Chapter 61
Anton’s family and their guards’ family spent the rest of the night listening to him play the lute and sing. He sang love songs, rock songs, country songs, pop songs. He spent a couple of hours singing and he was impressed that his body could do all those singing without any issue and he guessed that it had to do with his increased stats.
“You know so many songs brother! I was kidding before when I mentioned that if being a wizard doesn’t work out, you can be a bard but honestly you can be a bard! Your voice is truly magical,” Anna said.
“I agree Sir Anton! Your voice is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard,” Lunelle said and usually she would receive reprimand from her father if she showed any sort of admiration towards Anton but all he could see was his father, and everyone else for that matter, agreeing with the girl.
“Thank you all, you are a nice audience,” Anton joked.
After that, he left everyone to their devices and went inside his tent that somebody set up for him. When he was lying down on his sleeping mat, he maximized the game and started playing using the on-screen option and spent an hour hunting runes from the Countess in the Black Marsh zone in the Normal Difficulty. He wanted to get all the runes for an Insight runeword weapon since a high-level Meditation Aura would be highly useful to him in real life. He had not used the Larzuk quest reward yet. At first, he thought of using it on a crystal sword to get the Spirit runeword sword and he even had the runes for it already but Anton thought that the Insight runeword weapon for his mercenary could be a better choice since a high-level Meditation Aura would be more useful in the game and the real world since its healing effect would be much greater and the mana regeneration would help him in not needing to drown in mana potions.
Anton hunted some more runes and then after a while, he felt sleepy so he minimized the game once he went back to the Rogue Encampment beside his private stash and slept. The next day he was woken up by his father and after setting up their toilet and bath in the nearby forest with a huge barrel full of mana water, he joined everyone for breakfast.
“Father in the next village please have someone cook more varieties of food for us so we can have more. Even simpler food like porridge and stuff would be better than eating the same three stews every day. We should also buy more bread since we're going through our stocks faster. I also recommend that we should start thinking about beginning to hunt more animals again for meat and then we can butcher, and season them and put them in a storage barrel or box fully seasoned and ready for cooking.”
“You’re right son. Once we collected enough meat, spices, raw vegetables, and grains we could spend a day or two just cooking so we don’t need to spend any time cooking while we’re traveling. It will be much faster overall.”
“I can take that job, I can have all those cooked for you since I have the experience and you Sir Anton, and your father can just concentrate on your business once we’re in a village,” Nermina said.
“Okay, it’s decided then. Nermina will be our cook and Lunelle will help her and of course, she will receive compensation while me, Anton, and Anna deal with our business in our village.”
Nermina protested that they didn’t need to receive any pay since they would be cooking food for themselves as well but Anders just ignored her and talked to Lucas about his wife’s compensation.
“Nermina just let them be. You will not be able to change my Father’s mind and we are going to earn a lot of money with the items that we’re buying as you saw.”
Lucas’s wife nodded then she put on a thoughtful look. Whatever she may be concocting in her mind they will all know sooner or later.
After breakfast, they all spent some time bathing and changing their clothes while Anton handled their soiled clothing. They wanted to look like rich prosperous merchants when they entered the village so people would sell them their old worn-out and broken equipment.
He wanted to fix the carriage as well so it would look brand new.
“Father before we leave give me a second to check if I can lift the carriage so I can put it inside my magical space and have it fixed to look brand new.” Anders just nodded to his son’s suggestion.
Anton was not sure if he could lift the whole carriage. Based on what he found on the internet doing a quick search, an average carriage weighs a ton and even though he was stronger because of the added stats in strength, he didn’t think that he could lift a ton. He didn’t need to lift it for too long, just a second would do, and looking at their carriage, he thought that it may be lighter than what the internet said. Maybe the average in his world was different from this one, he hoped.
He first tried it with Telekinesis and at first, he thought it was impossible but Anton was able to lift the whole carriage for just a millimeter off the ground for a fracture of a second and that was enough to put it in his inventory. It took a whole page of inventory but he was successful. He then had Charsi repair the vehicle for him which made him glad that he made all that effort.
When Anton took out the carriage from his inventory, the vehicle looked brand new and beautiful. Like something a truly rich noble would commission.
“Our carriage is so pretty! Now we really look like nobles! Since the carriage is big enough we should have Nermina and Lunelle join us especially since they’re also wearing pretty clothes,” Anna suggested.
“Anna's idea is good Father. Once you hire a driver, all of us will still fit inside the carriage since it’s spacious and we can add Nermina’s horse to our horses and buy another one so there will be four horses pulling us and it will be easier for the animals.”
“We’ll think about it once we reach the next village,” Anders said.
They began their journey and this time Anna rode the carriage since she wanted to ride the brand new-looking vehicle and look like a pretty little noble girl.
Anton ignored his sister and maximized the game to enter the Cow Level. He decided to use Larzuk quest reward to make an Insight runeword polearm weapon and he was hoping to get at level seventeen Meditation Aura. Even the least which was level twelve would still be much more helpful for him compared to the Spirit runeword sword for real-world applications.
While doing the Cow Level in the Normal Difficulty of the Diablo II game, he was lucky enough to get a Voulge weapon so after finishing the zone, he went directly to Act V and had Larzuk put sockets on the weapon and new four-socket weapon appeared.