"Welcome to the Interstellar Merchant Shop. Please come in 3 at a time. Will you be buying anything today, or are you just looking around?"
Graham repeated his words as he looked at the three familiar-looking children who tracked in filth from the outside all over the floors.
He would need to solve that problem immediately.
The air was starting to smell rank despite the air fresheners!
The tallest child was the brown-haired wolf boy he had encountered the day before.
He was flanked by the green-haired girl with pigtails and one of the black-haired boys who wore gloves.
Seeing the other black haired boy standing alone outside while peering inside, Graham gestured for him to come inside as well.
Ring-
As he stood next to the other three children, Graham warned them all.
"If you steal, I'll ban you forever and never let you in again. Understand?"
"Yess!"
"Yep!" "Yep!"
The three youngest replied excitedly, their eyes completely glued to the neatly lined-up bottles of water.
The eldest boy rolled his eyes before muttering a quiet 'yes.'
Putting on his best customer service smile, Graham began pointing things out.
"The bottles of water are 1 Mirystal each, and the container of flour is 5 Mirystal."
"Flour?" the green-haired girl asked curiously at the unfamiliar term.
Graham thought back to the strange green powder used in the food sold by the street food stalls and explained.
"It's like tishi powder. But tastier."
"Okay. 5 bowtles of water." With a bit of a lisp, the little girl slammed five green crystals on the counter that was taller than she was, collected the bottles of water, and stood off to the side.
Following her lead, the two younger boys also took 5 bottles of water each after paying for them.
The eldest boy, whose name was Remy, looked curiously around the store before grabbing five bottles of water and one container of flour, slamming 10 Mirystals onto the counter.
As the four children turned to leave, Graham cleared his throat to get their attention.
"Firstly, this is how you open and close the bottles." He demonstrated with his own water bottle, hanging it upside down after re-closing it, so they got the gist of it.
Grant's actions in ripping it in half showed him that they might just use brute strength to shred the container.
"Ohhhh."
"Ahhhhhh."
As oohs and ahhs rang out, Graham continued his sales pitch with a smile.
"For every four empty bottles of water that you bring back, I'll give you a free one, and if you tell me why you came here, all of you can get a free one right now."
All three kids stared up at Remy, and he bit his lip before arrogantly replying.
"The whelps were told to watch and see when the shop would open and to buy as much as we could carry."
"By Mistress Selene?"
Remy stayed silent.
Shrugging, Graham just added an extra water bottle to the pile in each child's hands.
"Understood. Then, is there an item you want me to have in my next restock? It can be anything at all." Graham specifically looked at the youngest girl with the patchwork dress and the crescent moon and stars hair clip.
"Maybe a new dress? Or…or something sweet? Or maybe-" the little green-haired girl mumbled as she looked down.
"Celia!" Remy quickly interrupted her before shooting a glare at Graham and shoving the children out the door.
He paused before exiting, then muttered, "Thank you. We'll be back."
"Clothes and something sweet, huh. Noted." After mumbling to himself, Graham walked to the door, gingerly stepping over the filth that was tracked in, and gestured to four more slightly older children dressed in rags.
Unlike the children from earlier, Graham couldn't see the crescent moon and star signs on any of their clothing.
Instead, each of them seemed to have an extra-long belt made of gray and black fabrics tied around their midsection and hanging toward the back like a tail.
If Graham had to guess using Earth animals as a reference, this could possibly be members of the Raccoons.
"Welcome to the Interstellar Merchant shop. If you dare to steal, you're banned for life. Will you be buying anything today, or are you just looking around?"
The child who seemed to be in charge was a blonde boy with shaggy blond hair and slit green pupils stared covetously at the waters on the shelves before meeting Grahams smiling eyes with a challenging expression.
"You look weak, human. How are you going to stop me from stealing? You have no protection." The blonde-haired boy stepped up to him with three other children flanking him as if they were going to charge through Graham and raid his store.
At those challenging words and placid eyes of others watching how he would handle it, Graham decided to use his disguise skill to send a message.
He activated his disguise skill, imagining a monstrous, blood-drenched, ambiguous shadow monster with red eyes and large teeth extending from his shadow and hovering behind him as he continued to smile while covering his ears.
GRAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRR———
The shriek of the illusory being rang out, echoing in the dirty streets and leaving it silent.
Some smaller children directly fainted, and others seemed dizzy and fell over.
The blonde-haired boy's face paled as he stepped back rapidly.
One of his buddies had simply passed out on the ground, his pointed, furry, gray ears twitching as foam bubbled out of his mouth.
The other two, along with the blond boy with the slitted green eyes, had trembling lips as they reached for something in their clothing.
"Is there something wrong?"
"ł₴ ₮ⱧɆⱤɆ ₴Ø₥Ɇ₮Ⱨł₦₲ ₩ⱤØ₦₲?"
Graham imagined the illusory figure speaking along with him in a grating, echoey voice as its jaw became unhinged and its eyes began glowing an even brighter red.
"₳ⱤɆ₦'₮ ɎØɄ ₵Ø₥ł₦₲ ł₦?"
Graham made the figure speak alone, imagining his shadow spreading like ink and shrouding the interior of the store in darkness before he reached back to pat the illusory creature's cheek.
"Don't scare the customers away. He was just asking a question and wasn't really going to steal. Right?" Graham turned to look at the blonde boy whose legs were shaking in the dirty sludge of the street.
Meeting his smiling eyes, the boy rapidly shook his head.
"See? You're overreacting." Graham continued patting the cheek of the illusion while speaking to it.
"Go back. I have sales to make."
"₮₵Ⱨ. ⱧØ₩ ฿ØⱤł₦₲."
With a dramatic, shadowy flare, the illusory creature disappeared, taking the darkness that blocked the store entrance with it.
With the last dregs of his mana power, Graham made his shadow appear to have red eyes that glared before slowly blinking shut.
Then, with a bright smile on his face, he stared at the people who were slowly standing up while rubbing their ears.
"Sorry about that. It gets a bit overprotective when it thinks I'm in danger, but he doesn't bite. Why don't you come in and look around? Four at a time, please."
Without waiting for a response from the crowd, Graham quickly turned around, subtly wiping the sweat from his face.
That was too close!!
While directing and participating in a play starring himself and his illusion self was awkward, the real issue was mana.
If he had to continue that situation for 10 more seconds, he would have genuinely run out of mana, and his facade would have fallen apart!!!
He needed to find a way to gain more stat points or mana.
Immediately!