Chapter 188: Chapter 188
Adventurers continued to flow through the Infernal Armory. Many of them were just looking, and a fair number seemed to only be there in hopes of speaking to Ifrit. When it became clear that the smith was busy, the majority of people headed out.
But, with the crowd they’d managed to pull, it didn’t matter. Reya went through every piece of armor on the walls, including the old Brightsteel sets, and sold every single one of them. Madiv had been equally as successful on his side, but that wasn’t the end of it.
Even as they sold the armor, Arwin finished more sets and slid them out the back door. They sold slower as the crowd thinned and the day wore on, but they still sold. The Infernal Armory had mustered enough interest — at least for the day — to sell everything they put out.
Reya barely had a chance to breathe. It was just an endless flow of people. Their names and faces blurred together. She remembered little of what she actually said to them. All her mind could recollect was the gold getting plopped into her hands and the bags she piled in the back corner of the smithy, away from any prying eyes or hands.
If she’d been working alone, it would have been impossible. There were just too many people and too many requests and questions. Her saving grace had been, ironically, Madiv. As new to sales as he was, the vampire was the perfect employee in one exact circumstance.
And that circumstance happened to be the one where he could act like a smug, bloodthirsty vampire working for the demon queen. He’d gotten better at avoiding just straight up threatening to kill everyone that didn’t buy from him, but only by a small degree.
“If you do not return to purchase the armor on the morrow, I will hang you from your entrails,” Madiv informed a woman.
She raised a hand to her mouth and giggled. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”
Who giggles at that? You have a severe problem that I don’t think anybody in Milten is equipped to handle.
“Okay. I will,” Reya said. “Don’t push yourself too hard, though.”
“I won’t,” Arwin promised, but Reya wasn’t so sure she believed his words. It wasn’t like telling him otherwise would change anything. She’d probably need to call Lillia in if she wanted to actually get him to stop working.
Reya headed out onto the street and Madiv trailed after her. Arwin closed the smithy door behind them locking it.
“An interesting man,” Madiv said as they walked. “Nothing like what I expected him to be.”
“Tell me about it,” Reya said with a shake of her head. Her hand instinctively went to the hilt of her dagger. A faint warmth rose up from within it, acknowledging her presence. “And yet, in other ways, he’s exactly like what you think he should be.”
They reached the tavern door and Reya pulled it open. A wall of sound slammed into her like a wave. Loud conversation and the clatter of dishes rolled through the room. A dozen adventurers sat around the tables.
Imps scurried across the floor, ducking and weaving between the adventures as they went to deliver plates and bring the dirty ones back to the kitchen. Reya stepped inside, invited Madiv after her, and closed the door behind them.
Well, that definitely answers one question. The darkness mutes some degree of noise. It wasn’t anywhere near this loud outside.
“It is quite loud,” Madiv observed, a flicker of distaste passing over his features. “Too loud.”
“A bit,” Reya agreed, raising her voice to be heard over the crowd. She spotted Rodrick beside the bar counter with a large stack of papers piled next to him and headed over.
Rodrick nodded in greeting. “It looks like things went well. I didn’t realize we had plans to start a waiting list.”
Reya cleared her throat. “Sorry. It was a spur of the moment thing.”
“Figured.” Rodrick snorted. “Well, it definitely worked. We’ve got a dozen adventurers signed up. I figure only half of them will actually show, but it’s a good start. Today was a huge success. And Lillia—”
He trailed off as Lillia swept out of the kitchen, a plate of fried Wyrmling meat in her hands. An enormous grin stretched her lips from one end of her face to the other. She deposited the plate on a table before two adventurers.
“She’s having fun,” Rodrick finished with a smile of his own. “The Ardent guild are going to shit themselves when they find out how well this went for us. With the number of people excited about Ar— uh, Ifrit’s armor, the blacklist isn’t even going to matter. You two did a great job selling to everyone. I thought more people would be pissed about there not being enough pieces to go around, but it looks like they’re more excited instead.”
“Limited resources are exciting,” Madiv mused. “Just like life. The less you have, the more you value it.”
Sometimes, it’s hard to tell if he’s insane or insightful.
“Very true,” Rodrick said. He clapped Madiv on the shoulder. “You sure know how to put the spooky bugger show on.”
Madiv’s lips thinned. “And you are a very standard issue adventurer.”
A loud crash split their conversation. All three of them spun to see two adventurers squaring off against each other, their hands on their weapons. They were both huge. Reya didn’t recognize one of them, but the other one was Wanda, the wall of muscle and Reya’s first customer.
“Say that again,” Wanda snarled, her sword halfway out of its sheath. “I’ll take your head off your neck and shove it so far up your ass it reappears on your shoulders.”
“I didn’t say anything wrong,” the other adventurer replied with a snort. He glanced over his shoulder to a group of adventurers behind him, then back to Wanda. “You ain’t scare me. Lumbering around doesn’t make you strong. Having a hill giant for a momma isn’t an achievement.”
“One more word about my mother,” Wanda growled. “Try it.”
The man’s hand slipped onto the hilt of his own sword. By the slight sway in his step, it was clear that he was just drunk enough to act like an idiot — but not enough to make him a nonthreat.