The Runesmith

“Hey boss, I know you said that you didn’t want to be bothered but…”

“... Is it another one?”

“Yes… but there is more than one this time around, should I tell them to leave?”

“Uh…”

Roland gave out a grunt while closing his notebook. The room he was in had its walls covered with large strange runic schematics that Bernir had no way of figuring out. There were crumpled-up papers thrown to the side.

In the middle of this room, there was a small stand on which an orb was on. This was no simple orb but a core that came from a golem monster. This stand was fashioned from silvery metal that also consisted of many runic inscriptions that were immaculately crafted to somehow work with it.

‘I’ll never finish if this continues, I should have never gone to that marketing event.’

A few weeks ago Roland found himself called to the guild. The guild master was all smiles and he commended him on making the runic weapons so fast.

At first, Roland thought that the man was just trying to make him work more. He might have been a bit overzealous in fashioning the items which proved his output being quite high.

Luckily for him, the contract had a set minimum number of things that he was required to make per month any surplus depended on his mood.

This was true, the conversation started with this but soon it was pushed into a different direction. Even though there were new items in the stores, not many people were buying them. Thus they came up with an advertising campaign to boost the sales.

To Roland who was not that against making some money this didn’t sound like such a bad idea. For a successful business, a good brand was a requirement. Only if his wares were known would people flock to them.

By being the only Runesmith in the city he had a leg up against his competition that could only order wares from outside. The people also trusted more what they saw, some would rather get things from the locals as they could always return the wares if something broke.

If they got their weapon from the auction house there was always a risk of costly repairs. Such repairs would need them to travel to specialists that could very well be on the other side of the island.

Just as most rare class holders they mostly flocked to the more developed cities that they knew would not waste their talents. Albrook on the other hand still needed a few more years to be able to attract more people.

He was talked into taking part in the presentation and the rest was history. It was his first real public appearance and quite the learning experience. Even though he was not good with social interactions when it came to business it was different. When he knew what to expect from the exchange it wasn’t that bad.

After this event where he showed off his runic shield, his name had become widespread. He was unsure what was happening behind the scenes but suddenly a week or so ago there was the first knock on the gate and the flood gates were open.

“What do you want?”

Roland had Bernir install a little peek hole that could be slid open from the inside. He was doing this just now as he was still reserved about letting people inside of his home. Not till he had figured out a better way of handling intruders than landmines.

“Good day, isn’t this where the town runesmith works? I heard that I could get my magical items repaired here.”

What he saw was a somewhat well-geared adventurer couple. With all the tier 2 monsters running around, the city slowly filled up with silver and gold ranked adventurers. The latter ones were quite the big spenders as with a lack of magical equipment it was hard to battle some of the creatures.

“Yes, that’s me… what needs repairing?”

The man was wearing some deep steel armor which was not magical in nature but then he took out a nice-looking silver longsword.

“I see, please place it on the tray.”

After saying this a long tray popped out from the door that could even fit in a whole armor set. The person that was holding the sword looked to his female companion that just shrugged at him.

“The guild said that we could trust the Runesmith.”

The man nodded and placed the sword into the tray which then Roland pulled back inside. After taking the sword into his hand he could tell what the runic enchantment was. The blade’s handle looked somewhat worn out but the blade was nice and sharp.

“Frost blade rune…”

“Oh, you can tell from one glance?”

“See, I told you that this will be quicker than going to the main city!”

Roland murmured to himself and it was heard by the man that handed him the weapon. It seemed that he was really the only craftsman in the city that could do quick repairs. The word was slowly spreading and he would probably be getting a lot more customers.

“The handle needs to be remade but that’s not what I’m offering, the rune has deteriorated below half of its original. I’m sure you’ve noticed that it's not working as well as it should.”

“That’s right, when I got this sword six months ago it worked like a charm but now I can barely use the enchantment. Can you fix it?”

