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Volume 11 Chapter 3 Part 3

The rip off bar master bows his head.

Actually, Sebastian is the General Secretary.

「Please.」

「Could you please come here?」

「Sure.」

I drink the rest of the herbal tea left in the cup and stand up. Because it is expensive, I didn’t want to waste even a single drop of it.

Roxanne and the girls also finish drinking their cups of herbal tea and leave their seats.

「This room is available for meetings or socializing with the members of fellow Parties. There is another similar room on the second floor, so please order it without any hesitation. You can also order food and drinks any time you’ll feel like it.」

Sebastian explains things to us while we’re walking.

The room is not charged, but the beverages are? That is why it is expensive, I guess, even if such a practice seems kinda strange.

That reminds me, the Baron didn’t mention anything about the fees associated with joining the Society, but now I see that there seem to be additional charges for other kinds of services since there is no membership fee per se.

「I will order it when the right time comes.」

「This lodge basically is a private facility. There is a door that connects to the outside but it is for supplies and us Secretaries’ use. Members can’t use it except for the cases of utmost emergency, so whenever you’ll be coming here, make sure to do so through the wall in the lobby using 「Field Walker」, please.」

「Is that so?」

I already heard from the Baron that this lodge is in the Imperial City, but it is for the members’ exclusive use and is closed to all the non-members? Or is its location in the Imperial City also kept secret, perhaps?

If it is called the Imperial City, it should be pretty vast, right?

The Imperial City should be a little vast since it is the capital city of the entire empire, after all.
The consumption of MP in case of 「Field Walker and 「Warp」 changes based on the distance that has been travelled, so I can probably figure out where it is located based on that.

「There is a big assembly room on the second floor and a reference room on the third floor as well.」

Sebastian shows us around the lodge and explains before we stop at the stairs leading to the higher floors. The first floor is large in itself, and you’re telling me that there is still a second and third floor like that? Also…

「The reference room?」

「That’s right, Lady Sherry. There are memos and activity logs of various members of the Empire Liberation Society stored there, as well as the Labyrinth strategy guides left by the other members.」

「Can only the official members have access to viewing them?」

Sherry has really gotten into this subject, huh? I understand how much she wants to have a look at them though.

「The Party Members of a member belonging to the Society’s ranks receive the same treatment as the members themselves. If Lord Michio becomes a member that’s going to be sufficiently trusted, then it’s going to be possible for Lady Sherry to gain access to the reference room and the materials stored within it.」

「I understand.」

The memos and the strategy guides may contain useful information, so it might be a good idea to let Sherry take a look at them later down the line.

「The back room there has been turned into a store.」

Sebastian enters one of the back rooms and explains.

Do they sell souvenirs there? That is what I initially thought, but it turns out that I was wrong. This shop is the one that’s selling amours, spears and other equipment like that.

Oh right, come to think of it, the Duke did say that equipment can be bought and sold in the
Empire Liberation Society.

「So you sell equipment here?」

「Yes. Although we don’t have that many, we deal in powerful equipment made of Orichalcum and equipment that comes with Skills embedded into it.」

Certainly, one of the spears that I checked out was indeed an Orichalcum Spear. And I knew that Orichalcum Spear must exist, because Orichalcum Sword also exist, as it was evident by the one that the Duke had on him.

I stand in front of the Orichalcum Spear and look at the tip of it.

「It appears to be a good spear.」

「Here in this lodge, buying and selling equipment involves points rather than money. When you sell a powerful item or an equipment with Skills in it, you receive an appropriate amount of points in accordance with the item. Conversely, when you buy anything from the Society, you will need to spend points instead of money.」

You buy things from this store by using the points you earn for selling things, huh? In other words, you will have to sell things here before you can buy things from here, which means that it will probably be useless to sell them a weapon which can be bought from an ordinary Weapons Shop.

After all, the Weapons Shop in Quratar didn’t have any Orichalcum weapons for sale, so they will probably only accept powerful weapons, like the Orichalcum Spear right here, or a weapon with Skills for it to work.
As for me, Sherry can fuse Monster Skill Crystals without failing the fusion, it should be possible for me to sell equipment with Skills in this store, enabling me to buy powerful weapons using the accumulated points.

Besides, it’s not like I particularly want this Orichalcum Spear, because it doesn’t have any Empty Skill Slots in it, which makes it useless to me.

However, since I have my 「Identify」Bonus Skill, not only I am able to tell whether the weapon on sale is a genuine article or a counterfeit, but I can also tell if it has Empty Skill Slots in it or not, so I just have to wait for when they have one for sale.

But the real problem here is going to be the following: how much is the equipment that can be bought in this store going to cost? That, and from what I can see, not many pieces of equipment are being put on display here.

There is only this one Orichalcum Spear, for example. Maybe there is not that much supply of Orichalcum Spears, and that’s the reason for it?

I mean, even though it is the Empire Liberation Society’s store, who would want to sell such a weapon in the first place?

Both the Duke and the Baron probably have more money than they know what to do with it, and they fight on higher floors in the Labyrinths, so one can guess that there is more demand to buy such weapons than the people who would actually want to sell them.

This system where you cannot buy unless you sell is really ingenious.

「Does it sell well?」

「If it wasn’t a part of the services provided by the Empire Liberation Society, then it probably couldn’t be classified as a lucrative business. As for individual equipment, it may sell immediately, but sometimes it may remain unsold for quite a long time.」

So it is like this, huh?

I will need to frequently visit this store and keep an eye on the wares that they’re going to have in stock, it seems.

There are a few other equipment beside the spear, so I looked through them, but the only item available in multiple numbers is the Sacrificial Misanga. To be exact, three Sacrificial Misangas are on display right now.

「You even have Sacrificial Misanga’s here?」

「You seem to know your way around equipment well. Sacrificial Misanga is not an equipment that can normally be purchased, but here, it is treated as a consumable item instead.」
「A consumable item? Is it really consumed that frequently?」

「As it frequently breaks, we have it in stock since many members of the Society tend to buy it on a regular basis. Since consuming it requires points, it is normally procured through the auctions in the Quratar’s Merchant’s Guild unless there is an emergency.」

So there is no need to spend points on something which can be obtained through the auction? That might be a useful piece of information.

They probably buy it for emergencies since no one knows when it will be exhibited at the auction as well. Now, what would happen if someone’s Sacrificial Misanga broke and there were no spares available for purchase?

「So that’s how it is.」

「As for the price, we receive it at an appropriate one. The price at which we buy here is considerably lower than the price it can be sold through the auction though.」