Chapter 6
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Translator: Xrecker
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Valendia (6)
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In Lucadia Fantasm, characters pulled from the gacha each had their own unique combat skills, as well as unique passive skills that helped with enjoying the game.
Things like making your dash speed faster, increasing the harvest yield when gathering materials, or boosting the quantity of food produced when cooking.
And Shasha's unique passive skill, "Frugal," was a long-term, extremely useful passive skill for playing Lu-Fan.
It reduced the cost of strengthening weapons or buying items from NPCs by 20%.
It also increased the selling price of materials or useless excess equipment to NPCs by 20%. It was truly a passive skill befitting her merchant setting.
Lucadia Fantasm was a game that profited off its characters, so whales like me regularly pulled for new characters.
Even if you weren't a whale, users who diligently saved up in-game currency to hit pity, or those lucky enough to get a character early, would still pull for new characters, albeit less frequently.
If you pulled a new character, the next step was, of course, to raise them.
You'd raise the character's level, skill levels, and the levels of their weapons and equipment.
And this process, of course, required character experience materials, skill level materials, and weapon and equipment level materials.
All these procedures consumed the in-game currency of Lu-Fan, called gold.
Ways to earn gold included completing main quests, sub-quests, event quests, character affinity quests, selling dropped equipment or materials from monsters, and entering gold dungeons which had a limited number of daily entries.
Most Lu-Fan users were constantly struggling with this gold shortage.
This was because the methods to obtain it were limited, but there were many characters, skills, and equipment to raise.
At least whales like me could breathe a little easier regarding this problem.
Because if the daily entry limit for gold dungeons was exceeded, you could use affinity stones, which were needed for gacha pulls, for additional entries.
Of course, entries using affinity stones also had a set limit, so even if it was easier for whales compared to free-to-play or low-spending users, they were still just barely short on gold.
When a new gacha character came out, I wanted to immediately get their end-game setup ready, but the lack of gold would force me to stop halfway.
That moment was truly agonizing for me, as a whale.
And across all types of players—from whales to low-spenders and free-to-play—the one thing that helped solve the gold currency problem, even if only a little, was Shasha's passive skill, "Frugal."
As the saying goes, "many a little makes a mickle," the gold consumed decreased, and the gold earned from selling increased by 20% each time, which reduced the frequency of running out of currency during character progression.
That was why users loved her, and Shasha's nickname became "Meow-Pay."
If you didn't have Shasha, you'd be teased as a "Shasha-less loser."
Perhaps because of this, when Shasha's gacha rerun happened, Lucadia Fantasm even became the number one grossing game for a day.
And now, right before my eyes, was Shasha, who had been loved by Lu-Fan users for a long time—literally from her first gacha appearance until the moment the ridiculously overpowered final boss appeared.
The moment I saw Shasha, this thought immediately came to mind.
'She's really cute.'
The graphics of Lu-Fan were good, but Shasha, seen in this real-world version, was also incredibly good.
It felt as if a character from the game had truly leaped out into reality.
As a user who had played Lu-Fan for 10 years, my heart swelled with emotion and gratitude.
'It would have been even better if this wasn't happening in a situation where I have to defeat that ridiculously difficult final boss.'
I suppressed my emotion as much as possible and composed myself.
What I needed now wasn't emotion.
It was to create a proper connection with Shasha to defeat the final boss.
Adopting a somewhat unusual, mysterious man concept, I opened my mouth.
"Who are you?"
To emphasize the feeling of looking at a suspicious person, I slightly raised the skin under my left eye and looked down at Shasha as I asked.
Shasha placed her hand on the center of her chest.
"My name is Shasha. I'm a merchant in Valendia."
That was one of Shasha's idle animations.
From there, performing a wide, sweeping bow was the complete action.
"So?"
"As I said earlier~ I have a very, very good story for you, mister, so I approached you."
Shasha winked, making the most of her cute appearance.
I wanted to get straight to business, but I had only set foot in Valendia two weeks ago.
So, the choice to make here was.
"No hawkers."
First, I had to play hard to get.
I walked past Shasha, moving my feet.
"Wait, wait, wait, mister."
Shasha hurriedly blocked my path again.
"Hawker! How rude! Don't you know the name Shasha? I am Shasha, the merchant of Cat's Commerce Guild!"
"I don't know you."
"That can't be...!"
Shasha's ears and tail perked up in surprise.
But that was an act.
If the in-game settings were still true, Shasha would have approached me with some prior information about me.
"If you live in Valendia, it's impossible not to know Cat's Commerce Guild!"
