93 The deal
"Now we're both on the same page!" Alex sarcastically answered Father Bertram when he basically repeated what Alex had been explaining for the past 5 minutes back to him.
It took Bertram a few moments to consider things, with all sorts of thoughts going through his mind.
'Is he telling the truth?'
'Is he really just here for a weapon?'
'Can I really trust him?'
...
Bertram went through many different emotions as he thought of every scenario, but even after all of that he couldn't come to a conclusion.
In the end, he decided to just play along with Alex, for now.
"So what kind of weapon are you looking for? Since it's not something you can get from the merchant, I'm assuming what you want isn't normal." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
He questioned Alex, probing him further on the type of weapon he was looking for.
Meanwhile Alex went through his memories and crossed out any daggers, bows or spears and his thoughts took him back to Rowan's sword.
"Something around 1 - 1.5 metres in length, crafted using E or preferably E+ rank materials. Oh and it has to be fire resistant too."
The long sword Alex described to Bertram quickly built a picture of the product in both of their minds.
At first, Bertram looked as neutral as ever as he listened to Alex speak, but when he heard the mention of the rank of the sword, his face soured.
'He's asking for an E+ rank sword! Only someone of equal strength could wield a weapon of such quality... Not even I could have predicted this kid would be so strong. This changes everything.'
Bertram kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to alarm Alex, or Kilian who was waiting outside the door.
The fact that Alex was most likely an E+ rank warrior or had the strength equivalent to one meant that he was currently the strongest person in this town, stronger than Kilian or even Bertram himself.
Bertram was only E rank, but he wasn't even a combatant focused awakened as he had a talent that was more suited for administration, hence why he was the mayor of this town.
Alex felt something enter his inventory!
In his excitement, he found that he had gained a Soul orb from this beast!
Not only this, but this beast seemed to be somewhat of a lucky charm, as it held an E- rank beast core too!
Overall, that day was a very fruitful day of hunting. Earning as much as he did in the last 3 days alone.
Bertram had someone with a stealth talent follow Alex, curious to see what he was up to. But all Bertram found out was that Alex had the same routine every day.
He'd spend sunrise to sunset just hunting, until he'd come back to town to sell off his kills.
The frightening thing Bertram had found out was that every beast Alex killed, was killed in one strike to the head. Even an E- rank beast Alex was lucky to come across fell to the same fate.
Not even Bertram could take an E- rank beast down so easily and efficiently...
However, after a week passed there was finally some progress in the request Alex had given to the Mayor.
He had managed to find a weapon matching Alex's specifications through his connections!
But there was a catch, Alex had to collect it himself. E+ rank weapons were rare in this part of the underworld, with not a single craftsman being able to craft one of this rank. Of course, craftsmen in the city could produce much better, but every city was too far away, not to mention the fee would be extortionate.
When Alex was summoned back to Bertram's office — Kilian acting much more reserved and polite this time — he was informed of the situation right away.
The sword was located within some ruins around a 2 weeks travel away from Monty town — located in the wildlands.
Many warriors and other types of awakened had attempted to loot the ruins for themselves, yet all had failed.
There were traps in there that only E+ rank awakened would be able to withstand or disarm, but most E+ ranks would already have a suitable weapon anyway so none had ever ventured out to the ruins.
This left them unconquered until now.
Considering the danger, as well as the fact that Bertram didn't even have the sword on hand, Alex only paid him 10% of the original price as an 'information fee', which was about 2000 gold and some 2 E- rank beast cores Alex had procured.
With this information in mind, Alex left the office of the Mayor for the last time while he sorted out some things.
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