Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 60: Dwelling in a Small House (Part 1)
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I simply couldn't believe that in the magnificent, majestic and prosperous holy city of Freschit, there was such a remote, dark and narrow alley: on both sides of it were some dilapidated and ugly three-story wooden buildings. Whenever the wind blew into the alley, the broken doors and windows swayed in a mess, making a series of "creaking" rough sounds, making people feel that they might fall down at any time. Changgong Sheri once mentioned that in another time and space plane where the Sky Traveler was located, there was once a famous noble youth named Qing Ximen who was hit on the head by an accidentally fallen window sill, which triggered a series of erotic and exciting things, and eventually lost his life. Looking at the crumbling solid oak windows above our heads, each of which was as thick as a child's arm, I felt that the reason why a romantic and tortuous legend like this one did not spread in our world was that it had no real basis for spreading - the unfortunate guy must have gone straight to the end from the beginning of the story: he was directly hit to death by the heavy window edge.
When I first walked into this path, I felt that it was too narrow: if I stretched out my arms, my palms could just support the walls on both sides, and two adults of medium build could just walk side by side here. But if two minotaurs happened to meet here, it would probably take a lot of effort to get over each other - but I soon found that my worries were completely unnecessary: after walking here for half a day, we didn't even see a ghost, let alone anyone coming towards us.
We walked in this alley without sunlight for an unknown distance. The entrance behind us had disappeared, and the exit in front of us was still hidden in the endless darkness. Just when I was doubting whether this road would end, Feiyin, who was walking in front and looking at the map, finally stopped in front of a house:
“Here we are,” she said.
Like all the surrounding buildings, this house looked dilapidated. The bricks and stones of the outer wall were covered with moss, and the steps at the door were also full of cracks. The two red doors were crookedly closed, and a large lock with an iron chain was randomly wrapped around the door handle, and the lock was covered with yellow-green rust. I suspected that if we didn't use the key to open it, it would probably rust and break in two days - in fact, I was very surprised that Feiyin could actually open it with the key. After opening the door, we saw several sets of crudely made tables and chairs placed crookedly in the hall on the first floor, and there were several empty counters facing the door. There were many spider webs hanging in the corners, indicating that no one had used this house for a long time - judging from the dust accumulated on the ground that was almost as thick as my calves, I really doubted whether it had been used since the creation of the world by the Supreme God Darremos.
This is indeed a very shabby old house. For us, the only consolation is that, thank God, it is not worse than other houses. If there is any difference between this house and other houses around it, it is that there is a very simple plaque made of broken wood strips hanging at its door, on which is painted crookedly with red paint: "Headquarters of a group of people who are bored and chattering clearly.
Yes, this is the rich reward we got after completing the "God of War Arena Martial Arts Show" mission with the certificate given by the gods and the "donation" of 100,000 gold coins - the headquarters building of our guild. I still remember that the old priest who received us in the St. Frederick Temple was solemn and serious. However, when Feiyin handed him the purse full of 100,000 gold coins, his face immediately showed an extremely kind and kind expression, and a flattering smile bloomed from the thick wrinkles on his face like a flower. This old guy who seemed to treat gold coins more devoutly than to gods hurriedly put the purse in his arms, and said something shamelessly: "People who voluntarily dedicate themselves to the gods, the gods will protect you..."
"Voluntary?" Feiyin glared at the guy with a cold and piercing gaze, and without caring about her ladylike image - of course, if she had one - she spat on the ground:
"Bah, we were clearly volunteering..."
