I Have No Intention Of Training The Male Leads - Chapter 4 Part 1

04. The Secret Shop (1)

Translated by: ???

When asked what the cherry on top of the game system is, Eve can say with certainty that it’s the secret shop. Secret items, mysterious potions of questionable identity, flirty outfits that increase certain stats by leaps and bounds, and other things you can’t get in a regular store, you can buy in the secret shop for a price.

Not being able to open the secret shop doesn’t interfere with gameplay. However, it definitely makes it more enjoyable, so she makes sure to open it no matter what game she’s playing.

Whether it’s an otome game, RPG, or even a nurturing game, secret shops are a staple. ?For Eve? also had a secret shop system that could be opened by entering certain commands.

The reason Eve traveled to the capital with Alberic was to confirm the existence of the secret shop. However, she also had plans to visit the workshop where Tilda had placed her order before she left.

In the Theron district, north of East Plumen, there was a street of workshops where individuals made and sold crafts. While there were the occasional unauthorized and illegal craftsmen selling items of questionable provenance, the majority of the workshops offered items that would be useful in everyday life.

The secret shop was tucked away in the center of the workshop district. A dilapidated, rundown, unmarked shop that reeked of illegality, run by a red-haired magician NPC named Octavia Crenou. The only way to unlock the secret shop is to find it.

Octavia’s Tool Shop is located in the minigame where you must find the exit to a maze that resembles the workshop street. Once you’ve found it, go inside and order a bunch of Isolde’s Tears. The magician will then remove a fistful of flowers and hide them under the guise of wrapping them. Immediately afterwards, a command window will pop up where you can type in your own phrase.

If the player types in the correct phrase, a dialog will follow, with branching paths to choose from. One of the most challenging parts of the process is the secret shop, where the player must make a choice in the dialog that follows. The tricky part of the process was figuring out the existence of the secret shop and completing the minigame.

Eve still wasn’t sure if this world was a game, but if she met the NPC character who owned the secret shop, she might be convinced.

The problem was, since this wasn’t a game, there were no command inputs or option prompts, so she had to think of all her options and spit them out.

Eve had to grit her teeth and rack her brain before she even got on the train. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning when she had to catch the train with Alberic that she was able to recite all of her options.

It was a lucky thing it was a famous line that was easy to remember. Eve spent her free time memorizing those lines.

Anyway, the preparation was done. All that remained was the actual performance.

After coordinating with Alberic to drop Tilda, Eve parted ways with him near the station where she could catch a hackney carriage. Stepping out of the carriage, Eve watched for a moment as the family carriage made its way to the palace, then turned and grabbed a black hackney carriage.

The low-ceiling, cramped, two-wheeled carriage sped off with Eve in tow, heading north toward East Plumen. The carriage lurched forward, dodging and weaving through the crowds and carriages as if it were familiar with the crowded streets, then slowed to a crawl. It was near the beginning of the workshop street.

“We are now in the workshop district. Do you wish to go further?”

“No, sir, I’ll get off here!”

Eve replied quickly and hopped off. She exchanged a casual greeting with the coachman, bidding him a good day after the familiar calculation of her fare. She then began to walk down the street, flicking the back of her skirt to roughly smooth out her outfit.

Eve had spent thirteen years growing up in an orphanage on the outskirts of the capital, even if she was now more of a noble. Having grown up in a developed city, if not in the center of the capital, she was more familiar with the hustle and bustle of East Flumen than the secluded, quiet life of the Counts.

With a face barely covered in makeup and a plain black ankle-length dress that could have been a maid’s uniform, Eve blended into the streets of East Flumen as if she were one of them, where workers and young boys bustled about.

After wandering around in circles for a while, trying to make sense of the game’s vague map in her head, Eve finally found the workshop she was looking for.

Honestly, if she had wandered around for another ten minutes, or even five, she would have had a mental victory: “Oh, the game and the real world are completely different. This is a reincarnation that has nothing to do with ?For Eve? …… I wasn’t born in the game world!”

But to her misfortune or fortune, just as she was about to give up, the dilapidated storefront appeared in front of her. This was just as she had seen it in the game’s illustrations.

Swallowing back tears of joy, Eve pushed open the small door of the unmarked shop and entered. The smell of weird grass, fishy oil, and pungent reagents irritated her nasal passages.

“Hello?”

Eve called out to the owner, pacing in front of a worn wooden table that served as a counter. After about three desperate calls, suddenly, out of nowhere, fiery red hair sprang up from the floor just inside the counter.

The door to the basement must be on that side, Eve thought, and turned to the red-haired magician in brown, drab robes.

“I’d like a bundle of Isolde’s Tears, please.”

“You mean the ones that bloom during the day?”

“No, the ones that were sown at night.”

“Ah, well, then, with the price jumping around like this…… are you okay with that?”

The magician, a lanky person with red, wavy hair cut short to a line below her chin, pulled a small calculator from the inside of her wide sleeves. She quickly flicked the buttons on it, giving Eve a quick look at the screen.

The calculator, not unlike its 21st-century counterpart, was one of her inventions, designed so that there was nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

It was for this reason that Eve decided to go to the secret shop. These anachronistic objects are only allowed to exist under the name of Octavia Crenou, the genius inventor and magician of the century.

Secret shops and shopkeepers had to be acquired in order for the game to run smoothly. Eve continued to speak, despite her determination.

“It’s okay, I’ll take it.”

“You’re taking it raw, right? Then I’ll wrap it for you, but it’ll cost you this much extra.”

“Okay.”

The wizard’s dark green eyes sparkled as Eve nodded, unwilling to bargain.

‘You’re giving me a hard time.’

Eve smirked inwardly. Frantically rummaging around the shop, the magician found a saccharine wrapper and began to wrap a bundle of white, five-leaf flowers, “Isolde’s Tears.” As she hummed an unintelligible tune and wrapped them with twine, Eve quickly grabbed the magician’s wrist and spoke the first command sentence.

“Stop moving. Are you playing tricks with me?”

Instantly, the shop fell silent. Eve and the wizard’s eyes locked in midair. In an instant, the air around them turned cold. Eve listened as Octavia spoke the exact words she’d been expecting, mentally organizing what was to come next.

“What, what?”

“You took a handful of my ‘Isolde’s Tears’ out from under me. Do I look stupid to you, you bastard?”

“Ha! You got proof?”