Soul Art Online

- Shiroe -

He looked at the people across the table from them.

The place and scene were the same, even the people were the same as one week ago and yet things had changed completely.

Last time they had been on the backfoot and yet this time they had the initiative.

"I wasn't expecting you to call me, Mr. Gareth." He said, lying through his teeth.

They were just waiting for this and just like it was predicted, the other side had contacted them in one week.

Gareth looked a bit miffed but took another look at his teammates before looking at him.

"We are here for a trade."

"Oh?"

"The two pieces of the Blessed Sun Set for three hundred and fifty thousand gold coins." He said after some hesitation.

Three hundred and fifty thousand was still more than the expected price of the two pieces, even with the set effect.

However it was not him but Veena who spoke.

This time however both Shiroe and Arthas had left making deals to Veena.

She seemed to have experience in these sorts of things.

"Three hundred and fifty thousand is a bit too much for us. I am afraid we cannot go any further than two hundred thousand."

"Oh knock it off. Everyone knows you won a buttload of gold from Dwain." The man replied gruffly.

"Yes. Mr. Dwain was kind enough to give us some funds. Too unfortunate what happened to him. But as you might have heard, we have started a new Guild and all our funds have been invested in the said Guild. We hardly have any funds left for other trades." She smiled.

"You could always borrow." He asked and Shiroe had the urge to roll his eyes.

As if any of his team members would ever fall for that trap after seeing what happened to Dwain.

"That's not possible either. We have also taken loans and invested it in the Guild." She lied with her smile not faltering even one bit.

"Then, what's your budget?"

"We can afford two hundred thousands at best if we push it." She replied.

"That's too low." Gareth shouted.

She just shrugged. "Maybe….but we don't exactly have any urgent need for the two pieces."

"Huh?" The man was taken aback by the statement from Veena.

She kept her smile and explained. "I think you are missing the point here. Even without those pieces, our team is by far the strongest team in this town. If anything, we are having difficulty finding stronger enemies here. We are in no hurry to buy the two pieces."

"You mean you would just let that 10% bonus on attack and defence go? Don't bluff in front of me."

"Hehehehe, what makes you think I am bluffing? To begin with, we were not the ones who initiated this meeting. Why would you think we are dying for the two pieces? I won't lie that it would be helpful for us but it's not worth putting ourselves under debt."

"This price is already a lot lower than before."

"Than before….maybe. But….that's not how business works, Mr. Gareth. Business works on supply and demand. Sure you have supply right now, but you have no demand for the items."

Gareth narrowed his eyes. "Do you think we cannot sell these items?"

"Oh sure you could….but no one would pay you the price you are looking for. I mean sure Dwain and his team could have bought it for the three piece set effect….but now that's not an option either. If you sell it to anyone else other than us, they won't get any set effect and you will have to sell it for the price of a normal item, which would be lower than what we are offering. You already know that two hundred thousand is already a good price….the best you can get….so why don't we cut the games here."

"We could always use it ourselves." He threatened.

She returned a smile in response to his threat. "Obviously but….I don't think you are that stupid. Would you really let go of a good deal for your pride? If so then I would be mistaken in my assessment."

"That's enough. We have no deal. Two hundred thousand is very low. The lowest we can go is three hundred thousand and six guild slots for all our team members with a guarantee that you will not remove us from the guild." Gareth offered.

Shiroe raised an eyebrow and was about to speak but someone else spoke first.

"That's not possible." Arthas rejected the offer resolutely. 

"Why? It's not a bad deal for you. Five places in the guild would just cost you five thousand gold coins and still have more than one year's worth of money from the five of us."

Arthas rolled his eyes. "What you are asking for is not just the matter of money. It would imply that whatever you do, we will not have the power to kick you out. This not only gives you the power to implicate us, drag our reputation down the mud at will or even incite discontent in our guild. I am not going to give anyone that kind of power in my guild. If you break the rules, you get kicked. That's the first and foremost rule of my guild. I will not negotiate on that."

