"Ah, Taula. How's your grandmother doing?" An old woman asked from her stall as she saw Taula approach.
"Mrs. Hibiki, she's alright. Grandma went to the Capital, so I'm waiting for her." Taula said as she looked at the woman's display case that had different assortments of foodstuffs in them. "So what kind of food do you think I should buy if I wanted a whole lot of protein?"
The old woman behind the stall looked at Taula's muscular body and raised an eyebrow.
"Proteins? You look good enough already, my dear." The woman said, but Taula shook her head.
"It's not for me, but for my friend. I want to cook a really, really good lunch full of proteins for him." Taula said with a smile on her face.
She was going to make sure that Klaus developed muscles whether he liked it or not.
"Him?" The old woman turned her head slightly. "Have you gotten a lover, Taula?"
"L-l-lover…" Like when the thieves said the same thing, her face lit up in a shade of red as she fanned her cheeks. Klaus as her lover? "N-no. He's not a lover, just a friend."
"You want to cook for a friend? That's fine, as long as you're not going to his house or sleeping with him. You need to keep yourself pure, Taula." Hibiki said.
She used to be like Taula before… not a strong adventurer, but very beautiful with lines upon lines of commoners wanting to marry her.
There was even a noble amongst them, but she decided to choose love and stay with a commoner.
Where did that get her? Selling goods in the market to put food on their table. She could have been living her life as the second or third wife of a noble, but now here she was…
"Try to become a wife of a noble. You won't regret your life like I do." The woman said while arranging Yellow Yams in neat rows.
"A noble… Mrs. Hibiki, you know how I feel about nobles." Taula said, and the woman sighed.
Regardless of whatever she thought and how successful she became, as commoners that they were, they would never reach the influence of a noble.
That was how bleak life was when one was born as a commoner.
"I know, I know… Do you have a list of what you want to buy for this friend of yours? I hope he gave you money at least." Hibiki said, and Taula nodded dropping a heavy pouch on the table with different chimes ringing from within.
Hibiki could tell that these were silvers. Was her friend some kind of successful commoner adventurer?
Then Taula pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her. The old woman picked up her glasses and looked at the paper.
"Bristleback Bacon, Cliffhen Breast, Groundhoof Steak, Marshlamb Chops, Rivertrout, Yellow Yam… Taula, are you planning to stock up this man's entire house?" The woman sighed, and Taula nodded excitedly, making Hibiki sigh again. "I hope you don't regret this…"
Klaus, on the other hand, was a little bit far away rubbing his head.
'What made her so embarrassed?' He wondered.
As they'd entered Market Street, someone had called them "cute lovers" and apparently it made her flustered enough to push him away and go do other stuff while she handled the shopping alone.
So now… he was walking around the streets with his hands in his pockets and looking at the stalls.
On Market Street, it was divided into sections… one where citizens of the town including adventurers could buy foodstuffs, and another place where adventurers could buy weapons and potions.
He just slouched around the latter.
'It's not like I want to buy anything specific.' He thought as he browsed the stores and what they offered to sell.
He had just passed a place that sold swords and even picked one up to test, but it wasn't as durable as his own swords.
That was the problem with street stalls… they barely sold anything good.
They could get a used sword, polish it to make it look like new, and sell it for the price of a new one… Everyone was just trying to make some extra coin, and he couldn't blame them. If he wasn't an adventurer, then he would have already tried taking his own life.
"Did you see that guy? I'm sure he's a noble…"
"Yes, he has elegant blond hair. Of course he's a noble…"
"And he looks hot too… Do you think we should approach him?"
"What if that offends him? If he's that handsome, then he must have a fiancée, but I don't mind being his side piece."
Klaus saw the person they were talking about up front, standing at a stall with daggers.
He wore a white cloak over his head and body and was really tall, but through the cloak, from where Klaus stood, he could see the person's hair coming out.
He was blond, and even the man at the counter attending to him was blushing.
There was only a handful of characters in Artemis Online that looked like that, and Klaus chose to ignore the person entirely.
'What the hell is the Prince doing here?' He thought.
At this point in the game timeline, the Prince was going to be an aspiring contender in the Divine Academy Entrance Exams. He usually hid his face, but after unlocking the Prince in his gameplay, Klaus had found out that the man had an alternative skin which was a disguise.
