Chapter 6: The System Shop
While giving some time to the fox girl in his party, Leon calmly analyzed his situation and what he had at hand. He no longer looked at the cloudless sky but at many system messages floating before him.
"So much to talk about…." Leon scratched his chin as he gazed at the system messages.
First, he looked into his class. The Monster Collector Class had given him a few unique skills. The main one, Monster Card Creation, enslave monsters, turn them into cards, and allows Leon to freely develop them.
It worked in a simple way — after he kills his enemy, Leon has a minute to decide whether he wants to kill the monster or turn him into his card. If he goes for the latter, the unique chains and collar enslave the monster and turn him into a card.
But not every monster was the same.
Some monsters were unique, like Louise, who was more like a human than a monster in Leon's eyes, whose grade was legendary. To turn another legendary existence into a card, Leon will have to prepare chains and a collar of the same grade, to say nothing of him dealing with that monster.
Leon still had a few tricks available. For instance, he'd be able to emotionally weaken a monster and use underhanded ways to turn him into a card.
So two additional skills related to Monster Card Creation were: chains and collar of absolute command. Another one was to hide his and his party's presence: Predator's Camouflage. Lastly, Leon had a guide of monsters — Book of Monster Collector — which would pass him information about monsters upon his interaction with them.
Those were all skills that Leon currently had, other than a passive skill of his peak humanity body.
"How's your system?" Leon turned his eyes to Louise and asked her.
Louise flinched, hovered her eyes on him, and replied weakly, "I have all features."
"Did you also go through the test?" Leon carried on with the talk, for he wanted a simple topic to discuss to build a relationship with her. Now that she had joined his party, Leon knew they only had each other and nothing else, so it'd be best if they didn't waste any time.
It hurt Leon's conscience, for he'd spent a year doing nothing before and needed the tests and another world to find new goals and ambitions.
"No, I was born with them…." Louise tightly shut her eyes, clenched her hands, and looked down as though she was expecting a punishment.
Leon quickly dispelled such a thought. "Oh, I see. Well, I went through tests, then met The Oracle. She passed me the class and you, so I thought you might have met her."
Those tests were only for people with a second chance. Leon knew that much, but he had to ask a few of those questions to see through the fox girl's heart, even though he didn't like leveraging too much of her weak self.
It also allowed Leon to easily explain his origins.
Louise shook her head and whispered that she had never met The Oracle. Then, as Leon understood that a soul connection still bonded them, he opened his system shop, telling Louise to look into her system, too.
[Welcome to the System Shop!]
[Click here to learn about buying in the system shop! - Every owner of the shop system is eligible to check all shops opened by other residents and buy here. Note: The System Shop's appraisal skills are omnipotent. Every description of items in shops is full and legit.]
[Click here to learn about selling in the system shop! - Every owner of the shop system is eligible to start a shop for free and sell items to other residents. You can also sell items to the system shop itself. Note: Because of The System Shop's appraisal skills and its policy, you can't abuse the system to appraise your items. Every item deposited in the shop will have its own period of deposit estimated by the system.]
[Click here to learn about your Monster Collector Class Shop! - Every user has their personal shop to buy items from The System Shop itself. You can request quests to receive items from The System Shop or buy them.]
[You can only see level one to level twenty items.]
And so, the first feature became pretty clear. People could sell and buy stuff without even going outside, which was not something unusual in modern times, but additionally, The System Shop ensured that no one cheated. Others also couldn't leverage those heavenly appraisal skills.
In his personal shop, where the seller was the system or perhaps the world, Leon could buy stuff through the Freya World's currency or request a quest for an item. He saw many valuable blueprints for low-grade collars, chains, weapons, and traps. He'd seen items to lure out the monsters or lower their defenses.
Leon wasn't aware of the world's currency yet, so he didn't know whether they were expensive, but he wanted to soon learn about them.
He then checked players' shops and found something amusing.
"Have you looked into your shop? Anything interesting?" Leon asked in a more casual tone because the items in his personal shop were against monsters without a humanoid form, so it'd be like hunting. He believed Louise had seen something similar, yet her reaction told otherwise.
She became nervous, her eyes going from the system window to Leon and clueless about whether she should become honest with her master, who has been a pretty nice person to stay close to.
Leon knew that only he could push forward that relationship, so he smiled and wished for his system shop to appear visible to Louise. When it did, and Louise blinked at it, clearly having her interest caught by him, Leon swirled it and showed her the interesting shop.
[The Beginner's Shop!]
[Cheap clothes for new residents! The seller's description: Boy or girl, whoever you are, your clothes must be pretty dirty and smelly, ain't I right? Feel free to call me your savior, for I come with cheap stuff for you to start a new adventure! Also, if you're scared of exposing your identity, you are free to use those design blueprints before buying clothes!]
"He's right, isn't he?" Leon chuckled and looked at Louise with a wide smile that his fiancée had reserved all of it for herself in the past.
Seemingly affected by the magic of it, Louise nodded, did her best to reciprocate his smile, and replied in a much more lively voice, "Yes, Master!"
And then, she stood up, ready to find some money for their clothes. For that, both of them would use the quest feature, wouldn't they?
Louise tucked one of her tails between her thighs, for she lacked panties, and came closer to Leon's side. She was still scared to touch him, but she no longer had any fear in her eyes and even stood without shaking her legs — her face beamed with hope, no longer having any tears or wet streaks.
With her by his side, Leon realized just how short she was. While he towered at 190cm, Louise was 155cm at most, and that gap was pretty noticeable. She was much cuter, though!
Now that she had taken the first step to becoming closer to him and both wanted to build their relationship, Leon grew slightly affectionate of her, even though it was just their first meeting.
Perhaps, he wanted someone's company more than he'd thought after being alone.
Leon didn't dwell on it, though.