The man replied while agreeing with Roland. Overuse of runic equipment caused the runes to deteriorate. Depending on the runes grade this could happen sooner than later. With a lack of runesmiths around it would be hard to get this in working condition. If a rune dropped below thirty percent it would more than likely stop working.

“Yes, it will cost … one small gold coin.”

“A whole small gold coin?”

“Yes, if you don’t like the price you can try another runesmith.”

The man thought for a second and nodded. All things considered, this was not that steep of a price as adventuring to another city to find a good runesmith would prove a lot pricier.

“Please come back tomorrow to get your sword back.”

Soon Roland closed the latch while noticing the surprised expression on the man’s face. He knew that look as most magical craftsmen took sometimes a week to get such an item into working condition.

For this runic craftsman, on the other hand, repairing this rune would not take more than thirty minutes. The only reason that he told them to come back the next day was so that people didn’t get the wrong idea. They could start demanding quick repairs on the spot if they knew that he could do it.

It didn’t take much time and he earned a lot of money. Due to this, it was hard for him to refuse this business venture. He could earn quite a penny by just repairing runic items which was much easier than fully runecrafting them.

There was also the added bonus of him getting free access to more runic schematics. With his debugging skill, he also didn’t really need to worry about not being able to repair a never-before-seen rune. Thus he had come to a decision that would save him a lot of time.

“Another one Boss? You sure are getting popular!”

“Heh, popular. Good that you are here, I need to talk with you about something, wait a moment here.”

Roland descended into his workshop while Bernir waited in the living room. In a minute he returned with a rolled-up parchment which he then placed on the table.

“Isn’t that the plan of this property?”

“Yes, I redrew it and added a couple of things, here have a look at it.”

Roland knew that Bernir was the building type as he had worked as a carpenter for a part of his life.

“Did you add a new building here? Hm… are you finally?”

Bernir rubbed his red beard and soon realized what this addon to the land would be. It was quite spacious and would be placed inside of his property.

“Yes, I wanted to wait longer but how things are now…”

“Aye, your renown is growing, if things continue like this we’ll be swamped with work soon.”

Roland nodded as what the new building plans entailed was a new building that would house his own shop. Inside of it he would place all the runic wares that he made as well as the ones that Bernir produced.

There were just too many people getting aware of him. There was a certain advantage that he had over the dwarven craftsmen here which was that he was actually not part of their union.

Any union member gained a lot of benefits from signing up with them but there were certain drawbacks. One of these drawbacks was something akin to taxes. The union would take a part of their earnings.

For new and upcoming crafters it didn’t seem like a bad deal. They received help from a giant that was the union and would be able to work with the best masters from the kingdom. On the other hand the further they progressed the more they would see that they skipped the small text in the contract.

The contracts were mostly the same and the fees that might have seemed nice and just at the start of their craftsman journey soon became predatory. The only way to get away from those was to prove themselves as worthy of investments.

Roland didn’t suffer from this contract and could take all the earnings for himself. The contract that he had with the guild only forced him to offer some wares to them. While he was not allowed to sign up with the competitors like the guild he was free to open up his own business.

He was sure to be adamant about this part of the contract. If he didn’t get the flexibility of running his own operation he would have refused to sign it, to begin with. He would still need to go through the guild providers for resources that he didn’t gather himself.

With a treasure trove of magical metals waiting for him in the dungeon, he was hopeful that this would not pose a problem even if the costs increased. The guild master was an asshole but he didn’t seem like the type to screw him over, at least not too much.

“But boss, if we open up this shop then we will need someone to run it, can one person even handle it?”

Bernir was right, there was no way that Roland and his assistant could stay in the store while also working on their craft. They at least needed one salesperson to take care of it.

“Yes I know and I’m aware.”

“Then do you mean?”

Roland nodded while Bernir for some reason looked quite ecstatic.

“Yes, please boss, can we hire a young lass?”

