After eating breakfast outside, we returned to her shop to drink tea in the break room. We are now planning our day.
"You said you wanted to learn the basics of alchemy from me before, right?"
"Yes, that would be nice if possible."
"I'm fine with teaching you, but most of it is practice and memorization, so there isn't really too much I can show you..."
"I think it would already help me if you could guide me through some easy recipes and show me how you work."
If I have the skill and know a little about how to proceed, I should be able to experiment with the herbs I have, I am positive I can work it out somehow with just that.
"But even if I teach you, you won't sell anything you create, ok? You are only allowed to sell your products if you have an alchemist’s license! Unlike with other guilds, in the crafter's guild you need to visit a school before getting a license, the alchemist's guild has a slightly special position and is not directly part of the crafter's guild, but they usually share the same building and management staff, so the same rules apply here."
"An adventurer is responsible for his own life and no one gets hurt by a merchant that is bad at trading, other than himself. But an unsafe building or potion can hurt others, that is why they can't just accept anyone."
"Mm, so you went to school?"
"..."
Ehh, somehow that indeed sounded mean.
"N-no I didn't mean it that way, I was just surprised that's how you handle it over here! Because, you see, umm, where I come from a simple test is all you need to do."
Let's just blame our imaginary kingdom!
"Hmm, I see."
What a suspicious glare. Haha, that was close... sigh
"A-anyway, I decided I want to join the Merchant's Guild, for now, how about we go there first, and then we can start with the alchemy?"
"That sounds fine to me, I still have supplies that should last me a few days so I'm not in a hurry to get back to work."
Right, while she has shop attendants that can look after her shop, she is the only working alchemist here.
* * *
At the Merchant's Guild, we were greeted by a middle-aged man who had a business smile that screamed 'In your job interview I told you, you would work with a young team, but all of us are actually in our 40s and we just constantly say that we feel young' to me. Nah, I must be imagining it.
"So, how can I help Fukuda-sama and Silvia-sama?"
"I wanted to register to get a membership here and sell a few items."
"And Silvia-sama is here to be your referrer I assume?"
"Correct."
As Silvia answers, she pulls out a golden card from her bag and shows it to the attendant. Gold? Isn't that pretty fancy? Looks like Silvia has a pretty good standing here. I wonder what her rank in the Alchemist's Guild is.
While I think about that, the man nods to Silvia and pulls out a form.
"Mm, certainly, would Fukuda-sama please fill out this form and show me an ID, please? I'll begin with the membership process in the meanwhile."
Siliva is looking with an 'I told you, didn't I?!' face at me. Ughh, can I maybe bribe my way through? No, this is the Merchant's Guild no way they accept bribes here. Besides, I'm also as broke as it gets now that I think about it... so depressing. Sigh
"Well, I somehow seem to have lost my ID, is there maybe another way we can proceed?"
"I'm sorry, if that's the case, getting a membership would be impossible, even with a referrer with a gold level membership. Please get at least a temporary ID from the guards at the gate and come back after."1 Without an ID the claim of being a noble (having a surname) doesn't hold that's why he doesn't have to help Hiro here.
"Ugh, but I-"
As I was about to shit some random excuses to not wait in that huge line, I saw yesterday I got interrupted by a woman's voice that comes from the upper floor.
"It's fine, Fredo I'll handle the ID issue, just proceed with the Membership."
A tall beauty is descending the stairs in the back. Long straight white hair that goes up to her hips, blue eyes, a black long open side skirt, and an equally revealing black top. She has a red thin cloth on top and several accessories. So far she is the sexiest woman I've encountered, with beautiful legs and two quite large weapons at the front.
""Guild Master?!""
Both the attendant, Fredo-san, and Silvia exclaim in a shocked manner. Yep, I'm also plenty surprised here.
The guild master walks dangerously close to me and lowers her back to the front, our faces are almost touching and I can feel her breath on my face. And most importantly, I can see 'everything' you know?! Is that fine?
"Oh my~, you're indeed quite the cute boy, aren't you~?"
She says something I think, at least I feel like I heard some seductive sounds right now, but my eyes and brain are focused on something else right now.
"Fufufu~ if it's like this I'll also handle the form, I have all the info in my report anyways~"
She turns around and takes the form from the counter and starts walking to the stairs again. Before walking up the stairs she turns her head around once more and winks at me.
"With this, you'll owe me one, remember that, okay~"
Like that she walks up the stairs. Eh? I feel like something big happened right now?
"Fukuda-sama!"
Fredo-san bows respectfully after looking at my left hand. Huh? A black card? When?
"Please show me the items you wanted to sell, I will handle it right now."
"U-um, yeah, here."
I put the potato sack on top of the counter, I really should buy a proper bag already... By the way, I partially filled it with items again without Silvia noticing, probably. There are about half as many items as yesterday inside.
