POV Swap - 3rd person

Early the next day… inside a small office on the second floor of the Demon Slayers’ guild headquarters.

The sun rose on the horizon and shone through the window illuminating the three people inside the room. Facing the window was the guild leader of Demon Slayers, a dark-hair young man with dark leather coat and sword at his side.

Two voices called out from behind him.

“Damien?”

“You wanted to talk to us?”

Two identical girls with similarly black hair and western faces inquired with curiosity. They had moved toward the window and leaned in to look out the window.

Damien backed away from the window and let them look outward, before closing his eyes and breathing out an annoyed sigh. “I only called you, Lina.”

“Laura wanted to come too?” Lina turned away from the window and rubbing her neck, the expression on her face screamed ‘oops’.

Meanwhile, Laura glared at her twin. “I woke up early for nothing?”

“It doesn’t matter. Both of you can do this if you want.” Damien rolled his eyes and waved away her concerned, placing two fist-sized ores on the desk.

“Ore?” The twins’ eyes locked onto the mineral on the desk.

“Mithril, specifically.” Damien stated with confidence. “I want you to exchange it for an artifact that’s useful for yourselves.”

“Would anybody be willing to trade an artifact for a useless piece of metal?” Laura doubtfully asked, picking up one of the mithril ores.

Taking out a map of the residential zone, Damien shook his head. “You two should be more informed of major events.”

The twins avoided his gaze with a slightly guilty expression… neither of them spoke. Clearly, they had no intention of changing their ignorant ways.

Not bothering to scold the twins further, Damien pointed to a location on the map and continued. “A craftsman who can make artifacts set up shop here awhile ago. Despite various guilds competing to get him to join, he has shown no interest.”

“You want to entice him with mithril?” Laura inquired inspecting the map and Lina listened carefully from the side.

“Getting him to join our guild is impossible with our reputation.” Damien dismissively stated while watching the twins, “However, the craftsman has expressed a willingness to trade quality artifacts for valuable minerals from any guild.”

“That’s just a normal transaction…” Laura placed the ore back on the desk, her interest in the task diminishing.

“Whatever you manage to acquire is meant for you two. Since you’re already awake and available, you might as well choose it yourselves.” Damien stated before turned back toward the window.

“Leave it to us!” Lina enthusiastically replied grabbing the mithril and handing one of the ores over to her sister, her sister’s expression dimmed displayed she was less than enthusiastic about the task.

“Don’t burn any bridges. Long-term cooperation is preferable to short-term profit. There aren’t many people left willing to trade with us.” Damien instructed as the twins prepared to leave the room.

The terrible reputation of the Demon Slayers’ guild wasn’t empty talk, they were a group of troublemakers through and through. While Damien would stand up and protect his guild despite the trouble they caused, his life would be far easier if people stopped causing trouble to begin with.

“Kay~” Lina bolted out of the room with the mineral in hand. Laura followed after rolling her eyes.

A short while later, the twins arrived outside the craftsman’s shop.

The building sat within the specialist district of normal difficulty, where many people with a hobby set up. There wasn’t much business to be done without an economy… but these were people simply practicing their skills.

Anybody with semi-decent craftsmanship or specialist skills could join a smaller guild and receive far more materials and luxury than a simply shop could provide. Those with better skills could receive resources from larger guilds.

Generally speaking, those who shopped in this place were those in small guilds that couldn’t attract many specialists. Although the quality was inferior to the goods received in larger guilds, those goods tended to only be given to their own members for contribution.

“Knock knock, anybody home~” Lina sang whilst knocking on the door from the outside.

“It’s open.” A male voice responded.

Opening the door, the twins entered the shop. A forge in the far back with a pile of metal beside it. A portion of the far wall was made of stone, compared to the normal bricks that made up the rest. There was a small counter with various material and containers atop it.

On a bench behind the counter, Tobias sat working on a meter-wide round piece of metal and greeted without looked up. “Welcome.”

“Hello~” The twins simultaneously greeted.

Tobias glanced between the two girls before muttering to himself. “Twins…”

“You trade artifacts for minerals, right?” Laura asked to confirm.

“We brought an ore-” Lina began before Laura finished her sentence. “-you might be interest in.”

Tobias nodded. “Bring it out then.”

Lina skipped over to the counter and placed down a single mithril ore. Laura kept her piece of ore hidden, knowing better than to completely exposing their cards about compensation before the negotiation began.

“Mithril… It’s impure and the amount is too small to make anything, though.” Tobias examined the ore, before calmly stating. “To be usable, it would have to be alloyed. That decreases its value further.”

“What you are going to do with the metal has nothing to do with us. You could simply save it until you acquire more, it shouldn’t decrease the price.” Laura negotiated from behind her sister.

Tobias stared between the two girls and the mithril ore, before sighing. “Fine, I’ll eat the loss. It’s a usable material. Pick one of the smaller artifacts from the box.”

Lina poked her head in the box on the counter. “This looks pretty~”

She pulled out a bracelet with various decorative patterns atop it. The bracelet easily fit around her wrist.

“Ah… no, that-” Tobias stood up noticing the bracelet Lina had taken out of the box and reached toward her, “-that isn’t for sale.”

Avoiding Tobias reach, Lina backed up keeping the bracelet around her arm.

Laura frowned at his attitude, “It’s definitely one of the smaller items. Are you going back on your word?”

