Game Alive - Chapter 3 Setting Up Shop

Kage logged in as soon as he woke up hoping to start working with his store, he analyzed his stats and Occupations more thoroughly than he had before simply out of excitement. His training had disdained such carelessness but then again they had never trained him for some of the things he had seen in this virtual world. However as he shook his head and looked at his occupations he came upon a delightful discovery, each of his occupations had their own experience bar.

He understood the experience bar to mean more Stat points but then again he wasn’t familiar with games, Reimagined being his first time playing one.

As he looked around he realized he had logged on inside his shop.

‘Pretty useful’ smiled Kage as he began messing with the interface for the counters however he found them to be confusing to interact with and stocked the displays manually.

[Merchant’s Troubles]

[Running a Shop can be difficult but the town needs commerce to thrive, it is up to you as the town’s first Merchant to set an example and stir the Town’s Economy.

Clear conditions (0/ 10 Gold)]

Kage looked at the notification and realized that this was a quest. Only knowing this because he had done some research into games prior to buying the Subscription to Reimagined, though he was a bit put off by the lack of mention about the rewards.

However it looked relatively easy to accomplish with the low amount of ten gold set as the clear condition, that said he looked around his shop one more time before finally opening the doors to his shop and waited.

Kage was certain that seeing a shop so early into the game would encourage players to come inside and look around thus landing him some customers.

The poor Assassin turned Gamer learned quickly that the waiting game wasn’t for him thus he got up and looked out his door seeing why there wasn’t a line of customers waiting. It was at that moment Kage realized the problem, it was yet another thing he had overlooked in his excitement. . . location.

Looking across the street he was able to see players walking in and out of the Blacksmiths shop, it being the only one in the town allowed it to monopolize this early stage of the game but for Kage this wasn’t a good thing. He had intended to be the one monopolizing after finding out he was the first Merchant in that town. Alas though he was playing second fiddle to the Blacksmith across the street, this presented him the problem of finding a way to overcome his apparent competitor.

‘Weapons are the most important part of the beginning of the game, however it’s still early in the game meaning that this smith which was in a starter town won’t be able to suit the needs of these rapidly growing players for long.’ thought Kage as his face became serious as it would before an assignment.

‘The problem is that I don’t have what they are looking for at this time, however many quests would naturally require someone to be in need of these materials from the monster drops. At this stage the other players will happily comply with these demands in order to get the easy experience to level up. . . . some proper investigating is needed’ thought Kage as he closed the door to his shop and slid through the crowd blocking the way to the smithy.

It was a useful talent he had learned to blend into crowds easier and lose pursuers if he was caught but now it made itself useful in the game which was fortunate as he wouldn’t have been able to get inside otherwise.
for visiting.

As he actually made it inside the shop he found the place wasn’t as crowded as the outside, he wasn’t sure why but he was thankful as it would make his goal much easier.

Thus he began looking around the Smithy inspecting the different weapons and armor while noting their prices, it didn’t take long as he was well practiced in gathering information and made it over to the counter to analyze how they were doing business in this shop.

He stood at the side for a long time listening to the interactions of the people and he believed he had found his method, the smith Npc gave ridiculously low buy back prices and those that did sell to him watched as it went right back on the wall to be sold at it’s original price.

‘Shameless. . .’ thought Kage as the smith didn’t even show a bit of embarrassment from the act, however Kage didn’t fault the Npc for it.

‘It’s better this way, I’ll just have to buy into the game a little more than I expected’ thought Kage as he pulled up the display to buy Gold in game.

It may seem odd but Kage actually didn’t have the financial capability in game to enact his plan thus he decided to make an investment for his long term success.

Quickly he watched as his account went from only fifteen Gold to Five hundred fifteen, he assumed this would be a proper amount due to the fact he was going to make a killing by preying on the smith’s shamelessness.

As Kage walked back to his shop he began hanging up banners that had come with the shop, they were to mark his grand opening but he hadn’t thought it would be needed due to him being the first to set up shop.

Looking at the Banners where he could enter his own personal message he began writing and as he did so he smirked, this would definitely draw in customers.

‘This will teach you to steal my customers’ thought Kage rushing to hang up the banner.

Unknown to Kage this would only cause him more trouble in the future.