In the evening, a cool breeze drifted in through the window.
Lying on the bed, Aaron suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.
Phew—
"Was that a nightmare?"
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, exhaled, and muttered softly.
He had dreamed of Ainz Ooal Gown standing right in front of him, those crimson eyes staring at him with a chilling gaze.
"Damn it."
Aaron bared his teeth and cursed under his breath.
Ainz was a transmigrator, and so was Aaron. Ainz was a player, and so was he.
"So why the hell should I be afraid of you?" Aaron took a deep breath, slapped his cheeks to wake himself up, then got out of bed and looked out the window.
The sky outside had already darkened.
He walked over to the window, pushed it open, and let the cool air wash into the room, blowing away much of his irritation.
He had not expected to sleep straight through until evening.
The small inn was a two-story European-style building, and his room was on the second floor. From the window, he could see the alley below and the neighboring street.
Outside the window, a few wooden railings jutted out and connected together, but they already looked old and clearly were not very sturdy.
Any thief with a bit of skill could easily climb up to the second floor by using the alley walls.
Aaron took a quick look, then shook his head slightly and closed the window again.
An inn like this was never going to keep thieves out anyway.
He washed his face to clear his head, then left the room.
On the street,
there were far fewer people than during the day. Only a few weapon-bearing adventurer parties strolled about at a relaxed pace.
Aaron had already asked the innkeeper earlier about the locations of nearby shops selling various goods.
First, he headed to a clothing store.
He had been wearing the same clothes for more than ten days, and they reeked. Since he was going to the Great Forest of Tob, he needed extra changes of clothes as well.
When he came out of the shop,
he was holding a full bundle under his arm and wore a black robe over his clothes, covering his entire body.
Altogether, it had cost him 3 silver.
The most expensive item was the black robe he now wore, at 1 silver 7 copper. The bundle was packed with the same cheap, coarse hemp clothing he had worn before.
The reason he had bought this better-quality black robe
was that he was planning to visit the Magic Caster Guild. Showing up there dressed like a pauper to buy things would clearly not be ideal.
Within the kingdom, all major cities had branches of both the Adventurer Guild and the Magic Caster Guild.
However—
unlike the royal capital, where the Magic Caster Guild had its headquarters, the branches in other cities did not really train arcane magic casters.
If someone with talent for arcane magic was found, the branch in their city would send them to the headquarters in the capital for training.
The reason for this was simple: money.
Because of the conservative nature of Re-Estize's society, the kingdom's upper echelons did not value the Magic Caster Guild much, so the guild could hardly secure any funding from above.
As a result,
the guild branches in each city had become places that mainly produced and sold magic items and magic scrolls.
The branch here was a three-story building with an utterly ordinary exterior. If Aaron had not asked for directions, he never would have guessed it was the Magic Caster Guild.
Unlike the bustling Adventurer Guild, it was almost deserted.
There were not even any guards at the door.
On reflection, it made sense. Few people would dare try to force their way into a Magic Caster Guild.
Aaron walked up to the dark-brown wooden doors and was just about to push them open when—
Ding~
A soft chime rang from above the left side of the door.
He looked up and noticed, for the first time, a fist-sized bell hanging above the door.
A faint red light flickered on its surface from time to time.
A magic item?
The thought crossed his mind.
Click.
The brown wooden doors swung open on their own.
So that was it.
Aaron's eyes flashed with understanding. Convenient enough. Still, that bell was probably doing more than just opening doors.
With that thought,
he stepped into the guild. Gentle light spilled in around him; the interior was surprisingly bright.
Compared to the rough, utilitarian Adventurer Guild, the inside of the Magic Caster Guild was completely different from its plain exterior.
The hall was dominated by red and black tones. The walls were paneled with red wood, with only the area near the floor stained black.
It was not large—less than a hundred square meters, by his estimation.
Judging by the building's exterior size, the interior clearly had partitions separating other rooms.
Six wall lamps hung along the left and right walls, and a cylindrical chandelier overhead cast soft white light, illuminating the entire hall.
At the moment,
perhaps because it was evening, there were almost no people inside.
Only two middle-aged men in robes sat behind the counter. One was propping his chin on his hand, dozing, and he did not even open his eyes when Aaron walked in.
The other was somewhat younger.
He looked over the moment Aaron entered the hall.
"I'd like to buy some magic scrolls," Aaron said softly as he stepped up.
Unlike magic items, which were prohibitively expensive at around 1,000 gold and up, magic scrolls were consumables. Their manufacturing process was well-developed, so they were not nearly as pricey.
However, precisely because they were consumables,
even moderately wealthy adventurers rarely bought them casually.
"Name's Vara. What kind of scrolls are you looking for?"
The younger magic caster, Vara, gave Aaron a quick once-over and spoke in a rather lazy tone.
Pure black hair—that was rare enough.
"Do you have a catalog I can look through?" Aaron bowed his head slightly, sounding a bit embarrassed.
Thump.
As if he had expected that,
Vara casually pulled a thin booklet from under the counter and dropped it onto the table, then promptly drifted off into a daze.
Aaron did not take the attitude to heart. If anything, he felt slightly awkward as he picked up the booklet.
He had forgotten that he could not read this world's writing.
The first thing that caught his eye was the section on zero-tier magic scrolls.
His embarrassment eased when he saw that there were illustrations. Even without reading, he could guess their effects from the pictures.
There were more zero-tier scrolls than he had expected.
Things like: Ignition, Continual Light, Cleaning—purely for daily life, with no offensive at all. To adventurers, zero-tier magic was basically optional.
He remembered someone from the Rock party mentioning that
merchant caravans and nobles traveling long distances often carried zero-tier scrolls to improve the comfort of their journeys.
Aaron flipped through for a while and soon found the zero-tier spell Paper Creation.
He did not call out to buy it immediately, but continued turning the pages, which moved on to 1st-tier magic.
The number of entries dropped sharply, but both their practicality and impact rose a great deal.
"Repair (1st Tier)": Can repair damaged objects.
"Odorless (1st Tier)": Eliminates the user's scent.
"Floating Board (1st Tier)": Creates a semi-transparent floating platform for carrying items.
...
"Magic Arrow (1st Tier)": Fires three magical arrows.
Scanning the entries, Aaron saw that there were very few offensive scrolls—only three. Most were supportive in nature.
Huh?
When he reached the final page, that was it.
No 2nd-tier scrolls?
He paused. If memory served, with the scrollcraft technology humans had in this world, they should at least be able to produce 3rd-tier scrolls.
And in the Slane Theocracy, there were even rare and precious techniques for making 4th-tier scrolls.
While 3rd-tier scrolls would indeed be rare resources even for the Magic Caster Guild, 2nd-tier ones should not be.
So,
was it that they existed but were simply not for sale?
Or that ordinary customers were not qualified to buy them?
______
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