Severin woke up the next morning. He instinctively knew that he slept even longer than he had anticipated. He might’ve worked throughout the whole previous night, but since it wasn’t that late when he finally was able to lay down, he expected to wake up sometime in the evening, maybe at night, but surely not any later than that. But something was different today. Something felt off. Where was the usual poking and pricking that usually pestered and prompted him to leave his ‘bed’? Instead…it was so…comfy. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so good, so comfortable and relaxed right after waking up. Only when Severin glanced at the rug underneath him, followed by a quick glance at his minimap, did it all come back to him.

“So I really did hire an overzealous little kid to live and work with me, huh.” Not standing up just yet, enjoying a pain-free morning, he took a second look at the map.

“Seeing that the dot isn’t moving and based on its position, I can only assume that she is still sleeping. The whole day must’ve been rather exhausting for her as well. Well, let’s see.” An uncharacteristically gentle smile formed on Severin’s face. Remembering their last conversation, he proceeded to check the inventory.

“That Idiot. She really did end up crafting until the System had to stop her, it seems.” Severin easily concluded this, noticing the missing ingredients. “Crafted a few of all the items available in the recipe book. Hmm, including the new stuff.” He summoned one of each of the two items in question and weighed them in his hands. Two hexagonal-shaped bottles, the length of his index finger; And twice as thick. One contained a perfectly clear liquid, looking no different from still water. The other one was cloudy, almost milky even.

[Small Single Stat Elixir (5)

Temporarily increases the user’s highest stat by 10%.

Only one Elixir can be active at a time

Lasts for 60 minutes.]

“One hundred gold might be the most expensive price for any item so far, but it still feels rather cheap somehow. And the other variant,” Severin looked over to the tooltip of the bottle in his left hand, the one containing the turbid-looking liquid, “might be even more busted. Four percent to all stats…How the hell is this just the ‘small’ version. Unless higher quality ones just increase the duration, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever have another peaceful day in my life.” Thinking about the future of the store, especially now that he was also responsible for looking after another person as well, was something that gave Severin a severe headache, tempting him to go right back to sleep. In the past, this had always been how he dealt with his problems.

This time, though, after struggling with himself for a few moments, he managed to resist.

Sigh

“Better get going then. I still haven’t checked out the new available crafting station, so let’s start with this.”

Kaching

Two minutes later and two thousand gold coins lighter, Severin was already crafting his first batch of potions for the day.

“Great! Just the size of this thing alone allows me to craft about double the previous amount in about the same amount of time. No, faster even! The materials...no clue what it’s made out of, but it is definitely of a much higher quality. Makes it so much easier to control the flames and adjust the temperature, in comparison. Not only reduces the processing time by quite a bit but should also make for a slightly more efficient extraction.

“And if I decide to buy another one of those for Em as well…

Then again, even if for now, such a setup should help me…us…tremendously, in the long run, I still can’t see this being enough to keep up with all the demand. Once we got this many customers, or even more, on a daily basis, then what? Maybe I could work at multiple stations simultaneously if need be.” He shuddered at the thought.

“But I sure as hell don’t intend to just stick to this kind of business. Well, that’s something to worry about later a well, I guess. Not much I can do about it other than hope for some suitable upgrades later on.” Severin caught himself sneaking a glance towards his new flokati once again when he noticed a slight movement in his peripheral vision.

Severin observed the motionless dot which, he could’ve sworn, had moved a bit just a moment ago. After half a minute of waiting and ten seconds of doubting himself, the thing started moving once again; very slowly at first, before Em apparently started to speed up, made a circle inside of her room, and then out of her door, only to once again come to an abrupt standstill, outside. Only for some seconds this time, though, and soon she headed towards the store.

“Morning Em! Hope you had a good night’s sleep.” Severin greeted the girl the moment she opened the door even before it moved more than just a few centimeters.

“How did you kn…?” When the realization hit her, the girl turned beet red and only barely managed to reply without a stammer, as she tried to act confident and decided to join Severin.

“Good morning boss. Sorry for sleeping for so long, I’ll…” Severin waved her off.

“Don’t worry. We have more than enough time. I would’ve woken you otherwise. Or would have given you a time beforehand if I really expected you to be here at a certain time.

Instead, tell me how was the first night in your own room? Your own bed?” There was a strange emphasis on the last word that Em didn’t catch, while Severin gave her an intense look which she also couldn’t interpret.

“It was amazing! I can’t remember the last time I slept this well. No, I know I never slept this good before! It was sooo comfy you wouldn’t believe it!” The wide smile on her face alone made the words unnecessary. It was such a stark contrast to her muddy, downtrodden look she wore not even twenty-four hours earlier.

‘Damn right, I wouldn’t.’

“Ha.Ha. I’m glad you like it. Now, why don’t you come help with some crafting? I saw that you already got a bit of work done yesterday, so you should have a good idea about the job by now. Don’t worry, we should still have a few days on our own, so we can take this slowly for now.”

Em didn’t look like she wanted to take things slowly at all but didn’t voice her thoughts regarding the matter.

“Yes, boss!”

As the two were crafting batches of consumables, with Em using the smaller one of the two setups, Severin helped her as much as possible with the process. Even though all the knowledge required to create items that the System would approve of was magically transferred into her brain, after crafting thousands of potions Severin had still managed to figure out a handful of tricks and adjustments to speed things up and be most efficient. Not all of these affected the crafting itself, but rather aimed at shortening the downtime and preparation needed before starting to prepare the next batch.

After the third batch of the day, Severin decided that they had earned a little break, though.

“Boss, you keep talking about ‘the System’…but…” Only now did Em feel the timing to ask this burning question which occupied her thoughts since the day before, was somewhat appropriate.

“Hmm. The blue screen…that’s the System.”

“But…doesn’t everyone with a class have something like this?”

The shopkeeper was about to laugh at the girl’s comment when the smile on his face suddenly became stiff.

‘They indeed all have an Inventory, as far as I can tell…and…a character screen as well…right? That one time, when Timothy had changed into the newly identified items, he must’ve done it like Em did yesterday…and they somehow have to check their stats and such…but…that can’t be right?’

He still answered her in a confident tone, even though he didn’t feel it.

“The quests, the map, and all the notifications you saw yesterday. Not to forget about the inbuilt store. Those are all provided and part of the ‘System’. No one else had access to this kind of stuff.” He partly tried to convince himself. “Also, didn’t you say no one had two classes? But now look at yourself!”

‘System’s can’t possibly be a common thing, right? Right?’