Featherquill Avenue.
"Huh?"
"When did two new shops open here?"
"And there's a raffle—first prize is a full set of plate armor worth 20 gold coins."
"There are tons of magic potions in the prizes too."
"You get raffle entries just by shopping—the more you spend, the more draws you get."
"Bass, let's go in! If we're lucky and win the first prize… that's a 20-gold suit of full plate!"
In the heart of Featherquill Avenue, two adjacent storefronts opened on the same day: a weapon shop and an alchemy shop.
From the identical red dragon flags hanging on both signs—and the matching decor style—it was obvious they belonged to the same owner.
A grand opening, plus the event posters at the door and flyers handed out by staff, drew a crowd looking for excitement.
The cheapest items in the store were only one silver coin. For many adventurers, that wasn't pocket change—but it wasn't outrageous either.
And things like arrows, poisons, and healing potions were necessities anyway. Wherever you buy them, you're still buying them—so why not buy here and at least have a shot at a jackpot?
If someone won a full suit of plate armor, even if they didn't want to use it, selling it for ten to twenty gold would be a massive windfall for most low-tier adventurers.
No one worried the shop owner would cheat.
Because with even a little asking around, you'd find out exactly who stood behind these two shops.
A high-level adventurer who owned an adventuring company—and had a rare super-mount like a red dragon—was, in most adventurers' minds, the definition of a walking moneybag.
Someone like that wasn't going to ruin their reputation over a measly 20 gold.
Across the street, on the second floor of a tavern, Gauss sat with Alia and the others, eating lunch while watching the first-day traffic at his new shops.
"Looks pretty lively."
"No idea what the daily turnover will be."
Gauss took a sip of clear liquor.
Now that the Red Dragon Company had its own smiths and alchemists, opening shops was a natural test run.
Management and operations were handled by subordinates anyway.
If it lost money, he could just shut it down later.
The raffle idea had been his suggestion—and judging by the turnout, it was working.
That said, the business wasn't booming only because of the raffle.
From Gauss's observation, plenty of people glanced at the poster and immediately looked away. Some didn't even bother drawing—just bought what they came for and left.
Those customers were mostly elite adventurers, or at least the kind of "low-tier" adventurers whose presence felt noticeably tougher.
Gauss guessed they were buying because of the Red Dragon Company's reputation.
Even though Red Dragon Company had been officially registered for less than a month, it had already become well-known in Falrim—at least in the South District.
Gauss knew for a fact that the South District papers had mentioned Red Dragon Company several times already.
They'd run pieces introducing the company's members, base location, and scale.
One article had even made the front page focusing on the company's captain—Gauss himself—detailing his past records, "rise to fame," nicknames, and the stories behind them.
That was the advantage of operating in a big city.
In a small town, no matter how famous you got, you'd top out at a few thousand people knowing your name.
But in a provincial capital like Falrim, every move could draw attention from multiples—five times, ten times as many.
Positive reputation could be cashed out, most of the time.
Two shops selling the same goods: some adventurers would choose his weapons and potions simply because they admired and trusted him.
After watching for a bit, Gauss looked away.
Opening shops on a prime street would be a life-or-death gamble for a small merchant.
For him, it was just a casual extra move—no need to obsess.
He was only here because it was opening day, and Alia insisted on coming to see it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered.
"Any Door lv3 (27/50)."
Persistence paid off.
Short-term, high-intensity focus really could produce results.
In just a few days, that difficult Level 4 space spell had gone from Lv1 proficiency to Lv3.
Among everything he knew, Any Door was clearly harder than the rest—probably because it involved space itself.
So it still wasn't enough.
Right now, his casting lead-time had been reduced from several seconds to a stable one second. One second was short—but still too slow for the "blink-step" combat use he wanted.
High-end fights were decided in fractions of a second.
Life and death could hinge on 0.0-something.
Any Door was a spell that demanded proficiency. He needed it at Lv4, Lv5—maybe even Lv6.
It was usable now, but the better the proficiency, the better the spell.
And skill proficiency got harder to raise the higher you went—even with Any Door sitting in a secondary core slot for constant training.
Even his only true "core skill," Gauss Omni-Armor, was still just Lv5 (153/200).
He had a ways to go before Lv6.
More practice. A lot more.
While they were eating, a crow landed by Gauss's feet.
Alia spoke with it, then looked at Gauss.
"What is it?"
"Bruno and Torga are at Red Dragon Company base. They're looking for us."
"Oh?"
Gauss nodded.
"Then we'll head back after lunch."
…
Gauss and the others didn't linger.
When they returned to the Red Dragon Company base, several short figures were already seated at a table in the reception hall, waiting.
"Gauss, long time no see."
Bruno raised a hand in greeting.
Torga was surveying the room's decor—and the base grounds outside the window.
"Long time no see." Gauss nodded, then sat with Alia and the others.
"I thought you'd already left Falrim."
"What've you been up to?"
Bruno glanced at Torga and gave an awkward little laugh.
"Nothing much."
More accurately, they'd been partying nonstop—bouncing between taverns every day.
Torga finally got sick of it and forced an end to their drinking spree.
