by Aneko Yusagi
There was so much I didn’t know, but Kizuna seemed to know what was going on, so I’d have to defer to her judgment.
“I’ll show you a bunch of items that I have, and you pick the ones you think we can get a good price for.”
“Okay.”
I pulled out a few items that I’d stored in my shield, and Kizuna started to look them over. I didn’t know how she was evaluating their worth, but it looked like a lot of the item names were still legible in this world. I was grateful for that.
“You’ve got so much stuff...”
“I guess so.”
“What’s in this bottle?”
“Magic water. It replenishes your magic power when you drink it. Don’t you have that kind of thing here?”
“Not that I’ve seen. Normally people use earth crystals to replenish their magic power,” Kizuna explained. She pulled a red crystal out of her weapon and showed it to me. “Holding this crystal replenishes lost magic power.”
“Really? What a weird crystal.”
“You think? The idea of drinking something to recover magic power would sound pretty weird to anyone from this world.”
I decided to try it. I reached out and took the crystal from her. When I touched it, it snapped, cracked open, and disappeared in a puff of steam.
Dragon vein unlocked! Received 3000 EXP!
The words flashed in my field of vision as if I’d just won a battle.
That was a lot of experience points! Certainly nothing to scoff at!
“I just got a bunch of EXP from this thing...”
“What?” Kizuna gasped. Then she took the bottle of magic water from me and drank it. “Wow... This replenished my magic power, and then it gave me all the experience points I needed to power up my weapon.”
“You power up your weapon with experience points?”
“Yeah. Aside from their levels, my weapons all accrue experience points as I use them. Then they get stronger through a leveling system. My wooden fishing rod is basically like a mid-level weapon.”
“I see.”
So Kizuna had her own way of powering up weapons. I wonder if we could utilize each other’s systems, like I’d been able to do with the other heroes. I was thinking it over when my shield beeped to alert me that the healing medicine it had been compounding was complete. I took the medicine out of my shield and set it among the other items we were considering for sale.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a restorative item. Healing medicine. You rub it on your wounds to make them heal.”
“I wonder if it’s like our curing medicine?” Kizuna said, pulling out a similar-looking item.
“We drink this to heal our wounds. But that’s right—I saw you rubbing medicine on your cuts after the fight with the kappa.”
“There sure are a lot of differences. This really is a whole different world.”
“The scary part is what happens when the items have different effects.”
She had another good point. We had both experienced different effects when we used items from each other’s worlds. The idea of getting weapon experience from drinking magic water sounded crazy to me. I’m sure she felt the same way about the crystal and I.
That reminded me of something important. I pulled out a bottle of soul-healing water and passed it to Kizuna.
“What’s this?”
“It’s called soul-healing water. It restores your SP.”
“SP... You mean soul power? I’ve never heard of an item like that. From what I’ve heard, you can only recover lost soul power through weapon effects, or absorbing it, or by recovering over time.”
Well... It looked like this world didn’t have any way to rapidly restore lost SP in an emergency. I’d have to pay close attention to that. If I used a skill like Iron Maiden, which took all my SP, then I’d have no way to use other skills until I recovered my SP.
“When I fought with Glass and her friends, L’Arc dumped a bottle of this over Glass, and she became really powerful.”
Kizuna looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
And I could understand why. The implications were tremendous.
Glass’s people, the spirits, depended on energy for everything, even their levels. If they had a lot of energy, then everything about them, their strengths and abilities, would grow very powerful.
But according to Kizuna, it was difficult to recover energy once you used it, and most of the time people were forced to wait for it to recover on its own. What would it mean if these the spirits suddenly discovered an item that would allow them to regain any lost energy instantaneously?
“You mean this stuff can recover a spirit’s energy?!”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Then this item is priceless! Any spirit out there would do whatever it takes to get their hands on it.”
“So you think we should sell it?”
“No one will know what it is, so there’s no telling what will happen. Are you okay with that?”
“Sure. Who do you think I am? I guess we decided what we’re selling tomorrow.”
I had gotten quite a bit of business experience under my belt when I was a traveling merchant back in Melromarc, so I had a few ideas when it came to making money.
“Then there’s the magic water, power-up stuff. And I’d like to get my hands on a lot of those earth crystals.”
“You think our power-up methods can be used at the same time? Should we try and share what we know?”
“Yeah.”
The more I knew about how to power up my weapons, the stronger I would be. Anything that could help with that was worth a shot.
“Well I already told you about the weapon experience points, right? What else? There are slips of paper you can stick to your weapons to add different functions... I know of a bunch of different ways. I’ll start with...”
I tried a few of the power-up methods that Kizuna told me about, but my shield didn’t show any sign of reacting. Kizuna was having the same luck with her weapons. But she also said that Glass had told her about a power-up method and that she’d been able to make it work.
