Shortly before making their way to the largest merchant company in town, Eisen and Komer met back up with Bree and Caria while Cabarum and Aulu still stayed behind at the carriage for protection.
At first, Eisen expected a large building with a huge amount of traffic, but the Merchant company seemed to take up only one office floor of the rather small building it was situated in. And in the end, that should have been expected. After all, even if it was the largest company, since this was only a small village it still wasn't too big.
So, Eisen, Komer, Bree and Caria stepped into the building and looked around. It was a rather crowded space, with desks placed wherever there was space in the room behind the front desk. The merchants were quite loud as well, which was to be expected considering that the whole room was basically packed to the brim with men and women of different stature. But that seemed to be quite unusual, since there simply couldn't be that many differnet merchants in such a small village.
Curious, Eisen walked up to the woman at the front desk and asked if something was going on, and the busy secretary nodded hurriedly, but still took her time to be professional and tried to answer Eisen as best as she could. "Yes, Sir, something is going on. Have you heard of those people that suddenly appeared out of thin air? Most of them seem to be natural merchants, and especially two of them are quite troubling. They instantly bought up a large majority of food in some towns around here, and are now selling them at a largely increased price. Since this town was the only one in the area that didn't fall victim to this, many merchants are now trying to buy whatever food we have, so this has turned into quite a troublesome situation. Anyway, how can I help you?"
After this explanation, Eisen frowned strongly. Some players bought up so much food? How was that possible at this point in time? And it seemed like not only Eisen was asking himself that, but Komer was deep in thought as well. Eisen chuckled lowly and slapped Komer's back to get his attention, and then faced the secretary once more.
"My young friend here would like to talk to the owner of this merchant company, if this is possible." Eisen smiled softly and looked at the secretary, who in turn simply sighed out loudly.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid that won't be possible. There are many people here that want to talk to the Owner currently." She smiled wrily, seemingly actually sorry that this situation was such an inconvenience to Komer.
"Are you sure? I really just need to talk to him for a second!" Komer protested, hoping that the extra charisma from the suit would take effect, but this seemed to be a situation that pure charisma couldn't overcome so easily. After a bit of discussion, Komer ended up giving in and sighed loudly as he was just about to turn around to leave. But Eisen didn't want Komer to become unmotivated because of something like this, and then turned to the secreatary again.
"Would it be possible if we stepped inside and talked to one of the other merchants currently inside? It doesn't necessarily need to be the owner."
"Hm, I guess that would be fine. But if they don't want to talk to you, I would please ask you to leave them be. They are here for business as well, after all." The Secretary explained, and Eisen nodded in response.
"Of course. Thank you."
Komer started frowning as he looked into the large room with immensely busy people, not even knowing where to start. While he was doing that, Eisen held his hand in front of his eye in the same way that he did when inspecting Komer, in order to look at more information about the merchants. Luckily, people didn't seem to get shivers when being inspected with Truth Seeing eyes, quite opposite to Appraisal, so simply appraising such a large amount of people wouldn't be a problem. But it seemed that most of them weren't that skilled in the first place.
The majority of the people in here simply had the occupation 'Merchant Apprentice', and since these wouldn't be able to help out Komer by giving him an occupation, Eisen immediately skipped over them, until he saw a rather interesting individual.
A man standing at the far wall, maybe about 30 years of age, who was wearing incredibly high-quality clothes compared to most others in the room and even had some small accessories like different rings. But most surprising was the information that Eisen got through the inspection.
[Antonio Hastings]
[Race – Elf][Occupation – High Merchant][Level – 103]
Eisen immediately deactivated his Truth Seeing Eye, since he knew he had the right person to teach Komer the Merchant profession.
So, Eisen tapped Komer's shoulder and signaled him, as well as Bree and Caria to follow. Of course, since Caria was quite short and very child-like in general, Eisen took her up on his arms and carried her through the room instead. When they then stood in front of him, Antonio the High Merchant looked at the group confused.
"Erm, can I help you?" He asked with a frown, and Eisen nodded with a smile.
"Yes, you actually can. My friend here would like to become a Merchant himself, and since you seem to be the most skilled one out of all the people here, we thought it would be a good idea to ask you." Eisen quickly explained, and Antonio looked Komer up and down. It seemed like Komer began to shudder for a second, which was a sign that Antonio probably used appraisal on him.
"You want me to teach such a spoiled kid how to be a merchant? How old is he? 20? And he's only level 4. A kid like that would never be able to become a merchant, no matter how fancy they dress. Sorry, but come back once you convince me otherwise." Antonio said quite smugly, as if openly making fun of Komer without even letting him defend himself.
But Eisen didn't allow something like this, this was just an incredibly insensitive way to turn someone down. "I know you have seen his status, although I don't know how much of it. If you can see his titles, I'm sure there should be an 'Omega' title somewhere. That is a title that only those people that appeared out of thin air a few days ago have. As you should know, these people are quite skilled as merchants."
