon the invitation message came to me, which I accepted promptly and formed a party with the lawyer. For reference, when the party leader was invited to a residence, the invitation also extended to the party members.
The door to the mansion opened and we both went inside.
“Welcome~”
Jasmine welcomed us with a friendly expression. From her point of view, it was like the greatest customer of her entire life had come in, so being this grateful to me was pretty expected.
“Thank you for letting me in.”
“Goodness, no need to be. It’s not only the money that I’m interested in, it’s also an amazing honor to be able to meet the real Artoria of the server.”
Looking at her, I realized that she was quite an amazing beauty while wearing just a plain tunic for clothing. I wasn’t able to tell back then perhaps because she was looking very rough in her blacksmith outfit. Though the fact that she looked quite old was unfavorable to her, she still emanated the voluptuous beauty that only women in their thirties could have.
Even though I say that, I didn’t mean to say that I preferred women older than me. Even more so when her chest easily went beyond D cup in size.
“But I must say, you really do look amazingly beautiful! Though I did see your real face on the TV, your character is also an amazing beauty as well. Having all the wealth, beauty and fame altogether, I’m honestly quite jealous!”
In other words, she thought I was some sort of fictional perfect woman.
“Ahaha.”
I could do nothing but laugh in an embarrassed tone.
“My apologies for cutting the conversation between such beautiful women short, but I’m extremely busy. I was hoping we could hurry along with the trade.”
A man who was wearing a completely black robe and watching us silently the whole time butted into our conversation without even so much a warning. Seeing as how they were completely covered in black head to toe, I was able to make a good guess on who that person was.
“Ah, so you are the trade manager of the game.”
Ordinarily, managers and game masters only focus on making detailed system changes or try to look for errors and bugs in the game. They weren’t allowed to make any physical changes within the game, and the server administrator was given the power to change the server to their will.
Therefore managers took on the role more as an onlooker in the game. But it didn’t mean they were completely powerless. On the basic level, for matters of legal elements on a smaller scale, they could notify the server admin or impose sanctions against the person through their unique authority given by the admin.
“Yes. It’s actually the first time I’ve got to meet you like this. I wanted to take my time and ask you a lot of questions, but alas it’s sad that we can’t do that. I have over 36 different trade deals that I oversee which need to be completed within today.”
Hearing him express the pain he goes through for his work, I felt that my view towards the managers of the game became a bit more favorable.
It may be because they were giving me special treatment because I was Artoria, but managers were usually extremely unfriendly towards the players because of the overwhelming amount of work they had to do. It wasn’t like the number of managers was too little for the amount of work, it was just that the population was too big.
On top of that, there was no such concept as a customer complaint department, so whenever a user got upset with the game, their anger naturally pointed towards the game manager and that ended up causing the managers to be unfriendly with the users. If it wasn’t for the fact that they receive a great salary for their work, they would have done 3D graphics jobs or something else instead.
Perhaps for that reason, even the main headquarters of Blue Sky gave up on trying to teach the managers of the game proper etiquette to serve customers early on. They were experiencing so much growth in the customer base that even if they were to lose a few due to that problem, it wouldn’t be much of an issue.
“All right then. Now, Miss Jasmine, shall we begin the trade?”
“Okay.”
Jasmine also nodded and agreed to move on with the trade deal. Sitting in the reception room of the mansion, Jasmine and I faced each other, and the lawyers were sitting next to our sides.
And the manager who sat in the head seat acted as the observer and watched over the trade deal.
While several documents were being traded between the lawyers, I went over the details of the transaction with Jasmine again.
“So will you accept the deal of crafting the Orichalcum armor set for the price of 3 billion gold?”
“I accept. I shall now go over the finer details of the deal. The market price for the Orichalcum and various materials being used for the creation of the Orichalcum set comes to 2 billion gold in total. The 1 billion gold left is for my net gain, and will you acknowledge that if I were to fail, I will bear no responsibility for the loss?”
“What is the probability of success? Please tell me honestly.”
Jasmine was deep in thought for a moment before coming with an answer.
“It’s 40%.”
The probability was higher than I thought. I was going to be glad if it was even over just 25%, but it’s actually 40% instead. Though the probability was still lower than half, it meant that out of 10 tries, 4 will be successful.
Of course, 6 failures would come from that as well, but I could bear such losses.
“… Honestly speaking, I won’t mind even if you cancel the deal right now. There were many guilds that backed out from the deal at this point after all. If you just pay for the costs of hiring the lawyer, I will make it so that the deal never took place.”
Did she think my long silence was me feeling negative about the deal? Jasmine spoke with a bitter tone.
“No, I will make the deal.”
“What did you say?”
“?!”
Hearing my sudden answer, not only Jasmine but both the lawyers, even the game manager, had their eyes wide open in shock and disbelief.
“I have considered all the risks. Honestly speaking, I have come here believing that it was going to be a 25% chance instead.”
“Is it simply because you have a lot of money?”
Jasmine asked with her eyes bewildered.
“Please just think of it as me… Investing.”
“…”
Jasmine became quiet for a moment. The lawyers will be receiving additional commission fees if the trade were to be successful, so it didn’t seem like they were willing to try and stop me.
The game manager also returned to his usual expression as if he realized this wasn’t his problem in the end.
“You won’t regret it, right? Even if I were to fail the crafting process, you cannot blame or resent me for it.”
“… Well, I’m not sure I won’t be able to completely avoid resenting you.”
Honestly, to lose such an amount of money would be a shame.
“Pfft.”
Jasmine laughed at my words, giving a bright smile afterward.
“All right then. Regardless of the outcome, I will join your guild, Miss Artoria.”
“You’ll join my guild?”
“Yes. I’m talking about Camelot. I’ll be joining that guild.”
Hearing Jasmine’s sudden proposal, I tried to weigh the pros and cons of having her join the guild, but there was no way a Master Blacksmith joining my guild could be anything but a boon. I would have to supply her with some materials and wage, but that was nothing compared to what I had, and having a professional blacksmith at your beck and call was extremely beneficial for me. Just repairing unique tier equipment via NPCs or other blacksmiths costs quite a lot of money after all.
I knew that Jasmine was the only Master Blacksmith who hadn’t joined a guild yet.
“Well that would be great for me.”
“Fufu. You won’t regret it.”
What did she mean by not regretting it? Before I could begin to ask the question, Jasmine stood up and went towards her work area, we also followed suit.
The enormous workshop located on the underground floor of the mansion was truly astounding. I heard that people in the crafting business usually remodel the underground of their residence into a workshop, but it was the first time I actually saw one in person.
The red hot smelting furnace and numerous crafting tools caught my attention.
Stepping up to the crafting bench, Jasmine rummaged through her inventory, pulled out something and put it down on the bench.
The Orichalcum settled on the table shone with a great brilliance that filled the entire room. Soon, mythril and other materials that I didn’t recognize were placed one after another on the table.
“Please choose between light armor1, medium armor, or full plate armour.”
“Hmm..”
Though I did think about it for a moment, the answer was already in my mind. As a two-handed weapon user, we all love the fantasy of wearing full plate armour after all.
“I will choose the full plate armour.2”
“Understood.”
She then began forging the armor.
