“Are you sure that I should be keeping all of it?” Nyx asked Flavia as they were on their way to the Pavilion.

“It’s fine. You were the one who found the squirrel, after all.”

“But you were the one who caught it.”

“All right, what about this; why don’t you just bank it and you’ll withdraw a bit of it whenever any of us need some,” Flavia offered.

“Or you could just split the money equally and deposit it at the same time since you’re in the same Guild,” Rakna intervened with a blank tone as he landed on the roof of a building and used Artzpul to regain his momentum. “You know, the logical thing to do.”

The two girls looked at each other and giggled softly. “Let’s go with that then.”

“Also, don’t forget to give some to Allan. He deserves it.”

“No worry. I was planning to do so already,” Nyx declared.

After that, they soon arrived at the Pavilion and climbed the left staircase. “See you later,” Rakna said just before he stepped on the last stair and the girls nodded at him. In the blink of an eye, the noise of the crowd disappeared and he was now in the empty lounge hall.

He walked up to one of the couches and practically collapsed on it. At the same time, Pronos came out from under Sonata with a yawn. “You really like sleeping, don’t you, little guy?”

Pronos hissed and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with his tail. He then jumped on the empty side of the couch and looked around as Rakna opened his Item Box.

To sort his items, first of all, he dismissed all of the gray items since they simply had no worth to him. Their quality was low and they had no special ability whatsoever. He also filtered out every weapon since they were useless to him at the moment.

As for the armor, after confirming with Alexa, he knew that it was impossible to wear more than one type of armor at once. In other words, he couldn’t just equip a chest plate over another chest plate. So, he ignored every piece of armor that was a cloak, a cape, or a pair of boots.

When he was about done with the basic filters, Pronos jumped on the table in front of them and curiously looked at an object lying on the table. He pressed on it with his tail and the TV fixed to the wall lit up.

“| This morning, a member of Nine-Tailed Wolf Clan was sighted on the streets of Black Steel as he carried a lost child back to her mother… |”

Rakna immediately sat up and looked at the television with owlish eyes.

“| Unfortunately, the surveillance system around that area was in maintenance so we were not able to get images of the scene… |”

“Thank god for my luck…” Rakna mumbled in relief, nearly out of character. At that time, although Pronos had been hiding under Sonata, the scarf in itself was something that could have given him away. He could only hope that they wouldn’t mention it or just forget about it.

“| However, many witnesses have reported hearing the Nine-Tailed Wolf introduce himself as ‘Obsidian’. This story has spread across the city like wildfire. Many citizens are praising Obsidian for the noble deed he performed. There have also been rumors about an official reward that the Mayor decided to hand over personally- |”

Rakna reached for the remote and turned the TV off with pursed lips. He stared at the black screen for a moment before lying down again. “Let’s act as if nothing happened,” he whispered meekly and Pronos sweat dropped.

Rakna resumed his sorting whilst pushing what he had just seen to the very back of his mind. He started by looking through the armors that he had collected. Most of them couldn’t even compare to the cloak or the boots he was wearing but he nonetheless picked out the best ones and equipped them without hesitation until his whole body was protected.

Of course, their defense hadn’t stacked. On average, the protection he wore increased his defense by 15. This wasn’t like a game where the more armor you had, the tougher you were.

Ultimately, you just had to think about it logically. The armor only protected the part that it was covering, nothing less, nothing more. The only exception to that rule was the cloak which added a defense over the armor.

Once he was done with that, Rakna used the full potential of his Item Box to separate the items he wanted to sell, keep, or use for himself into three different windows.

His focus then turned to the accessories. After asking Alexa, he learned that there was a limit of five that could be equipped at once. This also meant that he had four of them already used up by the ring and necklace he got from the Dreorins as well as the spatial ring and Ulvia’s Veil.

Though, in the end, he replaced Ulvia’s Veil with a necklace that increased his senses by ten and granted him a skill called ‘Scan Life’, which revealed to him the life forms around him as far as his sense value allowed him to.

As for the last slot, he chose to equip a simple ring that made him capable of casting a basic fireball. This was an item that he had gotten from the giant ants on the sixth floor of the Dungeon. He also took the occasion to properly equip his spatial ring so that it would not be materialized.

The last things he checked were the consumables. There were only four of them; two healing pills, one healing potion, and one stamina potion. All of them were Tier 9 and had a dark green glow to them.

Alexa proceeded to explain that items classified with Tiers also had colors to them that matched the spectrum of rarities. For instance, Tier 10 was still gray, but Tier 9 and Tier 8 were dark green and light green respectively.

After all that, Rakna tried to make Pronos equip some of the items but it failed. Alexa spoke right after, [Pets can only equip items that are specifically made for them. Those items are generally quite scarce and also do not drop just anywhere.]

