Chapter 410: Life 30 - Chapter 3 - Capitalism and that Good Old Skyrim Meme

Oh, the insanity. Despite their absurd birth rate, the population was dwindling. The kobolds had the upper hand and the trading price of a kobold head was at an all-time high. I smelled an asset bubble popping up as a person with a fresh kobold head could trade it in for tons of trash. Kobold heads weren’t a good store of value like gold. Gold could be used to make electronics and jewelry (enchanted if one got magic but we didn’t) but kobold heads deteriorated over time. A head that bought a ton of trash today wouldn’t buy half of it in a year after it was mummified.

You see, the gnomes even managed to get economics wrong.

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Most of the girls who were in the Prime Brat nursery graduated into mothers and went on their merry way to get addicted to “Gnomish Power Juice” and keep fighting back the population shrinkage. Good luck to them. But not as many baby girls arrived so it became rather empty.

These gnomes matured really early. They became sexually mature at ages between nine and twelve so I had around two years. That was bad because I wouldn’t get as many free Attribute points from {Twinkle Little Star} but who cared when I had no hopes of hitting the level cap in this literal hole and I wanted to die in a blaze of glory.

I’ve been the good guy (gal) for so long that maybe it was time to do something bad. But I just didn’t have it in me and I still had to find Lorna. What dismayed me the most was how I would recognize her. It looked good on paper but now she’s been shuffled around. Who knew, could she be with the kobolds?

The procession of gnomes trying to curry favor with me continued throughout the seven years but now my original clan got half of the proceeds when it was out of the clan consortium that bought me and everything if it was from the original one. I decided to protest. All the other girls kept their gifts but for me.

I took the matter to my nanny. I didn’t like his answer at all.

“I’m sorry, but you were too expensive for the clans. Once you’ve repaid your price, we’ll let you keep the gifts.”

I rolled my eyes. “I never asked to be bought. Why should I pay for these stupid auctions? Know what, I won’t be nice to any visitor anymore and I’ll flat out tell them they or anyone else that visited me in these last seven years won’t get anything with me because you’ve been stealing my gifts. How about that?”

The nanny got incensed, “You can’t do that.”

I huffed, “Try me. The stupid clans paid something at that auction because they wanted to. I have nothing to do with that. In fact, if you don’t comply with my demands, I’m going to leave this clan consortium.”

The old gnome almost raised his hand to hit me. Then he stopped, “What’s a ‘consortryum’?”

“Nevermind. I want everything back. Or else I’ll do good on my threats.”

“I need to take it to the council of matrons,” he said.

Middle management was always like this. Put a damper on the situation if you can, wash your hands if you don’t. I wondered if I could get an emergency activation if I tried to kill him. I’d pay ten, fifteen Attribute points to get out of this hell earlier. I’d even got used to the smell of carrion and dung.

I suspected this desert had some kind of effect that teleported trash from all over the world here. Over the years, I’ve seen armor from all sorts of designs and even a subordinate Tabard from Windemere. Demon bodies, dragon carcasses, megalodon skeletons. Everything from all over the world, earth, sea, sky, underground, no matter which continent. Once again, the only thing that made sense was that stuff was brought here by some effect.

This was literally Yznarian’s trash yard. The sands absorbing stuff and people were also highly suspicious. My bet was that something in this area recycled these things. Maybe that was how mineral veins respawned all around the world. This operation was probably owned by Wyxnos and these gnomes were just left here after their job was done and somehow survived and evolved.

Breaking this place became even more attractive if I could raid one of Wyxnos’ businesses.

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The council of matrons told me to fuck off. Not with the exact words “fuck off” but close enough. I had to repay the costs of my own auction. After this news, I did exactly what I said I’d do. I acted angry and spoiled, rejecting the gifts as I berated and humiliated every single visitor. I told them to take their rubbish gifts back with them. Halfway through the day, I had no visitors for the first time in my (this) life.

The next day, a matron came on her palanquin to see me. The woman was beyond bloated, with a round belly that seemed like to contain enough babies to make a football team. Not that sissy association soccer but football like they used to play, back in ol’e Ohio.

“You little ungrateful brat!” She shouted at me from high up. “We housed you, fed you, clothed you, and that’s how you repay us?” She said, feigning feelings of betrayal.

“I didn’t ask for any of that,” I said back. “Don’t put the burden of your greed on me. Know what? I’m off to create my own clan.”

“You cannot!” The matron said. “Guards, arrest this ungrateful wench!”