The disguise was a handsome nobleman with blond hair and a white cloak very similar to this one, which he used to move around while attracting "a medium amount of attention" according to his own words.
His real face and hair were silver, as were all members of the Royal Family in the Artemis Online storyline.
'I'd honestly take the Princess over the Prince any day.' Klaus thought.
The man was an Aura user, and being born royal made him one of the most powerful aura users with the highest potential in this world but his sister was a Wizard with access to very powerful Royal Magic, which made her better in tournaments.
The Prince seemed to have finished whatever he was talking about with the man behind the counter then he turned and locked eyes directly with Klaus, who was staring at him.
'Oh?' The Prince raised an eyebrow, and Klaus flinched at being noticed. 'What an interesting commoner…'
Most commoners that the Prince had met until this point were either afraid to look him in the eyes or were completely smitten by his face which showed that even this "unattractive disguise" was a complete disaster.
His sister had assured him that this was how unattractive men looked, but he was starting to doubt he should have listened to a woman who had been sheltered and only seen attractive nobles all her life.
This commoner looked like he actively hated his face.
Which was a new development that the Prince welcomed wholeheartedly. He hated his own face too, so he gave the young man a nice friendly wave then he walked off, leaving all the people in the street staring at Klaus in absolute awe.
'Why the fuck did he wave at me?' Klaus thought in horror.
He walked slowly, waiting for the Prince to turn a corner before resuming his normal pace then he glanced at the dagger stall, looking at the different daggers and their handles.
His eyes widened.
'H-huh?!'
He blinked as if he was seeing things, but he really wasn't. Among the different daggers on the stand, there was one with a crimson handle with small rose-like designs inscribed on it. It was a curved dagger too.
'Why is that here?'
The Player or rather, the Protagonist usually got that item, the Status Dagger, after killing off a band of mercenaries that were chasing down one of the Heroines who was the daughter of a very influential merchant.
It was a dagger that had a 15% chance of inflicting random status conditions on the target.
Which didn't sound like much, but when given to a character that had high Luck like the Protagonist or the Heroines, it was literally a guaranteed spam of status effects.
'I don't mean to brag, but I ushered in a new wave of players that spammed the hell out of this dagger when I won a tournament with it.' Klaus thought as he approached the stall.
That would be the only thing he was buying today.
Klaus was well aware that he had shit Luck, but having an item that caused status damage was good regardless of the holder.
Out of ten strikes, naturally two or so of them would inflict statuses.
As he arrived at the counter of the man selling daggers, the blissful look that had been on the man's face completely vanished upon realizing that Klaus wasn't a noble.
"Welcome to Dante's Daggers. What kind of dagger do you want?" He asked with a slightly annoyed voice.
Klaus resisted the urge to sigh. Just because the man did business with a noble didn't mean he should suddenly become arrogant for no reason at all, his target customers were fellow commoners such as Klaus, after all.
"That one." Klaus pointed to a dagger at the edge.
The man looked at the rose dagger and a small smile formed on his face.
"Ah yes… that dagger came in just this morning from an A-Rank Adventurer that just arrived in Galen Town because of the chaos in Galen Dungeon. She said it was a dagger that can land stronger hits than normal. I'll sell it to you for 5 silver, though, since we're both commoners." The man said with a brighter smile.
'So even the A-Rank doesn't know the effects of the Status Dagger?' Klaus thought. Was there someone with even lower Luck than him in this world?
"2 silvers." Klaus bargained it downward.
There was no way he was going to pay 5 silvers for something he could barely use. He just didn't want it to get into the hands of other people.
"You have yourself a deal." The man didn't even argue and minutes later, Klaus walked away with the dagger in hand.
「Item: Status Dagger」
「Description: A dagger that has a 15% chance to inflict random status conditions on the target: Poison ║ Paralysis ║ Bleed ║ Slow (movement speed -30%) ║ Weakness (attack power -20%)」
'As I thought, it really is the Status Dagger.' He thought.
Just then, Taula appeared holding different bags of foodstuffs.
"Klaus, let's go home and restock the kitchen." She said, calling his place home.
He really didn't mind.
"I was summoned to the Guild for some important work. They were saying something about all A-Rank Adventurers coming there."
Klaus blinked at her.
"Wait… you're actually an A-Rank Adventurer?" Klaus blinked again. He couldn't believe it.