Dungeon Item Shop: Volume 2: The original litRPG, item-shop light-novel! (Dungeon Item Shop - The original item-Shop litRPG!), page 10
"Ah, but didn’t w -"
"No, dip-shit!" barks Jubilee, looking back up at her. "The merchants’ guild had no idea how the fuck you did that and they hired the thieves’ guild to look into it." Jubilee turns around, now that they’re somewhere empty of people. "You don’t think they just dropped it and forgot it, do you?" asks her friend, incredulously. "It was a huge fucking deal!"
"Ah… well… actually…" Fresh scratches her cheek, feeling a little embarrassed. Jubilee sighs.
"Let’s just say I was owed an old favor and that we managed to come to a mutually beneficial agreement."
"An agreement?" asks Fresh, somewhat unsure.
"An agreement," nods Jubilee, plucking the satchel from their belt and tossing it to her. Fresh yelps, just barely managing to catch the bag full of jangling metal. "Come on, you’re paying for dinner tonight. We’re going to need our energy tomorrow," says Jubilee. "Plus there's something else that we need to talk about with the others."
Fresh blinks, looking at the bag in her hands. "Are we going to the dungeon again?" she asks excitedly.
"What? No, goo-brain," snaps Jubilee. "We’re buying a house."
Fresh looks down at the bag in her hands, pulling open the drawstrings to reveal seven giant, golden Obols inside. The largest variants that she knows of. There aren’t any faces on the front of the coins. Rather, there are hollow skulls, smiling the widest smiles that she has ever seen.
(Fresh) got: [{70000} Obols] !
Chapter 125: Stained
"There’s something else," says Jubilee, finishing their explanation of the events that had led up to this point, while they are rolling their bed-roll together. All of them are inside of their room in the western adventurers’ guild.
"Huh?" Fresh looks over towards them, staring over Basil’s back. The priestess is hunched down forward and fighting to roll her bedroll together as well, but it keeps undoing itself. Jubilee takes a moment to glance at the other two in the room, perhaps judging a second time if this next topic was okay to talk about in their presence.
"Did you do something witchy?" asks Jubilee. "To that fuck from the merchants’ guild?"
Fresh looks around the room, glancing over her friends who all stare her way now. "Me?" she points to herself. "No, why?" she asks. Does Jubilee maybe mean back then? When she had jinxed him?
Jubilee doesn’t say anything, eyeing her carefully as if sizing her up. "Because he melted."
Fresh blinks. "He what?"
"He melted," repeats Jubilee, pointing at her. "It was a huge scene apparently. Happened while we were out in the forest," they explain. "He was talking to some big-names and he just… melted." Jubilee shrugs. "Everything but the eyes."
"I didn’t do anything!" says Fresh instinctively, scratching her cheek a second later and wondering if maybe she actually did do something. Wait. He melted? Her eyes open wide as she connects the dots. "Jubilee! Is he dead?!" asks the girl, failing to notice Basil knelt down in front of her as she rushes towards Jubilee. Both of them yelp as Fresh stumbles over the priestess, falling down onto the floor. "Ah! I’m sorry, Basil. Are you okay?" asks Fresh, climbing back up to her feet but not looking at the priestess.
"I’m fine," says Basil, wheezing a little as the bedroll she had just finished rolling into a tube had pressed itself into her stomach. "Be careful, okay?"
"Okay, sorry Basil!" says Fresh, staring at Jubilee ready to get back to the subject at hand. "Jubilee wha -?!"
Jubilee rolls their eyes, putting up a hand to interrupt her. "What the fuck do you think happened when I said he literally melted like a fucking snowman up a dragon’s ass?" asks Jubilee. "That he somehow did that without dying?" Jubilee places their hands on their hips, staring at her. "Dumb-ass."
"Jubileeeee~!" cries Fresh in distraught horror as she clutches her face, as she realizes what this means. If the black-contract that had been broken had killed the man, that means her spell killed someone. A person. A human. That means that she…
"What? If you had nothing to do with it, then why are you so angsty?" remarks Jubilee. "I mean. There are literally thousands of people who can turn someone into a black puddle of shit. Oh. Wait…" Fresh feels her hands shaking, she feels the ever increasing beat of her heart move her body as a cold layer of sweat wicks on her skin. Fresh feels all eyes on her now.
