-BANG!
The tavern doors shoved open with a loud bang, snapping every head in the room toward the entrance where I stood, completely crusted in dried blood, and gripping a cloth bag full of fresh clothes in my hand.
The place was packed wall-to-wall with armed men and women, smelling heavily of roasted meat, spilled ale, and the stench of sweat, all either celebrating today’s spoils or drinking away their losses.
And the moment I entered, the lively chatter died instantly. Every adventurer at the wooden tables stopped mid-drink to stare, and even the bard in the corner abruptly stopped.
I didn’t even bother to look back at them.
Ignoring the silence, I walked straight past the staring tables and approached the burly guy behind the bar.
"Need a room for the night,"
The bartender crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. "I’m going to need to see some ID."
Which made total sense. I was currently walking around looking like the villain of some cheap horror flick.
I dug into my pocket and produced my Adventurer’s card, and like always, pushed a bit of mana into it, making sure he saw the runes flash a bright, authentic green, before sliding it across the counter toward him.
Just like the knight outside, the bartender was visibly shocked the second he read my stats.
His eyes went wide, but he recovered quickly, giving me a stiff, cautious nod. He took the card, scribbled my details into a heavy leather ledger, and handed it back along with a rusty iron key.
"Room is eight," he muttered, keeping his voice low. "And that’d be four hundred silver."
[Might as well point a gun up to my head and straight up rob me...]
But I was in absolutely no mood to bargain, and judging by the smirk with which he was watching me, I think he understood that too.
So, I just counted out the coins, dropped them onto the counter, before grabbing the key and turning away from the bar and heading straight for the wooden stairs in the far right corner of the room.
Dragging my feet up the steps, I stepped into the dim second-floor hallway and made my way down to the very last door on the right.
I stepped inside and grabbed the thin chain dangling by the door before giving it a sharp tug, and the next moment, the mana lamps mounted on the ceiling flickered to life.
A bed sat by the window, outfitted with surprisingly clean white sheets. A full-body mirror with a massive crack in the corner leaned against the wall next to a basic wooden desk and chair. Another door across the room obviously led to the bathroom.
[Four hundred silver for this dump... But I guess being this close to a dungeon entrance makes it premium real estate.] I sighed, tossing the cloth bag onto the bed and making a beeline straight for the bathroom.
It was nowhere near as sophisticated as the one back at the estate, but it was serviceable. It even had actual hot water.
I stripped off the stiff, blood-soaked clothes, stepped under the spray, and began the purge.
Honestly, half of me expected this to play out exactly like a dramatic movie scene, the one where the traumatized protagonist just keeps scrubbing at the blood, unable to wash it away, until they finally break down sobbing on the cold tiles.
But nope. The heavy-duty soap the System had recommended I buy earlier was genuinely fantastic. The gore washed right down the drain in under five minutes.
Stepping back out into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist, I stopped in front of the cracked mirror and froze.
Staring back at me in the reflection were two piercing violet eyes.
[Again?] I thought, my heart immediately doing a panicked backflip. [System, are you seeing this? My eyes turned violet again!]
-Ding!
{Scanning... ... No abnormalities detected.}
[Ghh... I am so not in the mood for this shit...] I groaned, throwing my head back in sheer exhaustion. [Just buy me a pair of shorts, some underwear, a few hot dogs, and a can of cola.]
-Ding!
{Purchase complete.
Items stored in the inventory. 192 credits remaining.}
Pulling out the ’nightware’ directly from my inventory, I slipped into them before practically collapsing into the wooden chair in front of the desk, pulling my highly nutritious, very out-of-place dinner from the inventory a second later.
I scarfed the hot dogs down in massive bites, nearly choking on the bread, after all, I hadn’t eaten a single thing since the morning, and the massive adrenaline crash was making me absolutely ravenous.
After a few more bites and a long, burning chug of the cola, I leaned back in the chair and wiped my mouth.
[Okay, System,] I thought, closing my eyes. [Let’s sort out the inventory...]
The next second, the blue interface popped open in front of my vision. My grid-structured inventory only had ten slots, and right now, it was an absolute mess.
I scanned the occupied squares: my last Grade 2 Healing Potion, the potted Azoth spirit plant, 00 Buckshots, my spare clothes, a massive stack of 12 Gold, the shiny new Epic Magic Purchase Token, a literal cart full of monster corpses, and all the junk I had looted off Arlath and his crew.
The dead assassin’s gear was taking up way too much premium space.
So, I dumped their loot straight onto the desk, wincing slightly at the loud clatter of coins and clinking glass. Sorting through the pile, their life savings amounted to 1,346 Silver, four Grade-9 Healing potions, and two Grade-9 Mana potions.
I glanced back at the main money slot on the blue screen and blinked in surprise.
Last time I checked, I was sitting on about 700 silver. And now it confidently read 12 Gold.
[Guess Nom-Nom had a pretty solid haul on her first dungeon dive,] I realized, staring at the number. [Not to mention that entire cart full of monsters.]
The plan was for her to send half her dungeon kills directly to my inventory to sell to the System, and keep the other half to turn in at the local Adventurer’s Guild for money.
If just half of what she slaughtered amounted to 12 Gold, which was roughly 12,000 Silver by the way, my cutie dragon was an absolute menace.
I scooped the 1,346 Silver off the desk and fed it into my main money slot. Next, I dedicated a slot to the low-grade healing potions, securing a quick way to patch up any ’normal’ scrapes and bumps.
As for the mana potions? I literally had an infinite mana regen. They were practically blue-flavored water to me, so I sold them directly to the System, netting a grand total of 140 credits.
With the cleanup out of the way and my grid finally organized, it was time to address the glowing, Epic-Grade elephant in the room.
That Magic Token.