Chapter 43: Rent


    "Debt...?" Greld repeated, "I guess you could call it that..."


    [ You feel a slight connection between Greld, The Tavernkeeper. The hidden quest will now be generating... ]


    ''A hidden quest huh?'' Shinto''s eyes turned towards the notification on his window. ''I figured the game would generate a hidden quest in a situation like this... But who knew that the paper would be the trigger?''


    A hidden quest, as the name implies was a quest that was hidden. Much like to normal quests, hidden quests function the same, one would receive an objective and then they would try toplete it.


    However, the difference between the two was that unlike normal general quests where one can obtain easily, hidden quests had many requirements in order to unlock the ability to do them. Of course, with many requirements alsoes better rewards given to the yers uponpletionpared to general quests.


    "...You can probably tell with myck of customers here that it was a given that I can''t afford simple things such a rent..." Greld continued in a sad tone, "This paper is more or so the bill for this ce..."


    As Shinto listened to what Greld said, he saw that the quest window was finally generated.


    [ The Price of Bankruptcy... ]


    Difficulty: A


    After the situation of bankruptcy caused by the nobles on Greld. Greld was forced to move his tavern towards a small ce by the alleyway after being forced to sell the property to the nobles. Even after moving to the new ce and hoping for a new start, he had no luck with the business.


    Day by day, he slowly lost more and more of his money, until now, where he could no longer afford the rental money demanded by the nobles. Although he could abandon his tavern, he chose not to, as he hoped that one day, he''ll be able to continue on with being a tavernkeeper and seeing the smiles of his customers like today.


    Help Greld pay the rental money for the month.


    Quest Clear Condition: Pay 10,000 gold before the end of the month. (You have 14 in-game days left)


    Quest Reward: Free ess to Tavern Parmic''s Facilities / Affinity with Greld will be maxed / Greld would be in debt to you.


    Quest Failure: The fall of Tavern Parmic.


    [ Do you wish to ept this quest? Refusing the quest would naturally turn to the quest failure within the next 14 in-game days. ]


    ''So this is the quest huh? For a hidden quest... The rewards aren''t that great considering the fact that this will only solve the issue in the short-term...''


    For a hidden quest, although many would consider this to be an extremely good reward, especially considering the fact you would be able to eat and sleep at the tavern free of charge while also gaining a very high affinity with the NPC, which may help you out in the future. But when one considers the events right after this quest, it just wasn''t worth it to pay 10,000 gold.


    One reason was the instability of the tavern. And another was that there was no guarantee that the situation at the tavern would get any better after helping the man with rent.


    ''...Sigh, I would like to help if I had the resources to... But with my current situation, I can''t do much...'' Shinto sighed inwardly. Even if he helped pay for the rent, nothing''s going to change for the man''s future. ''If only the quest was more akin to challenging the nobles or something, maybe there would be a chance, but just paying the rent isn''t going to cut it.''


    What was there for him to do? There wasn''t much of a choice given the situation.


    As Shinto thought to himself, Frey on the other hand had a hard time processing the information in front of her.


    "Hey uh... Shinto, what''s this? Bankruptcy? Rent? The fall of the tavern??" She said in a confusing tone.


    "Ah, well, I''ll exin thingster... But for now, with the current situation... We won''t be able to help," Shinto calmly said.


    "There''s nothing we can do for him? We can''t help pay the rent or something?"


    "Even if we do, things wouldn''t change for the better..."


    "...Yes, I can see where you''reing from," Greld listened in on the conversation between the two as he interjected himself into it. "With my current situation... There really isn''t helping it. I cannot offer you much even if you do help."


    "I''m sorry..." Shinto apologized.


    "No, no. It is okay, I can understand. What use would it be to help me when nothing changes for the better?" Greld said. "Anyhow... I should be the one to say sorry to you two having to hear this old man ramble about his situation aha..."


    "..." Frey looked at the man with sympathy.


    "Anyways! Are you done ordering yet? If so, do tell me what you want! I''ll get to cooking right away!" Quickly switching the topic, he turned towards Frey.


    "Ah... Uh, maybe this?" Frey pointed over towards the fried chicken wings written on the menu.


    "Oh? You want this huh? Welling right up!" Greld hurried to the kitchen after taking her order.


    ...


    While waiting for the food to be ready, Frey anxiously looked towards Shinto.


    "Is there really nothing we can do about this tavern? He seems to be in dire need of help and not helping him would be... Terrible!" Frey said.


    "Well... I don''t think giving him false hope that things would change for the better after helping him would be desirable as well. What can we do? Continue to help him pay rent every month?" Shinto said.


    "I mean... Isn''t it easy to earn 10,000 gold?"


    Hearing from Frey made Shinto want to cough up blood. "E-Easy to earn 10,000 gold...?" For a newbie to say that it was easy to earn 10,000 gold, just how much gold does she have?


    "Yeah! Am I mistaken?"


    "...Just how much gold do you have?


    "Uh... Let''s see... I had 129 gold earlier... And after doing all the quest, I have 5129 gold now!"


    "...And you say it''s easy to earn 10,000 gold with that amount of gold you currently have?"


    "Well... Yeah! I mean... I did earn 5000 gold just from doing quests in an hour!"


    "...No wait. This doesn''t add up..." Thinking about it, there was no way for Frey to earn 5000 gold just by doing regr newbie quests in town. Most of the time,mon quests at this level would only give 10 gold or 20 gold. How on earth did she manage to earn 5000 gold just from quests? "How many quests did you do?"


    "Hmm... Like seven? Including this delivery quest of course!"


    "...Huh?"