The Runesmith

The doors to the adventurer’s guild swung open and a man that was wearing a helmet stepped forward. He had a dark blue brigandine armor on complete with a set of graves and leather boots in a similar dark color.

Under it was a thinner piece of cloth armor that was keeping him warm. It was doing its job a bit too well as underneath that helmet sweat was forming on the young man’s forehead.

‘I bet that dungeon will be a lot warmer, maybe I should include some kind of chilling rune in my armor...’

Keeping a low profile was harder than he expected. He wanted to hide his face but the weather was against him. There was also the option of somehow getting a skill that increased his heat resistance. In a city with a dungeon that sprung out from a volcano, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘Either that or I could put a heat resistance buffing rune on it.’

He had gone through Edelgard’s stores throughout that year and a half. Each week he would pick one store and scribe down one of the lesser runes. Fire and cold resistances were quite common, they were the first that he procured from the armor runes.

He had also recreated the schematics for all the other elemental resistances, even the rarer ones like poison or curse resistance. The runes used on armor were bigger structure wise but there was a lot more surface area to use for inscribing them.

Roland felt like he could take care of this heat problem with some minimal work, he just needed to get a house first. In it, Roland would be able to craft his items in peace.

This was easier said than done, first, he needed to find the correct location. After asking around he was on his way towards the town hall. There he would be able to look at the locations that he could buy or rent.

He preferred to go with the first option but depending on the prices he might have to go with the second. There were pros and cons for each of the two options.

If he decided to rent the home he would probably be limited to what he could do there. Adding new rooms, expanding the cellar and similar tasks would need to go through the real owner of the house. Depending on who the owner was he might show up for unannounced visits. He could even get evicted for no reason whatsoever.

There were also some pros to renting out the workshop. He would be able to leave at any moment without losing much money. If the Abyssal Cult showed up on his doorstep, he could just abandon ship. There wouldn’t be much loss even if the property blew up as long as he grabbed most of his gear.

Roland still preferred to go with the other option, buying it fully for himself. He had already thought about a couple of things that he would want to install into his new workshop. He needed freedom of choice without having a nosy landlord telling him what he can and can not do.

He was in good spirits, for now, houses in this world didn’t cost that much compared to his old one. The number of coins that he had with him should be enough to get himself a sizable home and even be enough for some renovation.

Just like always, he took his time. The town was new to him and so were the people that lived in it. He glanced to the left of the street he was walking along while passing some shops. There were carriages moving back and forth slowly, the people were clearly busy working.

He could see many men carrying around wooden logs and building materials. Many scaffolds were being placed in front of old buildings that were in the process of getting renovated. He wouldn’t be surprised if the old villagers that lived there were all bought out by larger merchants.

From what he knew there were some farms here and there. There was also a lake from which the old villagers probably got most of their meat from. Not many things were used to make a profit here. The farmers would probably be able to sell their lands for a lot of coins while moving someplace else more quiet.

The new city would take some time to be expanded and it would start from the middle. Anything close to it that was free to build on could be used for houses for the merchants and adventurers. The city needed specialized monster deconstruction buildings and personnel as well.

While glancing around he finally reached the town hall building. It was right in the middle of this growing city.

The building was made from red bricks that weren’t painted over. The building was quite large and it had a cross gabled roof. In the middle of it was a small bell tower that was rung a couple of times a day.

Some people were already going in and out of it. Roland didn’t have that much experience with state officials. He mostly rented rooms out in inns, back in Edelgard he also was living through the company that paid all the taxes and took some of that away from his pay.

‘Can’t be that hard, probably will have to sign a contract after seeing the houses. That is if any proper ones are still left behind…’

There were already a lot of people gathered in this city. He didn’t have to worry about the adventurer’s buying of land as they didn’t operate that way. On the other hand, the merchants and business owners would quickly overpay to get their hands on the best places. He wasn’t looking for anything fancy but he needed it to be big enough for him to construct items.

“Here goes nothing.”

He gave out a sigh while walking into the building. On the inside, he could see some people standing around with some papers in their hands. There were wooden benches to sit on and even a small window that looked like the spot where a receptionist should be.

Roland walked over to that window and waited for the person in front of him to walk away first. He was greeted by a human woman that was sitting in there.

“How may I help you?”

The woman’s voice was slightly monotone, she sounded a bit tired which was understandable. This was the place where everyone that wanted to get their hands on new real estate had to go through. He wouldn’t be surprised if the people from Albrook weren’t understaffed.

“Ah yes, I would like to purchase some land with a house, best if it’s…”

Roland started talking, he gave the woman the dimensions of what his new workshop building should have and also the price range he was interested in. The receptionist lady just nodded and handed him a piece of paper with some places to fill out.

“Please fill out this form and then move to room 3b”

He looked at the piece of paper while being urged by the receptionist to not block the way. After nodding he moved to the side, there were some tables where other people were filling out similar papers. He waited for a spot to get free before sitting down and taking a quill into his hand. His class was scribe so filling out something like this would be quite fast, his writing was also nice.

On the piece of paper, he needed to fill out what he wanted while also listing down his identity. He went with his new adventurer name, he also wrote down the dimensions of his new house. He would probably need to get his adventurer card first before finalizing everything but for now, he could at least look at the available buildings.

The wait continued even after he was done with the paperwork. He needed to wait in front of the room for an hour while glancing around. He really started missing things like smartphones or even a radio. Only silence and the footsteps of people were heard here with nothing of the sort being available in this world.

“Welcome to the city of Albrook!”

He was now finally on the inside. The room with the number 3b was quite small and the person that was inside fit it. The woman that he was looking at had a similar vibe to the receptionist lady from the adventurer’s guild that he avoided. She was wearing glasses and a tight business-like attire that fit a corporate setting more than this one.