While Fredo-san is busy handling my items I check out the black card I got.
It is a very simple card, it only has my name in the center and both sides have a golden symbol as a background. That symbol seems to be slightly glowing?
"Haa?! H-Hiro-sama, is that a black membership card?!"
"Huh, eh, look like it, is it something good?"
From the reaction it has to be higher than her golden card, I would also be shocked if someone I was gonna refer suddenly received a higher-level card. Poor Silvia.
"With that, your status in the guild is only second to the Guild Master, you know?!"
"R-really?"
Silvia vigorously nods at me and continues.
"Mm! Mm! While I could upgrade to a platinum membership one day, getting a black card is basically impossible through normal means! Just what did you do for you to receive that?!"
"O-oh, I, umm, honestly I'm not sure why I got this myself. I mean this is the first time I've seen the guild master. I was always by your side ever since I came here, so you should've noticed if I did anything out of the ordinary, no?"
"Uuu, that is true... but even then, I don't know either."
Seems like neither of us knows what is going on anymore. During our exchange, Fredo-san seems to have finished sorting the items and was just waiting for us to finish talking. What a nice guy.
"Fukuda-sama, the total would be 55,000R2 550,000Yen or 4,800USD or 4,200€ , would you like to receive it in cash or do you want me to set up a bank account for you? The account would naturally be free of charge you Fukuda-sama."
Huh, 55,000R? Let me repeat, I put half the number of items I sold yesterday in the potato sack, did the old hag Genda really scam me of 90,000R?! I thought getting scammed a bit was fine, but that's a bit much even for me.
"Then please, give me 20,000R and put the rest in the bank."
With this, I should be fine for a while in regards to money.
"Do you have any other request Fukuda-sama?"
"No, I think that's all for me, do you need something here Silvia?"
"No, I only came here for you, even though it turned out I wasn't of any help..."
I give a wry smile while scratching the back of my head. I understand why she's sulking but neither of us could've anticipated what happened.
"I'm still happy you came with me, it honestly would've been too much for me alone."
"Mm! I'm glad if I could somehow help."
"Then we'll be taking our leave, thank you for the help, Fredo-san."
"Yes, if you have any other requests, please visit us again!"
Like that Silvia and I leave the guild to return to her shop.
she may have an aprrasal skill!
Guildmaster obviously gave him that card as a way to manipulate him into doing some sort of favor for her later. It's likely going to be way more of a pain than standing in line would have been.
Either luck stat went ham or she has a skill, very interesting
Oh god. Imaginary kingdom. I wanna poke my eyes. Or wash them with some bleach. Or soap, at least.
That is such a f*cking awful idea...
Why not just write: "Wow. That sounded completely different that I expected. Let me rephare it"? It would be so much better. And so much less annoying. And less awkward. Haaaaaaaaa......
He pointed out already how strange and stupid novel characters act. Even was surprised and kinda weirded out when Silvia reacted with 'kya'. So WHY is he now acts even worse, more cliche, and in a far more stupid way?
It honesty feels like being in the novel world just brainwashes you. And shaves off unnecessary protrusions your brain had before. You wouldn't need them anyway.
Sorry, but your novel gets worse the further we go. MC was much more enjoyable at the beginning. I really sympathised him then. Now he mostly just annoys me.
Edit 1: Also, when you end one text quote, character said - switch characters. Or make it ABSOLUTELY obvious you didn't. It took me 4 times to understand who said what (the explanation why schools and license are necessary).
First I thought MC just said why he thinks it is like that, and Silvia asked him did he go to school. Which IS a nice dialogue. But sadly it was different and far worse. The just acted coiche and stupid. f*ck.
You wrote it the way it made me mistake actual dialogue with the one, that would've veen far better here. That really says about the quality of dialogues (and MC's monologue thoughts) a lot. Better look into it.
Edit 2: And of course the "It's just my imagination" dumb chliche. This chapter just breaks all the lows it can.
Edit 3: all the dialogues MC had up to when Guld Master showed were bad. But let us thank her for saving the situation. Finally MC reacted somewhat better (not good enough for a 'good', but still ok enough). And Guild Master (or rather Mistress?) is an interesting character, and she added some interesting questions, or even a slight mistery. I like her. Far more than MC, actually. Which is not good, if you think about it.
Sorry Im a bit confused on some of your points, like where did I forget to switch characters?
Also please note that this in first person and not a all knowing 3rd party explaining the story. He is going to miss things, have a subjective view and be manipulated by others, thats how first person story telling works. o.o
@GodlessEmperor
"But even if I teach you, you won't sell anything you create, ok? You are only allowed to sell your products if you have an alchemist's license! Unlike with other guilds, in the crafter's guild you need to visit a school before getting a license, the alchemist's guild has a slightly special position and is not directly part of the crafter's guild, but they usually share the same building and management staff, so the same rules apply here."
