The Flying Emporium

“This should make things easy!”

Instead of feeling relieved or assured by the woman’s words, Severin became even more suspicious.

In fact, no words, especially not when coming from someone affiliated with the Adventurer’s Society, would be enough to change his evaluation of them. Even if there was no evidence to support his various suspicions of them being untrustworthy and having bad intentions.

‘Maybe it’s that usually magic contracts can simply be nullified or altered by a higher leveled caster? Or it’s a whole different kind of magic dedicated only to dealing with this kind of things. Well, tough luck. I dare you to try.’ Her simply appreciating this kind of magic and its inherent effect of saving countless hours of drafting up paper contracts was not something he seriously considered being the case. ‘Well, not that it really matters. The important part is that she seems willing enough to sign the thing.’

At the very least, in this respect, he turned out to be right.

After getting over her initial surprise and curiosity, she minutely confirmed every single word displayed by the floating window that had appeared in front of her without any display of disapproval.

Severin, on the other hand, paid more attention to the window itself.

It wasn’t only the yellow color that differentiated it from the System’s usual design, but also the fuzzy outline that seemed to bleed into the world itself. Where the blueish window looked almost futuristic in its design, this one seemed more natural; more fitting, somehow.

‘This has to be how these prompts usually manifest themselves in this world. Or at least what real [contract magic] would look like,’ Severin concluded.

He recognized this was most certainly not done for his own benefit and more likely a self-preservation measure of the System, but he appreciated it none the less.

When Magda had finally confirmed everything was in order, she straightened up and, without a further word, closed her eyes. The look on her face turned even more serious than before. A few seconds later, the yellow screen released a bright light flash of light.

When she opened her eyes again, she appeared even more exhausted than before.

Severin couldn’t help but wonder whether this was the System tormenting her simply for appearance’s sake or whether this was somehow truly a necessary step for setting up the contract. He couldn’t tell.

Magda didn’t let her exhaustion stop her and tore him out of his thoughts.

“That’s it on my part? If you want to confirm everything is in order, then we can fi…”

Severin raised his hand to stop her and, magnanimously, said, “that won’t be necessary,” which , judging by her expression, earned him some goodwill with the woman. In reality, he not only didn’t know what exactly there was for him to confirm in the first place, the suddenly appearing prompt that floated in front of his eyes only further convinced him that there was no need for him to try and find out.

Reading that the woman ‘on behalf of the Golden Mountains’ branch of The Adventurer’s Society’ had accepted his terms as presented was all he needed to know.

But even in just this one short sentence of confirmation, two things immediately caught Severin’s eyes. The wording revealed not just one, but two potential loopholes.

One was the use of the term ‘Golden Mountains’. Officially, he knew there was no region with this name; it was just a colloquial term introduced and used by adventurers. In a regular contract, he feared, this fact could serve as a loophole to renege on the contract; claiming that if there was no such region, then there also could be no such organization to hold responsible. But even he knew that this was how the Society usually conducted business in these parts and wasn’t unique to his situation. And with a somewhat good reason, at that. That was that this land bridge did not have only one officially recognized name; both the Rhenians in the north, and the Malconeans in the south had their own names for the region, and recognizing either of them meant to offend the respective other. So while neither of the countries could afford to ban the Society from within their borders if they chose to adopt one naming convention or the other, as an organization that was set on doing business with both countries while trying to maintain an amiable relationship with both, it only made sense to adopt a more neutral stance in that regard. And what would make more sense for them who, allegedly, were all about serving adventurers, than to adopt the same group’s naming conventions?

Maybe in some sense the name had already been elevated to something more than a colloquial term after all.

The other thing was that Magda, apparently, only represented the local branch of the Society. In itself, that was something Severin was more than willing to accept; he wasn’t so full of himself that he expected, or even wanted, some office on the other side of the continent to advertise his shop. But on the other hand, this might allow for schemes such as closing the local branch and reopening it under a different name, or reassigning individual employees as to not be limited by the contract.

Not for the first time on this day Severin genuinely thanked the System for the whole ‘spirit of the contract’ clause, and, with a mental press of a button, he also pledged to uphold all terms specified in the contract.

The window flashed once again and then fizzled into nothingness.

At the same time, on his minimap, a certain plot of land suddenly assumed an orange hue.

“To a good cooperation.” It seemed Magda also was somehow notified of the successful establishment of the contract and extended her right hand towards him as she took a step forward. “I’ll be in your care.”

“To a good coop… wait what?” He was replying in kind and took her hand, but before actually shaking it, his tired mind finally processed her last words.

Much to Mag’s amusement.

“I’ll be in charge of this outpost,” she confirmed. “Did I not mention that?”

She was well aware she hadn’t. “I volunteered, you know? In fact, I have left behind a very stable and well-paying position for this.” She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts.

“And to think that you would make the Society pay to establish an outpost, haha… That’s a first. Normally it’s the other way round. Luckily, I was given a lot of leeway to conduct these negotiations. And I’m confident I made the right choice.

Now, if you excuse me. I really need my beauty sleep after such a long day.” She winked at him and turned around.

Severin stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to think as he looked after the woman who was headed towards the docked flying ship.

“Right. Guess I should get some sleep myself.”