Slave rebellion time! I assumed a defensive posture as the gnomes surrounded me carefully. The respect toward females was deeply ingrained in them and this was causing a major cognitive dissonance in them. On one hand, they had to obey the matron, on the other hand, they didn’t want to attack me.

And I was no fool to help them make up their mind by striking first. Since I wasn’t in chains or anything else, I just bolted. The guards ran after me. If Lorna was in this nursery, I had already blown my chances by now. So I ran straight toward the other girls who were clustered to watch the scene unfold with big grins full of schadenfreude at me getting grilled by the matron. I bowled in their middle, ducking and bobbing and weaving between them to get out on the other side and dash for the exit.

The guards ground to a halt before they barreled into the girls, causing the spoiled brats to throw a tantrum. They promptly started to apologize and some even groveled. The few that were on the outskirts of the chasing pack and halted before they crashed into the mass of bodies saw me and turned on their heels to give chase.

This would’ve ended then if I were anywhere else in the world. These guards would be second-tier veterans or maybe third-tier elites and would easily have physical Attributes to catch me. Here, in this Exp-starved place with no high-level creatures to kill, they were not even at the first tier, stuck in the level thirty-something if they went on enough expeditions. That’s why I made sure Windemere had enough Dungeons of all levels. They were a strategic resource more important than anything for a nation here in Yznarian.

I got into the tunnel and turned around a bend. A tall gnome (maybe seven apples?) with a crossbow attached to his arm stump shouted at me. “Stop or I’ll shoot you!”

“Make me!” I taunted.

“{Marksman’s Aim} {Called Shot}!” He triggered some Abilities and fired.

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I used to be a fugitive slave until I got an arrow to my knee. True story except it was a crossbow bolt. Tomato Tomahto.

Not a big deal, right? It would be true anywhere else, but here, without magic, I finally found out my {Moonbound Regeneration} was considered magical. I spent a month with a swollen knee that was healing a thousandth as fast as I hoped to. Visits stopped but the matron dragged me to her den of roofie crack jizz. No, I didn’t suffer any physical abuse or was exposed to the visuals but I was forced to hear their activities from behind a curtain.

Once I recovered enough to walk, I was allowed to wander the matrons’ chambers when there were no patrons around. Usually at “night” or the time of the day with fewer torches as it were. No sunlight, doh. On my wanderings, I found one matron wearing a collar made of pierced gold coins.

“Interesting adornment,” I said pointing at the piece.

“Oh, by Wyxnos! This is just junk,” she shrugged. “Want it for you?”

“Yes, sure. Say, where can I find more of these round things?”

She chortled, “They throw them away. Metal is too soft, too heavy. No good for making weapons, armor, or vehicles.”

“Seriously?” I gasped as I took the collar. “Thanks for the trinket, anyway.”

This collar had about forty gold coins. The holes were trivial and would amount to less than a single gold worth to smelt and recast. The coins were from completely different kingdoms and even a few centuries apart if I recognized the kings properly. I walked away with the collar and an idea popped up. I went to find the head matron that got me trapped here.

“What do you want, girl? Wyxnos’ grace, did you come to apologize?”

“Not yet,” I grinned defiantly, “But I may have a proposal.”

“What is it?” She huffed, clearly annoyed.

I showed her the collar, “How many of these disks a rotten kobold head could buy?”

The matron laughed, “As many as you want! These are trash, nobody wants them. Sometimes the bodies come with these, we have no idea why. Maybe they are good luck charms, but the guys toss them away. The lower levels are full of them.”

I frowned. “I really like these yellow disks.”

“Do you? They are too heavy and too soft. Just like your head. Gracious Wyxnos, please grant her wisdom,” she taunted.

“Say, what if we make a deal? I go back to the nursery and accept the patrons like before. Get a quarter part of my gifts and use it to buy these round metal things. I like the white and yellow ones. The red, green, and orange ones are no good. If people bring me the same weight in metal disks as my share of the gifts, including what I gained in the last seven years, I’ll behave.”

The matron looked at me with pity in her eyes. “You have a pretty face and a strong body, but it seems Wyxnos didn’t give you a good mind. Too bad. I accept your deal. We’re going to send scavengers to the lower levels to gather these disks for you. Yellow and whites, no red, green, or oranges.”

“Thank you, matron!”

The next “morning”, I was back at the nursery for the dismay of the other girls. Then the literal piles of gold, silver, and platinum coins started coming in, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. I didn’t have my item box but I would find a way to take the coins with me.

Maybe I could use these savages.