Erwahllu Anklet Shop!
It was a dingy shop spanning a breadth of three metres and a couple metres in length. The shop's entrance was an old table on which a bunch of anklets were placed. Judging by the dust covering them, it had been a while since any customers appeared.
These anklets were unsold for months. Staring at them vacantly, seated behind the table with a paper fan in her hands was an old woman that kept watch on the narrow street.
This narrow street was once a bustling area when a local gang was active in the place and used it as their base of operations. But when the scale of their activity got too high-profile, the City Lord sent troops to curb the disturbance.
The gang was dissolved. The members were punished according to their criminal activities. Those who had committed milder crimes were sentenced to life at the mines. The rest were killed.
The gang members unfortunately had been children and family members of the shop owners of this street. With the gang destroyed, the older parents grew despondent. The majority of them simply waited for their deaths as they sat idly in their shops.
Erwahllu was one such woman. She was in her late eighties and was simply counting the days to her death.
Beside the shop was a gate leading into a large courtyard spanning at least two hundred square metres in area. This once used to be the area for the shop's logistics. Placed to the right and left of the courtyard were buildings serving as workplaces to create the anklets.
One was a plant for processing the raw materials while the other was for the end carving process. Both were decrepit now, having been abandoned for years, if not decades.
At the rear end of the courtyard was a house. It was a double-storey house with a balcony at the top, nothing fancy for the area, but it was comfortable enough to live in.
When Inala scouted through the city for a place to live, he chanced upon the house.
Upon arriving at a halt near the entrance, Inala stared at Erwahllu and bowed, "Grandma, I've arrived."
"I have transferred ownership of this place to you already." Erwahllu didn't even bat an eye as she placed a slab on the table. Carved on it was Inala's name and face, detailing his ownership of the place.
Carved on the back side were a map and accurate dimensions of the land area he owned. It had already been registered.
Inala barely used half of the money he stole from Safara to make the purchase. Considering the fact that this narrow alley was adjacent to the main road, he basically got it for dirt cheap.
"Grandma, this is my wife, Asaeya." Inala pointed at the luxuriously dressed woman and then lifted baby Gannala and approached Erwahllu, "She's my daughter."
"What a lovely child." Erwahllu smiled gently as she touched baby Gannala. Her eyes moistened, recalling her family that had been killed.
Many merchants had approached her after that incident to purchase her property. They were all based on the main road. So, they could easily extend their shop areas to encompass hers after they acquire it.
Erwahllu never gave in, and so did the rest of the people on the narrow street. They hated the big merchants to the core, since they were the cause that prompted the City Lord to destroy the gang.
She was stubborn originally, but now, she was in the last stretch of her life, not knowing if she would live to see the next day. Aware that her property would simply be seized by the large merchants upon her death, she hoped someone would come buy it.
Of course, the large merchants prevented anyone from doing so, keeping her property unsold for years since she had the thought. That changed upon Inala's arrival.
"This place is very old." Asaeya commented as she walked through the courtyard, "The buildings will collapse the moment we start our training."
"Well, hardly anyone lived in here for decades." Inala said, "So, it's only natural. You shouldn't focus on this. This place is right next to the main road. With a bit of advertisement, I can bring in a lot of traffic."
The once-silent courtyard became noisy at the arrival of the family of three. Erwahllu calmly stared at them, feeling the final days of her life wouldn't be dull and uninteresting.
"Grandma, can we rebuild the place?" Inala asked, respectfully. Even though he had gained ownership of the place, the clause in their contract stated Erwahllu would reside in the place until she died of old age.
He wasn't bothered by it. Or rather, he welcomed it. An old grandma was the best to have around when raising a kid. She could impart wisdom to baby Gannala through her life experiences.
"Do whatever you want." Erwahllu didn't seem to mind, "You're the owner now."
"Thank you." Inala bowed and began to discuss with Asaeya about the rebuilding plans.
'He's such a polite child.' Erwahllu thought as she observed Inala and Asaeya. 'They are young and strong. Judging by their clothes and mannerisms, they are probably nobles that had fled here from another city.'
Politics existed everywhere. It wasn't rare for someone in power to lose everything to a rivalling family member and was met with no other choice but to flee somewhere else. A glance at Inala and she knew he had a history. It was one of the reasons she decided to sell her home to him.
Erwahllu remained seated in her place while Inala began to transfer the wares on the cart into the house.
It hadn't even been a few minutes since their arrival when a group of men, armed with blades approached the shop. There were seven of them, at varying levels of strength at the Spirit Stage.
The one at the lead was a burly man with a rough moustache. His beard seemed like a patchwork on his face, irregular and unkempt, granting him the perfect appearance of a thug.
Staring at the cart, the burly man snorted aloud, "A bastard dares buy the shop that Establishment Lord Maharell was eyeing?"
"You rotten old woman. Have you gone senile?" He growled at Erwahllu, growing angrier upon seeing her ignore his existence.
He shifted his gaze to the cart and stared at the wares on it, grinning cunningly as he kicked the cart with all his strength, intending to demolish it. His foot slammed into it with a bang, denting the wooden exterior.
But unlike what he had assumed, the cart didn't break, for a moment confusing him. Before he could attack again, he lost consciousness.
When he woke up, he, along with his six cronies, were tied up on the floor, forced to kneel. Casually seated before them was Inala who stared at them as if they were dirt, "Say…"
His voice oozed power and authority, causing the burly man's heart rate to spike, "How many limbs do you wish to retain?"
"Your choice is between limbless and death."