“What about the pet shop that Kaelith mentioned?”

[The pet shop is a privilege for pets with high potential. It proposes items that can be bought for a certain currency called Teilys. Pets can earn that currency by killing monsters but they also gain a set percentage of the money their Host acquires. For example, if you collect 1 000 Talys, Pronos will have 250 Teilys added to his balance.]

“I see. It makes sense,” Rakna remarked as he closed the Item Box. He stood up and Pronos jumped back on his shoulder as he began to head to the shop.

When he opened the doors of the shop, a chime sounded and he instantly spotted Kaelith lazing around on a sofa while reading a book.

When he came in, she looked over and smirked. “Hey, wolfy. How did your day go?”

“…do you live here or something?”

“Hah, as if. I’m notified whenever you enter the Pavilion’s second floor. So, I just come here and wait for you.”

“And what if I don’t come to the shop at all?” Rakna inquired as he took a seat in front of her.

“Well, I just finish my read with a pout and go back home,” she giggled and closed her book. She straightened herself with her tails waving from side to side. “So? What is today’s business?”

“I’m here to sell some items.”

“Oh? What kind?”

Rakna took a few seconds to ponder on how to answer. “All sorts. Sixty… two of them?”

Kaelith blinked. She sighed and slowly rubbed her eyes. “…seriously?”

“Yes.”

She let out a dry chuckle and waved her hand. “All right. Just pull them all out and I’ll make the inventory of them.”

Rakna nodded and opened his Item Box to initiate a free trade. When Kaelith saw the window pop up in front of her, her expression shifted many times until settled on… “Okay, sure,” she uttered with a dull voice and accepted the trade. “I’m totally not shocked that you have a skill that costs a hundred thousand Talys. Definitely not.”

“A hundred thousand?” Rakna’s eyes widened a bit. “I had no idea it was that valuable. He told me it wasn’t that expensive when he gave it to me.”

“Who?” Kaelith looked away from the window with a curious twinkle in her eyes.

“A guy called Baires. We went to Trafford before coming to the Pavilion and he attended to us.”

She scowled. “Why would an executive of Trafford personally… you know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I finished calculating. Here,” she said and forwarded a transfer request.

❮ ◈ ❯

Kaelith Yahkshasa offers you 5 650 Talys.

Do you accept?

Yes/No

❮ ◈ ❯

Rakna selected ‘yes’ without missing a beat. After witnessing a million Talys deal, he had already become desensitized to this kind of amount.

“Still, how did you get that many items? It should be from a Dungeon, right? And based on what I see here, it should be Seed Grotto. Did you enter the Hell difficulty? Did you join a party?”

“No, I was solo. I did three runs and what I sold to you is most of what I got there. Of course, I kept a decent part of it for myself and my friends.”

Kaelith exhaled loudly. “You’re truly unbelievable… I guess I will have to get used to it. Though, you must have a high luck value, right? That’s the only thing that could explain the sheer quantity of loot you got.”

“The drop rate is proportionate to luck?”

“Yes. The higher the luck, the more you get. Hosts and even Locals with high luck are very valued by Guilds and other organizations for the treasures they can provide,” Kaelith explained patiently as she stood up and approached the shop’s counter.

She grabbed a teapot that was placed there and a bluish flame surrounded it for a few seconds before she poured herself a cup of tea.

“There are also people with skills that can transmute items from corpses. For instance, Trafford happens to have quite a few of them to process the corpses that are sold to them.”

Rakna abruptly narrowed his eyes as her voice came from his left. He had been looking at her for the entire time but before he knew it, she was already back on the sofa adjacent to him while sipping on her drink.

When Kaelith saw his reaction, she grinned mischievously at him. “What’s wrong, wolfy? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”

“If only,” he replied after schooling his expression and she glared at him through half-lidded eyes. She then turned her head to the side and Rakna followed her line of sight to see Sylvie, the small fox pet, jump over the counter with a box on one of her tails.

“Looks like your little friend bought something,” Kaelith commented as she received the box.

Rakna glanced at Pronos who seemed very eager to see what was inside of it. She unsealed it and was startled to see what was inside. It was another pill; one with a gold and red hue.

“This is… wolfy, how much money do you have?”

“Hm?” Rakna tilted his head. “Right now? With what you gave me, I have 92 850 Talys.”

Kaelith groaned as she heard that and picked the pill up and showed it to him. “This thing here has a market value of 50 000 Talys and is sold for 35 000 Teilys in the pet shop. I figured you would like to know,” she said with a wry tone as she flicked the pill with her thumb.

It flew right to Pronos who jumped on Rakna’s head to eat it faster. Right after swallowing it, his entire body started shining with a cyan light.