"Gauss… does your Red Dragon Company need more hands?"
Torga spoke up, eyeing Bruno, who clearly couldn't bring himself to ask outright.
"Need them?" Gauss smiled and nodded. "Absolutely."
"You want to help?"
Gauss's easy agreement made her blink.
The dwarves were "weak" only by his standards. For most adventurers, they were strong.
Torga was Level 6, Bruno Level 5, plus one Level 4 and two Level 3s—and all of them were skilled smiths. Most companies would accept them instantly.
If they wanted to join Red Dragon Company, part of it was probably that they planned to settle around Falrim.
And part of it was the debt they felt to Gauss for saving Torga.
Gauss agreed quickly because he already knew their character. No major issues there.
A proper adventuring company wasn't supposed to have just one main team anyway. Most had multiple squads—sometimes dozens.
Squads operated independently unless a major target required everyone to gather.
So adding one more squad was normal.
"Then please take care of us, Captain."
Torga stood and shook Gauss's hand.
The other dwarves lined up to shake his hand too.
Just like that—within a few sentences—Red Dragon Company's combat manpower doubled.
Dwarves moved fast.
Once they were officially "in," Gauss introduced them to Steward Ivan, and they immediately marched toward the forge.
In this group, besides Torga and Bruno, the other three—Teb, Sean, and Rick—were more "smith" than "frontline fighter."
First day in the company, they wanted to show their craft.
And after months of traveling, they hadn't forged anything in a while. Seeing tools again made their hands itch.
For dwarves, smithing was practically a hobby.
"Gauss, don't worry about them."
"Let them be."
"They just want to swing a hammer."
Torga saw Gauss looking a bit apologetic and explained.
"Yeah. I'll still pay them properly."
Gauss didn't expect them to be this motivated—clocking in on day one.
Technically they weren't fully registered under Red Dragon Company yet, since paperwork at the Adventurer's Guild still had to be filed, but Gauss wasn't going to let them work for free.
"Big one—wanna spar?"
Torga turned toward Albena with a grin.
"You?" Albena lowered her head to look at the tiny war-hungry dwarf, then glanced at Gauss for permission.
"If you want, go for it." Gauss shrugged.
He watched the "cutest height gap" pair of aggressive female warriors.
In pure combat terms, Torga was at a huge disadvantage—smaller body and also one level lower than Albena.
Not everyone could ignore level gaps the way Gauss did.
Normally, even a one-level difference was enormous, especially within the same class type.
But in Red Dragon Company, other than Gauss, the best sparring partner for Albena really was Torga.
Shadow and Alia were strong, but they weren't heavy, head-on brawlers. Albena rarely sparred with them.
Sparring with Gauss was hard because he was always busy—either running contracts or training magic alone.
Now she finally had someone she could "fight properly" with, and it showed—Albena looked genuinely pleased.
Even if the opponent was small, she wasn't picky.
The two of them headed for the training yard, spirits high.
"I'm going to watch!" Alia looked excited—and even invited Gauss. "You coming?"
"I'm not." Gauss shook his head.
He still had to grind Any Door. He wanted to see how much Lv4 could reduce the cast time.
"Shadow, you coming?"
Shadow had just started to refuse, but Alia's hand hooked her wrist, and she gave a helpless smile and followed along.
Serandur had already run off to talk shop with Ivan about potion-brewing techniques.
Lately he'd grown close with that dragon-blooded warlock. Gauss guessed it was partly professional overlap—healing and alchemy—plus the fact that neither of them was truly "pure human."
A serpentfolk priest and a thin-blood dragon warlock… they had common ground.
Gauss was happy to see the company developing naturally.
No team should revolve around him 24/7.
Not only would members burn out, he would too. Everyone needed breathing room.
Blue light flared beneath Gauss's feet, and he vanished—reappearing over a hundred meters away.
Next steps:
Get Any Door to Lv4.
Then take a contract that included a warlord-class monster, earn enough warlord points, and evolve Ironscale Bloodline from blue rarity to purple.
Once that was done, his leap to Level 7 would be smooth.
He was satisfied with his current pace.
If he could maintain "one level every few months," he might hit Level 10 by year's end.
At that point, his real combat power would be solid even by transcendent standards.
Of course, that was just his plan. Reality didn't always cooperate.
Bottlenecks still existed for him too.
For others, a bottleneck was a wall. For him, it was more like a short step.
Still—it took time.
And the higher the level, the harder it got. He didn't feel the difficulty spike yet, but he wasn't foolish enough to swear it would stay easy forever.
"Keep grinding."
He snapped back from his thoughts—
and noticed a man at the end of the alley had dropped his shopping bag and was repeatedly kneeling and kowtowing toward him.
"?"
What… was that supposed to mean?
Gauss scratched his head, looked around, confirmed the guy really was bowing to him, and became even more confused.
"Any Door."
Blue light flashed again, and he vanished from the alley.
Even though he'd reported his space-magic practice to the Adventurer's Guild in advance, he still wanted to minimize disruption to everyday life.
Gauss didn't notice that in the instant he disappeared, a thread of special energy—so faint that even magnified thousands of times it would still be nearly undetectable—slipped into his body.
~~~
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