Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Hill was startled upon hearing the familiar name, it was their people! He glanced at Baldy, feeling somewhat guilty. Fran wouldn't show up, and Adrian had seen it already, so there should be no problem.

Still, he hurriedly picked up the materials on the table and continued to explain, quickly indicating the buying prices for Crystal Cores. The crowd behind him began to stir, with someone cursing the dishonest merchant from yesterday, evidently having been bought out at a low price.

Hill bent his head down to sort through the items, explaining their uses one by one, setting prices, and placed a Puppet at the side. If anyone wanted to sell materials, the Puppet would calculate the buying price.

Hill felt the Puppet had returned to the second-floor warehouse several times. It seemed like these people were pretty much clearing their inventory here.

After Xiao Liuliu had cleared her stock, Hill noticed that the last ones remaining were A Deer and Dream Awakening. It appeared that some gentlemen had allowed the girls to go first.

A Deer laid out a lot of ores, which surprised Hill: Was this girl mining by herself? No wonder she stayed back. She managed to hold onto so many ores until now.

Seeing the earnest-looking girl, Hill could only sigh, sorting through the ores one by one, and indeed, a crowd gathered around to take photos.

He simply raised his hand and marked the names and prices of the ores above them.

"Don't you Undead Tribe have basic identification skills? You know the name of the ores, you can compare them to the store's prices."

"The weapon shop doesn't tell us the prices, nor does it sell finished ore products to us."

"Please go to the general store," Hill sighed, "You players treat the general store like a supermarket, don't you?"

"The weapon shop only buys metal ores, and the general store buys everything. It's the same with Magical Beast Crystal Cores, the weapon shop only buys what they need. Generally, the prices for ores and Crystal Cores are fixed, more or less the same at each shop. The reason why my buying price here is high is because I'm cutting out the general store's profit margin."

"No wonder I couldn't sell it, I got cheated. Damn it, if it weren't for the fact that I needed money, I wouldn't have sold it so carelessly! That damnable swindler!"

Hill thought with a headache: William has completely let the Undead loose, haven't he? They don't know anything.

Magician suddenly said, "That despicable Quartermaster! He made so much money off of us."

Hill looked up at him, "Did you exchange your weapons and equipment with the Army?"

"Yeah! The price difference is huge!"

"That's normal. The military camps spend a lot of money hiring blacksmiths and Alchemists. Their fees definitely have to be included in the product cost. There are more than 100,000 of you, after all!"

"Hiring my ass, it's all programmed!" The Magician had barely finished speaking when he was struck by a lightning bolt.

Hill looked on in disbelief as the lightning seemingly came out of nowhere: That seemed to be summoned by their tablets, right?

Baldy adeptly explained, "He has a foul mouth and was punished by the gods for speaking incorrectly, Mr. Archmage need not worry."

Hill held his forehead and said, "Please, call me Polanio. Hill Polanio. His Majesty of Time and Space sure is strict!"

Baldy chuckled, pushing the charred Magician to one side, "My apologies, Mr. Polanio."

Hill looked at the ore in his hand with some resignation, "Where did you mine this from?"

A Deer looked carefully, "I don't remember, let me check the log. Is this valuable? Goldshine Stone?"

Hill was speechless: You already know it's Goldshine Stone, don't you? What's the name in the Capital?

She struggled to navigate her tablet, "Uh-uh-uh, in Pelast Territory, a small cave near the direction of the Capital. I went AFK and mined a bit, and these two pieces came out."

Hill leaned back in his chair, almost laughing out loud, "You take these two stones to go find William's Guard Commander. I remember he's supposed to take care of your affairs. Tell him where you mined the Goldshine Stone!"

This time, no one could save the Pelast Family, off to pioneer the Northern Border they go!

Baldy hesitated to ask, "Is this very valuable? Can't we mine it ourselves?"

Hill was nearly breathless: I already know about it, and you still want to mine it yourself! Are you after money or your life?

"It's too close to the Capital, you won't be able to keep it. Better to tell William and get some military exploits. You want to be granted your own territory, right? With high military exploits, your territory will be better."

Hill didn't want to continue speaking with this man with a pained expression: You still don't understand what Goldshine Stone is? When I speak, it should be in the language here, right? Could it be that they are hearing it translated directly? But he felt these people were looking at the top of his head!

Being so slow to catch on, Hill couldn't bother to say more. He turned to the last person, Dream Awakening, and asked, "The clothes on you look nice, is that the Undead's casual wear? Do you have any spares to sell to me?" He really liked the black silk shirt Dream Awakening was wearing, loose and casual, the fabric soft and smooth.

The others were wearing very bright clothes, and Hill couldn't bring himself to compliment them.

"Of course, but it's not cheap," Dream Awakening quickly said, "It's a set, and one piece is 2000 Gold Coins."

Hill, seeing how straightforwardly he spoke, knew he had done a direct conversion from gold prices. It seemed their gold prices were quite stable.

"I'll give you 10,000 Gold, can you sell me four sets?" he asked.

"No problem!" Dream Awakening was visibly excited, "I'll buy them for you right now!"

Hill watched him swiftly tapping the tablet, it seemed they could make direct cash transactions in the game.

Dream Awakening immediately changed into a white set of the same series and asked, "Will this set do?"

Hill said in surprise, "You can change directly?"

"No, this is just for trying on; it disappears after 10 minutes. You still have to wear the actual thing you buy."

Hill nodded, "This set is good."

A Deer squeezed through, "The Magic Sword set is good too; it's just that he's silly, insisting on wearing bright red. Try on that black set and see."

