RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 229

As Balthazar walked to the tavern mentioned by Puba, he found Kiriti waiting at the door for him. “We were waiting for you,” said Kirit as he shook Balthazar’s hand. “Just bear with a Karma a bit. I will try my best so that we all walk out much happier than now.”

“Is he really that hard to deal with?” asked Balthazar.

“He is a competitive player. You find many of those who have a good attitude?” asked Kiriti back.

“Can’t say I have much experience with many of those. I am kind of new to the gaming thing, but I realize that it is a good and easy way to earn a bit of money while relaxing,” replied Fleet-footed Rogue.

“Easy way to earn money, huh,” said Kiriti. “Just wait for enough time and you will realize that it isn’t that easy. Unless you are a really lucky kind.”

“No, it is not that hard. Some things are quite similar to the stuff in real world. I have served as medic in the military, pharmacies and some concepts I learned could actually be used here. Just need to be tweaked a bit and experimented to get the right methods in the game,” said Balthazar.

“You mean that the antivenom was a personal invention and not a drop from a beast or quest reward?” asked Kiriti.

“Yeah,” nodded Balthazar in response. Hearing that Kiriti’s heart sank. This information implied that Balthazar definitely got the better cards in his hand. If it had been a drop or a quest reward, they would have gotten the method sooner or later and can get rid of Balthazar. Kiriti knew that Karma definitely had such thoughts regarding Balthazar. He led them to a private room, but stopped before they entered.

“Karma is inside. Give me a minute, I need to talk to him. You could order anything from the wench in the mean time,” said Kiriti. He wanted to inform Karma what he learned from Balthazar. He knew that it could be a lie but lying implied that Balthazar knew enough about the game to not be a newbie. But if Balthazar was an experienced player, lying for such a thing would ruin his reputation and not be something that an experience player would do.

Balthazar understood that Kiriti wanted to inform Karma of their conversation and so he want to order a couple of beer for himself while Kiriti got it done. It took him a couple of minutes to get the drinks and he found Kiriti waiting for him at the private rooms door.

“So, what does he have to say after you informed him?” asked Balthazar smiling.

“Are you really a newbie?” asked Kiriti. He was confused. Some parts of his conversation seemed like an experience professional while others were like that of a newbie.

“Yes, but I pick stuff fast. I did ask around about the things I might have to discuss with you guys,” replied Balthazar.

“Who did you ask?” asked Kiriti. He wanted to find out if any other guild that was guiding him in the dark. But he realized a second later that it was not his business. He was even unsure of the state of his adventurer team after they were done helping Valhalla Raiders mainly Karma with his quest.

“Don’t bother,” said Kiriti. “Let us talk it all with Karma. He has calmed down.”

Karma was sitting by a circular table with an irritated expression on his face. As he saw Balthazar enter he changed his expression quickly to greet him. “Hi, I am Karma. I played in War God’s Tempest for the Raiders team,” he said enthusiastically as he shook Balthazar’s hand.

“Wasn’t much into it. Only played the game for fun a few days in the final year of my college and hardly know much about it,” replied Balthazar as Karma’s face turned back to an irritated expression.

“So, you had experience in playing virtual games?” asked Karma.

“Ya, but that is nothing compared to you guys. It was just a pass time for me. Not a profession like you two,” answered Balthazar. He made sure that his words sounded like that of a newbie gamer.

“So, how do you like this game?” asked Karma.

“Much easier that War God’s Tempest. Have better control options and it much entertaining and good way to pass time. It also doesn’t disrupt with my profession and a good way to channel my anger, almost ther.a.p.eutic,” said Balthazar as gulped down the beer.

Hearing him both Kiriti and Karma realized that it was going to be very hard to deal with him. To them it was clear that Balthazar wouldn’t allow them to push him around and it was definitely not important for him to have a pleasant and useful relationship with them. Anyone who would call the game ther.a.p.eutic would have rage issues and definitely not an easy person to control.

“Ok. Let us get to business. We have little time,” said Karma as he sat down and took a sip of his drink to calm himself down.

“Sure. I realize that you have some kind of quest in the Greybark marshlands and you need antivenom in your supplies to make continuous attack without losing lives,” said Balthazar. “You can just provide the amount you want and I will try to make required number necessary. Except that you need to provide the supplies and pay me an amount similar to the profits that were made by the previous sale of the antivenom.”

“So, you agree to sell them only to us,” asked Kiriti.

“No. I am just willing to provide you on a priority but I do have a few conditions,” said Balthazar.

“What conditions?” asked Karma.

“Nothing much. First I have already made a contract with Agua. He is a friend of the cousin who introduced me to this game. So, I trust him. He will sell the antivenom. A certain predetermined amount will be given to you. I can currently produce antidotes that would be effective for 40 minutes and a batch of 20 would take an hour. So, considering the fact that I will actually be active in the game for about 18 hours and willing to spend on this for about 6 hours. I can give you about 80 of them for a fixed price, the rest will be auctioned by Agua due to the contract I already made with him,” said Balthazar.