After collecting enough gold coins, this old man, who was greedy for money, threw us a thick stack of drawings and asked us to choose the location of the guild's headquarters. To be honest, this is the most gorgeous atlas I have ever seen in my life. It uses less than one-fifth of the page space on each page to mark the geographical location and architectural structure of the building in the city, and then uses the remaining four-fifths of the page space to depict exquisite illustrations, such as a group of rich and powerful people in gorgeous clothes strolling in a quiet and elegant alley, with photos of "Xingkeba" or "Hasdagan" hanging on the door of a shop next to them; or a rough and strong tauren man and several gorgeously dressed, slender and charming elf girls singing and dancing in the dim light, and the magic lamps behind them flashing strange words such as "Disco" and "High", and so on and so forth. Next to these tempting and agitating posters, there were often huge slogans written in eye-catching fonts such as "Carrefour Department Store, prime shops for sale", "Hoso Center, fashion trends in progress", "Spoon One, the domain ", etc. Ling Feiyin complained angrily while flipping through them, "real estate advertisements are everywhere."
Originally, we could have chosen to build our guild headquarters on a busy street closer to the city center, but the price of those houses would be more expensive. The price of a three-story building near the outskirts of the city would only be enough to buy a small storefront in the downtown area. If you want to buy a big and good house in a busy and bustling place, you must "donate" more gold coins - of course, if a guild has accumulated enough gold coins and some rare materials, they can also expand and upgrade the original guild headquarters to make it have more functions - similarly, the more prosperous the area, the higher the cost of building upgrades.
From my personal experience, choosing a location for our guild headquarters was a difficult and painful process: the buildings in good locations were too low-level, the buildings in high-level buildings were too small, and the larger buildings were too remote... Almost every house had some obvious flaws, which made us hesitate when choosing. When we finally found a good house with a good location, large area, and relatively high-level buildings, we suddenly realized that even if all of our guild members sold their underwear, they could not raise a fraction of the price.
So we know that for us, there is no shortage of good houses, what we lack is actually just money...
Finally, we chose a large house of the highest level in a remote urban area - the one we are in now. I still remember the slogan on the atlas: "Five-star property in the city core, landmark commercial district on East Avenue", but in fact, this "city core" is even farther from the central square than the palace of the last king Darendil, and finding this so-called "landmark" business district is more difficult than discovering a new continent overseas. The only truth in the brochure is: this is finally a genuine level 5 building.
But it doesn’t tell us: this is a level 5 building that could collapse at any time…
The most frustrating thing is that this is our guild headquarters, but strictly speaking, it does not belong to us. No matter how much money a guild spends on this house, no matter how many people tighten their belts to save money for this house, no matter how many opportunities to change equipment you have sacrificed for this house, and how much sweat you have shed in playing dungeons, in the end this house will not belong to you, but to the temple. You have only used your "donations" to exchange for the right to use this house for 70 years - they will eventually be taken back by the temple.
My companions accepted this harsh clause, and I understand it very well. They do not belong to this world. This is just a small part of their long and rich life journey. They do not need to seek a permanent place to settle down here. Seventy years is long enough for them. They will eventually return, and return permanently. At that time, it does not matter to them who this land and this house will eventually belong to.
But I always feel a little unwilling.
Unlike those who will eventually go back to the sky, I will stay here forever, in the land where I was born. While I belong to this land, I also hope to have a place of my own here - I hope that what I can keep in the end is not just my sword and shield.
Yes, for the Supreme God, the life in each world is short-lived. He seems to have been accustomed to seeing us as short-lived passers-by in this world - perhaps he even wants us to be short-lived passers-by - so he does not want us to really have something that belongs to us. Maybe he is right, everything belongs to God. The wisdom of the Supreme God is great and profound, and he can often think about some profound things that we cannot imagine, so we should be devout and believe, and should not doubt.
But I still feel a little unwilling, especially after many of us have struggled for so long and risked our lives for this shabby house with ventilation on all four walls and a rain-proof roof, and even sold everything we had for it.
A mediocre person as stupid as me can only have wisdom as stupid as me, that is: the reward earned with my blood, my sweat, my courage and perseverance, I hope it can belong to me - both in name and in fact.
I don't want to be a passer-by in this world.
I am a person who stays on this land...
