"So, are there any unique items in your possession?" Aaron asked Jay.
What Jay hoped turned out to be true. The boy was interested in unique items. Though common items are what are sold and bought in a very high quantity, but the experience he could gain through the trade of such items was very low.
Unique items would give him more EXP than what common items would.
In Jay’s mind, someone who has unlocked two hidden attributes, one of which is a special attribute, would surely be interested in buying unique items rather than common ones, as they can be easily attained anywhere.
"Indeed, I have a few, but we can do the trade when we are alone", Jay said.
For a minute, Aaron forgot that he was in public, where anyone could see and hear what he was doing. Items like what he has in mind can’t be shown in public. It may raise greed in the watchers.
Aaron nodded in agreement, "Okay, we can do this when we reach Dusk City".
They continued to talk about things that were not directly related to them, but about what was happening in the world.
With the cults openly fighting as days went on, and the worst was that the monsters had been quite active in the last few months.
Normally, the monsters were supposed to become active every few years, whenever there was an issue of overpopulation among them.
They would attack human settlements, which would be met by the human awakeners who would kill as many monsters as they could.
This monster culling would reduce the overgrown stage of the monster-controlled areas, which means there would be more resources as the demand would be decreased due to the decrease in the number of monsters. Not only that, this way, their enemies, the humans, would be reduced as well.
Similar to how humans see monsters as a threat and as resources to strengthen themselves, the monsters consider humans as a threat and resources.
The only difference would be that they wouldn’t label humans as evil, just prey.
They hunt because they have to in order to grow strong and survive. Nothing more, nothing less.
The thing was that it happened when there was an overflow of monsters, and would recede after a few weeks to a month or two, before it gradually disappeared.
This time, however, it was different.
There were constant attacks from monsters everywhere. Even trains were attacked a few times. Since there are guards onboard, as long as the threats are small, it wouldn’t matter much, but there have been a few times when trains were damaged and some passengers died during the travel.
Unlike on Earth, this world doesn’t have any insurance. If anyone tries this venture, they would be forced to shut down within a few months, not because of some political pressure, but due to financial pressure.
In a world where death is everywhere, and dying is considered almost common in daily life, insurance companies would gain nothing. They would lose a lot of money or face legal consequences if they failed to pay for the insured.
The ones with money and brains should have understood this. If not, there might have been a lot of insurance companies in this world.
Establishing an insurance company is one of the best ways to earn money on Earth, unless Lady Luck hates your guts.
Here, even if Lady Luck doesn’t hate you, unless you are too much loved by Luck, insurance would be a huge pit.
So, most of the ones who died in the attacks left almost nothing substantial to their loved ones. There was only suffering for the families, where their breadwinner died in such incidents. It became quite common everywhere.
Even the alliance has issued an announcement to reduce their travels. Unless they have a real reason to travel, like work or something, it is best to remain behind the city walls, which provide better protection against monsters.
The reason was that the monster attacks increased as time went on, instead of decreasing. The alliance knew the reason why it was so, but fearing chaos, they had to keep it under wraps for a time, but that didn’t stay under wraps.
The news spread easily.
People are not stupid. They felt the changes in the mana concentration and also the increased number of dungeons appearing everywhere. They easily understood that the world is going through some changes and linked that to the attacks of the cults and the monsters.
Though everyone understood the reason, that didn’t stop people from recklessly going out in search of possible treasures. One high-quality treasure can change one’s life, especially if they come from a poor background.
Any restriction was seen as the rich trying to hoard all the treasures that appeared and would so in the future and this could lead to a rebellion or joining criminal elements.
So, the alliance didn’t restrict the people, but only warned them about the dangers.
What they would gain or lose, that was left to them.
The two of them spoke of many things during the day to pass the time.
In that time, they each came to know more about one another, even though neither spoke much about themselves.
Aaron came to understand that Jay was a kind man who was less likely to stab someone in the back. Without a strong reason, like someone is forcing his hand by kidnapping his family or something like that, Aaron believed that Jay wouldn’t do something dubious like that.
Jay, on the other hand, knew more about Aaron than he let on. He saw his status.
He can conquer small cities easily and can even establish his own kingdom with those undead summons, but he understood that Aaron would most likely be the kind of guy who would hang out by himself rather than be present at a meeting table.
So, it was less likely that he would do anything like conquering or something like that, unless there was no other choice for him.
When he saw his status and the huge undead army that Aaron had, Jay did feel that it might happen one day, which would mean a lot of bloodshed.
The train finally reached its final destination on its route, Dusk City.
Everyone who remained on the train deboarded the train after it came to a halt.
Aaron and Jay left the train too and went to find a hotel room.
Aaron would have gone to the academy, but there was some trade to do in privacy. So, he followed Jay to the hotel room that he intended to use during his stay in the city.
"Now that we are alone, let’s see what you want and what you can offer me", Jay said as soon as they settled in the room.