Upon selecting it, Dream Awakening changed into a black, slightly shimmering, small stand-up collar trench coat, with black trousers that smoothly clung to the body, and black boots with small, sparkling accessories on the heels.

Hill nodded and took another look at the Magic Sword that had recovered from its pitch-black state. The bright red was still something he didn't want to lay eyes on.

Hill sighed, looking down: Is the point to make it so that I can't see myself, as long as it blinds everyone else?

He looked at Dream Awakening, "The clothes you all have look rather nice—just different colors, yet the difference is quite big. Bring me one of each in all the black and white colors!"

Seeing Dream Awakening's hesitation, he said, "Not enough money? You buy a few pieces for me first, and I'll pay you. After that, you can continue purchasing."

Dream Awakening quickly said, "Is it possible for us to split the purchase? It's easy for each person to buy four pieces."

Hill nodded in agreement, "Seems like this gang is pretty united."

At last, he emphasized with some trepidation, "Only the black and white colors!"

In the end, Hill received over fifty sets of clothing. He pondered to himself that the game company over there seemed rather large, and just selling Point Cards wasn't enough to sustain the game warehouse; they had to sell clothes too. He suddenly felt like laughing: To keep up appearances, He must be buying the most expensive servers, which could only be used for setting up a game forum, right?

After each person had received a sizeable amount of money, they surged to go shopping again—with a strong desire to clear out Hill Shop.

Hill sat back in the armchair beside the window, quietly watching the scenery outside.

These people spent the entire morning at Hill's, and probably after spending all their money, they began to trickle out one after another.

Liu Liu came over at the end to bid farewell, "Mr. Polanio, thank you very much for your patient explanations. We've made our purchases. Will there be new items tomorrow?"

Hill replied, "It's nothing; you should read more books. The items sold out are gone, but there will be new ones."

"We'll be sure to read more books!" Liu Liu almost sighed uncontrollably, "Then we will come again tomorrow. Thank you for your hospitality."

Baldy interjected, "Thanks for the reminder, we'll go find that Guard Commander in the afternoon."

Hill smiled as he watched them leave, surprised to notice Liu Liu slap Baldy on the head, then switch the sign on the door from 'Closed' to 'Open.'

Hill chuckled wryly: No wonder Dream Awakening had closed the door and then stood guard outside all this time. He thought it was to prevent hostile gangs from entering. It turned out they had flipped the sign to 'Closed.'

No wonder no outsiders came in. These players are quick-thinkers indeed! Hill hadn't noticed at all. Did they change it while Liu Liu was talking to him? So each of them entered and then just closed the door behind them.

Hill watched silently as groups of players entered with excitement: it was the afternoon, and there were more players now.

Hill didn't want to restock anymore; he sat by the window to bask in the sun and take a break.

He savored the players' maneuvers; truly surprising. Hill felt he needed to clear his head and be more alert next time.

Hill, with eyes closed in meditation, knew that many players were taking photos of him, guessing his face and various stories would soon appear on the forums.

Since he couldn't see it anyway, Hill thought cheekily, as long as no one mentions it in front of me, I'll remain an innocent little Magician.

With the players constantly coming in, Hill was spared a lot of trouble; no locals wanted to enter, so he didn't have to go to the trouble of dealing with them.

When evening fell, Hill took the opportunity during a lull to get up and close the shop.

More than half of the medicines were sold out. Hill randomly selected some to replenish the medicine cabinet. If they didn't sell, that was fine; who knows what the players will want to buy?

All the Alchemy Jewelry was gone. No matter the time or place, the purchasing power of women is unstoppable.

The Alchemy Tents also sold out, and after searching thoroughly in his ring, he only took out the basic models. Since those were gone, he decided to put out the luxury ones for sale as well. He also brought out a few Alchemy Huts; although expensive, the wealthy could still afford them, right?

Hill thought of the things that Baldy and his group had bought and nodded silently: Such vanity items, surely there would be buyers.

He had to bring out the Alchemy Carriage as well; he remembered Baldy and his group said they bought limited-time horses. Definitely the expensive kind with Magical Beast lineage, beautiful and powerful.

He had thought that these few carriages that remained unsold were just his practice pieces from the past. When he first started making carriages, he always wanted them to look luxurious and dazzling with full features, but the end result was something he didn't dare to look at himself.

This type of Alchemy Carriage, which in Hill's opinion you'd only use if struck by a bout of 'chūnibyō', would probably be quite popular with players, glittering and extravagant, adorned with gold and silver, even the open-topped ones.

Hill walked past the odds-and-ends cabinet and found that a few camping stoves he made had been sold as well: okay then, there are always players who want to go camping in the wild.

Hill brought out some more small items, all things he had made idly while reminiscing about life in the past. These high-priced items that used Elemental Ore wouldn't be bought by low-rank players and are of little use to high-rank ones. Take the Alchemy Refrigerator, for example, which can be carried inside a ring, with 1 Crystal Stone providing cooling for one month. In Hill's opinion, that's quite economical, but Adrian ridiculed him mercilessly: 1000 Gold Coins is enough for a small noble family's consumption for a year, who would buy such a thing? Isn't it okay to eat fresh? If you want something icy, hiring a Water Mage Apprentice to make a bit wouldn't cost more than 1 or 2 Gold Coins.

Hill could only stash the refrigerator in storage, as he had made quite a few of them with the hopes of making money back then.

This time, he decided to take them out. It seemed that players only bought what they wanted, regardless of expense; so, these should sell as well, right?

After restocking was complete, he went upstairs to sleep, feeling more tired than he had in a long time.