Surprised, Antonio looked back into the open air, probably reading through Komer's status once more, and then began to frown. "An 'Omega', huh? Fine, I guess you should be able to do at least something, kid. How high is your 'Trading' skill?"
Komer smiled wrily and laughed lowly. "Ah, it only just became Rank 1 not too long ago." He explained, and Antonio nodded after crossing his arms.
"Fine, that should be good enough. Let's see what you can do. Meet me in front of the Merchant's Guild tomorrow morning before sunrise, got it? If you're too late, you missed your chance." The Elven Merchant explained and jerked his chin toward the exit, simply signaling the group in front of him to leave again. Somewhat speechless, they did as they were prompted to and left the Guild without much arguing, even though Eisen was quite annoyed at how rude Antonio was. And it wasn't only him, apparently.
"Argh, that guy was so rude, right?! And now I have to do his dumb quest?" Komer yelled out while crossing his arms in a pout accompanied by a frown, and Bree quite quickly agreed.
"That was to be expected… Elves that are older than 100 years are usually like that, and most people with high charisma stats as well, and since most Merchants have high charisma stats… That was quite a bad combination." She explained, and both Komer and Eisen looked at her confused.
"Bree, you mean that Antonio is really that old?" Eisen asked, and Bree nodded slowly. "Yeah, at least he seemed like it. Elves age far slower than races like humans or dwarves from the moment they turn 18, so once you know the rate at which they age, it's pretty easy to figure out an Elf's age. He seemed to be around 180 years old."
"Huh, interesting. I didn't know that. How curious that a man that looks like thirty is actually that old…" Eisen muttered out, and Bree nodded with a wry smile. "Mhm… But aren't you also Millennia old despite looking like you're around 60?"
While Eisen chuckled lowly after having forgotten about that part of the game's story, as well as feeling quite flattered at being told he looked 10 years younger than he actually was, Komer stared at them in surprise. "What do you mean, he's millennia old?"
And that was when Eisen realized that he didn't actually tell Komer about this, and Bree seemed to have noticed what she said just now as well. The old man sighed out loudly and leaned in to whisper into Komer's ear. After hearing what Eisen told him, Komer looked at Eisen with wide eyes.
"Really? You're one of those?" He muttered out impressed. He heard about the five that peaked quite early on after gathering as much information about the world that he could, so he especially mentioned the craftsman so that he could sell his items more easily. Now Komer was feeling even more embarrassed about what happened before.
But the one that reacted in disbelief out of the group was Bree, more than anyone else. "Huh…? Don't you think that's just super amazing? How can you not react to that? When I first heard about it, I was staring blankly at Eisen for days because I couldn't believe I was his friend!" She exclaimed loudly, enough to get some passing glances from people walking around the street, and Komer flinched lightly in response while Eisen chuckled.
"Bree, he's been in this world for about a week. I mentioned that he was one of the Omegas, the people that appeared out of nowhere, just now, right? So he couldn't possibly think that those that peaked are as amazing as you do."
"Hm… I guess you're right… Sorry… But still, isn't Komer basically a part of you? Shouldn't he feel… more excited?" She asked, still visibly confused. Only now she wasn't alone. Now it was also Komer staring on in confusion.
"Don't worry Komer, I'll explain it to you at the Inn. We should try to not let too many people hear about it." Eisen sighed loudly and began walking toward the stable so that Komer could change his chlothes again.
Once they were back at the Inn itself, the group of four made their way back to Eisen, Bree, and Caria's room, and Eisen began explaining what was going on with those that peaked and the appearance of players to him.
"Oh, wow. So that's what's going on? Interesting! Wait, if that got out, couldn't we use that as amazing marketing? Especially if we advertised that I get the items I sell from the first person that ever peaked in this world!" Komer suggested, and this time around, it seemed like a genuine suggestion rather than a way to scam others into buying his items, so Eisen gave it a chance and thought about it for a bit.
"Well, maybe. But we really should wait with that, if we do it at all. As long as we haven't figured out what's going on with that fanatic church, we definitely can't even think about it. And we should wait for everything to calm down, just take a look at what those other Omegas caused. Just take the time until then to gather experience and to make a name for yourself." Carefully and simply, Eisen explained what the best actions to take in that regard would be in his opinion, and Komer seemed to understand and accept it quickly.
"Alright, that's fine. I don't want to give out personal information about you, especially after you helped me this much." Komer smiled, and then looked deeply at Eisen with a calm and grateful face. "Really, thank you for that, Eisen."
Eisen looked at the young man, or rather kid most of the time, in front of him and began scratching his beard with satisfaction behind his smiling expression. "Of course, Komer."