“It’s a prototype.” Tobias explained with an apologetic expression, “A teleportation bracelet. I forgot I put it in there.”

“It’s pretty, I’ll take it.” Lina smiled, glanced at it around her wrist. “How does it work?”

“Injecting mana with a destination within 20-30 meters in mind should work, but it’s untested and-” Tobias began to explain the dangers only to be caught off-guard by the girl teleporting across the room.

“This is so cool~” Lina turned back toward her sister after teleporting, “Definitely having this.”

“-extremely dangerous...” Tobias’ voice branched off into a whisper and he swallowed his saliva. “Right. You can keep it.”

A suspicious expression appeared on Laura’s face. While she hadn't heard his whisper, she had doubts as the craftsman had been completely against selling it a moment ago.

“It’s not working, now?” Lina stated with disappointment.

“The bracelet won’t work in rapid succession, but it should recharge after a period of time…” Tobias explained with a slightly worried expression as he looked at the girl.

“How long would that take?” Laura asked, looking at the bracelet on her sister’s wrist.

“It’s an untested prototype, I had no idea it would even work.” Tobias explained while glancing at her sister, “A day, maybe longer? Maybe a lot longer.”

“That’s disappointing.” Lina expression fell, before lightening back up. “It’s still really cool though! Short-distance teleportation~”

“It’s a prototype. I planned on giving it away for free in return for collecting data about it.” Tobias explained. “If you’re willing to regularly report about the performance, you can choose another.”

Laura narrowed her eyes upon hearing that information, but didn’t refute. Giving away a useful artifact for free meant it was dangerous for general usage or that he wanted to use it to get closer to them.

Whatever the case, keeping in contact with him was a good idea.

If the artifact was dangerous, keeping in contact with the craftsman meant they could learn about any life-threatening problems with artifact in advance and potentially solve them.

If the craftsman merely wants to close the relationship between them, Laura had even less of a reason to refuse. Potentially leveraging a talented person over to their guild wasn’t something she would easily refuse. Their guild wasn’t in a position to be picky with their methods of acquisition.

“What does this one do?” Lina rummaged through the box once again and pulled out a small necklace with a yin-yang symbol engraved on it.

“A rechargeable barrier.” Tobias noted, “Upon activation, it’ll block a single attack below a certain strength level and weaken attacks above that amount by a margin. Limited to once per hour or so.”

“Neat.” Lina placed it around her neck. “I’ll choose this then.”

“Now that we’ve concluded that transaction, let’s negotiate for this piece.” Laura placed the other piece of mithril on the table.

Tobias looked like he’d eaten a fly.

“What naivety? What childlike innocence?” Tobias muttered to himself in annoyance. “Stanley, you’re full of crap.”

Silence spread throughout the room for several seconds.

“Who’s Stanley?” Laura barely managed to catch a few words of his mumblings and was extremely confused.

“Doesn’t matter, just an old friend of mine who has forgotten all about me.” Tobias waved off her question with melancholy.

“I’m sure you’re wrong~” Lina interrupted him with a joyful smile, “Friends don’t forget each other.”

“If only I had your unwavering confidence.” Tobias didn’t dismiss her fantasy and merely shook his head. “Just take another small artifact from the pile, next time you’re paying full price.”

“Thank you~” Laura stepped up the box and perused through the artifact, far more carefully than her sister.

After asking several questions about different artifacts, Laura frowned. “These are all defense or auxiliary artifacts.”

“I don’t sell weapons.” Tobias snorted.

“You mean you won’t sell us weapons.” Laura corrected his statement with a displeased expression.

“I don’t sell weapons to anyone.” Tobias placed the second mithril ore back on the table. “Even if I did sell them, it’s irrelevant. What you’ve provided is nowhere close to enough to trade for it.”

“Fine.” Laura understood that weapons tended to take far more materials than the small trinkets they were taking and decided not to argue, despite the discrimination against her guild. “Anything providing night vision?”

“Night vision?” Tobias glanced at her with a doubtful gaze, “I can only duplicate an effect I’ve seen before. Unless you have an artifact on hand with night vision, that isn’t happening.”

Laura fell into contemplation and asked. “I can borrow one. How long would it take you to make?”

“Depends on how complicated engraving it is. A week or two maximum.” Tobias furrowed his brow as he thought over the project.

“Customizable?” Laura asked.

Tobias shrugged, “Depending on the situation.”

“Fine, I’ll leave the ore as deposit.” Laura nodded in agreement.

Laura couldn’t do anything with the ore, anyway. Keeping it or returning it to the guild was pointless and would probably anger the guild leader. Better to leave it with him to increase goodwill. It was already stingy of her to negotiate a personalized artifact instead of taking one that was premade.

“Happy cooperation.” Tobias shook hands with the twin and placed the mithril ore behind the counter.

As Laura was preparing to leave, the realization occurred to her that she didn’t even know the craftsman’s name. “What’s your name, again?”

“Tobias, it was nice to meet you.” Tobias greeted them with a proper introduction before, remembering that he hadn’t asked their names. “Your names were?”

“Lina~” The girl waved with the teleportation bracelet on her hand.

“Laura.” The other twin replied as they prepared to leave the building behind.

“Ah! Wait.” Tobias remembered something as the two were leaving, “If you come across something called a Decima game token, I’m willing to trade a high price for it.”

“Kay~” Lina joyful replied with a wave, while Laura didn’t reply she had noted his name in her mind.