Chapter 377 - A gem for a beauty
It was a tough scale down the wall. It was tricky to control not only Jack's own body weight but that of the kids holding on to him. There were times when he wanted to jump down, but was afraid the kids would be hurt in the process.
While going down the wall, the kids constantly nagged at him.
"Come on, you're so slow." one of them said.
"We won't even have much time to explore the city at this rate." Another complained.
"Don't be too hard on him, he's trying his best." Rachel said.
Below, Jack could see that the two teenagers had already made more progress than him and we're scaling it with ease. When taking a closer look, he noticed that their hands were covered in fur. They had been digging their claws into the stone, making it easier to find a hold and grip.
Trying to do the same, Jack closed his eyes.
"Come on, you can do it!" Jack said.
"Hey, why did we stop. Is he tired already." the kid complained.
Suddenly, the muscles all over Jack's body started to grow in size. Fur began to appear along his arms.
"Is he transforming?"
Once again though, Jack had done the opposite of what he had intended. Instead of tuning just his hands, he had transformed his whole body, apart from his hands.
Looking below, they were now not too far off from the bottom, and soon it looked like the teenagers would reach it too.
"Harold worn" Jack snarled out, the kids unable to tell what he had said.
"What did he say?"
At that moment, Jack grabbed the three kids tightly and pulled them towards his chest. They soon realized, if Jack was no longer holding onto the wall, that meant one thing.
"We're falling! Whoahh!" they shouted and cheered.
It was a strange reaction, as Jack thought they might be scared. Instead, it was as if they were having a good time. Bracing himself, at the right time, he bent his knees, softening the blow and landing nicely. He had reached the bottom before any of the others.
"See, I knew uncle Jack could do it." Rachel said as she gave a wink and a thumbs up towards him.
"Yeah, but it was still a lot slower than Steve." The other kid complained.
Each of them made sure their masks wholly covered their faces, while Rachel gave a little spin making sure her backpack was still on her. It needed to cover every bit of her tail.
Although Jack was the one tasked with looking after the kids, because he still hasn't had much time to explore or look around the place, both Zinc and Claire were the ones who took the lead as they entered the city.
The group didn't stand out at all as it seemed like there really were many other people walking around on the street wearing masks. The only people that didn't seem to bother too much about hiding their identity, were the adventures. They walked around the city with a bit of pride and even had their crest displaying quite proudly.
That's when Jack spotted a group of Adventures who were bearing the crest of something he had seen before. It was the Black rings.
"I wonder what they are doing here?' Jack thought.
The kids were taking their time exploring the place, and they had entered a few shops. Both of the teenagers had been given some money by Steve to control. If the children wanted something, they would go up to either Steve or Claire to ask for funds.
It didn't look like they had much money, it must have been hard for them to even obtain any money, Jack thought. Luckily, they were just children after all, so the items they wanted to buy were only sweets in the end, which were not too expensive.
After buying the sweets, the kids were happily skipping around. They were also delighted to be out in the open.
'Maybe Ray won't mind if we take them back to Avrion with us, I'll need to speak to Steve about it when I get back.' Jack thought.
A life inside a cave was not a good one, and he was sure Ray would be okay with it. While walking down the street, Claire suddenly came to halt just outside one of the shops. She looked inside at it seemed like it was a jewellery shop.
"We can go in if you want?" Zinc said.
"What's the point, it's not like we can buy anything", Claire replied.
Zinc then grabbed Claire by the wrist and started to walk towards the shop. Her face was red hot and was thankful the mask was blocking her shy face right now.
"The kids didn't spend much money, so we can use the rest to get you something nice." Zinc said.
The shop was quite large inside, with several gems and items of jewellery scattered across the room behind class cases. It wasn't too busy inside but it wasn't empty either, as there were around ten other people inside, shopping about as well.
The children immediately split up as they went inside, each interested in the different items around the shop.
The shop was arranged, so the cheaper items were in a single class cabinet to the left. When looking, it seemed like Claire had found a silver necklace with a blue sapphire gem. On it was the price tag of two silvers.
"Try it on, we have just enough." Zinc said.
After asking an assistant to come over and take out the necklace, it was placed around her neck.
"Why don't you lift your mask up?" Zinc asked. "We need to see what you look like if you want to buy it, don't worry, no one knows what we look like."
Claire slightly lifted the mask up, and the gem matched her blue eyes, it was a perfect fit, and Zinc felt like he had never seen anyone so beautiful before. Even the store assistant had both of his hands gripped together as he saw the pretty girl.
"It looks good on you", Jack said, watching from the side uninterested in all the pointless gems around. They weren't beast cores or magical items, so he really didn't understand why anybody would buy these types of things. But when looking at how well it complimented Claire, he understood a little.
"We'll take it." Zinc said.
The attendant took the necklace behind the counter and began the wrapping process. Placing the necklace carefully in a small wooden box.
"Two silvers, right?" Zinc said as he pulled out two coins from his pouch.
Just then, a loud clunk sound was heard. Between both Zinc and the shopkeeper, a hand was placed down and on the counter and four silver coins were placed.
"I would like to buy a necklace thier for double the asking price." A young man said.
When looking over, it appeared that a young blonde swept-back blonde-haired man was standing there. He had been secretly watching the whole thing take place. At first, he didn't really care for the necklace, but when he saw it being placed on such a beauty, he knew he needed to have it.
His idea was to buy the necklace and show off his wealth in front of her, he would then gift the necklace to her as a surprise act and win her over. There weren't many poor people in the city of Zrey, so the two teenagers stood out a little.
The clothes they were wearing were a little torn up and overused, and it didn't look like they had much money, so the man felt like this was his chance.
"Wait, but I already agreed to buy it. Isn't that right, Sir?" Zinc said, looking at the shopkeeper.
"I'm afraid the transaction hasn't gone through yet, so if someone wishes to buy it at a higher price, I can still choose who to sell it to."
The shopkeeper didn't seem to care for loyalty and only had money on his mind. He too could see the condition of the two teenagers and thought that if he sided with the wealthy young man that in the future they would be able to do more business.
"Well, if you can't offer anything else, then I think this necklace is mine." The young man said.
Zinc, badly wanted to hit the man in the face, but he knew he shouldn't cause a scene, Steve would never let it go. But, two silver coins was all they had left. In truth, it was way above what they would be allowed to spend, and Zinc was prepared to take the heat from Steve for going over budget. They had no more money.
"You said whoever has the most money, right?" Jack said as he walked up to the counter and placed his hand there. "Well, then this should do." As Jack moved his hand from the counter, what was left was a single coin. But it wasn't just any coin, it was a single gold coin.
It was something the teens had never seen in their life.
'How did Uncle Jack manage to come across such money.' They both thought.