“Glass says that you can take the magic power from defeated enemies, or any power that has leaked out of enemies and is hanging in the air, and absorb it. Then you can use it to power up your weapons. I was able to do that. So I want you to know that I do believe what you’re telling me.”
“Yeah, I feel the same way.”
It’s not that I didn’t believe her.
I couldn’t have used the methods I’d learned from the other three heroes if I hadn’t believed in them first. So I don’t think it was a problem with my belief in the ideas.
“I know that it won’t work if you don’t believe in it. So I’m trying. If it doesn’t work, maybe it has something to do with coming from a different world.”
“That could be it. The systems might just be so different that they aren’t compatible.”
“Too bad. If it had worked, we could have gotten really strong.”
“Yeah.”
Kizuna and I nodded in agreement.
The truth was that the power-up methods I’d learned were the reason I’d survived as many battles as I had. It was too soon to jump to final conclusions, but there was no point in sitting around fretting over it.
The next steps were obvious. The easiest way to get experience was to get my hands on earth crystals—and I would need money for that.
Chapter Five: Sales Demonstration
The next morning we crossed a bridge and followed the road to a large and vibrant shopping area. We set up shop in a corner and started calling out to customers. We even set out a straw mat to make ourselves look more like an official business.
Just to be safe, we bought some masks from a nearby store and wore them to hide our faces. There was always the chance that someone might recognize Kizuna, and we didn’t want that.
I clapped my hands and shouted as loudly as I could, “C
ome on over! You’ll never believe what we’re offering today! Any adventuring spirit would be crazy to pass this up! We’ve brought this unbelievable medicine from a distant land far across the ocean! Soul-healing water!”
Pedestrians started to take notice, and soon we had a small crowd of skeptical but interested people gathered around. Rishia and Kizuna hung back a bit behind me and chimed in whenever I stopped yelling to keep the momentum up. I had to tell Rishia to stop talking so much, because no one could understand what she said and it just made the customers more suspicious.
“What does it do?”
Kizuna kept the rhythm up and didn’t miss a beat. “Wouldn’t you like to know? There’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think you’ll be able to experience its full effect. But you! Over there! Yes, you!” She yelled, pointing at a group of three spirit people that had worked their way into the crowd.
I followed her lead and called out to them, “You are the only ones who will understand how invaluable this medicine truly is! Won’t you take a look? Won’t you try it?”
“Oh, um...”
The three spirit people came closer.
“Don’t worry. It’s not poison, and you don’t have to drink it! Applying just a small amount to your skin will make its effect clear! Please, try it!”
I poured a small amount into another dish and Kizuna passed me a brush, which I used to paint the soul-healing water on the spirits’ chests. At first they all looked skeptical, but soon their eyes lit up and they started to smile.
“It can’t be!”
“Is this for real?! I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“This is the invention of the century!”
The other spectators looked at each other in confusion, not understanding what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, the three spirit people were so excited about their experience that they were shouting at the top of their lungs.
“This stuff restores your energy! I can’t believe it!”
The crowd grew louder.
“That’s right! This medicine is made just for spirits! It restores energy—it’s amazing!”
“Feh... You sound different than normal, Naofumi.”
“You mean he acts different when he’s trying to sell stuff?” Kizuna whispered.
I wished they would shut up. I had to act that way if I wanted to attract customers.
If we had tried to sell the soul-healing water at a pawn shop or an apothecary, the staff would have been suspicious of us, and we would have attracted unwanted attention. Besides, they might have asked us how to make it.
And even if they had bought it, they would have just sold it to someone else, which would be inefficient. It was better to cut out the middleman and sell it ourselves.
“Today we have five bottles of this exceptional soul-healing water for sale. Have you all had the chance to sample it?”
“That’s right. Today we’re selling one bottle for one tamagin!”
The first spirit person flipped open his wallet and pulled out a small little bar of silver. Did they say tamagin? Did this world really use Edo-period currency? Did they use kohan, too?
“Then give us more!”
The three spirit people looked serious all of a sudden, glared competitively at each other, and started to fight over our stock of soul-healing water.
“Please don’t fight.”
“We’re limiting our sales to one bottle per customer! Please calm down!”
Of course they would want it—as far as they were concerned it was an amazing medicine that could get them out of any situation, no matter how rough.
Each of the three spirits purchased a bottle and left.
“We still have two bottles left. What do you say?” I asked the crowd.
The other customers still seemed to harbor some doubts. They must have thought it was a trick.
“I realize this is all quite sudden, so how about we use the remaining two bottles and allow all of the spirit people present to sample our medicine’s incredible effects for themselves? Please line up!”
