Chapter 143 – Hiring.

“Hey boss, I know you said that you didn’t want to be bothered but…”

“… Is it another one?”

“Yes… but there is more than one this time around, should I tell them to leave?”

“Uh…”

Roland gave out a grunt while closing his notebook. The room he was in had its walls covered with large strange runic schematics that Bernir had no way of figuring out. There were crumpled-up papers thrown to the side.

In the middle of this room, there was a small stand on which an orb was on. This was no simple orb but a core that came from a golem monster. This stand was fashioned from silvery metal that also consisted of many runic inscriptions that were immaculately crafted to somehow work with it.

‘I’ll never finish if this continues, I should have never gone to that marketing event.’

A few weeks ago Roland found himself called to the guild. The guild master was all smiles and he commended him on making the runic weapons so fast.

At first, Roland thought that the man was just trying to make him work more. He might have been a bit overzealous in fashioning the items which proved his output being quite high.

Luckily for him, the contract had a set minimum number of things that he was required to make per month any surplus depended on his mood.

This was true, the conversation started with this but soon it was pushed into a different direction. Even though there were new items in the stores, not many people were buying them. Thus they came up with an advertising campaign to boost the sales.

To Roland who was not that against making some money this didn’t sound like such a bad idea. For a successful business, a good brand was a requirement. Only if his wares were known would people flock to them.

By being the only Runesmith in the city he had a leg up against his competition that could only order wares from outside. The people also trusted more what they saw, some would rather get things from the locals as they could always return the wares if something broke.

If they got their weapon from the auction house there was always a risk of costly repairs. Such repairs would need them to travel to specialists that could very well be on the other side of the island.

Just as most rare class holders they mostly flocked to the more developed cities that they knew would not waste their talents. Albrook on the other hand still needed a few more years to be able to attract more people.

He was talked into taking part in the presentation and the rest was history. It was his first real public appearance and quite the learning experience. Even though he was not good with social interactions when it came to business it was different. When he knew what to expect from the exchange it wasn’t that bad.

After this event where he showed off his runic shield, his name had become widespread. He was unsure what was happening behind the scenes but suddenly a week or so ago there was the first knock on the gate and the flood gates were open.

“What do you want?”

Roland had Bernir install a little peek hole that could be slid open from the inside. He was doing this just now as he was still reserved about letting people inside of his home. Not till he had figured out a better way of handling intruders than landmines.

“Good day, isn’t this where the town runesmith works? I heard that I could get my magical items repaired here.”

What he saw was a somewhat well-geared adventurer couple. With all the tier 2 monsters running around, the city slowly filled up with silver and gold ranked adventurers. The latter ones were quite the big spenders as with a lack of magical equipment it was hard to battle some of the creatures.

“Yes, that’s me… what needs repairing?”

The man was wearing some deep steel armor which was not magical in nature but then he took out a nice-looking silver longsword.

“I see, please place it on the tray.”

After saying this a long tray popped out from the door that could even fit in a whole armor set. The person that was holding the sword looked to his female companion that just shrugged at him.

“The guild said that we could trust the Runesmith.”

The man nodded and placed the sword into the tray which then Roland pulled back inside. After taking the sword into his hand he could tell what the runic enchantment was. The blade’s handle looked somewhat worn out but the blade was nice and sharp.

“Frost blade rune…”

“Oh, you can tell from one glance?”

“See, I told you that this will be quicker than going to the main city!”

Roland murmured to himself and it was heard by the man that handed him the weapon. It seemed that he was really the only craftsman in the city that could do quick repairs. The word was slowly spreading and he would probably be getting a lot more customers.

“The handle needs to be remade but that’s not what I’m offering, the rune has deteriorated below half of its original. I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s not working as well as it should.”

“That’s right, when I got this sword six months ago it worked like a charm but now I can barely use the enchantment. Can you fix it?”

The man replied while agreeing with Roland. Overuse of runic equipment caused the runes to deteriorate. Depending on the runes grade this could happen sooner than later. With a lack of runesmiths around it would be hard to get this in working condition. If a rune dropped below thirty percent it would more than likely stop working.

“Yes, it will cost … one small gold coin.”

“A whole small gold coin?”

“Yes, if you don’t like the price you can try another runesmith.”

The man thought for a second and nodded. All things considered, this was not that steep of a price as adventuring to another city to find a good runesmith would prove a lot pricier.

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“Please come back tomorrow to get your sword back.”

Soon Roland closed the latch while noticing the surprised expression on the man’s face. He knew that look as most magical craftsmen took sometimes a week to get such an item into working condition.

For this runic craftsman, on the other hand, repairing this rune would not take more than thirty minutes. The only reason that he told them to come back the next day was so that people didn’t get the wrong idea. They could start demanding quick repairs on the spot if they knew that he could do it.

It didn’t take much time and he earned a lot of money. Due to this, it was hard for him to refuse this business venture. He could earn quite a penny by just repairing runic items which was much easier than fully runecrafting them.

There was also the added bonus of him getting free access to more runic schematics. With his debugging skill, he also didn’t really need to worry about not being able to repair a never-before-seen rune. Thus he had come to a decision that would save him a lot of time.

“Another one Boss? You sure are getting popular!”

“Heh, popular. Good that you are here, I need to talk with you about something, wait a moment here.”

Roland descended into his workshop while Bernir waited in the living room. In a minute he returned with a rolled-up parchment which he then placed on the table.

“Isn’t that the plan of this property?”

“Yes, I redrew it and added a couple of things, here have a look at it.”

Roland knew that Bernir was the building type as he had worked as a carpenter for a part of his life.

“Did you add a new building here? Hm… are you finally?”

Bernir rubbed his red beard and soon realized what this addon to the land would be. It was quite spacious and would be placed inside of his property.

“Yes, I wanted to wait longer but how things are now…”