"Unless you pay him a hush fee, the price varies. He's quite despicable in his methods, so shopkeepers need to be cautious. He made a big fuss about you yesterday, and he probably has some significant intentions. He might come looking for you soon."
Just as they spoke of the devil, Héctor arrived.
Amalia saw another private message in her inbox, this time from a sender named Héctor, the same ID as the user who started the thread berating her.
"Is this the person you were talking about?"
She showed Carlos the ID of the private message.
Carlos hadn't expected this to happen so quickly; his eyes nearly popped out. "It's him." However, he didn't understand why Héctor seemed so urgent.
He wondered what was in the private message.
Amalia glanced at the message content, which was almost identical to what Carlos had described.
This person didn't explicitly ask for a hush fee, but he had his eyes on Amalia artifacts, asking her to sell them for a low price of five hundred thousand.
If not, he threatened to make disparaging posts about the shop, ensuring that Amalia shop would never have any customers.
If it weren't for her lack of money at the moment—her injuries were left untreated due to the lack of funds, and she could only afford half of the recovery process, with the other half progressing slowly—she wouldn't have been so hasty to put her artifacts up for sale.
"I know you're there. It's just a simple decision whether to sell for five hundred thousand or not. But don't blame me for not warning you in advance. Your shop reputation on Red Espiritual Net has already turned sour. It might extend beyond Red Espiritual Net as well. It's not difficult for real-world Artificer to find out. I'm generally reasonable, but if you provoke me, I can't guarantee anything."
Héctor waited for a while without receiving a response from Amalia.
He decided to send another private message, feeling that he had displayed considerable patience.
After Amalia finished dealing with matters and returned, she saw the new private message. She replied in a composed manner with just one word.
"Scram."
Héctor heard the notification sound and eagerly opened the private message, but his expression changed from stiffness to a grimace of anger.
He angrily swept objects off a surface, muttering, "You don't want to give face, huh? Just you wait. If your shop manages to succeed, I'll have my name written backwards!"
Héctor finished his message and closed Red Espiritual Net. Clenching his teeth, he began contemplating how to ruin Amalia shop.
...