Alex spends time cleaning the shop with a fervor. Of course him 'accidentally' glancing at some item making recipes is unavoidable. Of course, with his intelligence, it would be quite a while before he forgot the details that he read.
The muscular bald man with a friendly smile just looked at Alex as he cleans the place perfectly.
'He must have done this countless times already to be so good at it. At his age, he must have started young.' Ponders the owner of the store as he looks at Alex have a fully concentrated look on his face. 'If mayor Jack had been the one who was in charge back when I was a kid. Maybe… my friends wouldn't have gone and died for the war of some stupid noble.'
As the owner contemplates things like that, he reminisces about the days that have long passed and his friends no older than fifteen getting slaughtered in a petty squabble between nobles. The Merchant Guild has now put competent leaders, so no lord will rule any place just because he was born with a fancy last name.
The reason Alex did this job so perfectly was that back in-game he can't even remember how many times he did repeatable quests like this…
_________________
You have triggered Cleaning Orphan Quest
[Cleaning Orphan Quest]
Mission Introduction: You seem like a child in need of a job, so here you are… working for the shopkeeper. Clean the shop till a satisfactory level, the better you clean the more likely you are to be hired again.
Mission Requirements: Clean the shop until the score reaches 100.
Cleaning Score – (295/300)
Reward: 50 Exp, 3-9 Copper
[FINISH QUEST]
_________________
He didn't type the Finish Quest Button, because he wants to visit this place a little more.
Well, the reward is kinda pitiful, but players discovered that if you look at an item blueprint and used the screenshot function on the VR set then you could use that to recreate the item… or a crude version of it.
Alex of course doesn't have any screenshot or anything like that, since this is no longer a game. But he has something even better, he memorizes the blueprints and analyzes them. He can truly understand it.
'As I suspected, I can do something like this now. I am used to thinking like a gamer, so I never thought to use my eyes and intelligence to do something like this until recently.' Ponders Alex, his understanding of how he should move from now on is getting clearer and clearer to him.
In his past life, without reviving items the player character had only one life, as a player, he still did a lot of risky stuff. After all, it was only a game to him. Even if his character died, he could have his friend who was the same level as him, power level his new character. Now he can't tolerate any mistakes like that anymore. Though he knows the place of some Revival Tokens, he doesn't know how they would even react with him. Now that he isn't a player.
'Maybe I will become like the Fire Hero if I use the Revive Token now.' Contemplates Alex, but in the end, he just slightly shakes his head at this.
He sees that he finished his quest, he waited till he got the notification.
[You Completed the Cleaning Orphan Quest]
[You earned 50 Exp]
As he sees that, Alex turns and looks at the owner of the shop. Who has his now seemingly friendly smile on his face. "You did an amazing job kid, I don't think this place has ever been cleaner."
Alex smiles back at the man and conceded. "Thank you for the compliment sir. I hope that I can come around here some more and clean around. I need some financial help. Would that be okay?"
"Yes, that would be a preferable outcome kid. If you keep doing such a good job every day, I will be the cleanest shop in the street." Confirms the friendly-looking owner as he puts nine copper pieces on the counter. "This is your payment for a job well-done kid."
Alex takes his payment and thanks the man. Nine coppers can buy someone some nine very cheap meals or three good meals. The payment wouldn't be considered a lot, but it has only been half an hour since he started this job of cleaning the 1st Shop. It's still early, it would usually take an average kid three hours to do a moderately good job. Thankfully… Alex is no average kid.
….
Alex cleans three more stores like this and the clock is around eight o'clock in the morning when he sees that some real orphan kids appeared and started taking the cleaning jobs for the rest of the shops. So Alex stopped at this, he didn't want to take the money from the orphan kids necessarily. Nine Coppers are pretty much nothing to him.
Now, normally he wouldn't care about the slight possibility of some kids turning to crime or something of the sort. But he still plans to make Gungai City his base later down the line. The city has an impeccable geographic advantage. Of course, he doesn't care about the terrain in cases of war or anything like that, what Alex cares about is how fast his forces would be able to move through different parts of the city… and in the Elf Forest… the yet undiscovered Fire Islands and such.
'This city must be kept peaceful. The mayor is a smart man. He kept the city peaceful even when the chaotic players went around wreaking havoc. Indeed, the players couldn't pull down their underwear, but they could pull down other people's pants and such. The hundreds of weirdos who were in the gameplay just for that thrill at seeing how the NPCs would react.' Ponders Alex and in the end, he concludes. 'The mayor should be able to keep the peace even better now that he doesn't have to hire thousands of other players to kill the weird players.'
….
In the end, Alex just sees the children that go to do their jobs and once they finish it he gives them each an extra copper coin. Who knows, a small favor like this can go a long way at times like this. Especially to orphan children. Also, it's not like he is losing anything really, Magic Academy doesn't even accept Copper or Silver coins. Only Gold…
….
Hours later and the time for the meeting with the Merchant Guild Branch Manager comes closer... Alex just spends his time trying to copy as much as he can by 'cleaning' the shops and even helping some other kids for 'free'.
Alex uses his adult knowledge to manipulate the children and create a favorable impression on them. He is just the nice helpful guy that they needed, now Alex will just need to wait for the fruits to ripen. If any of them becomes anything in life they will have a positive first impression. Which one doesn't do a lot as he gets older.
..
Still, Alex finally arrives at the Merchant Guild once more.
….
While Alex was walking towards the Merchants
Guild, the Guild Branch Manager was looking at Alex as he entered.
'So that is the kid… he knows about the rats.' Contemplates the man, he is an overly muscular man wearing fine golden robes. He has red hair and a short trimmed red beard. He is William, he used to be a fierce warrior back in his mercenary days. But he understood that fighting is useless, and in the end, he would be just a hired thug for the rich.
So he changed his ways and became a merchant, he is even an owner of the Merchant Guild. The Guild had no rulers, the Guild had 'leaders' or more correctly the shareholders of the Guild. William was one of them, owning 3% of the Merchant Guild. That might seem like a little, but even the founder of the guild owns only 10%, which is the highest shareholder.
'That kid is affiliated with the Magic Academy.' Pondered William, he has a certain distaste for the Magic Academy. 'I don't like doing any business with their people. They will try to scam anyone that they meet and kill anyone they can't scam. Once one becomes a magician, it is said that he becomes something more… but this child… he is only a recruit and not yet a student of the academy. I should see how dangerous he is and see if we can get an informant in that place. One that the b*tch Headmistress will stop sending back piece by piece of their body parts.'
The Merchants Guild had sent spies to get some information from the Magic Academy… they don't do that anymore…
William then gets a signal that someone is close to his door so he sits back down on his desk and acts like he is working.
….
As the door opens, Alex looks inside and sees the giant of a man that is William. No one would believe that someone would be anything but a brute… and William has used that countless times to trick people.
Alex enters the room and looks around. He sees the expensive but at the same time seemingly simplistic office. He sits on the chair in front of William.
William acts like he doesn't notice this and keeps 'working'.
Alex then lies on the chair as he tries to find a comfortable position to sit in. He sees William doing that and acting like he is working.
"C'mon now, we both know that you are not writing anything." Says Alex, his childish voice sounding with a strange glee in it as a smile appears on his face.
William looks up and sees Alex's eyes, which were shining red with a slit in them looking down on him.
It felt strange to William as a chill ran along his spine like he was in front of a predator.