First to catch his attention was, of course, Krill, who stood just two arm''s lengths away from him. Despite this, the old man was amongst those who didn’t notice Severin’s arrival, too busy was he. More quickly than one might have expected from a man his age, and without letting his composure slip, Krill served one customer after another, without pausing, trying to fend off the ever-increasing onslaught of new arrivals.
A losing fight, by the looks of it; for every one customer that left the store, a group of at least two or three people seemed to enter.
Severin didn’t want to make the man’s job even more difficult than it already was and refrained from making himself noticed.
First were those who were actively moving through the store, scanning and combing through the shelves, arguing amongst each other about who saw which product first, which guild they belonged to and which class and level they possessed, about their willingness to take things outside, and who should just obediently wait for the products to be restocked.
““...believe it either, but if these potions and elixirs are for real, then-”
“Haven’t you seen the Society office right outside? Of course they are real.”
“Pah. Might just as well be fake. Could all be part of one big scam.”
“A fake Society outpost? Are you...? Argh, why am I even talking to dimwits like you...”
“What was that?!”
““Of course they were. Just like that, they lost three potential dung-”
“Four! And rumors say there are more to follow. Including some raids!”
“Make sure you got everything, you hear!? Who knows when or if there will ever be another opportunity like this. Malcos sure is bound to restrict acc-”
“Ha, you must be new. Malcos has no control over the Emporium.”
“Wha-?! And… then what about that fortress out there? Haven’t you seen the banners?”
“This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.“No way!”
“Hmm, and rumors say she has a super high leveled Saurian bodyguard always following her while in stealth.”
“Yeah, yesterday she ordered him to execute a thief!”
“Don’t talk shit! No way there is a portal connecting straight to Hanvia.”
“No? Then how do you explain all these people coming and going over there?”
“Uh… That doesn’t mean anything! A portal? Commercial available? That’s just ri-”
“Bet? Once we are done here, we can just che-”
“… “Yeah, and his apparently his potions will simply stop working for you if he doesn’t like you. Don’t tell me we didn’t warn you.”
“No way, the Society would never allow-”
Listening to those exchanges, for an instant Severin was tempted to simply turn around on his heels and abandon old Krill to deal with this mob on his own. Knowing full well that if anything the oldtimer deserved another raise and that he himself was naturally the one who benefitted the most from this influx of customers, Severin, if reluctantly, headed to the far end of the counter where no merchandize was being displayed and therefore currently was the least cramped area of the store.
“
Without much ado, he summoned the small but impossibly heavy box onto the empty corner of the counter and unceremoniously announced,
“We have a new product.”
Their bored and annoyed expressions froze in place and their eyes focused on the strange-looking device whose purpose they did not yet know.
““Wha- What’s that?”
“A new product!?”
““There at the front! Some new device.”
“What is it?”
“Who is that?”
“Out of the way!”
“What? Where?”
“Lemme through!”
“Stop pushing!”
“
Ahem, Severin cleared this throat, willed into existence the tooltip of his new gadget, and, well aware only a handful of people could actually get a glance at said tooltip, proclaimed loudly,
“Class Orb removal service. Only Fifty-thousand per activation.”
“