"Is that so? I've been in this city for two weeks, but I've never heard of Cat's Commerce Guild."
"Oh my! Cat's Commerce Guild is in the East District, not the West District! If you had even stepped foot in the East District, there's no way you wouldn't know Cat's Commerce Guild!"
"Alright. Then I'm leaving."
Second time playing hard to get.
As I tried to walk past Shasha again, she grabbed my sleeve.
"Wait! Why are you trying to leave again! We haven't finished talking!"
"I told you, no hawkers...."
"I'm not a hawker! I'm the owner who leads Cat's Commerce Guild! The merchant Shasha!"
I figured this much playing hard to get was enough.
I stopped walking and looked at Shasha.
"Suspicious."
"What's suspicious? What about this cute me is suspicious?"
To call herself cute.
Typical of Shasha, who used her own looks as one of her bargaining chips.
'It's true that she's genuinely cute, though.'
Striving not to reveal my true thoughts, I pushed away Shasha's hand that was holding my sleeve and crossed my arms.
"Why is the famous and cute owner of a commerce guild in Valendia talking to me?"
Here, I furrowed my brow slightly and subtly glared at Shasha.
"There's nothing to gain from me, is there?"
Even if there was nothing to gain, there was certainly something she wanted badly.
"Wow," Shasha exclaimed briefly, then clapped her hands together and smiled.
"You're smart."
"Are you mocking me?"
"No! Not at all! I was just impressed! Your impression is a little different from what I heard."
"Heard? What did you hear?"
"Hmm~ If we just stand here and talk, our legs will get tired, so how about we sit somewhere and talk? That cafe over there looks nice. We can chat calmly over some tea. My treat."
"Apple pie."
"Pardon?"
"I'm ordering apple pie too."
The cafe Shasha pointed to was the one I had visited yesterday.
Their apple pie was truly delicious.
"Oh! Yes! Order as much as you like!"
I went into the cafe with Shasha and ordered tea and apple pie.
After placing our order with the waiter, Shasha immediately spoke to me.
"Then I'll tell you why I approached you, mister."
"Alright, why?"
Shasha pointed at the amulet with her finger.
"That amulet you're wearing, mister. I'm very, very taken with it. Where did you get that amulet?"
"Before that, there's something else we need to talk about, isn't there?"
"Something else?"
I wanted to get straight to the point as much as possible, but for a truly good conversation, it had to make sense.
I couldn't look like a pushover by answering Shasha's questions right away.
"What do you mean you 'heard about me'?"
"Oh, that."
"Yes. My answers to your questions will come after that."
"Alright."
Shasha's tail swayed gently.
"Did you know? You're quite famous in Valendia!"
"Famous?"
"Yes. As the 'Bandit Hunter,' a peculiar individual who appeared two weeks ago, came to Valendia, and has been relentlessly targeting only bandits."
"Was there such a nickname going around?"
"Yes, there was! I heard you even took down a bandit captain recently, didn't you? That's amazing!"
Shasha clapped her hands together in short, quick bursts.
"That's all I heard about you, mister."
"Really?"
"Yes! Really."
"And what about 'my impression is different'?"
"You know how rumors get exaggerated, right? Like you're 'heartless and ruthless' or 'got sick of bandits and started hunting thugs'~ I was just a little bit mistaken about you because of those strange rumors."
"I see."
Hunting thugs, really.
Where did those strange rumors even come from?
"Does that answer your question? Then it's my turn, right? Mister~ Where did you get that amulet from, really?"
Shasha looked at me, her lips curving into a crescent moon and her eyes also curved.
Even though she looked like she was smiling, Shasha's eyes were surely cold and calculating.
She would want to properly discern who I was.
Why I had obtained this amulet.
It was only natural for her to act this way, as this amulet was such an important item to Shasha.
"It's loot."
"Loot?"
"I obtained it by defeating a bandit. It's the item that the bandit captain you just mentioned had. So, I don't know where it was originally sold."
"Ah, I see. A bandit captain had it, huh...."
Shasha's eyes, hidden behind her smile, felt even colder.
"Are you doubting my words?"
"No! Not at all! Indeed! Since the Bandit Hunter mister has it, it must naturally be loot obtained from defeating a bandit! It was an obvious fact if I had just thought about it a little!"
Shasha clapped her hands together and started rubbing them.
"So, mister~ I really, really like that amulet. Would you be willing to sell it to me? I'll buy it at a good price. Wouldn't it be good for you too, to sell the loot you got from a bandit at a high price?"
I firmly stated to Shasha, who was trying to bargain.
"No."
"...Pardon?"