Volume 3 Chapter 2 (1/2)
《Black Market》
– ”Welcome back!”
While Haroon was still confused about his current situation, Bell's voice greeted him Haroon had hardly opened his eyes He wasn't yet awake since the shock fro his face Bell was looking down on him orry
”What a pleasant feeling,” said Haroon, sarcastically
Bell snorted, and quietly giggled
”Don't laugh!”
Upon hearing that, she tried her best to erase the joyful expression from her face
– ”But I alad to see you back”
”Welp!”
He suddenly realized that he was no ae consumption of information on internet It has only been two rown up froined that it was the property of AIs with egoes Although what he sees is a visual holograed too She had the appearance of an adolescent girl
'So AIs can grow too? Maybe I could see her lady forht
Haroon got curious about how far she will grow, but soon got depressed again when he thought of his character's death He expected it fro, but it was still unpleasant
– ”But did you really have to kill yourself?” Bell sharply criticized
She was asking like she was the one who got sacrificed But Haroon just smiled back Haroon realized that Bell would have known every uess, but he was still positive that Bell would have experienced the sah electrical signals that she receives and sends And he supposed she'd probably be judging his actions by her ego
”If I didn't sacrifice myself there, I wouldn't have accomplished the quest,” Haroon replied
– ”But even if you didn't, there are still nu”
Which was very true At his command, Bell could always search the entire web and tell hi
”But this is the way humans live their lives”
– ”'The way humans live their lives'?” Bell seemed confused
Haroon was confident about it Apart from the quest, the party had now become his friends that he shared tears and smiles with, so he couldn't just let theic, nor could he let them drown to death It would be a cowardish and selfish action if he didn't save the a portion of his stats At least that's what he thought
”Let's not talk about this just yet Youmore of my decisions”
– ”Okay”
Bell willingly nodded It was too much for an AI to understand as all she had was an indirect experience, through various o She knew that herself very well
– ”So did you get a class advancement?”
Haroon decided to not point out the fact that she was asking about what she already knew She was probably acting this way because of what Haroon told her before
”About that, yes I did I was lucky enough to get one before I got to the city”
– ”That's aoes, the nuot to the city are so low that you can count theers”
That made him feel better
”There's nothing a special aboutup
Haroon went out of the capsule and took a shower, and rested for a moment
'I won't be able to play the game for a day as a death penalty What should I do now?' He thought
He didn't knohat to do, as he had been living his life in the world of Beyond for the last feeeks He thought about the moment of death, and wondered if the party would have arrived at the Viscounty of Paros well, but there was no way for him to check the result, not now
He believed in Brat's ability, and he was positive that they would have h they may be non-player characters, ere just a bunch of 0s and 1s well designed and programmed, the number of hours he spent with them made him feel like they were his friends now
'Well, I better go out and do soJinsoo?' he thought
He finally got to the Viscounty of Paros, so it will take hireed to e in plans, and he wanted to hear about general things regarding Beyond from a user
Haroon changed his clothes It was after that when he suddenly heard the voice of Bell from his side
”Oppa, I've got so to tell you”
”Wait, what? How did you……”
Bell was showing her appearance out of the capsule, inside his rooram video that he saw in the capsule He couldn't understand how she was able to show herself out of the capsule
”Hoho, I've learned lots of things while you were ga Now I can have the appearance of a human and move like one, disconnected froh”
”That's possible?”
Haroon could hardly believe his own eyes He knew that she was a great AI, but he didn't know that she could do that much
”I'e aet to learn 10 of it I can only copy the outside of a human body, but at some point, I will be able to copy the inside of a human body quite accurately
Which meant that she learned how to clone humans He heard from the history class that the science of previous civilizations had significant achieve that was being researched due to limited resource at this time
”Hood to see you outside of the capsule anyways Let's see!”
Haroon grabbed her hands
'Yeah, I can't feel war the appearance of a human'
But it was quite ree now has physical shape Moreover, it felt like she was really a sister of his, as noasn't alone in his house
”Oh right, didn't you say you have so to tell me? What is it?”
”Well, that's……”
Bell stole glances If the others sa she steals glances and hesitates, they would never think that she is not a human
'She is really a'
”To be honest, we are running low on medical supplies If you don't stock up on them soon, you should expect your physical development to slon”
He orried about it too He was able to stock nutritional supplies right after he graduated thecourse, but not h
”Bell, how much do we need of each, and what's the total cost?”
