The Villainess Returns with a System

42.1: The Black Market

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The next morning, I held an emergency meeting with ViTech's first employee. Our meeting took place in the gun range where Jane's father used to work before his expulsion.

"Miss Jane, now that you are done with your finals as well, are you ready to make me the most advanced guns of this era?"

"Hopefully, my Lady. However, there is a problem I can't bypass on my own."

"Please, do tell. I love solving problems."

"While I worked hard on redesigning and adjusting the schematics you gave me, I lack the means to create it."

"How so?"

"I am a gunsmith, my ability to make things related to guns is limited to what is in the market. What you want here, my lady, is original custom work. Something that hasn't ever existed and has no pieces in the market that I can pick and put together."

"So you need a metalsmith, is that it?"

"And he needs to be as crafty as Saint Hermes at that. We can't afford a single hitch in a gun if we are going to make something completely new. We will be risking the hands of whoever tries it first."

"I get you. But where can we get a metalsmith with such a skill on such short notice? I imagine that most skilled metalworkers already have busy schedules and a list filled with clients. Also, these guns are a secret between you and me only."

"That's indeed the case." Jane agreed with me but it seemed that there was something she wasn't letting out.

I looked at her intensely until she was unnerved and spilled her beans.

"There is an alternative method to find a good metalsmith." She said.

"I'm all ears."

"Maybe a Duergar can help us... but that's just too unrealistic." Jane spoke then retracted her words with a smile.

"That's true. A Duergar will never work metal for a human." I nodded in agreement.

Because of their resentment against the Human race, the Dwarven subterranean race, the Duergars, would never forge metal for Humans with good intentions. They were always seen as heretical and cursed by the Temple of Saints, and their resentment goes as far as the Age of Heroes when those very Saints waged war against Dwarfkind and vanquished their kingdom.

But...

"You wouldn't mention a Duergar if you had nothing in mind, Jane." I said.

"In truth, I am ashamed to admit it but once, I had a problem with a project in the Academy and I had to spend a lot of money to rent a Duergar slave."

"A slave?"

"All I needed was a metal ankle and it cost me a thousand pounds. I wouldn't have gotten past the second year without that ankle for my contraption project."

I know that people frown upon slavery, despite it being an active practice, it is something on its way to be abolished sooner or later seeing how the world is going right now.

"Hmmm... where can slaves be found?"

"Not too far from the port area in the Blackguards' Market."

"That's on the way to Father's office."