Having no way to further progress his quest and with nothing else to do, Severin decided to follow them outside. The last couple of days he had missed the entertainment the two provided, so now he was ready to get outside, sit down and enjoy the show.

‘With upgraded gear and a level-up, who knows if they have any new tricks in store.’

But the moment he crossed the doorstep, Severin halted.

‘Who is…’ It took Severin longer than he would have been comfortable to admit to realize that Timothy had already changed into his new gear.

He hadn’t expected that it would look so ridiculous on him, even though he had just identified the items himself. So instead of sitting down at his usual spot next to the door, he stood there gaping.

The black hat was replaced by a similar-looking model, but light green in color.

This change alone was already bad enough in Severin’s eyes. The floppy design was hideous, to begin with. Only the fact that the thing, as well as the rest of Tim’s outfit, the robes, in particular, were predominantly black, gave it a more dignified look.

‘If it was only the hat.’ He shook his head with pity.

‘What some people do for stats…not caring about anything else.’

The other change was more grave than the hat. It was a new white shirt. Its sleeves reaching just above the elbow.

On its own, it looked decent enough. Probably better than the one Severin wore himself. The problem was that it replaced the black robes, revealing a yellowish pair of trousers and brown boots that reached to the middle of his calves.

Only because of his self-discipline was he able to resist the urge to point with his finger and openly laugh at Timothy.

‘What’s with that smug face?! He looks like an idiot. Who would walk around like that.’ He was feeling giddy, and his breath became ragged as he tried his best to pull himself together to not make a scene. Laughing at his customer, especially if he was almost double the age, wouldn’t be a good look, he figured.

‘I have an image to uphold!’

But soon he realized something was off and his laughs slowly got stuck in his throat.

‘I don’t expect Sam to laugh at him, but Miriam…? Not even her? Why doesn’t she say anything? Why don’t they show any reaction?’

His good mood slowly turned. It wasn’t really a big deal, but the difference in reaction was somehow sobering. It made him feel dejected and lonely. With no one to share such carefree moments, only able to watch from a distance, he felt like he didn’t quite fit in.

sigh

He sat down to half-heartedly watch the ensuing battle.

‘What’s wrong with me? Get a grip. Because of such a small thing.’

After watching a few rounds of fighting that didn’t feel quite as exciting as usual, he decided to go over to the little camp, where he had just seen Samuel coming out of one of the tents.

‘Let’s not drown in self-pity and do something.’

However, after a moment of thought, he changed his mind. The plot of land he owned, the area of land where he could move freely, was a few meters short of reaching the campsite. It would look too strange if he would stand there at the fence and shout over.

“Yeah, let’s not just stand there like an idiot begging for attention,” Severin mocked himself.

Luckily at that moment, he noticed that the [Berserker] had decided to come over himself.

Seeing him approach Severin decided with a heavy heart that it would be the least he could do to offer his loyal customer a seat.

While the man was still making his way over, Severin quickly opened his System and navigated to the store page to reluctantly exchange 30 coins of his personal balance for a very basic chair, somewhat similar to the one he was using himself.

The next moment a red star appeared on the inventory menu icon.

He let it spawn right next to him while inwardly lamenting the cost.

‘30gold. I didn’t even make close to that amount when I sold them all that stuff earlier.’ He was still affected by his sour mood.

‘Damn. Gold coins. One would expect a throne for that. Not…this.’

He could only hide his disgust in front of Samuel.

“Thanks.” The man obviously understood that the chair was for him and appreciated the gesture.

He sat down and gave Severin an intense look.

Without much ado, he asked, “Does that skill of yours work on my cloak?”

Still in a strange mood, he instinctively grabbed the item without answering or thinking things through.

He instantly let the tooltip appear, making it visible for both of them.

The next moment they both were at a loss for words.

Severin sharply sucked in air and felt his head clearing up.

Other than that, he kept his mouth shut as he felt that he might have acted a bit too hasty and thinking that it wasn’t his place to comment on the revealed stats.

’At least level 80. Basic elemental damage received, reduced by half. Half of all received physical damage mirrored onto the attacker. And then there are still all those stats. That’s more than all the items from earlier combined. What…Who the…is with that dude?’ Even without having a concrete point of reference, he knew that thing was far from normal.

The (Unique) tag might have been a hint.

‘And that’s only a single piece of gear.’

He couldn’t help sneaking a glance at the man’s face with a sense of newfound respect.

But contrary to his expectations, the expression on Samuel’s face seemed to mirror his own astonishment.

“How did you…? While I still had it equipped? That should not be possible!”

When the two met their eyes, they hold eye contact for a moment before looking away in tacit understanding not to ask too many questions.

They turned to watch Miriam and Timothy in awkward silence until Samuel left a while later, leaving behind 500 Gold.

‘Well, that paid for the chair at least.’ Severin had found back some of his humor.

He opened his System to check a few things.

The balance, especially the stores’, looked quite promising.

But the next discovery didn’t sit well with him.

‘Shouldn’t I have gotten a ton of experience for that? After the setback of 400 coins for the outside expansion, the 500 just now basically doubled the balance. So how come the experience bar didn’t move accordingly?

And the quest tracker didn’t change either? What’s up with that?’

Unexpectedly, the System gave a rare, albeit questionable, explanation concerning the first issue.

[You are a [Shopkeeper], not a [Service Provider]. The received experience had to be adjusted accordingly.]

“C’mon! Didn’t you give me that quest yourself? And you still took the money, didn’t you? Who are you trying to fool here!? What a scam.”

Severin could hardly keep his calm.

If he was a bit more clearheaded, he might have figured out the reason why the quest progress didn’t advance.

Even when going by his own understanding of item- and equipment-related matters, which almost exclusively came from games, he should have been able to figure out what happened. Considering that Samuel was already wearing the item at the time, it was hardly possible that he identified it in the usual gaming sense.

In reality, it was slightly more complicated than that. Different from his own understanding, as long as an item was bound to a person, the owner could choose if they wanted to make the tooltip available for others to see or not. In the case that they chose to hide it and then had their bound canceled, be it voluntarily or involuntarily, the item needed to be inspected once again.

That was what Samuel had originally planned to do. And it was also why he had needed some time to think things through beforehand. He obviously planned to test Severin.

And if he wasn’t able to pass, Sam wouldn’t be able to equip the item again. Unless he went back to the capital to find someone who was actually skilled enough to inspect the item. Even for him, that would be a hassle. As the item was (Unique), not just anyone could do it. Otherwise, the whole affair would’ve been rather pointless. And those who could, wouldn’t just own a random street corner store.

In the end, it didn’t come to this. Instead of inspecting the item, what Severin did was far more shocking to Samuel than anything else he could’ve imagined.

He interfered with the authority that a class-bearer had over a bound item. It was something unthinkable. It was said to be one of the immutable rules of the world.

After that, Samuel, of course, didn’t care about his test anymore.

Not that he had any more doubts in that regard. Actually inspecting the item would be child’s play in comparison. No matter how unique the item.