"You are making a hard bargain here."

"I am not even in the mood to bargain. It's you who has called us here for all this." Arthas replied, unphased.

"Then we have nothing to discuss. This is our final offer." Gareth got up with his teammates and got ready to leave.

It was then that Veena spoke. "And is that the decision of your whole team?" She asked, looking at the other members of the team, especially the one who had won the helmet.

They looked at her and she continued. "It would seem I was indeed mistaken in my assessment. You are asking for the impossible and in doing so rejecting a great deal offered to you. Do you realise that by doing so, you are not only making a loss yourself but also for your team members? Are your teammates also willing to let go of the deal for your pride alone?"

His team members looked at her with narrowed eyes while the guy himself glared at her. "What exactly are you insinuating here?"

"Hmm, I am just saying that at this point of the game, two hundred thousand gold coins is a huge sum which could take you months to earn. It could help equip your entire team with better equipment and allow you to buy consumables which might potentially save your lives. You might not know this but the surrounding areas are infested with bandits now and any of those teams have T4 Bandit Leaders in them. They are different from any goblins. They are cunning and can use any trick to take you down. Are you sure you want to face them with sub-standard equipment? You do know that one Healing Pill or one good piece of armour could be the difference between life and death for people." She added.

Gareth's team members shifted a bit at her words and looked at the guy.

"And even if we forget that, what's to say that another large scale quest might pop up any day. Will you let your team be under equipped because of this?"

Wow….she was really good with her words. Shiroe could see Gareth's team members, the same people who hadn't said one word since the meeting started, throwing looks at him.

The guy was about to say something when one of his team members put a hand on his shoulders. "Gareth….we should talk a bit first."

Gareth looked at the guy incredulously. "Keith, are you falling for this woman's…."

"Let's discuss things once more, Gareth." Messer, the guy who won the helmet said.

"You can't be serious Messer?"

"I am…." Messer looked at Shiroe and his team. "Just give us some time."

Veena smiled at him and nodded. "Sure. Why not? Take your time."

They left the inn for some time and when they returned, they made a counter offer.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand gold coins with slots in the guild for five members of his team."

Veena spoke at this time. "Two hundred and twenty thousand and only if you all agree to follow the rules of the Guild. No special treatment will be given to you for all that you haven't earned but you can rest assured that you won't be discriminated against either. While we still stand by the point of kicking anyone who breaks the rules of the guild, you will not be kicked without any reason after the trade is completed if that's what you are worried about."

They looked at each other and finally nodded.

________________________________x____________________________________

"And that's how the whole thing went." Shiroe completed narrating the whole meeting to Star.

"Wow, that's why they are suddenly in the guild now. If I am honest, I didn't think you would recruit him. You did say to put him in the reserve list after all."

Arthas sighed. "That was my plan but Veena convinced me otherwise."

"Oh?"

"It would have been a huge waste, you see." Veena explained. "It is beyond doubt that Gareth and his friends are good players, among the best in this town. A Guild levels up when its members complete quests. Right now, we have mostly production class members and very few of them venture in the fields. This means that they can only do selected types of quests which in turn reduces the speed of our guild levelling up."

She took a sip of water and continued. " We have established the first guild in the game, which means we are ahead of several others. If we want to keep this lead up, we need to have a good speed of levelling the guild level too. For that we need more players who do quests….players like Gareth. Obviously, that doesn't mean we can allow them to do whatever they want in the guild. I wholly agree with Arthas' decision of following the rules to the letter. For an organisation to run smoothly, especially in this kind of world, we need a strict set of guidelines and a leadership who will enforce it properly. This is something that cannot be compromised with."

"Agreed. And it's not like we had some big grudge with them." Shiroe said.

"Well, let's leave all those topics for later. First things first, did you get any information on where we could hunt monsters suitable for our levels? Things are getting slower."