"I- I -" she stutters, realizing that she’s a murderer now. Was this it? The worst thing that she’s ever done? Were they all going to be disgusted by her now? Afraid of her now?
"That’s not possible," says Basil. Fresh looks back to her, turning around. "She was with us in the forest the entire time. No spell can go that far."
Jubilee shrugs. "Look, I don’t give a shit. It’s a good thing in my eyes. A long time coming. I just wanna know how she did it, so we can do it to more people in the future."
"Jubilee!" yells Fresh.
"What? Just being honest. Sometimes people have to be killed," says Jubilee, waving them off. "Right, meat-head?" they ask, looking at Shamrock who hasn’t said anything yet, though that in itself is perhaps the norm.
Shamrock looks over to them, having long since finished packing by simply crushing his bed-roll into a giant ball that he stuffed into his bag a little too roughly, tearing one of the straps somewhat. "A heavy soul less makes the world lighter."
"Uh, yeah. Sure, I guess?" says Jubilee. "Everyone’s a fucking poet. Gods give me strength." They turn back to Fresh. "So? Was it a curse? Or did you poison him?"
"Those are horrible things to say!" argues Basil, standing next to her as she starts to argue with Jubilee.
Fresh stands there, feeling fairly lost in her emotions right now as she watches the two of them argue. She’s not even really listening to their words anymore. They just float towards her like empty sounds that her mind doesn’t pay any attention to, as it is occupied with other things. She clenches her fists. No more secrets.
"I think it was my fault," says Fresh, looking at them. Jubilee, standing on the bed, has their finger pressed against Basil’s forehead, who looks ready to bite it off. Fresh rubs her arm nervously. "There’s something else I should tell you."
The girl spends the next few minutes explaining the windows with the black-contract and how they have appeared several times now, including for most of them. Everyone is silent for a moment after she finishes her story, everyone except Shamrock who can be heard through his excited breathing.
Jubilee starts. "And you didn’t think that something called a ‘black-contract’ was ridiculously evil and shady to start with?" they ask. Their tone is more amused than horrified.
Fresh doesn’t have an answer and rubs her arm, looking away. "I didn’t make it happen on purpose…"
"It makes sense," says Basil, quietly. "With such a suspicious patron… but…" Basil looks around the room. "I suppose I have no position to argue, since I’m alive because of the contract." Shamrock’s chest heaves as he lets out another breath. Basil turns to look back up at Fresh, who just averts her eyes, not able to meet the priestess’ gaze. "But you really didn’t do it on purpose… right?"
"No, I promise!" says Fresh, somehow managing to look back up after all.
"So wait. Are we going to melt too?" asks Jubilee. "You spooky fuck."
"Ah! No!" Fresh waves her hands. "I just… I think stuff only happens if the contract is broken."
"What the fuck does that mean?!" asks Jubilee.
"Uh…" Fresh closes her eyes to think.
"The seal was broken," says Shamrock’s gruff, heavy voice. "Pacts are sacred."
Fresh stares at him for a moment as she realizes. "Maybe he tried to do something with the house, Jubilee? Or something that went against our deal with the merchants’ guild?"
Jubilee looks at her. "So you’re saying that it was his fault that he melted?" Fresh recoils. "That’s awfully convenient for you, but you know what? Fuck em." Jubilee shrugs. "If he tried to go back on our deal because the circumstances changed, then I’m still fine with him being melted. Shady fuck."
"A man is dead," whispers Basil, some aghast.
"The world’s better off," sighs Jubilee. "You reap what you sow." Jubilee gets up off of the floor, swiping their hands together as if to dust them off. "Anyways. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s finish up here," suggests Jubilee. "If I have to eat bar-food one more night, I’m going to vomit."
Shamrock gets up, nodding once as he grabs his bag. Basil seems uneasy, sparing a glance at her for a second, but then gets up as well. Only Fresh remains sitting there on the wooden floors, looking up to her friends, feeling confused and not at all unburdened by this happening. "Is that it? You guys aren’t mad at me?"
"Nope," says Jubilee rather plainly.