”Well about that……… Oppa, they are things we can't get in noret the list of the costs
”Then hoe get it?”
”From the black market”
”Black market?”
When he was still attending school, he heard of the existence of the black et some 'red books' about women He didn't knohat thatthat the boys his age were interested in
”If you can't get theoing out of the barrier and looking for them by yourself,” Bell added
”Then I should hope to get them in the Black Market”
The outside of the Barrier is an unknown area that he had only seen in his iotten those from outside of the Barrier
Though, Haroon knew just sitting in his rooet hi those medical or herbal materials couldn't be delayed anymore, so it was better if he moved sooner rather than later
”Alright! Let's sell some items on the auction, and look for the black market afterwards”
He decided not to visit Jinsoo, and went into the capsule to enter the auctioning website He was going to sell the iteold to Neco the auction could be done even in real life
– ”The auction operated by Necoest one Do you want to use that website?”
Necomasn'tthe only dev coa items than from the subscription fee There was no way for Necomwall to not take benefit from it
”Nope! We need cash, so redirect me to the black market site”
This thought flashed out Moreover, he needed cash if he was going to the outside to repay the debts of his step-father It was easier for hiovernment, so it wasn't safe
– ”Yes, I had a feeling you'd want to DarkJewelry and BlackonMarket are the biggest and safest”
Haroon surfed two sites and looked for the price range But he would never know until he tried with one of his items, as the basic questions of an auction is, 'Is it rare' and 'Is it highly demanded'
He was her couaranteed anonymousness of the traders Naturally, this became the place where the children of nobles would buy their items
Haroon selected 'trade inside Union' The web displayed the names of 365 Unions, alphabetically Haroon looked for the Union he lived in
”There we are! KO-1 Union!”
The union he was living in was located where the previous civilization called Seoul, the capital of Korea So it was named after the country
”Ow, there’s tons of users online”
The idea of 'nation' was forgotten a long ti on the top of nations with thethemselves to their ancestors, but they couldn't defy as flowing in their blood Maybe it was quite natural that the KO-1 Union was specialized in ga
There were tens of thousands of trades beingdirectly traded There were over ten thousand
”That's a!”
He couldn't hide his astonisha lobal scale of it would be vast He wondered if the governments knew about this
Haroon re-filtered the result by 'Beyond' Again, there were a few thousand of them It was like proof of how popular Beyond was He ski traded Just like he thought, ears and aric books or skill books for icians or priests
Froh now
”Alright Let's see how ot from the orc”
Haroon auctioned off the manastone, and set the time limit for an hour One of the moderators of BlackonMarket requested for a confired into Beyond for a moment¹
It was his first time to trade an item for cash, so he was excited Haroon hoped that the mana stone would be worth a lot Of course, it was an iteuaranteed, but that wouldn't be enough to buy an
Item name: Bio-mana stone(Misc)
Class: Rare
Different froular rown inside of a creature, after it was eaten by them Bio-mana stones look rather crude and dull as it was used by a creature for a long tireatest of all Rarely dropped by Boss Monsters
Initial price: 30 Gold (2100 In real-life currency)
Fortunately, the exchange rate was still at 70 per gold When the gaold, but noas decreasing It was expected that it would stabilize at 10~20 per gold, seeing the case of other VR games
But still,the levels of users in Beyond that had crafting-classes were so low that they'd barely begannormal-class items that wouldn't be dropped fro between the users were finally beginning, but they didn't have enough gold to make it active
'That's a relief, I guess'
Soher than as called, so this was a good start Soon, it rose up to 80 gold, and yet, not even 5 minutes have passed
”shi+t! That's 5600!” He shouted with joy
Supposing that the price stops there, that was still a lot of money compared to his monthly expenses, which was just over 400
Haroon's heart started pu hard with excitement If he was able to make this kind of trade every ti his life as a dark gamer would still feed him
The problem was the supplies that he'd have to buy fros, there would be no point
Haroon checked the list of current supplies that Bell printed out
”Wild ginseng 1 / 3 oz, Ginseng 10 / 30 pound, White tin 5/10 pound, Epimedium 2/10 oz……”
The list was endless Like Bell said, he was absorbing tons ofhow his body developed in just a feeeks, he did need to stock them up
”How hing
As he had never been to the black market before, he couldn't help but to worry With Bell's help, he made another list of what he really needed and printed it out on the paper After he got the print, he realized that there were more than 200 types of materials that he needed to purchase, and he hadn't even heard of ht on supermarkets