The two approaching men reeked of blood, and the woman's face didn't look healthy either. As Ikky and Josh approached the city gates, the guards looked at them with sharp eyes.
One of them wanted to step forward and stop them, but the other guard held him back.
"Let them go, I feel weird about the guy with a bow," he said to his partner.
"What do you mean? That's all the more reason to stop them!" answered the first guard.
"No, It's not a bad feeling, more like a charismatic one, like I just met a hero or something." said the other guard.
'What the hell…' the first guard thought, looking at his partner as if he had gone mad.
"Okay, but I'm reporting this to the captain," he said as he left for the nearest barracks.
Neither Josh nor Ikky knew about the guards' exchange so they entered the town without any trouble.
"Let's go to the sellers' place right away?" asked Josh.
It was already dark, but considering the seller's situation, he would definitely try to sell his skill books as much as he could, leaving the shop open almost 24/7.
Valerian wanted to take her son and ran straight to her husband, but she held back because it would be very disrespectful to her saviors.
But that only lasted until they arrived in front of her husband's shop. Overwhelmed by feelings, she couldn't take it anymore and rushed to the front door, while holding her son's hand.
Ikky and Josh stood outside stunned, they wanted to follow her inside, but when they heard the cries coming from inside, they decided it would be wise to leave them alone for a few moments. After all, it had been a long time since the family had been together.
When the situation calmed down, they still waited outside. Even after several minutes.
"Did they forget about us?" Josh asked, but at that moment the door opened.
The seller was standing at the door, his eyes red and his cheeks wet from the tears.
"Please come inside," he said with hoarsened voice.
When they entered he locked the door and put on a (Closed) sign. He stared at the sign for a few seconds, wondering how long has it been since he actually closed the shop.
In one of the back rooms, behind the store, which probably functioned as some kind of living room, they all sat down. The wife and child were not present as they were probably upstairs sleeping from exhaustion.
"I don't know how to thank you hard enough." the man said.
Then an incredible situation happened, the seller knelt with both legs and lowered his head until it touched the floor.
"Sir, you don't need to be on your knees!" Ikky said quickly.
"No, let me stay like this for a few moments,".
"..."
Two young and one middle-aged man waited in silence. After a while, the salesman got up and sat down on the chair in front of them.
"Let me first introduce myself, my name is Charles Blackwell, and I'm a noble from Reld city. You already met my wife Valerian and my son Adam. Even though we are nobles, we are more like merchants than nobles. However, we are very well known in higher circles, due to our knowledge of magic and creation of skill books." Charles explained some of his backgrounds and continued.
"We went to this town to open another store with skill books, but when we were on our way back to the city, the bandit attacked us.." he fell silent as he clearly remembered that painful day. Then he took a deep breath and continued.
"When bandits realized who we are, they didn't just steal what we had, instead they blackmailed me to keep selling books and handing them money in exchange for my family lives. At first, they wanted only a few golds, then a handful, and much more. Every day, week, they kept increasing their demands. When the amount reached dozen of golds, I was unable to pay. I was so desperate to make money, and it led me to lower the price of books by tenfold, yet nobody still bought my books." he shook his head as if that was a most incomprehensible thing.
"I was behind with the payment and if I did not send them some money soon, they might have hurt my wife or son. That day I met you, from this point you know the rest." Charles finished his explanation.
At that moment both Ikky and Josh heard a system sound and a system window appeared in front of them.
[Quest - Miserable Seller (hidden) has been completed.]
[Experience gained 9000.]
[Gained 2x Selection ticket.]
[Gained Medal of Fellowship.]
[You have reached maximum reputation with a Blackwell family, they consider you as a member of the family.]
Even though Josh didn't have the quest, he still managed to get half of the reward, including half of the experience and one Selection ticket.
'Hm? Another medal?' Ikky thought then he decided to give it a try.
"Excuse me, what is the medal for? I already have one and I have no idea what is it for." Ikky said and took his Medal of Honor out.
When Charles saw the medal he was surprised and his eyes opened wide. Then he understood and calmed down. A person like this young man was destined to have more than one medal.
"You should hide it and never show it to anybody you don't trust," he said and looked at Josh.
Ikky followed his gaze and said quickly "I trust this person with my life,".
Charles nodded and started to explain.
"The medals...only the king from the Phoenix city can hand them to special people, or to be more precise, the people who somehow managed to win his trust and recognition with their skills. From what I know, only a handful of people own them.".
Ikky looked at the medal in his hand.
"There is a rumor going around. If anybody manages to get at least ten of them, he can ask the King for a single wish, and King would grant it. But I have never heard of anybody having even two or three not to mention ten." Charles continued.
"Well, at least until today. Now I can say I know somebody with two." he looked at Ikky holding two medals.
"...Thank you," Ikky said and didn't know what else to say, since he still didn't fully understand how important they really are.
The silence followed, but soon Ikky broke it.
"About the gold, we found at bandits," he said, but Charles hold his hand up to stop him.
"I bet you didn't find more than a few silver, maybe a few hundred silvers at most. Bandits usually spend everything I gave them on alcohol and prostitutes." Charles didn't want to sound ungrateful to those people over a few golds so he just ignored this fact.
"Well, if you excuse me, I would like to go to my family now," Charles said after a short silence and stood up.
Both Ikky and Josh also stood up.
"Please visit me in the morning, I will help you with the skill selection," Charles said.
"Skill selection?" Josh asked and Charles just pointed at the ticket in his hand.
-Allow user to select one skill for free from the Blackwell family shop.
Charles walked them out and then spent the whole night hugging his son and wife.
***
"What are you going to do now?" Ikky asked.
"I'll take a short break, I've been getting warnings for some time already, if I postpone log-out any longer I might get forced to sleep," Josh answered.
"Alright, take care," said Ikky.
"See you later dude." Josh bids his farewell and went to a nearest Inn.
'What now?' Ikky wondered watching a celestial sky.
He felt like he had aged a few years in the past few days. Unknown hidden quests kept popping up like it was the most common thing in the world. He went from hunting bandits to endless fighting in the labyrinth, when he finally got out he had to hunt bandits again.
Ikky wanted only one thing and it was to rest or watch the city from the top of the mountain, but he couldn't.
'I promised to myself, I need to help my family.' Ikky remembered his promise to make money out of the game. But to do so, he first had to know how. With the goal in the mind, he stepped toward the nearest Inn.
---
When Ikky entered the room he just paid for, he was ready to logout, but then he realized something.
'I totally forgot about this feature!' Ikky felt stupid. He wanted to log out to access the forums, but then he remembered that they added an Internet access feature to the in-game interface.
After giving it short thoughts, he still decided to logout, out to give his brain and body some break from hours of playing.
When Ikky woke up, the first thing he did, was to search for how to exchange in-game currency for real-world money.
It was actually quite an easy thing to do, all he had to, was to prove that he is 18 years or older in any of the Testing Center or VR helmet stores, and they would activate this feature for his account.
'Seems like I will have to go to the Testing Center once again.' Ikky thought and looked out from the window, the sky was dark and starless compare to the sky in the Ancient era.
'But that will have to wait for tomorrow.' Ikky thought as he fell onto the bed and closed his eyes.
**********************
A/N: I finished the chapter today to close the "seller" family chapter. However, I won't be writing a new one tomorrow, instead, I'll revisit old chapters to fix my typo mistakes. A new chapter will be released on Friday, along with a new story saga. Look forward to it ^_^