Basil looks at her and then just shakes her head as well, saying nothing, as she continues to try to roll her bedroll together.
Fresh stares at them, confused. Why aren’t they terrified of her? Furious at her? Disgusted by her? She wants them to be. This is too easy. She’s getting off too easy. Why aren’t they yelling at her? Why aren’t they running off to abandon her here on her own? She wants them to. She wants to be scolded and punished, but all that’s happening is that her friends are continuing to be her friends. The work that needs to be done is being done. Only she is still sitting here, lost and distraught.
Why? Why aren’t they doing what she expected them to do? She’s getting off too easy. She always gets away with everything that she does wrong too easily. Wh-
Fresh stands up, her legs pushing her up into the air, despite the fact that she had absolutely no intention of them doing so. The girl’s hands reach downward, pressing against the fabric of her own bedroll, as she begins to roll it together, as if someone were holding her arms from behind and coercing her movements. Feeling something wet trickle down her face, she forces herself to squint, sending down a single black tear from her eye onto the bedding, leaving an obvious, dark stain where it lands.
"It’s okay to cry," says a soft voice from next to her. Fresh turns her head to look over at Basil. "Would you like to pray together with me tonight?" asks the priestess.
"Don’t indoctrinate her, you kook!" yells Jubilee.
"I am not! I’m simply trying to be supportive!" argues Basil, letting out a quiet yelp as her bedroll undoes itself again.
Fresh blinks, looking at her friends and then turning back down to look at her own bedroll, trying to find the ink stain that she had seen forming there not a few seconds ago. But there is nothing there to see, except for a normal wet spot and two, pale, shaking hands that press down against the fabric.
Chapter 126: Hole in the wall
A cool, stagnant air rushes to meet them as they open the thick, wooden front-door of the house, just outside of the dungeon-gate. The soft current isn’t as cold as the air of the tunnel outside of the building and as that lazy cloud of dusty miasma drifts past her, Fresh feels a tussle of her hair blowing behind her, as it departs to mix in with the constant mountain winds howling outside. The musty cloud fades away like a spirit lost at sea, drifting away as the fresh current takes it to a place so very distant.
Fresh stands in the door, taking in a deep breath. It smells dusty. But it’s a different kind of dust than Jubilee’s… she corrects herself, than their old house. It isn’t a dust of stagnation and of faces and times forgotten and repressed. It is simply a dust born of an absence, as if all the surfaces and nooks she sees had simply been waiting for someone to return to them. She shudders, as it all comes to meet her, the air, the dust, the darkness of the room she has still yet to set a single foot inside of.
"Well? Are you going to fucking move or are you just going to stand there all day?" snaps a sharp voice from behind her and Fresh jolts together, snapping out of her daze as Jubilee’s sudden statement frightens her a little, as it rips her from the depths of her day-dreaming.
"Ah, sorry!" says Fresh, being the first to step inside the room. She steps to the side of the door, holding her arm out in a welcoming gesture. There’s no time for these strange feelings. She has work to do. Fresh does her best to smile, still not having quite processed the events of the last few days. But she’s the party-leader, she needs to put on a brave face, she realizes, as she remembers what Shamrock had told her once. Just like she does, her friends also need something to believe in. She wants it to be her.
"Welcome home!" says Fresh excitedly with a beaming face, as the other three step inside, carrying their meager possessions on their backs.
The room itself is square, rather than the ‘L’ shape that the old house had downstairs. The front-door has two large, dusty glass windows on either side of it and the left side of the room has a solid-rock staircase, leading up to the next floor above. In the back corner, where the staircase is at its highest point, there is a door on the very bottom of it. Fresh assumes that it leads down to the basement.
"This is great," says Basil. "It’s a little smaller than the old house, but it looks… cozy," says the priestess, suddenly pinching her nose as if to stop a sneeze from forming.
"Mm!" says Fresh, looking at her friend’s dubious expression. "It’s a little dusty, but with some work and some effort, we can make it really great!" she exclaims, heading over to the windows to try and figure out how to open them. The first thing that she wants to do is air the place out, in the hopes that this suppressing weight that she feels will drift away. With any luck, it is just a part of the gloom of this old structure and not something that she herself is creating and carrying with her.
