「My oh my, you're quite the flatterer, you know? Well, since you seem to be liking our special high-flame saucepan so much, then I will gladly offer you a discount, and offer you a special service deal: yearly rent and the saucepan for only 31,850 Nar for both of them! How about it? I assure you that you won't find a better price anywhere else in the city!」
Under any normal circumstances she would probably never offered me such a sweet deal, but in this case I tried using my 30% Discount Skill on her, and since I am buying more than one thing, or to be exact, paying for more than one thing (a yearly rent for our new house plus the wok she was trying to so adamantly to make me buy just now) , then I am more tha happy to report that this time its usage has been successful, resulting in quite a drop in price. Who knows, maybe I will be able to get an even better deal if I try pushing her business-savvy buttons some more, but then…
「Excuse me.」
After looking at us over her shoulder throughout the entirety of our wok-related conversation, Roxanne approached Honesta with the contract documents in hand, however…
「Brahim is a very difficult language to write in, so can I ask you to check my writing very thoroughly and correct any possible mistakes that might have found their way in there? Please?」
Uhm, R-Roxanne? What is with that… malicious aura you seem to be emanating? Because you're scaring me for real here! (TL Note: Oh My God, has Roxanne finally awakened to her yandere potential? About damn time I say)
「E-Eh? Y-Yes, of course, no problem.」
Even if Honesta senses the same thing I did from her, she didn't allow it to show on her face and simply complied with Roxanne's request. I'm glad she can behave like a true professional even in such unexpected situations, but still… I'm glad the situation didn't escalate into something more.
After getting the payment consisting of three gold coins and a bunch of silver and copper coins out of my Item Box and carefully counting them, I handed them to the landlady, thus finalizing the payment. She gave me the keys to the house, and with that, the signing of our renting contract was over.
「Thank you for your patronage. I hope you will make great use of your new home.」
「We should be thanking you for all that you did for us even though you didn't have to..」
「No, I should be doing that for your decision to put your trust in me even though you've just arrived in the city.I will be lookin forward to your next visit.」
We exchanged some minor pleasantries with each other and then left the hardware store.
「That should be everything we need for now, right? Is it okay if we buy anything else we might need for our new home tomorrow?」
「That should be okay for as long as the sundries and other necessities are concerned. However, since we don't know if the things that we are going to buy tomorrow are going to be delivered to our home on the same day, so I think it would be best for us if we looked for some basic furniture today so we could get our hands on as many things as we can. That way, we will be able to minimize the amount of time required for shopping tomorrow, and we will be able to spend that much more time in the Labyrinth if we decide to go there.」
「That's true. Thankfully the store that sells furniture should be just down the street if I remember correctly.」
After consulting with Roxanne on what our next move should be, we both agreed to pay a visit to the furniture-selling store that we briefly saw somewhere near the center of the town when we first arrived in Quratar. Oh, and for those of you who might be wondering about that, I didn't have a free space for it in my Item Box and it was way to big to fit inside of any of our backpacks, so I had no choice but to take the wok with us as it was, only instead of carrying it in both my hands, I asked Roxanne to fix it on my arm with a piece of rope, causing it to look like some kinda shield. If any Adventurer was passing by us right now, I'm sure they would have more than one reason for letting out a good chuckle or two.
When we arrived at the furniture store, the first thing we noticed and then asked about was the condition of everything they had available for purchase, and it turned out that everything in this store was actually used goods bought from the second hand. A part of me didn't like the idea of having used goods as the furnishings of our new home, but apparently that's just how things work in here, so I guess there's no point arguing or complaining about that now. Besides, as long as I will be able to replace the mattress with a brand new one, then I don't mind having a used bedframe as long as it will be sturdy enough and won't fall apart under our weight (or the weight of our nightly activities). Other than beds, the store also had quite a large variety of tables, chairs, cupboards, closets and other items we might or might not need in the future.
The Job of a furniture store clerk was a merchant, so my 30% discount should work on him just fine as long as we will buy multiple items. At this point I have become so accostumed to using that Skill to make bulk purchases possible, but I have to look out not to waste too much money buying things we don't really need because of it, especially since I bought two wands and a wok already. That is why we have to buy the minimum amount of furniture, and buy the rest one by one when they will be needed, and why this discount is like a double-edged sword for me. That is why this time we only bought a bedframe and a new mattress, as well as some basic furniture necessary for storing our clothes and items. The bed we have chosen was king sized of course.
For the time being we have decided to return home to drop off the things we bought. The clerk at the furniture store told me that the items we purchased shall be delivered to us by cart tomorrow at noon, so we have quite a lot of time on our hands before that happens. We walked to the Adventurer's Guild, and I used Warp to transport us right to our new house. The contract might be starting tomorrow, but I don't think Honesta will mind if we move in today.
「Uhm, master?」
Roxanne called out to me when we walked through the portal and I proceeded to unpack the things from my backpack and undoing the rope that held the wok on my arm.
「Didn't the caretaker lady said that this house uses Shield Cement? So why were we…」
「That she did, but when we were here last time I went and checked if my Movement Magic will work nonetheless. Thankfully it did, and I decided on buying this house after confirming that. Field walker and Dungeon Walker might be useless here, by my Warp works just fine.」
「What? That's truly amazing, master!」
「I know, right? But keep it a secret from everyone else.」
With a movement restrictions-ignoring spell like Warp you could do pretty much anything ranging from creating a locked room murder mystery to committing a perfect crime. But I'm not interested in using it for such scummy purposes. I am more than fine with just teleporting wherever I want with it.
Also, a side note: if Shield Cement prevents Field and Dungeon Walker from working, was Roxanne planning on walking to the Labyrinth or the Guild like normal every single time? Now that would be both tiring and incredibly annoying.
Maybe I simply grew lazy after getting a taste of how convenient Movement Magic is, I don't want to travel anywhere on foot unless it will be strictly necessary. I mean, we rented this house precisely because of that: so that we wouldn't have to walk to the Adventurer's Guild and the Labyrinth on foot every single time. If we can warp from our house, it would be foolishes of the highest calliber not to use that ability whenever we'd have the chance.
From our home, we went to the Adventurer's Guild of Veil, and when we will be coming back, we will go straight back here from the guild building. That method of travelling is so convenient for us that I honestly feel bad about not figuring it out earlier