Once again, I poured the contents of the bottles into a dish and used a brush to paint the medicine onto the spirits who had lined up for a sample. I kept going through the gathered crowd until I had used up all of the remaining soul-healing water.
The line in front of our little stand had grown very long by this point, and the spirits that had sampled the medicine had all grown very excited.
Quite a few of them stopped me to ask how I made it.
I made it with my shield—jeez. It was possible to make it from scratch, but it was a real pain. But of course, I couldn’t tell them that, so I just told them it was a professional secret of mine.
I was starting to get concerned about how much attention we were attracting, but then again, if I didn’t sell the stuff then I wouldn’t be able to get the materials I needed to power up my shield.
And I still had to buy an expensive travel voucher.
When I ran out of sample soul-healing water, I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention and announced, “Now that you’ve had a chance to sample our wares, what do you think? Surely you see that this is not a joke or a trick? Surely you have seen that we are selling genuine articles?”
Most of the spirits in the line nodded in response, and it was clear that the mood of suspicion had lifted. We’d earned their trust.
The timing was just right, so I continued, “However, this medicine is very difficult to produce, and therefore our stock is somewhat... limited. I do not think we have enough for all of you gathered here today. Therefore, I suggest that we meet here tomorrow, at this very same time and place, to auction off our remaining stock.”
The crowd clapped. It was just the reaction I’d been hoping for. I suspected that some of the people that would come would be middlemen themselves, hoping to make a killing.
“Excellent! The auction will be for five bottles of soul-healing water, the same amount we brought with us today. I hope to see you all in attendance,” I said, ending our business for the day. We left as soon as we could.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? Everyone will be watching us, and we might not even make very much money off it!”
“What’s this about tamagin? I almost burst out laughing.”
“Naofumi, do you know something about this place?” Rishia asked.
She was the only one in our group that didn’t know anything about Japan.
“That’s what they use for currency here, so you’ll just have to get used to it. By the way, they use doumon, tamagin, and kinhan: 100 doumon is a tamagin, and 100 tamagin is a kinhan.”
The currency worked the same way in the world I’d just come from. But these names were just too much. It took all the discipline I had to keep from laughing. It’s like they were straight out of Edo-period Japan, only not quite.
“You’re talking about the auction? No, it’s perfect. The word will spread and all the nobility in town will come out to the auction.”
“You planned that out?”
“People love gossip. The size of the line is proof enough that we aren’t lying. Just wait. You’ll see.”
Heh heh... I hadn’t done much business lately, so I’d forgotten how much fun it could be. I really didn’t mind making money through the mercantile life. In fact, I liked it a lot.
“Makes me think you must have some good con men as friends back where you come from.”
“Feh...”
“Rishia, it’s about time you stopped freaking out about every little thing we run into here. We need money to survive, get it? Kizuna didn’t have that problem because she started out with money.”
“Well that’s true, but... but... I like business, too, you know. Just not as much as you do, Naofumi.”
It was looking like we were going to spend all of our time until the next day chatting, so I decided to focus on fighting to level up while we had the time.
Rishia would need to level up first, so I stay
ed behind and she went with Kizuna to hunt some monsters in the fields around the town. When they came back, Kizuna looked concerned.
“It seems like there are a lot more monsters out there than usual. What could it be?”
“Is there an activation event going on?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a limited-time phenomenon that occurs in the world we came from. The monsters give more experience when you kill them during it. Know what I mean?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of something like that. I wonder if that’s what’s happening. The monsters seemed stronger than usual, too.”
After that, I went out with Rishia to hunt the cardboard boxes. They were a little stronger than the one we’d fought in the labyrinth, and we got more experience for killing them, too. Hm... Well, there was no doubt that they were stronger than the balloons back in Melromarc. I had no idea why the monsters would be stronger in this world than they were in the world I’d been summoned to. But if everything was stronger here on average, that might explain why Glass and her friends were so powerful... right?
The next morning, we went back to the main street and set up our shop.
And of course we were careful to wear our masks.
By the time we were finished setting up, there was already a crowd of people waiting for the auction to start, and a lot of them weren’t spirits. That’s what I was hoping for. Anyone would want it. I was selling a medicine that replenished energy in a world where there were hardly any ways to do so.
There were researchers and middlemen merchants, adventurers that wanted it for use in battle... all sorts of people. Also, at the back of the crowd, there were some excited people that looked like they might have been government officials. They were probably in the service of the local nobility.
Kizuna swore that we didn’t need any official permits to do business there. If we needed something like that, I would have sold my wares in secret, behind the market.
Of course there was still the possibility that the noblemen might use their authority to stop the auction, but they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t want an angry crowd on their hands, would they? If anything, it looked like they were planning on joining the auction themselves.