"Yeah, I can see it," says Jubilee. "Looks like the basement is back there, so we’ll put a counter up and use that as a back-room for you to do your crafting in." Jubilee turns to the stairs and starts walking up them. Fresh realizes that the stone steps don’t have a railing, she’ll have to do something about that. "It’s a problem that these stairs are right by the door, but we’ll just put something up so no customers wanders upstairs." Fresh nods, looking back to the large window as she pulls on a small wooden handle again. The wood of the frame set into the rock groans as she pulls on it. It bends out a little, but it doesn’t budge, as it is stuck firmly in place.
She grunts, trying again, but has little success. Shamrock places his giant hand under her wrists, gently pushing her arms away. Fresh watches as he grabs the handle and with a single tug, pulls the window open wide. For a moment, she is terrified that it will break off because of his strength, but it just seems to swing open as expected. It feels odd to think, but the creaking of the hinge sounds almost oddly satisfied. Like a moan that comes when a stiff body is stretched out after a long day. "Thank you," she says, smiling at the man who says nothing else and heads towards the stairs after Basil and Jubilee.
Fresh stands there, all alone, feeling more of the stale air push past her as a draft seeps through the house. Echoing voices ring out aloud from the tunnel, carrying inside of the building now and moving all through the room. The many sounds and voices fill the space with a strangely haunting presence as she stands there all alone, as if she were surrounded by ghosts on all sides.
The hairs on her neck stand on end and Fresh lets out a quiet yelp, quickly running across the room and catching up to Shamrock, as they head up the stairs together.
She was expecting a corridor up here, but there isn’t one. Instead, there is a nearly square room just about three-quarters the size as the one downstairs. The wall opposite of the front door downstairs is open with a large, thick wooden frame set into the rock with another door in it. Maybe that’s the other room? Ah, wait, maybe not. Fresh turns her head to the right, seeing the other door that Basil is now walking towards. The priestess opens it, peering inside. "I think this is the pantry?" she guesses. "No shelves though."
Jubilee sighs. "Fuck’s sake. How does this count as two rooms? Since when do pantries count as rooms? Fucking mountain-dwellers." They look around the open area and take a deep breath. "Well. It looks like we’re sleeping in the same room again." Fresh lets out an excited squeal as she stands next to Shamrock. Jubilee peers back at her, shooting her a venomous glance which tells her that she better not say anything. Opting instead to just quietly smile, Fresh heads to the left to open the door against the back wall.
The door moves with surprising ease, not resisting in the least like the windows downstairs and as she pulls it open, it seems to move on its own as a powerful wind pushes against it from the other side. The handle slips out of her grasp and it quickly swings open, hitting noisily against the rock wall behind it with a loud thud.
"Can you not break shit? We just got here," barks Jubilee at her. But Fresh doesn’t pay them any mind, as she steps out of the door, feeling a bright, heavy light wash over her. Mesmerized, she walks towards it, her feet moving as if on their own, her eyes gazing towards the shine as if drawn to the source, like a moth to a flame. The shine of the rising sun, breaking over the distant horizon. Wind encapsulates her as she walks those three or four steps across the small, stone terrace that is carved out of the side of the mountain-face. She almost feels as if the breeze were carrying her away.
The railing bumps into her stomach and Fresh stops, staring out over the world as her hands clasp the railing tightly. They aren’t particularly high up, but they are high enough to look over most of the houses on the street.
"Jubileeeee~" calls Fresh in excitement as she turns around, looking at her friends as they walk out after her. "We have a balcony!"
"Yeah? Didn’t I say that? I’m pretty sure I said that," says Jubilee, standing by the door and leaning against the wall. "So I vote that you have to sleep out here," says Jubilee plainly, raising their hand. "So we don’t have to smell your goblin feet."
"Hey!" argues Fresh, as Basil walks out trying to suppress a quiet laugh.
"It’s okay," says the priestess, nodding to Jubilee and lifting a hand to Fresh’s shoulder to console her. "She can sleep in the basement," finishes Basil, lifting a finger. Jubilee nods approvingly, lifting their hand to their mouth as they suppress a laugh with a quiet snort.
