God Of Crafting

Chapter 11: Are you into humiliation play or something?

"Idiot! Baka! Moron!"

The girl threw one insult after the other even after she locked the doors to the shop and walked past me as she moved to her usual spot behind the counter.

"I mean... Thank you?" I muttered.

Not really sure how I was supposed to respond to her tirade; I opted for the answer as random as her litany of insults was random for me.

"What the hell are you thanking...!" The girl sharply turned her head my way and threw me a furious glance, only for her face to freeze as some sort of enlightenment flashed in her eyes. "Don't tell me, are you into humiliation or something?"

From the total shock, confusion, and agitation, the shopkeeper's face turned into one of apprehension.

"Huh?" I leaned my head over to the side. "What makes you think so?" I refuted before shaking my head. "But yeah, I'm not. It's just..."

I shook my head again.

"Judging from your reaction, I did something really... bad?" I raised my eyebrow while allowing a hint of confusion on my face. "So, for stopping me and then hiding me in this shop, I want to thank you. But, on that point," I crossed my arms over my chest, "would you care to elaborate on what I did that upset you so much, miss?"

For a moment, the girl stared right into my face before heaving a deep, long sigh and then resting her elbows against the counter before hiding her weary face in her palms.

"Where do I even begin?" the girl wailed, her voice slightly muffled now that it had to conquer not only the air between us but also the embargo established by her hands.

"Okay, let's do this," the girl said as she lowered her hands and raised her already tired face. "First off, I'm going to give you a tiny bit of a leeway. Judging by your..."

The girl raised her eyes to my face... Only to freeze for a second before gulping her saliva down.

"Okay, nevermind, that's going to be another point... But yeah, first, judging by the quantity of your mana when you visited before, I guess you are not unionized a guild, right?" she asked while raising her eyes to my face again as if to confirm the answer through my expression.

And, in the kindness of my heart, I opted to make this job easier for her by shaking my head sideways.

"I've heard about cultivation guilds before, but unionizing..." I shook my head. "I can only associate this world with the workplace unions or something..."

But...

Yeah, there was always some sort of but. And in this situation, it was staring me dead in the face, begging to be touched upon.

"But what's your end in warning me about all of this?" I asked outright.

Sure, some could say it would be smart to push this topic for later, pretend I didn't notice it for now, and try to squeeze the answer to it without revealing my intentions or suspicions...

But I wasn't that kind of a complex, plotting man.

Years of slamming my fists into a block of wood taught me how to be straightforward and consistent, not shady and scheming!

"I..." the clerk hesitated for a second, her face twisting as she looked away while a look of uncertainty flashed in her expression.

She then sighed out before slumping over her counter.

"Back a few years ago, I thought about bridging science and cultivation too, you know?" the girl asked, a vivid sense of nostalgia and regret appearing on her face, only to vanish as she refocused her eyes back on my face literally the very next second.

"But my hands..." the clerk said as she raised her arms from the counter and stared at her perfectly fine, smooth hands, free of any sort of calluses that would indicate extensive training.

Those hands... were the complete opposite of my own hands, fully covered in marks left after five years of extensive training.

"Those hands of mine are great at wielding sword or drawing formations, but when it comes to crafting something precise..." she shook her head before forcing a small smile on her lips.

"That, and by the time I realized what was going on, I was already affiliated with a traditionalist guild that would break my whole cultivation and make me into a banite if I ever dared to break the taboo with my own, incompetent hands."

I squinted my eyes, finally able to make sense of why this girl reacted the way she did when she saw me come in with the device I'd crafted.

With those squinted eyes of mine, I saw the forced smile on the clerk's face soften up and turn into a slight but true smile.

"And that's exactly where you come in," the girl threw, only for her cheeks to suddenly cover with blush. "On that note, what's your name again?"