"An adventurer is responsible for his own life and no one gets hurt by a merchant that is bad at trading, other than himself. But an unsafe building or potion can hurt others, that is why they can't just accept anyone."
One quote ended, another started. But turns out - they are said by the same person. That's what I meant. You made it look like the character is changed, but it isn't the case.
Also, I have no problems with first person view, or MC being manipulated. My problem is - from the very first chapter, the novel established MC as the one, who are SICK of how dense MC of the novel he read was.
And now, our MC's thoughts became essentially the same ones, as how those dense MCs are depicted. The promise wasn't delivered.
I'm here to read about MC, who is sick of it as much as I am. But I found myself reading about MC, that is prettyuch the same as they are. That is where my problem lies (like not only mine).
I know, I would never react this wayn. And, I imagine - person, who is sick of those, who do - too wouldn't suddenly start reacting and thinking the same way they were.
A good example - is the "it's my imagination" thought.
It first started appearing in early video games, because of the limitations of the hardware, as well as restrictions, introduced to make gameplay better.
You trigger some NPC's attention, which you didn't want to, so you hide and wait. And to not make you wait too long, and not make this NPC eat up needed resources of your gaming device - NPC just says "seems like it was just my imagination" - and comes back, to where it was. It wasn't too well thought out, and more importantly, resources were so limited, that it was hard to prepare more that a few (2-4) short phrases for such an events.
And so, it became a common knowledge, and pretty much mainstream common sense fo video games. "Just my imagination" became a fairly popular response, to stop lioking after MC, and go back to your designated spot.
JP novels, influenced highly by J-RPG's (who are the ones responsible for this phrase being so popular and known), just assimilated this phrase, as the one to stop any character's thought process, and be done with it.
The problem is - actual people never do it that way.
We are (as well, as pretty much all the self-aware living forms) evolved to be paranoidally cautious. We even created all the spirits, gods and so on, just to explain, why something happens. Because otherwise - we cannot calm down, and just continue thinking of what us that noise, or why did something happen, or whatever.
There are three possible way (that I am aware of) you can end this kind of thought process:
1. You come to a conclusion, that satisfies you.
2. You push this thoughts for later, because there is something immediately important now.
3. You get forced out of you thought process, severly enough, that you just forget about it.
And also one thing, that could be done - you can just not really pay much attention to it in the first place. If it is something normal and familiar to you - you just not think of it.
The "my imagination" too could be conclusion (and falls somewhere between 1 and 2 type). For it to happen - you need to have nothing happening, while having a fewling, like something did. And then you go check everything you could, finding that - indeed, nothing happened, everything is the same, with no changes (distinctly existing sound, or visual information, or pretty much any disticntly existing sensory information breaks it. be it sound, smell, light, darkness, touch, or whatever). Only if everything is okay, but you've had some feeling like it wasn't could lead to "my imagination outcome". And the best part, you NEED to not have any idea, what could've it been. Like, maybe it was a cat? Or a rat? Or a gust of wind, thought the opened window? Only if nothing could happen, and nothing did, but you had feeling - you will think of your imagination.
@GodlessEmperor then, next.
"N-no I didn't mean it that way, I was just surprised that's how you handle it over here! Because, you see, umm, where I come from a simple test is all you need to do."
Let's just blame our imaginary kingdom!
This is so much the same as trashy JP novels do...
First, this panicking way of talking is reeks 'japanese looser' vibe. It fits right for the person with japanese mentality, that got some social trauma, while also being delusional. And I imagine that's not what your MC started as (he wasn't japanese, and he wasn't a delusional chunibyo weeb).
Secondly:
Let's just blame our imaginary kingdom!
Even if it seems like first person though, it isn't entirely first person. Because it is a copy of how JP novels do. And they make it like you are some entity, that sits inside MC's head, and he is sometimes aware of you, and fears your judgement. Because that's one of the main problem of japanese society. And it translates into novels too (it's the same for every country, their problems translate into fiction their citizens write).
Also, this line is pretty much canonical japanese comedy. The one, that has two characters: the dumb dense one, and the sarcastic smart one. And MC plays the role of the former, while reader of the latter.
Just read it, it immidiately gives off a vibe: 'Look how smart I am! Aren't I a genius?!'. While the reader just wants to say: 'Yiu can't even imagine how dumb it was'.
That is manju. The traditional Japanese comedy. And by forcing both MC and reader to be a part of it - it makes novel be in a peculiar mix of first, and second person view. First one - we look from the eyes of MC, and we hear his thoughts. Second one - MC sometimes talks with us, and in a way, as if reacting to our words ot thoughts (of not for the reaction part - it would've seem more like third person view).
You are likely not aware of those things, as I can see from your writing and comments.
So here it is. Hope it helps.
Also, in later chapters you ditched this JP-style remarks, and it became a lot closer to what it promissed to be from the start.