Descending Into A Novel-Chapter 60:First Mission (7)

"Raymond, wake up."

He sighed, groggily opening his eyes. Rubbing them as he arose, the blanket which covered him dropping onto the hotel floor.

"...what?"

"Let’s go shopping."

It took him a bit longer to process that, yawning and stretching his back as he replied

"We don’t have any money though? They don’t accept academy points here."

The academy points were only accepted within the academy. Because obviously where else would they be used?

Raymond himself had followed Ellen along on several of her shopping sprees, with him paying of course. His monthly points were more then enough to let him and Ellen live an extremely comfortable life in the academy.

But outside? There was a reason Raymond never left the academy grounds even though he technically had permission to leave on the weekends. Without any money, all he could do was look around and sightsee.

Academy points could be converted into real money, but the conversion was so horrible that Raymond would rather just save the points in case he or Ellen needed some valuable resource from the academy’s vault.

She answered, shaking him every once in a while to prevent him from falling asleep on her. "I called dad, he agreed to give me access to his card as a reward for us getting first and second place."

Raymond, who had collapsed onto his bed again. Arose once more like a corpse that was resurrected. His energy revitalized.

It was their third day of the mission, they could have finished clearing out the last few hundred meters or so but they decided not to overwork themselves and leave it for tomorrow. Hence, they had gone back earlier then they normally did.

Raymond had been planning on spending that time resting and also working on his second new ice spell idea that he had.

He decided to throw all those plans out the window.

"Let’s go."

***

"Ahhh! This is the life. If your dad wasn’t such a damn cheapskate, we could be living like this everyday."

He scooped up another spoonful of his ice cream, savoring the sweet, milky taste. His body and mind in pure ecstasy as his tastebuds exploded in flavour.

"You really like ice cream."

He nodded, "What’s not to love? It’s the perfect desert and it’s also..."

He trailed off slightly, hesitant on his next few words.

Ice cream was something deeply precious to him. Not only it was delicious, it held lots of good memories for him. It was also his mother’s favorite desert. Something that he would enjoy with her on the rare occasions they could.

"...I like it. That’s all."

"Mhmm, let’s go to the next floor now."

He groaned, they had already been shopping for nearly 3 hours. To be more precise, it was Ellen shopping while Raymond just followed along. Every time she did buy something, he would just store it in his storage dimension spell. Which was getting dangerously full.

"Ellen, my level 1 storage dimension can only store so much. If you buy anything else, we won’t be able to put our luggage inside."

She looked at him, a slightly confused expression on her face. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"You said there was still space for one didn’t you?"

"Well yeah, but not enough for both of us."

"Isn’t that fine?"

Now it was his turn to look confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Just put mine in the storage dimension and you can carry your own luggage."

...it suddenly occurred to Raymond that there had been a large dissonance in their conversation from the start.

Looking back on it, when he first said it. Ellen had simply brushed him off saying as long as there was space for one it would be fine.

"No, why am I the one carrying it? And why are you the one who gets to store it?"

’Aren’t you the warrior? In terms of strength, you’re way stronger then me!’

"Because you’re my shadow and I’m your master."

So she was still committed to this roleplay of theirs.

It was like a hidden beartrap, she would go days or weeks without even bringing it up and then occasionally—out of nowhere, it would spring up and catch Raymond off guard.

Now that he thought about it, she also hadn’t used her authority on him for a while. Was she trying to plant another trap? She hadn’t even done any of her pranks on him in so long as well!

Unbeknownst to him, Ellen simply didn’t use it because there was no need to. Raymond would always obediently follow her orders, making it so that it wasn’t necessary for her to use her authority over him.

His mind spun with thoughts on how she could be planning her next prank. The past four years, living under the same roof had caused him to be the victim quite a lot. So he had grown to be wary of her silence.

Abruptly stopping, she pointed at a medium sized storefront. "Wait, I want to check out that shop there."

With her leading the way, the two of them entered the store. Bells tinkling as they opened the door. A modern and simple store greeting them, with rows and rows of objects, a few shelves and the occasional display stand.

A neat looking employee greeted them. "Welcome to Oliver’s Awakened Goods! How may I help you today?"

"Do you even get any customers? Does Dravenport even have any freelance awakened?"

Raymond’s mouth opened to ask before he could think whether or not to say it.

"Raymond!"

Raymond felt a light slap at the back of his head.

"I’m so sorry for his behaviour."

Ellen felt mortified, their first impressions ruined already as Raymond just spontaneously decided to say that. Her jaw dropping slightly as her eyes flicked onto Raymond.

"Haha, it’s fine. But to answer your question, I do get customers. Mainly private orders from the Dravenport Awakened Security Department.", the employee laughed it off, smiling slightly as he answered.

With that awkward first meeting, the two of them began perusing the store’s goods. Ellen checking out the archery section while Raymond just skimmed through most of the sections. He doubted he could find anything here that was seriously useful to him anyways.

Strolling through one section, his eyes caught onto a few keychains, each a small replica of some kind of weapon. A sword, a bow, an arrow, a staff and they even included the more odd weapons like a scythe.

But what really caught his eye was the price tag attached to these keychains.

8,999 dollars for one!

Looking carefully, each of these keychains were real weapons that had been enchanted and miniaturized but still!

They were only Grade 2 weapons only equivalent to a G-rank, so what was up with this insane pricing! Even the ,999 couldn’t save it.

"Miniaturized weapons? Let’s get one."

He felt a presence behind him. Ellen, holding a basket full of arrows carefully inspected one in her hands.

"Are you crazy? These things cost nine thousand each!"

"So? It’s not even that much."

Right, she was also rich. Something he forgot often due to how Rayez was like when it came to giving them money. The few times he did, Ellen would be able to spend through thousands in just one singular shopping spree—causing Rayez to just sigh as he looked at all the purchases.

Even after she became the head of the Grace family (and also the only member), she was still quite a spendthrift. Evidently, Rayez’s methods had failed to teach her anything about money.

Well, Raymond wasn’t complaining. Let’s just consider this as payback for not giving us any money in the first place.

Picking out a bow keychain, he handed it over to Ellen. Who picked out an arrow keychain. He had no need for a staff or anything else when he could just summon it. Better to get something for Ellen instead.

Walking up to the cash register, she dumped all of her chosen arrows and their two keychains. The total coming out to be 107, 989 dollars. Something she solved with just a swipe of her card.

"Thank you come again!"

Looking over the bow keychain, he wondered on where he should attach it too.

He didn’t have any bags that he used since he had his storage dimensions. He didn’t have a wallet since he never had money ( Rayez’s fault again). He didn’t have any small things he carried around with him regularly that he could attach it to.

Since he didn’t know what to do with it. Seeing Ellen attach it on her phone, he just followed suit.

"Now it’s like we’re matching."

She held up her phone next to his. Their keychains dangling slightly as they briefly touched. Creating an image of an arrow being drawn briefly.

"Hmmm, won’t it get confiscated in the academy?"

"I’ll just make an official request. They won’t confiscate stuff like this."

Seeing the two matching keychains, she said.

"It’s like those couples that I always see in the academy. They always have matching things, stationary, jackets, and other stuffs."

"They usually break up within a few weeks."

She let out a muted laugh.