The Flying Emporium

Severin suddenly seemed very focused on his work.

“Boss?”

“…” He furrowed his brows in displeasure as he kept on crafting.

“Boss?!”

His assistant didn’t let him ignore her, though.

“So you lied.” She exclaimed with more disappointment in her voice than she really felt.

“I didn’t lie!” In the face of that accusation, he couldn’t keep up the act and felt like he had to defend himself. “Well, not really, at least.” He felt he was being exposed by who should’ve been his loyal companion. At the same time, he didn’t want to lose his standing in her eyes. He wouldn’t let her, of all people, think him a liar. At most, he stretched the truth a bit. Nothing more.

‘I didn’t even claim to have slain any dragons! You guys just jumped to conclusions. So how come I’m the liar now?! Why must I justify myself?’

“It’s hard to explain! And you probably wouldn’t believe me, anyway.” He still tried to wiggle himself out of the situation.

“Try me,” she challenged him.

“What happened to my cute, obedient [Employee]? Do I have to look for a replacement already?” Severin mumbled just loud enough for the girl to hear him. Unimpressed.

Sigh

“Where I’m originally from…” Severin no longer pretended to be working. Instead, he was focused on finding the right words. He was not going to admit he had been talking about playing games.

“ …we have some kind of rather unique… artifacts!” He almost shouted the last word, as he was very pleased with himself for coming up with that description.

“Artifacts which can simulate places full of all kinds of different monsters and bosses even.”

“Simulate?”

“Hmm. It’s something like an illusion. Meaning, that even if you die in this simulation, there is no harm to your actual body.”

“And there you can fight against dragons?” Emily actually believed him and felt like she understood the crux of the matter.

“Right.” Severin nodded.

“But to kill a dragon you would need…” He quickly cut her off.

“An entire group of people, yes. Multiple people, each with access to one of these artifacts, can join up and fight together. I didn’t do it alone.”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s that… you’re just a [Shopkeeper].”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He glared at her.

“Ah! No! I mean. I don’t think you don’t have any combat skills, right? So…”

Mollified by her timid reaction, he explained, “You can choose a class you want to pla…, I mean experience, for the duration of your adventures. And besides, at the time I didn’t even have a class yet. Everyone is able to activate them. No magic needed.”

She looked at him with disbelief on her face. “So, you’re saying even a regular person could experience being an adventurer? Whereas real adventurers could use it to train themselves without being at risk?!”

“Exactly.” He felt it was close enough to the truth.

“And the monsters behave like the real thing?”

“As real as any monster I ever encountered!” Technically the truth.

“That means I too could be an [Archer] and fight monsters?!”

Initially, Severin didn’t think the girl would believe him; Now that she did, he started to become even more concerned. Without giving him a chance to interject, she continued, however.

“Can we get some of these artifacts?! I’m sure it would help the others a lot!”

“How selfless of you.”

The girl turned red but didn’t back down.

“I bet you could charge quite a lot of money for each activation! Similar to the combinator.”

“And next you’re going to ask me to introduce employee benefits, I assume,” he asked in jest.

“Well, if you’re offering…”

“Don’t overdo it! But jokes aside, it’s very unlikely to get our hands on one of these things.” He didn’t want to raise her hope. “Much less, tens or even hundreds.”

“Why not? Are they so rare? I mean, I never heard of anything like that, but if even classless people are able to afford them, they can’t be that expensive!”

“That’s not the problem.” Severin was getting frustrated. “That place was very far away from here.”

“Oh. But surely, you’ll want to go back and visit home at some point, right?”

“It’s difficult.”

“But…”

“Get back to work!”

Sigh

“If there’s ever a chance, I’ll get you one,” he promised after realizing that he had been a bit too harsh on her. Knowing that it was an empty promise, though, he felt a pang of guilt.

In silence, the two of them continued with their work. Severin felt bad but didn’t know what to say. Especially seeing Emily, who was so bubbly just a few minutes earlier, now so thoughtful, made him filled with regrets.

The silence stretched on. Severin was waiting for the last batch of items to be finished and, in the meantime, sorted his merchandise. Once he reopened the store again, at least the atmosphere would become more bearable again.

“Didn’t you say you were in a guild? And why would you need to distribute loot?”

Severin blanked for a moment before erupting. “Hahaha. That’s what you were thinking about?” His mood instantly improved. After having a bad conscience all that time, this reaction came as a relief.

She had a lot of follow-up questions. Severin’s explanations had been too shallow for her to get a good understanding of what he called simulations. Now, seeing her so curious, he indulged her for a while. Though he deemed it most prudent to leave out as much information as possible. If she was already so excited about the whole thing without understanding the whole scope of it, he feared he would never hear the end of it if she actually did.

“Isn’t that simply much better than the real thing? It’s the same, but you don’t have to risk yourself! You can just try over and over again. If it’s like that, you must definitely get more than just a single one!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Severin doubled down on his promise. Still, he was amused. If only because he figured he’d never see one of these ‘artifacts’ ever again. He didn’t actually care for having a gaming-addicted teen as his [Employee].

The remainder of the day went by without any further events. Severin opened up the store again and allowed the adventurers back inside. This time, he took it upon himself to serve them while taking his time. He knew the moment he would close shop, the incessant questions would begin anew.

“Why don’t you go and call it a day,” he all but begged her to leave. “It was a long day; You deserve the rest.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m still fit. As a good [Employee], how could I possibly let you do all the work on your own?”

“That won’t do! At your age, your body is still developing.”

“Well, if you insist. But the least I could do is stay here and keep you company,” she replied with a smug grin.

“No dallying!”