Homegrown System

Alice started to have her doubts as they approached the shop. It took a while for her to see it, but there was indeed a sign. It was in Spanish, but Titus claimed it said they had reached the consortium. However, it was no fancy temple or grand monastery. Instead, it looked like a hole-in-the-wall tourist trap that sold tchotchkes, port, and postcards—certainly not a place where people would find anything truly interesting.

Titus, though, didn't seem put out. Despite Alice reminding him multiple times that they had no money and didn't even know what currency was needed, he seemed confident that they would learn something from this visit. Alice didn't think he was wrong, but she was a bit nervous. Talking to new people was always difficult for her, and interacting with shopkeepers and ordering at restaurants was something she'd only recently become comfortable with. The extreme nature of meeting Titus had made him seem approachable. Still, she figured she'd let him do the talking if possible.

When they entered the shop, a bell rang as the door opened. A wizened old man with pointed ears and long golden hair came out of a backroom to greet them. "Hello, customers," he said. "Honored customers, it is so good to see you. I apologize for the appearance of the shop. We're still setting up; we only got informed of this business opportunity a few days ago. But don't worry, we still have our full store. What might you be looking for?"

The man looked at both of them but seemed to focus more on Titus. Maybe it's a good thing that he's higher leveled, Alice thought. He gets all the attention.

"Well, citizen, we're mostly just browsing, but I am looking for any enchanted weapons. However, we are relatively new to this whole world, and I'm afraid we are not familiar with how this whole thing works," Titus explained.

The man's friendly demeanor vanished instantly. "And you have no money, do you?"

Titus shrugged. "We may or may not. Not sure what we have or how much it's worth."

"I only deal in System credits, kid," the old man said, his tone now brusque. "Go check with the bank and get an account set up. Perhaps they'll give you a loan or something. Come back when you have money," the man said with a half-cheerful wave as he went into the back of the shop. The sounds of things being rearranged and angry cursing echoed out.

Titus looked over at Alice and shrugged. He seemed entirely unfazed by the man's rudeness. "What a dick," he mouthed.

Titus just smiled, and Alice couldn't help but grumble as they left the shop behind. "I don't even know if we should buy anything from him. That was horrible," Alice said as they went outside.

"I don't know. How would you like it if you were doing something important and someone wasted your time? It's not fun.

"Still, though, we are potential customers," Alice said.

"Potential customers with no money," Titus corrected.

Alice frowned. She knew exactly what that look was and had received it too many times herself. She never quite got over how frustrating it was.

"Should we go see if we can find the bank? He seemed to imply that it was nearby," Alice suggested.

Titus nodded and pointed down the street where Alice could make out a sign, though she couldn't read it. "You think that's the bank?" she asked.

"Well, it says 'Bank.'"

"Are you sure that wasn't a bank before the whole System mixed everything up and removed people?" Alice asked.

Titus shook his head. "No, not sure at all. But it's worth checking out, I suppose."

They continued down the pier, and to their surprise, there were no monsters. The whole pier had turned into a bit of a market, with several different types of shops and houses along the road. The bank was surprisingly at the end, and they walked all the way out past where ships were docked before they reached it. It was a local branch of a very small bank Alice had never heard of, but the lights were on.

"What do you know," Alice said. "Perhaps they're willing to give us some credit. I hate going into debt."

She had specifically avoided taking any student loans she couldn't pay back within a reasonable time, even if it meant going to a less prestigious college for undergrad. A bit of time at community college hadn't hurt her.

Titus waved his hand dismissively. "That's one of the most important tools you can learn if you're managing money. As long as you don't let it overwhelm you and you follow certain rules, it's fine."

Alice honestly didn't know enough about finances to argue with him. "As long as it's your debt, not mine," she said.

"Sure," Titus replied. "I can treat you to something. What do you want?"

She kicked the back of his ankle. "I'm not a kid." He nimbly sidestepped and shot her a grin, letting her know he was just riling her up. "But yes, you can treat me to, I don't know, a magic wand or something."

The ATM by the teller counter suddenly spoke to them. Alice and Titus both jumped at the unexpected voice. "Welcome, customer. Would you like to access your account?"

"Um, yes," Alice said, and a System window popped up in front of her. Her mouth dropped open. "I have how many credits?" She found a history tab and scrolled up. For each monster she had killed, she received a certain number of credits. "Wow," she mouthed.

Titus was doing something similar. "How much do you have?" he asked.

"15,000 credits," Alice replied. That was more money than she'd ever had in her account in her entire life. Assuming it was something like dollars.

"What? How much do you have?"

He smiled. "About 80 grand. I can still treat you to that wand."

Alice glared at him but wasn't about to say no. "Let's hope that's enough. Do we need any sort of identification?" she asked the ATM.

"No. System access is enough, though you can only access your account like this in a designated location. Deposits and withdrawals need to be made here."

"So if we want to spend it with a merchant, do we need some sort of card to access it?"

"You must access your credits via System notifications, items can only be accessed in designated locations." the ATM explained.

"That seems inefficient," Alice remarked.

"You cannot access your account. That's different than using your balance," the ATM corrected. "You can check your balances anywhere."

"I was able to add it to my status screen. Though it appears that we can't access our account, store physical items, or withdraw them," Titus said.

"Correct," the ATM confirmed. "Physical items may be deposited and withdrawn from any active location of the System bank."

"Interesting. But credits can be accessed anywhere?"

"Credits can only be exchanged through approved vendors."

"Hmm. That's troublesome," Titus said. "Can I transfer credits while we're here?"

"Credits can be transferred at bank locations."

"Okay, so it's a little bit less of an issue, but still frustrating. What other services does the bank offer?" Titus asked.

"Contracts and notaries can be provided here, as well as loans for certain activities," the ATM listed off several other actions the bank could perform. But Alice wasn't really listening; she was mostly just scrolling through her record, trying to figure out some sort of pattern for how much money she got per monster kill. It didn't seem related to level, power, or difficulty. If she could remember correctly, it was almost random, but surely not. The hellhounds they had killed didn't give much, but the owl with the graduation cap that was level seven gave the most of any monster she had killed, including some of the more dangerous dinosaurs.

"What was that about?" she interrupted the list of financial services. "How are the monetary rewards for monster slaying divvied up?"

"Reward is designated by several variables, including the rarity of the monster, the time killed, the parts in demand, and other factors."

The rarity of monsters? Alice thought. That seems kind of odd, but maybe it also depends on the parts.

"Should we be harvesting the parts, at least? I think the monsters kind of disappear after we leave them. So is it the System reclaiming us and reimbursing us? Could we do better if we harvested the parts and sold them ourselves?" She asked.

Titus shrugged. "It's possible, but I don't think that's something we need to figure out now."

Alice nodded. "Okay, well, back to the rude shopkeeper. Are there any other businesses nearby?" she asked the ATM.

The ATM did not respond. Apparently, that was outside of its purview.

"Now we can go back to the rude shopkeeper," Titus said.

“How about we try and find anyone else?” Alice suggested. They walked around for a while, but found that there was no other options and went back to the first shop.

Upon seeing them, the old man scowled. "We have money," Titus assured him. "We talked to the bank. We're doing just fine. We just haven't had to access it before."

"Yokels," the man muttered under his breath but smiled a thin smile. "Very well. You said you wanted enchanted weapons?" He waved, and a System window appeared in front of them. "The displays aren't up yet, so you'll have to browse through our list."

Alice watched over Titus's shoulder as he started scrolling. It was a very, very long list.