The Flying Emporium

This time around there were no further interruptions and if Severin ever thought the previous delay might have aroused any doubt in the woman, then he was now proven wrong. If anything, her resolve seemed to have strengthened even further; without hesitation, and without trying to make him assume the costs, Mylana approached the removal-device and soon held the extracted class orb in her hands.

Even then, Severin noticed no sign of insecurity or uncertainty on her part.

Instead of feeling helpless and a sense of loss, as most of Magda’s people had described it, in Mylana’s case, there seemed to be only curiosity.

She closely inspected first the orb, and then herself. And Severin didn’t interrupt.

When she had made sure everything was in order, meaning the orb showed the correct class and level and her body was still healthy, despite becoming noticeably weaker due to the loss of benefits her class had provided, only then did her attention turn back to Severin and the business on hand. With unexpected humor in her voice, she asked him,

“So, what now? Where do I put this?”

‘She also lost her inventory,’ Severin realized in admiration for her composure. Still, he tried his best not to let this admiration color his response and simply said, “Keep on to it for now. As I had mentioned, first we still have to discuss the details of your contract.”

“Shouldn’t we have done that before I got rid of my class, then?” With faux outrage, she then suggested, “You only did this to get my money, didn’t you? So that even if I should refuse your impossible conditions, you still made money off of this old woman. Isn’t that right?”

Severin was at a loss for words.

Repeatedly, his mouth opened and closed again, but no words came out. Instead, every time the sparkling glee in the woman’s eyes only further intensified.

Until ultimately Severin gave up explaining himself and decided to let the System do the talking for him.

Some mental clicks inside the System’s menu, and a bluish, semi-transparent window appeared. One which both of them could see.

[Initializing contract negotiations.]

“This is?!” After all this time, this was the first time she seemed genuinely taken aback. But again, this didn’t mean she was scared. It only made her all the more curious and excited. These feelings further intensified when, before she could even make sense of this strange phenomenon, it was replaced by a similarly semi-transparent, ephemeral scroll that appeared and unfolded right in front of her eyes.

“Terms of employment,” she read aloud before her eyes flickered over to Severin, where they rested for a moment. Before seemingly forgetting all about him; all her attention was again focused on that strange thing before her.

She tried to touch it. But her hand went right through it.

She tried to move around it. But it kept following in front of her.

Ten minutes or so, during which Severin could do nothing but patiently wait, Mylana focussed solely on the contract itself; not on its words.

He didn’t understand what exactly she was trying to accomplish, or if she actually did. But she did seem rather pleased when she finally said, “Seems I really did make the right decision.”

Only then did she read the actual document hovering in front of her. Or rather she scanned it with a cursory glance, Severin suspected by the way her eyes quickly moved across the document until they reached its end. Only there, on probably the two most significant points, she kept lingering.

First of those points being the prohibition on disclosing any and all information pertaining to the System’s existence, with sanctions ranging from verbal reprimands and docked pay all the way to soul-erasure, depending on the severity of and the intent behind the infringement.

Here the woman finally became more serious, and judging by the few words Severin could make out from her mumbling, both the terms System and soul-erasure drew particular interest.

For the first time, Severin thought he recognized real apprehension. But also still the very same excitement and curiosity as before.

Severin, at this point, expected her to look up at him and ask the questions she surely had.

Instead, Mylana dedicated her attention to the last remaining item.

If the previous point had unsettled her, then this one seemed to resolve her possible worries.

“So, let me get this straight. If I back out of this whole deal now, I will forget all about this,” she said, pointing at the contract. “And should I accept, I could still back out of this at any time? Again, forgetting the relevant parts pertaining to this so called System thing? Well, if the consequences are basically the same either way… that makes it a very easy decision for me, wouldn’t you say?”

Having made up her mind, she then reached out her hand to the bottom of the floating box.

[Initializing binding process.]

[7…26…57… 74… 96...99…100]

The System’s binding process was completed before Mylana even realized what was happening to her; suddenly, from one moment to the next, she had become Severin’s new official [Employee]. And with that employment, the most basic knowledge about her new situation was magically transferred directly into her brain.

“This… only classless people… so that’s why. But- But what is- That doesn’t make any… What is-”

Mylana didn’t turn to Severin for help or to seek an explanation of him, and the [Shopkeeper] was more than happy to simply sit back and to enjoy her look of confused astonishment.

“Those colored dots are...? That is… me? And everyone else on this mountain. Then that black area there is…? Incredible. This should be even more powerful than that [Scout] skill. Now if only I could move and adjust… Ah!”

Pleased with her reaction, Severin could not help snickering at the sight of this old woman, many times his own age, acting like a little child in a candy store.

And that was before she had even seen the good stuff.

But when she finally did, the shock, maybe the incomprehension, was enough to leave her completely speechless.

Still, her face said it all.

The menu that showed the store’s inventory.

The infamous blacklist.

The status screen that showed her listed amongst other [Employees]; [Employees] who, incredible as it may be, were also listed as [Cook] and [Alchemist] respectively; not to mention her new boss’ own entry which not only identified him as [Shopkeeper] (Unique), [Cook] and [Alchemist], but also an [Artificer].

With each of those classes having its own submenu titled Recipes attached to it; though currently all of those were unavailable to her.

Then there was the steering module, which supposedly allowed the steering of the whole floating mountain they were currently standing on; and the reason as to why this module was currently disabled, in the form of a quest-entry inside a submenu called Tasks.

And then the… store? Which not only offered products even more outrageous that the ones sold by the Emporium, but which also offered the [Shopkeeper], the host of this so called System, to modify this whole mountain itself?!

At this point, the woman couldn’t take it anymore; if Bandur had been more conscious than Emily as to the System’s significance, then it still was nothing compared to what Mylana was feeling right now. Her understanding, stemming from decades of being an adventurer and even more time spent as a scientist doing research, told her that nothing of this should even be remotely possible.

She required some time to collect herself.

And finally, managed to tear herself away from the floating screen.

She turned around and was still looking for the right words, for the right questions to ask to make sense of all this.

When not just the voice of Severin, who didn’t even open his mouth in the first place, but those of two other people as well, suddenly reverberated inside her head,

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