Roland facepalmed as the reason was quickly revealed to him. After talking with Dyana he was aware of his assistant's lecherous nature. There would certainly be a problem of keeping him away from the other workers if he allowed it.

The other shops that were serious about their business all had lady workers on the forefront. They were just better at smiling and attracting the clientele. Even back in his old world, this was a tactic most stores used as men were willing to pay more whenever a cute girl was looking at them.

“We probably will, not sure if we’ll get many customers if you sit there instead.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

Roland shrugged before pointing back to the building plans.

“Let’s get this done first, I can’t be bothered with looking over the runic items every time someone wanders over here. We will have our new hire take care of that.”

With this expansion, he wished to lower the burden on himself and Bernir included. He was not sure how many workers he needed, some stores had many while others were run by just one person.

With more workers, it also meant that he would need to wall up the backyard that was more or less a death trap for anyone that didn’t know what was hidden there. This would also keep people away from snooping on his wind turbines as more of them would soon be placed there.

“We might also need a new storage shed closer to the new store.”

“How about we connect it to the underground workshop directly? This will save us the trouble of having people wandering around and getting blown up...”

Bernir commented and Roland agreed as he remembered a certain noble lady almost doing that.

“I think we will need to hire some guards as well, do you know anyone trustworthy?”

“Can’t say I do, I could ask the lasses at the guild for some recommendations.”

With the added notoriety and the opening of an actual store with lots of costly items inside, there was a need for protection. They could not just leave a defenseless person alone in a store filled with runic weapons. They would be asking to get robbed if they did that.

In Roland’s mind, it would be great if he could just produce golems for protection against thieves. This would alleviate the problem he was running into with the mines. This wasn’t something feasible for the time being as he was only at the stage where he could erase the golem core’s old programming.

“What about the pricing and will you be keeping the books?”

“I…”

This was one of the more difficult questions. Roland was somewhat aware of the prices the items on the market had but he was not an expert. He didn’t really have time to research the market and follow the trends.

It would be best if his new worker would be able to do this but finding someone that could run the store and was also good at calculating the expenses was hard. There was also the question of trust as it was quite easy to withhold information.

It would be easy for someone to hike up the prices even slightly and take the excess for themselves. Some people could even smuggle in their own wares that they could sell at his store which could cause problems down the line if they were of poor quality.

“It will be hard to find someone trustworthy.”

“Someone that is good with numbers, is a solid worker, a looker and that we could trust… Hey! Isn’t there one person that fits that description boss?”

Bernir looked at Roland with a grin on his face. It took a moment for him to figure out who Bernir meant with that description. There was one lady in particular that somewhat fit what they needed, she did seem like the trustworthy type.

“Her? But she already has a job.”

“What of it boss?, you just need to offer her a bit more of what she is getting now, I’m sure she is also tired of working with the rabble. I think she will bite.”

Roland thought of this new potential worker. From the people that he knew she did seem the most trustworthy. She did have a good work ethic and her situation did imply that a better paying job could entice her to quit her old one.

“Yes, she is perfect!”

“She does feel like the best option from the people that I know but…”

“But what boss?”

“Oh, nothing…”

The talk was of course of Elodia, the guild receptionist. Roland was well aware of the orphanage situation that was now suffering due to Armand losing some of his privileges.

It would be up to him to make the right pitch to get her over to his side. Would the bad blood that he has with Armand keep her from accepting the deal? He did put a big hole into their family's budget after he fought with him in the city. She could very well be holding a grudge even though she was not showing it.

‘Maybe I should get Bernir to go talk with her instead…’

Roland looked to his assistant but soon started shaking his head.

“He, he. She always wears those baggy and reserved clothes but I’m sure she has a sinful body underneath, I’ll go find a nice uniform for her…”

“...”

‘I guess it’s up to me…’

Roland groaned a bit while slumping his shoulders forward. This would be a battle that he needed to fight himself.