(MC POV)
Aside from surprise at my sudden outburst, most of the staff around paid me no mind.
A few of them began moving closer to my location, no doubt attracted by the commotion that I had been causing. Imagine my surprise, or rather the lack of it, when I found that they had the same dismissive air as the guy in front of me.
The staff in front of me made a shooing motion with his hand, "Could you get your hand away? What if the case gets dirty because of you?"
"Dirty? Really? If you have no intention to do your job then you can just say it you know? You don't have to go in such a roundabout way to ask me to get lost."
"Yes, it seems you are quite perceptive," The staff agreed. "We indeed do not have any interest in entertaining window shoppers like you who only care about wasting our time."
I stepped back from him, "Well, now you've insulted me as well. I'm not leaving here until I see your manager!"
"Oh please," He scoffed. "Who do you think you are?"
"What I do is none of your business," I informed him while rolling my eyes. "What you should concern yourself with is getting someone in charge down here before this escalates any further than it has to."
"Oh really?" He clapped his hands.
Almost instantly, all the guards within the room took a step forward, silently threatening me with their numbers and weapons.
Hmph, I can easily tell what they are trying to do.
"Intimidating me into compliance huh? Does the Merchant Guild resort to such underhanded tactics now?"
The staff smirked, "There is nothing underhanded about it. You are being a nuisance right now and we are trying to remove you."
I glanced around me, seeing how every one of them was looking at me with scorn and mockery clear on their faces.
Oh, you must be wondering why I'm causing such a scene right now eh?
We're in the Merchant's Guild you know? One of the richest organizations in this world? To any normal person, this should be a group that no one is able to offend! The amount of financial and influential power they possess is beyond comprehension!
But as Brendan had pointed out to me, all that money is useless in front of me. If I can get them to offend me, then I can get them to bend over backwards to regain my favour!
A pointless endeavor? Do you know how much control I can get if I've got the Merchant's Guild in my pocket?
Just imagine it. I can order anything I want from Jin city and have them deliver it with the best security they can buy right to my doorstep! I wouldn't even need to do any shopping by myself ever again!
What's more, if there's anything I want that can't be found in Jin city, I'm sure they would scour the corners of the world for it! I can even get them to waive the delivery fee! That's the absolute dream!
Damn, sometimes I scare myself with how much I'm planning all this just to have an easier life. But it's foolproof I tell you! I just need someone with a high enough authority to appear here and then free deliveries will be mine!
The guide from before appeared from behind me, "Such barbaric actions… I apologize but... You need to pay the fine of damaging our precious goods and let us escort you outside… Or we can just do this the hard way and make you leave by force."
"Damaging your precious goods? Since when? I didn't even get to touch any of your rings?"
He gestured to the display case in front of me, "I'm talking about that of course. Such an uncouth thing to do. That case is made out of the finest glass and reinforced with as many layers of protection inscriptions as the Royal vault. To carelessly hammer it like that, of course you will need to pay compensation."
"Hmmm... If it is as sturdy as you claim it to be, something like that should not do anything to it right?" I pointed out.
"Ho ho… One does not just punch the Royal carriage even if it is heavily fortified, no? It is just a fine of five gold after all, shouldn't be a problem for a young man who said that money was not an issue, right? If you can't pay up… I'm afraid that you might need to become indentured servants of the Merchant's Guild."
Oh, I see what they're trying to do. Trying to scam me for free labour huh?
I raised an eyebrow at him, "Five gold just for that? You are being unreasonable."
"You are the one being unreasonable now. Having to entertain your poor behind is quite damaging to my own standing, you know?"
"Hahaha! Your own standing?" I laughed. "You mean standing outside the gate and waiting for clients to come through so you can pick up the commissions? Please, you think I don't know how your business works?"
"What do you even know about--"
"Hey, hey, alright, alright," I interrupted him. "Just hitting the glass is a five gold fine right? What if I smash it?"
The room was silent for a second before everyone around started laughing out loud.
"Hahaha! Young man! That has been reinforced with four layers of strengthening inscription, three layers of shock and magic absorption, two layers of warding and a layer of preservation! To top it off, it even has an alarm inscription inscribed! It is not something the likes of you can break!"
"Yeah, so what happens if I smash it?"
"Hahahaha! If you can smash that thing, I will get on my knees and bark like a dog!"
I scrunched up my face, "Eww… No thanks, that's disgusting. Who the hell wants to see a grown man acting like a dog?"
That immediately wiped all the mirth from his face.
"It seems like you don't understand the position that you are in, young man. Do you even have five gold to pay the fine?"
I shook my finger at him, "You have yet to answer me what will happen if I smash this case?"
"You… Damn youngster! That thing is worth a hundred times of you! Each of these cases are made by a renowned Practitioner who possesses absolute mastery over inscriptions! Every one of them needs at least three whole days to make and are worth at least fifty gold!"
Seriously? At least fifty gold for this piece of glass that I only need at most half an hour to make? Where most of the time is actually spent on me making the glass than actually placing the inscriptions? Damn, if I knew money was that easy to earn…
No wait, there's no way I'll make myself relegate to doing such labour every day! I want my easy life damnit!
But still… If such a simple thing can earn such a large amount of cash, there must be other ways to earn easy money without much effort that I'm overlooking.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning to be some business magnate, I just think it's good to have some backup plan on hand just in case I need some money.
I made a show of digging through my sleeve to fish out a large coin pouch from my storage ring, tossing it over to him.
The guide caught it with both hands out of instinct, just as the contents of the pouch spilled out into his hands.
What he saw made him and everyone around him speechless.
"There's five hundred gold in there," I stated before they asked.
All of them turned their attention back to me just in time to see me raise my fist to smash it down on top of the supposedly indestructible case.
The entire thing shattered without any resistance and the shockwave broke the other nine display cases that had been nearby into shards.
The guide's mouth flapped open like a door with broken hinges, his eyes as wide as saucers while he tried to understand what had happened.
I turned back to stare right into his eyes, "I will say this one last time, I want to speak to your manager."