Shiroe rolled his eyes. "If anyone else hears you, they would probably beat you up….or at least try to. You are gaining one level every two days or so on average at T5. That's already insane."

I scratched my head sheepishly while the guy continued.

"But I get your point. The areas around Llyne are not as challenging anymore. We need to go further. I did ask around and found three areas." He brought out a map and spread it on the table.

"The northern mountains are full of T4 and T5 creatures. If we cross it, we can enter the Elven territories. Currently the Elves have a ceasefire treaty with the Kingdom and do not interfere with each other's territories so the other side of the Northern Mountains are out. The Southern Marshlands have plenty of animals of high levels but most of them are poisonous and marshlands are hard to fight in so it's out too till we have more members. Finally, we have the Western Forests. The inner area of the forest has plenty of T4 and T5 animals and if we follow the river, we could even reach the other side of the forest to the city of Lannisport. This is a port city which is also under the Greenfrost territory."

And here he looked at us. "From what I have heard, there is an island a little distance from there which has some good stuff for sale once in a while, especially in the black market auctions. It's not under the jurisdiction of the kingdom and that place is almost independent and even pirates sell their loot there so there is stuff from other kingdoms and continents there."

"Oh, what's the name of the place?"

"Sabaody Archipelago."

….

….

….

….

He wouldn't…?

Oh who was I kidding? He obviously would.

That guy made an entire system based on memes….what's another few references from anime?

Still that means, I could probably get chances of using some references there and gain more skills.

"What kind of stuff are we talking about?" Star asked.

"Anything. Apparently, that place literally sells anything which money can buy. Weapons, recipes, skill books, medicines, armour….even people of different races. As long as you have money, you can buy anything there. That place is often visited by nobles from different kingdoms especially for the auctions."

"Well, it looks like you already know where we are going then." I smiled and looked at others.

"I am fine with it." Star shrugged at the suggestion.

"Oh my, I haven't been to the beach in a long time." Veena smiled.

"Alright then, it's decided then."

We decided to go there after collecting some more funds.

Currently, between the four of us, we have around one million and two hundred thousand gold coins but who knows how much things would cost there.

This did however push our plans to buy another building in Llyne on the side for now.

Then came the topic of the new members. We still needed some other classes in our team like a healer and a supporter.

"Healer is the most important and Supporters like Bards are incredibly hard to play. They have little to no attack power at the start so we will probably have to train them by ourselves." Shiroe said.

"Do you have anyone in mind?" I asked.

"Actually, I do." He nodded. "Remember the girl we saved, Elaine?"

I nodded.

"Yes, she is training to become a mage. I have seen her play when she asked me for some advice and she has a good sense of conserving her MP in a fight. I think she had the potential to be trained into a good healer."

"Would she though?" I asked.

"I will try to talk to her. I have heard a lot of good things about her from Clarissa." Veena said.

Clarissa was her friend who takes care of the administrative side of the guild.

"Yes. She was hired as the Bookkeeper for the guild and is doing the job well."

"Great, then Veena can talk to her and see if she agrees."

"Alright then we start our next trip in three days. I don't want to delay our levelling for long." I finished.

Sabaody Archipelago….please don't there be any World Nobles….or I might just kill someone.

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Beta Note: The advance chapters are in order of what is updated, a first Tier will not get 2 advanced chapters for every story, only the next two to be released.

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Author's Note:

I am back with another chapter of Soul Art Online.

This chapter was a bit slow. I needed to wrap up everything and make an interlude chapter of sorts to show Arthas and the team's strength and progress.

The new plot will start from the next chapters.

Anyways, a few things happened in this chapter.

Arthas shut up the idiots causing trouble.

Veena is slowly trying to ease Arthas into the information about the Supernatural world and he is starting to have doubts.

Eliane is there.

What twist would her being there bring to our story?

And finally, Sabaody….

What will happen in Sabaody….we just have to wait and see.

Next chapter will be Isekai Restaurant.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.