While I was leaning against the door and thinking about random things, Guild President Fei Yin had already started the preliminary construction of the headquarters with everyone: she followed the instructions on the "Guild Headquarters Construction Manual" attached to the temple, and first spent 25 gold coins to hire a few goblin cleaners to clean the entire house from inside to outside. Although in the eyes of our respected guild president, this extra labor expenditure is purely the exploitation and oppression of the players by the vampire-greedy "Darimos Company" - may the Supreme God forgive this woman's disrespectful words, but in my opinion, this group of long-eared goblins wearing the funny uniforms of "Freshite Property Management Company" are really a group of hardworking, simple and hardworking good people: it took them less than a minute to make this broken house, which is dirtier than the most sinister ghost castle or underground cave you have ever seen, spotless, which is really worth the money. I even think that they cleaned it too much, so that the rat holes originally hidden under the dust in the corners of the house are visible at a glance.
In fact, if we were willing to pay an extra twenty gold coins, they could also offer the thoughtful service of repainting the exterior of the house, but our president rejected this image project, which I thought was very necessary, without hesitation.
It should be noted that if we want to keep the guild headquarters clean and tidy, we must pay a so-called "property management fee" to these diligent goblins on a monthly basis. I guess this group of underground races with pointy ears must have mastered a special magic, because Feiyin once refused to pay the fee. As a result, when the payment deadline was exceeded, a large amount of dust and spider webs fell from the sky like a blizzard, and in an instant, the house was restored to its old appearance. Our guild leader had to collapse and surrender in front of the counter crawling with spiders everywhere, and paid the money obediently. Since then, I have always suspected that all the houses on this path are so dirty. Could it be that this group of seemingly honest long-eared goblins are doing this to force others to pay obediently...
After cleaning, Feiyin hired a weapons dealer and an auctioneer, and placed them behind the two outermost counters. Like the weapons dealers in the city stores, our weapons dealers also sell some simple weapons and equipment. As the level of the guild headquarters increases, the variety of weapons sold will increase, and the quality will also improve accordingly. But the most intimate thing about him is that the weapons dealers hired by the guild will reduce the fee charged by half when repairing equipment for guild members. This will undoubtedly save a lot of money for us adventurers who are always facing danger and killing - especially for melee professionals like me who throw my body into monsters and endure the rain of guns and knives.
Compared to the use of weapons dealers, auctioneers are obviously a more important profession. We all know that almost every city in the Farvi continent has its own auction house. Anyone can entrust the auction house to auction the items they want to sell, and can also buy the items they need through the auction house. However, every time you successfully auction an item, the auction house will charge a 5% transaction fee as a handling fee.
But when a guild has its own auctioneer, if guild members auction through the guild auctioneer, the handling fee will be reduced to 3%, of which 1% will become the guild's income, and members of the same guild do not need to pay any handling fees when buying and selling items through the guild auctioneer. You have to know that sometimes a high-level adventurer spends thousands of gold coins From this, it can be fully inferred that the cost that a guild can save through its own auctioneer is definitely a huge amount of money - at least for me.
In addition to weapon dealers and auctioneers, the guild headquarters can also hire a series of merchants such as grocers, pharmacists, tailors, tavern owners, etc., to gradually improve its own functions - of course, like weapon dealers and auctioneers, these merchants also need the guild to pay a necessary salary every month. When the headquarters level is upgraded to a high enough level, the guild's dedicated carriage station will be built. However, all this is too beautiful and too long-term for us - really, it is difficult to let a group of poor people with only the last nine copper coins in their pockets bare their shirts and dream of unreliable luxury goods such as "private carriages".
The attic on the top
And after a longer period of time, I guess her life ideal will become: use this gold to exchange for a bigger warehouse, and then fill it up...
After arranging the first floor and the attic, Feiyin finally took us to the second floor. This floor was divided into four separate small rooms, and the doors were all open. Looking inside, each room was only about five steps wide and seven steps deep. The room was empty, with nothing in it.
Just as I was guessing the purpose of these rooms, I suddenly found that I had received a message. When I opened the magic notebook and looked at the message column, I was stunned...
