In the early morning hours, Severin was finally comfortable with the stockpile of craftable goods he had amassed. While he hadn’t managed to process all of the materials available to him and fill every single shelf back up, it should be enough to meet everyone's demands. After that, once the group would be gone, he would still have enough time to put things back in order.

With no one yet awake, he considered for a while whether he should go to sleep himself. He was very tempted.

‘If I go to sleep now, though, who knows when I’ll wake up again. After this, there is no way I won’t sleep for the next twelve hours. Minimum. Worst case, Andreas and the others are already gone by then. Can’t have that. All the work would be for nothing. Well, and having a whole guild getting angry at me is something I’d rather avoid as well.’ Even with his limited business acumen, Severin figured it wouldn’t be too beneficial to him to snub the twenty people strong guild group that was camping outside. Nineteen, rather. As Xander had apparently gone missing after he left the store. No one would worry that something happened to him, but him leaving, without making a big deal out of it, seemed quite noteworthy to most. Suspicious even.

Knowing that closing his eyes, even for just a moment, would be an idiotic idea in his current condition, and with nothing else to do at the moment, he decided to check out the System. He had received multiple level-up notifications for his Alchemy class, after all. Seeing even just the first of these two, he felt a pang of guilt for his decision not to check them out the moment they popped up.

“Damn. I’m sure Andreas would’ve even given up on some of the other items in favor of a few of these two. Plain old stat increase. While it might sound boring, it sure as hell ain’t useless. Well. Still don’t intend to start over now. Guess I’ll just surprise them once they’re back. Let's see what else there is.”

…

More mature people might’ve taken the other notification as a sign to get back to crafting after all. Not so Severin. To Severin, it was an affront.

“What do you mean ‘advanced alchemy station unlocked in the store’? Might’ve told me so directly. I’m working myself to exhaustion and now you’re telling me I could’ve…FUCK. And what's the ‘unlocked in the store’ all about? Do I have to buy my own rewards now? Is this how things are gonna be from now on? Really?”

Reluctantly he opened the store page. What mollified him, if only a little, was that, as an essential tool for the shop itself, the kit was purchasable from the shop’s own balance. This and the fact that the rather vague description also hinted at the new station being able to process batches double the size his current starter-set could handle.

‘Even with all the money I’d made today, isn’t two-thousand gold a bit too steep of a price? I mean, not even the shop’s expansion was that expensive.’ Even knowing he’d ultimately buy the thing anyway, and rather sooner than later, Severin still decided to postpone this purchase. Maybe it was his own pitiful act of rebellion against the System; Maybe it was so he didn’t feel like he had to craft the stat enhancing flasks after all.

Still, he was in the mood to splurge a little. Not his own money mind you, which he estimated would amount to about one-thousand six-hundred gold coins once he settled things with Andreas, but the store's money. Even if he complained about the cost of two thousand gold, even with that amount already budgeted, that would still leave him with more than ten thousand. And that was still far more than enough for what he had planned.

Splurge maybe wasn’t exactly the right word, to begin with, either. What he wanted to buy, or rather build, was the one-room apartment necessary to hire his first employee. Even with no potential hire in sight, he figured it was better to have things ready to go as soon as possible. And he still would have to figure out what exactly ‘appropriate and sufficiently furnished’ actually meant.

As at this time, he wasn’t just expanding an existing room but wanted to build a completely new building instead, he would have to first pay a base fee of one thousand gold. Again, since this wasn’t his own money he didn’t mind too much. Then, of course, was the, in Severin’s opinion, unnecessary minimum purchase amount of five hundred gold. Not a problem either. That only meant the room would have to be at least twenty square meters large. But considering that the shop was originally only thirty square meters large, that didn’t sit too well with him.

“Whoever I’ll end up hiring will probably live better than me. Fully furnished, private room. Why not add a bath while at it?” He could only grumble to himself, already trying to predict what else the System had in store for him.

Worst of all, the minimum size wouldn’t even do. Severin was adamant about the new building being adjacent to the current store. Directly aligning. Adjacent to the side opposite his counter, to be precise. Meaning the new room had to match the length, or rather the width, of the shop’s eight meters. Severin might’ve been strange, silly even, in this aspect, but his sense of symmetry and aesthetics wouldn’t allow anything else. Later on, he could still move and remodel things if necessary. For a fee, of course.

In the end, the new building cost him one-thousand six hundred gold in total.

“Tzz. Even with the additional fee, that’s still less than my so-called ‘level-up reward’.”

Kaching

The appropriate amount of gold was quickly subtracted from the store’s balance.

While at it, Severin thought for a moment whether he might purchase one of the target dummies Xander had once inquired about. Only for a moment, though.

“Nah, can’t do that for the time being. That would just make them use up even more items. Which in return would mean…” He shuddered at the thought of having even more work to do. “Laboring through the whole night mustn’t become the norm. Maybe once that room is actually inhabited and…”

Severin halted in his monologue, suddenly realizing something.

He had purchased the new building. But after that…nothing.

No warning that he’d have to wait until the next day or anything like that. As was the case last time. That surely could only mean one thing. One thing, a quick look at his map confirmed.

Incredulously Severin left his store. It was still rather dark outside, but there was no mistake.

Very clearly, there was a new building standing there. Just like that. No sound. No rumbling of the ground. It was as if the wooden building, which seemed to be made out of the same material as everything else provided by the System, had always stood there.

Was he already dreaming? Did he drift into sleep without noticing it? Severin stood there gaping for a few moments before finally catching himself. While everyone still seemed to sleep, which he figured was the reason he didn’t have to wait any longer for the building to appear, it wouldn’t do if he was ever caught being surprised about things that were, supposedly, of his own doing.

After taking a deep breath, he went to check out the building.

[Notice: A Shopkeeper should never let his shop unattended]

‘FUCK’

He nearly screamed.

Kaching

Severin quickly navigated the System’s menus, with by now practiced moves, and bought eight hundred gold worth of property; The whole area directly surrounding his two buildings and a bit further out. Apparently, the fee of one thousand coins had been partly for the property the building was now standing on. Without a way to actually reach it.

In this light, he couldn’t yet see it, but Severin knew a new fence had appeared the moment he confirmed the purchase. The moment his minimap expanded once again.

Severin pretended he didn’t almost wake everyone on the mountaintop. Again.

Instead, with a sure step, he approached his new property. And then walked around it.

“WHY IS THERE NO DOOR?!”

He screamed.