“We can help you in dissolving the contract. You can provide all 120 of those you make to us,” said Kiriti. He wanted to test if Balthazar was willing to work completely for them atleast for a few days during which they will finish the quest. He gave a subtle look to Karma so that he could support him on this.

“Yes. Yes. That wouldn’t take much effort from us, it could be easily done,” said Karma.

“Oh! I know that you guys can do it easily, but it is not what I want to do. You want more than 80 you will participate in the auction and will not bully any of the players there. If any of those are being bought at a base price or if someone dares to force the other players to stop bidding, I have already told them to not sell the bottles and cancel it. Those 40 will not be sold to you guys either. I will just take them back,” said Balthazar.

Hearing Balthazar, Karma started to bit his teeth in anger, glaring at Balthazar in a very conspicious manner. “That is ridiculous. Why would stop selling just because of that? It is common for other players to stop bidding when guilds start bidding. They are just giving us face,” he yelled as he stood up.

“Stick your face wherever, you want, but not so that it would halt my income,” replied Balthazar. “I am still giving you face, that is why I am willing to sell you those antidotes even after you sent an imbecile like Hard Head. If you are going to yell for every little thing, I would just take my leave now.”

“Calm down, Mr. Fleet Foot, Mr. Karma,” interrupted Kiriti placing his hands on their shoulders. Karma was fuming in anger in a enraged state and wanted to beat Balthazar in the room. If not for Kiriti who had applied pressure on his shoulde , he wouldn’t have controlled himself and probably tried to assault Balthazar.

“Control yourself. The quest is important for you isn’t it. Bear it for now,” whispered Kiriti in Karma’s ear. Irrespective of whether he would take Karma’s side or not after his quest, he needed the potions as it was a good number of his own men who were dying due to poison in the marshlands.

“We accept it, but is there any chance that we could get more number of antidotes. It is hard to do it with so few of them we need at least 200 to move forward with our efforts,” said Kiriti.

“200, huh!? Is it really that hard to get rid of those beasts?” asked Balthazar.

“No, 200 is just enough to keep them at bay so that Karma can have an opportunity to finish his quest. It is just an optimistic estimate. We can do with quite a few more than that,” said Kiriti. “Any chance of that happening.”

“It is really hard. I can guarantee 80 bottles but the other 40 also can’t be guaranteed by me as I have a job and it is hard to sit down and make them. If it wasn’t for the fact that it earns money faster, I wouldn’t even consider making them,” said Balthazar.

“If you don’t have time, you can provide the recipe and instructions to our members,” suggested Karma.

“No. I am not going to sell the method. My cousin informed me that it is a very good way to make myself famous and I understand that having a signature product is quite good for a merchant,” said Balthazar.

“A merchant. You plan to set up shop permanently in the town?” asked Karma.

“Yeah. Why else would I do all this,” replied Balthazar.

“You do realize that you need help of the local guilds to be successful at it, right?” asked Karma.

“I was also told that the local guilds would prioritize access and farming of a new area to any other thing and having stuff like that in one’s monopoly is a very good card to establish a good co-operation,” replied Balthazar.

Kiriti couldn’t stop himself from laughing when he hear Balthazar’s reply. He was sure that Balthazar was going to have his way as he already realized his advantage. Though Karma was a competitive player of the guild, he wouldn’t have enough power to prevent the guild members to kill monsters in an area. The guild would force him to not retaliate for earning more money. After all, the main goal of a guild was to earn money using the guild. Karma also realized the same and decided to relent.

“Fine, it could be acc.u.mulated in two days time, right?” asked Karma.

“160 doses of antidote? Yes.”

“Yeah, we will bid and win the remaining 80 from the shop’s daily auction too,” said Karma. “What is the name of the shop?”

“Thinking of Free Life trading,” said Balthazar.

“Good, your terms are acceptable to us. I hope we can set up a contract right now,” said Karma.

“Wait, a minute that was just my first condition. There are a couple more,” said Balthazar. Kiriti indicated with has hand to carry on while Karma kept quiet.

“You can never force us to sell you anything for a lower price or stop any people from selling their wares to us,” continued Balthazar. Both Karma and Kiriti expected this. Since, Balthazar had an advantage currently, they expected him to make full use of it. The only special item Balthazar had was the antidote currently and hence, they didn’t expect it would cause much problem to their control over the town. They definitely had other methods to hinder the shop’s growth if they wanted to. The looked at each other and nodded towards Balthazar in agreement.

“And lastly, this is a personal request. I intend to kill the Knuckers and would like to participate along with you in the fight,” said Balthazar. “I hope no one has any issues with that?”

“You intend to kill those monsters?” asked Karma surprised. This was a request which made no sense unless one had a special quest to kill them. “How many of them? Do you need their body parts as materials or something?”

Karma was a bit conflicted with this request as his own quest was to get an egg from the cave. If Balthazar had a quest to kill one of the beasts, it might continue to gather the egg or something similar which would conflict with his. So, he wanted to know more detail of the quest.