The Flying Emporium

With a very strained smile did Severin change the income setting under the girl’s excited gaze.

‘Like this, maybe we already have enough gold once everyone finally restocks,’ he grumbled inwardly. He knew it was a stretch. He would do the math later on.

‘I also can’t rely on them to fully restock every single time. This time Andreas already told me they would do so, but under normal circumstances…how many consumables can I expect even the most engaged adventurer to consume every few days?’

Sigh

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have antagonized…’ He didn’t even manage to finish the thought when the image of Simon raising his hand against Emily appeared in his mind.

“Fuck that guy!” He was instantly enraged again.

“Whaaa?” Severin’s sudden exclamation startled the girl. Hearing the high-pitched voice and seeing her wide-open eyes amused him enough to calm him down again. His anger disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

“Sorry!” He didn’t sound too convincing, though. “It’s nothing, don’t worry. For now, let’s check out what the guys are doing outside. What do you say?”

After shooting him a suspicious glance, she answered, “Sure.”

The two each grabbed a chair and went outside.

The good twenty adventurers who awaited them outside had all been waiting for this moment. When Andreas emerged from the store and gave everyone the signal, the previous events were almost forgotten. They organized themselves into a wide half-circle. They were surprisingly orderly while doing so, even though they didn’t manage to keep especially quiet.

For the lack of other alternatives, everyone had to sit down on the ground, with only Andreas standing in front of the group.

“You all know how this works, so I’ll try to make this quick!”

The [Officer] summoned a shield out of his, seemingly infinitely large, inventory.

“I’ll take this one myself. Any objections? No? Good.” Just like that, he claimed the first item for himself, with no backlash whatsoever. The others didn’t even seem disgruntled by what looked like a blatant abuse of power.

He took out another item. This time it was a small ordinary-looking amulet. From the distance, Severin couldn’t make out the tooltip, but he was pretty sure that he remembered it to be another defense-oriented item.

“Frank? This one should be an upgrade for you, no?” Again, there was no objection. Another item had quickly found a new owner.

The same scene kept repeating itself. A heavy-looking, studded book, a ring, a two-handed staff, and a robe. Of these four items, the former two found their way into Lynn’s possession. The latter two were distributed to two other people who Severin only knew in passing.

Again there was no opposition. Severin couldn’t believe what he saw. That was not how he had expected things to play out. Was Andreas just going to hand out items like that? With everyone accepting his decisions? From his own experience, this was not how things usually worked.

He thought things would be more heated.

‘The amount of respect and trust his guildmates have in him is truly astounding. Then again, back then those were just games. Here they risk their actual lives. So it makes sense that people are a bit more level-headed, I guess.’

Then came the proverbial slap in the face, however.

The change to Andreas’s jovial demeanor was easily discernible. Even from a few meters distance. The man almost seemed to become smaller as he announced,

“That’s it already for the tank and heal gear. Next is…”

Severin wasn’t able to make out the remainder of the sentence. The cheers were too loud.

“Finally!”

“Let’s get going already.”

“About time.”

“Stop keeping us in suspense, Andi!”

Even Miriam and Timothy joined in.

“Here comes the good stuff!”

The [Warrior] pulled out a sword.

After everyone had enough time to read through the tooltip, the shouts only became louder.

“Need!”

“What, need? Didn’t you already get an item last time? I didn’t get even a single one in the last four raids!”

“Haha. That’s because you suck!”

“I deal more damage than all of you. Obviously, I deserve the first pick.” More and more people joined the argument. “Doesn’t that just mean you need it the least out of all of us?”

“Shut up, you guys! I recognize that thing. It dropped from a monster I killed. So, I certainly should have a say in the matter as well?”

“You!? Stay out of it. You can’t even equip it!”

These were only the voices Severin was able to make out. All around there were several heated arguments, just like this one. The stark contrast to earlier made Severin speechless.

“Not again!” Andreas wailed. “Everyone who’s interested, show me your current weapons. We’ll go from there.”

Knowing that they didn’t have any realistic chance to get hold of this weapon when theirs was still relatively new, a lot of the voices fell silent. For now.

“You don’t even use swords, Xander!”

“Because previously I couldn’t afford one! All my skills are perfectly viable with all kinds of knives and daggers, swords, maces, and one-handed axes. Some I can use even barehanded,” the [Duelist] informed his guildmate.

“Well, if you don’t actually need any weapon anyway…,” someone jeered from the side, escalating things even further.

“Say that again?! Wanna duel me? One on one! Winner gets the item! I guess for that I really wouldn’t even need a weapon!”

“SHUT UP!” Andreas was near a mental breakdown.

This was only the first in a long line of items suitable for the guild’s damage dealers. Twelve more followed. Also meaning twelve discussions and arguments about who deserved what piece of equipment. Only Frank and the healers were content and observed the familiar spectacle from the sidelines.

After that came some more utility-focused trinkets, as well as a few consumables and crafting materials. Most of these would end up in the guild’s storage, though. Or be sold. Either to some merchants, they were on good terms with, or directly to some smaller guilds or even independent adventurers.

The same was true for some of the lesser quality weapons and armors which Andreas had previously excluded from the pool of items he had just distributed.

The dropped gold, on the other hand, as it was easier to split evenly, had already been allocated the day before.

Needless to say, Andreas’s earlier claim that these things ‘could sometimes take a while’ turned out to be somewhat of an understatement. By the time everything was settled, it was already getting dark, and no one was actually thinking of doing any more business for the rest of the day.

Instead, a lot of adventurers took after Samuel’s mentees and started to test their newly acquired items in a direct confrontation.

While being very conscious about their distance to the wooden fence, though.

Andreas was visibly exhausted. Still, after some deliberation, Severin decided to approach him.

“Quite a show, huh?” Andreas still hadn’t lost his humor and perked up when he saw the [Shopkeeper], who was closely followed by his young assistant.

“Don’t you guys have a more efficient way to distribute your loot?” Obviously, they hadn’t, otherwise, the [Officer] wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble. Severin couldn’t help himself asking, nonetheless. The whole situation, while entertaining, seemed almost bizarre to him.

A tired look was all the answer he got.

“Here is an idea. Like, you guys could hand out a fixed number of points for let’s say… participating in a raid and killing bosses. Or maybe even for clearing a dungeon or attending certain guild events, or for providing help internally. Something like that.” He couldn’t completely hide his sheepish smile when he saw that he caught the man’s interest.

“Then, when it comes to distributing loot, everyone can use their points to bid on the items they want. Like an auction. You could call them…hmm, let’s say…” Severin had to clear his throat.

Ahem

“DKP, for example.”