There was one big difference between this woman and the one back at the guild. This one was a lot shorter, she reached up to his belly button at most even when wearing those high heels. She was of the halfling race and was more or less a miniaturized human. This race had human-like proportions; they were just half the size of regular humans.

“Here, I’d like to purchase some land. I’d like to see what you have available…”

He sat down opposite the small woman that took the form that he filled out. She fixed her glasses a bit before going over it, her eyes squinting here and there as she looked over it.

“Mr. Wayland is it? I’ll have to go through our book, please wait a moment.”

The small lady moved down from her chair. Roland tried not to stare too much but it was a bit silly looking as the chair looked like one made for kids. It was one of those high ones that some people gave their kids at the dining table.

The halfling business lady hopped down and she moved to the side. She went over to a different room and after half a minute came back with a large book. She was holding it with both hands and it looked like she had trouble carrying it around. She hefted it up and onto the table while grunting slightly before climbing back onto her chair.

The large book looked gigantic compared to the small lady. It looked like a grimoire that some kind of necromancer would have in his lair. After opening though there were some sketches of maps and buildings.

“The ones that Mr. Wayland is looking for are…”

The woman looked at his form that he filled out while going through the pages of the book. When she saw a fitting piece of real estate she noted down some numbers on another piece of paper.

Roland could see how getting things like this done in his old world was much faster. There they could place the numbers in a search engine and just have everything done in a second. Here the worker needed to go page by page and find the houses themselves.

“Ah, this one has already been bought… this one as well…”

This was what he was afraid of, there weren’t that many houses that were leftover. The large merchant companies were probably already here and bought out the best spots. He wasn’t looking for a good spot for a shop, in particular, he would be making quite a bit of money from going to the dungeon. Then he could also sell weapons and armor that he created in the auction house.

“Here you go, this should be all the ones.”

The small woman handed him a piece of paper with some numbers. There were exactly five of them. He wasn’t sure what this was supposed to be but she quickly explained it to him.

“Please give that to the receptionist, a worker will be dispatched to show you the property. You will probably be able to have this done today, after you decide on a plot of land please come back with your identification to sign a contract of ownership.”

She explained to him how everything would work. It was quite easy, first someone would show him the houses which he then could decide on. Then with the help of his adventurer card with which he could prove his identity he would be able to purchase it. The contract would be signed on two identical papers, one for him and the other one would remain at the town hall building as proof.

“I urge you to make a quick decision, as you might have noticed there isn’t much land left over for purchase.”

Roland walked out of the room while the small woman left him with some words of advice. These he knew that he shouldn’t ignore, making a quick decision was paramount. It was first come first served here, probably the most lucrative spots were already gone and he would be left with the scraps now. He walked over to the receptionist and handed her the piece of paper with the numbers on it.

“Here you go, I’m supposed to get someone to show me the houses?”

The person at the reception area took the piece of paper and looked over it for a moment.

“Please wait a moment, someone will be with you shortly.”

After more waiting, the person that was supposed to guide him finally showed up. It was another woman, this one had a bright smile plastered all over her face that looked kind of fake.

“Mr. Wayland, a pleasure to meet you. I would like to thank you on behalf of Albrook for choosing us!”

She talked fast and was quite chipper, she looked like your real estate agent that was there to sell you something. This was not something that Roland expected to find in this world but as long as he got his new house it didn’t matter.

“Ah yes, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He nodded at the lady that guided him outside. It was the middle of the day, the city wasn’t that big so maybe they would be able to visit all of those places that were up for sale. What followed was a lot of walking before they reached their destination.

“How about this fine house Mr. Wayland? It’s near the town square!”

“Fine house? This?”

Roland was looking at something that looked more like a storage shack. There was one crooked door and no windows. The building looked worse than the first storehouse he was offered by his old company.

“I was looking for something different…”

“Okay how about this one…”

He was guided from one building to another one, each one shabbier than the other. It was clear that the only thing remaining were old shacks and tool sheds that were placed on larger plots of land. The only good thing about them was that they were in the city but they would require a lot of renovation and rebuilding.

Soon he saw four of the five that the halfling woman scribbled down on the paper. The real estate lady that he was with looked a bit defeated but her smile was still on.

“W-what about the last one?”

The woman looked at the piece of paper and Roland could see her facial expression crumbling a bit.

“The last one is a bit far away…”

“It doesn’t matter where it’s located as long as it's close to the city. I’ll pay for the carriage.”

Roland didn’t care, if he needed to spend an hour on foot to get to Albrook from his new house it would be fine. After he agreed to cover the travel fee the woman was back to smiling again. Within about forty minutes they were at the last spot.

What he saw was an old farmhouse with a shack to the side. It was a house made from red bricks as all the other ones while the shack was composed of thick logs. This was clearly an unused farm, the ground was dry and barren. Probably the old farmer that lived here wasn’t able to make a living growing anything and abandoned it.

Roland moved inside, the house was nice and spacious. The wooden floor creaked with each step that he took but that was fine. It also had a large cellar built in below, it was a lot bigger than he expected. The price reflected that it was well over a hundred small gold coins.

This building was located far away from the city which was probably why it hasn’t been bought out yet. On foot, he would need to spend about forty minutes which wasn’t that bad. The biggest downside was safety, the guards didn’t really patrol that far.

This wasn’t much of a problem in his eyes. He already knew that safety wasn’t something that could be guaranteed in this world. Even the mayor could be easily taken out by someone at tier 3.

He rubbed his chin while thinking, he had made a quick decision. He would turn this old farmhouse into his new residence. There was enough space to store his equipment and he could construct his smithy in the large cellar or in the log cabin.

There was also no one here to bother him which meant that he could place all sorts of traps against burglars if he wanted. What remained now was to get his adventurer card and sign on the dotted line.