Chapter 69 – Getting a house.

The doors to the adventurer’s guild swung open and a man that was wearing a helmet stepped forward. He had a dark blue brigandine armor on complete with a set of graves and leather boots in a similar dark color.

Under it was a thinner piece of cloth armor that was keeping him warm. It was doing its job a bit too well as underneath that helmet sweat was forming on the young man’s forehead.

‘I bet that dungeon will be a lot warmer, maybe I should include some kind of chilling rune in my armor…’

Keeping a low profile was harder than he expected. He wanted to hide his face but the weather was against him. There was also the option of somehow getting a skill that increased his heat resistance. In a city with a dungeon that sprung out from a volcano, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘Either that or I could put a heat resistance buffing rune on it.’

He had gone through Edelgard’s stores throughout that year and a half. Each week he would pick one store and scribe down one of the lesser runes. Fire and cold resistances were quite common, they were the first that he procured from the armor runes.

He had also recreated the schematics for all the other elemental resistances, even the rarer ones like poison or curse resistance. The runes used on armor were bigger structure wise but there was a lot more surface area to use for inscribing them.

Roland felt like he could take care of this heat problem with some minimal work, he just needed to get a house first. In it, Roland would be able to craft his items in peace.

This was easier said than done, first, he needed to find the correct location. After asking around he was on his way towards the town hall. There he would be able to look at the locations that he could buy or rent.

He preferred to go with the first option but depending on the prices he might have to go with the second. There were pros and cons for each of the two options.

If he decided to rent the home he would probably be limited to what he could do there. Adding new rooms, expanding the cellar and similar tasks would need to go through the real owner of the house. Depending on who the owner was he might show up for unannounced visits. He could even get evicted for no reason whatsoever.

There were also some pros to renting out the workshop. He would be able to leave at any moment without losing much money. If the Abyssal Cult showed up on his doorstep, he could just abandon ship. There wouldn’t be much loss even if the property blew up as long as he grabbed most of his gear.

Roland still preferred to go with the other option, buying it fully for himself. He had already thought about a couple of things that he would want to install into his new workshop. He needed freedom of choice without having a nosy landlord telling him what he can and can not do.

He was in good spirits, for now, houses in this world didn’t cost that much compared to his old one. The number of coins that he had with him should be enough to get himself a sizable home and even be enough for some renovation.

Just like always, he took his time. The town was new to him and so were the people that lived in it. He glanced to the left of the street he was walking along while passing some shops. There were carriages moving back and forth slowly, the people were clearly busy working.

He could see many men carrying around wooden logs and building materials. Many scaffolds were being placed in front of old buildings that were in the process of getting renovated. He wouldn’t be surprised if the old villagers that lived there were all bought out by larger merchants.

From what he knew there were some farms here and there. There was also a lake from which the old villagers probably got most of their meat from. Not many things were used to make a profit here. The farmers would probably be able to sell their lands for a lot of coins while moving someplace else more quiet.

The new city would take some time to be expanded and it would start from the middle. Anything close to it that was free to build on could be used for houses for the merchants and adventurers. The city needed specialized monster deconstruction buildings and personnel as well.

While glancing around he finally reached the town hall building. It was right in the middle of this growing city.

The building was made from red bricks that weren’t painted over. The building was quite large and it had a cross gabled roof. In the middle of it was a small bell tower that was rung a couple of times a day.

Some people were already going in and out of it. Roland didn’t have that much experience with state officials. He mostly rented rooms out in inns, back in Edelgard he also was living through the company that paid all the taxes and took some of that away from his pay.

‘Can’t be that hard, probably will have to sign a contract after seeing the houses. That is if any proper ones are still left behind…’

There were already a lot of people gathered in this city. He didn’t have to worry about the adventurer’s buying of land as they didn’t operate that way. On the other hand, the merchants and business owners would quickly overpay to get their hands on the best places. He wasn’t looking for anything fancy but he needed it to be big enough for him to construct items.

“Here goes nothing.”

He gave out a sigh while walking into the building. On the inside, he could see some people standing around with some papers in their hands. There were wooden benches to sit on and even a small window that looked like the spot where a receptionist should be.

Roland walked over to that window and waited for the person in front of him to walk away first. He was greeted by a human woman that was sitting in there.

“How may I help you?”

The woman’s voice was slightly monotone, she sounded a bit tired which was understandable. This was the place where everyone that wanted to get their hands on new real estate had to go through. He wouldn’t be surprised if the people from Albrook weren’t understaffed.

“Ah yes, I would like to purchase some land with a house, best if it’s…”

Roland started talking, he gave the woman the dimensions of what his new workshop building should have and also the price range he was interested in. The receptionist lady just nodded and handed him a piece of paper with some places to fill out.

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“Please fill out this form and then move to room 3b”

He looked at the piece of paper while being urged by the receptionist to not block the way. After nodding he moved to the side, there were some tables where other people were filling out similar papers. He waited for a spot to get free before sitting down and taking a quill into his hand. His class was scribe so filling out something like this would be quite fast, his writing was also nice.

On the piece of paper, he needed to fill out what he wanted while also listing down his identity. He went with his new adventurer name, he also wrote down the dimensions of his new house. He would probably need to get his adventurer card first before finalizing everything but for now, he could at least look at the available buildings.

The wait continued even after he was done with the paperwork. He needed to wait in front of the room for an hour while glancing around. He really started missing things like smartphones or even a radio. Only silence and the footsteps of people were heard here with nothing of the sort being available in this world.

“Welcome to the city of Albrook!”

He was now finally on the inside. The room with the number 3b was quite small and the person that was inside fit it. The woman that he was looking at had a similar vibe to the receptionist lady from the adventurer’s guild that he avoided. She was wearing glasses and a tight business-like attire that fit a corporate setting more than this one.

There was one big difference between this woman and the one back at the guild. This one was a lot shorter, she reached up to his belly button at most even when wearing those high heels. She was of the halfling race and was more or less a miniaturized human. This race had human-like proportions; they were just half the size of regular humans.

“Here, I’d like to purchase some land. I’d like to see what you have available…”

He sat down opposite the small woman that took the form that he filled out. She fixed her glasses a bit before going over it, her eyes squinting here and there as she looked over it.

“Mr. Wayland is it? I’ll have to go through our book, please wait a moment.”