43 – Selling, Buying, Auction (1)
The events that followed progressed rapidly.
Luke, having finished the contract, clapped his hands and spoke.
“Okay. Then, let’s start by cleaning up the mess.”
And then he used magic to dispose of the corpses.
“It just so happens that our kids needed food, this works out well.”
Suddenly, a magic circle appeared in mid-air, and from there, large bugs emerged. The bugs had spikes only on the tail end of their bodies, giving off the impression that they were somehow related to black magic.
As soon as the bugs appeared, the dirty back alley became clean in an instant. Each bug picked up a corpse with its mouth and returned to the summoning circle.
Witnessing this, the princess almost felt nauseous. It was a truly eerie scene. Thanks to it, the back alley became clean very quickly.
The hero chuckled awkwardly and spoke to the princess.
“Of course, you understand that what we saw today is all a secret, right?”
“Of course! That’s obvious!”
The princess vigorously nodded her head.
*
After finishing the cleanup, I immediately returned to my lodging.
I had already parted ways with our party members.
We had all split up right after the banquet, claiming fatigue as the reason.
Camilla went back to her ancestral home to meet her father after a long time, the Holy Maiden headed to the cathedral, Lily to the house of the elven magician, and Adel secured a simple accommodation and went there.
I always thought about it, but it’s true… we don’t really have a solid party. I just disappeared in the middle of everything, and nobody seemed to care.
Well, thanks to that, I had a lot of freedom to act.
“I’ll have a lot to do in the future.”
I returned to the palace, but unfortunately, there was no time to rest.
I mediated for talents to serve the princess, obtained books related to dark magic, gathered useful items and hidden pieces, and checked the international political situation, and so on…
To do all these things, even having ten bodies wouldn’t be enough.
But it’s okay.
Being busy means there’s a lot of room for improvement.
Perhaps it was because I had a relatively busy day.
Sleep came quickly. I lay in bed and fell asleep.
*
The next day.
Early in the morning, I got up from my bed as soon as the sun rose.
After lightly washing up, I prepared to go outside.
As I mentioned yesterday, there was no time to rest if I wanted to carry out the planned tasks. Today’s agenda included selling monster carcasses and purchasing useful items. Hopefully, just with this, I can make the most of the day.
Before leaving the door, I mentally prepared myself.
“Fool, I am a fool.”
I adopted a slight change in my usual demeanor.
It was a facade I had created for dealing with nobility, but there was no reason not to use it with commoners.
If I acted differently on the street than at the banquet, people would naturally find it odd.
Of course, there was still a moral issue with acting arrogant towards commoners, but…
“It doesn’t matter.”
To be honest, I didn’t care much about that either.
I knew very well that just being strong didn’t make me a good person.
And wouldn’t the curse not work on commoners anyway?
Naturally, they would try to give me a hard time in some way.
Rather than half-heartedly observing etiquette, it would be better to just go all out from the beginning.
With that thought, I stepped out of the lodging.
I put my hands in my pockets and walked down the street with a casual stride. The first place I headed to was the butcher’s guild.
A group that made a living by buying and selling the corpses of various monsters.
I approached the counter and showed the merchandise to the intermediary in charge.
“I want to trade this.”
Thump!
I took out the demon carcasses that I had piled up on top of the extra-dimensional backpack. Perhaps because I had dismantled them a lot, when I pulled them out, they were practically stacked like a mountain.
“W-What, sir…”
The intermediary in charge was astonished at what he saw.
“Did you go on a large-scale expedition with a guild? This amount is something I’ve never seen even after doing this job for 10 years.”
“I did something similar.”
Of course, he couldn’t recognize that I was a hero. Now, I had taken off the armor I usually wore, and hidden away the holy sword in my lodging, before coming out onto the street.
Just by appearance, I looked like a commoner.
The only thing that made me seem like a wealthy noble was the relatively clean clothes I was wearing.
“Let me see… It’ll be difficult to determine the price for this. Please wait a moment.”
Even so, is it true that I’ve been doing this for 10 years? Although the intermediary was perplexed, he began to sort through the corpses one by one.
At times, he would exclaim in admiration, and at times, he would be startled.
That was to be expected.
All the corpses I had collected so far were obtained in the Demon World.
They would be filled with demonic creatures and monsters that are difficult to see normally.
They were materials that were both rare and efficient.
Since they were in the Demon World, the magical capacity would also be high.
Surely, the price would be quite substantial.
However, I waited for the intermediary’s words without any particular expectations. He finished pricing and opened his mouth.
“With this… If you’re lucky, you might be able to receive ten million gold.”
In an instant, my brow furrowed.
As expected, he was trying to low-ball the price.
Without hesitation, I grabbed him by the collar.
“What?! What are you doing, sir?”
“Who do they think they’re fooling? Even if they can’t do it, they must be worth at least 20 million gold. Even so, do they really think they can extort half of the price?”
Have I never used the shop while playing this game?
Of course, the first place I visited after returning from an expedition was this wholesale guild. I had to sort out all the miscellaneous items like corpses of monsters.
Because of that, I was well aware of their prices. I had collected them for a good half-year, including monsters that even large guilds had difficulty hunting.
At the very least, I had to receive the value of four mansions.
Even considering the uniqueness of bulk selling.
But wait? Only half of that?
Even if I were not in bandit mode, I would have strangled them from the start.
“Sir, please calm down for a moment! Don’t we do bulk sales? We also have to consider our personnel expenses!”
“Do you think I would give you a whole 20 million gold for personnel expenses?”
“Uh, well…!”
I pointed out the prices of each of the items as I examined them. I wasn’t sure if I knew this much in detail, but the broker’s face turned pale.
“Oh, I understand. I apologize! We’ll pay you the full 20 million gold!”
“No, it’s too late. Make it 27 million gold.”
“What?!”
The guy’s face was filled with disbelief. But I was serious.
“Why? Did you think you could just let it slide because you were intending to rip off others? You should receive additional compensation for breaking trust.”
“Oh no, sir, that won’t do! How are we supposed to make a living?!”
“I said at least 20 million gold. If you negotiate properly, you could make a considerable profit. Is it not possible for you to pay that much?”
I glared at him and spoke. My red eyes reflected in his pupils.
“Or should I go out now and spread rumors? That the wholesale guild in the imperial capital tried to rip off a client.”
“Ugh…!”
In the end, the broker had no choice but to nod while shedding tears of blood. That’s what you get for deceiving people.
I didn’t feel like I had gone too far at all.
You have to catch the big fish at the very beginning so that you don’t get fooled later.
“I’ll first pay you 15.5 million gold as a deposit… Please don’t misunderstand, sir. We’re not trying to rip you off, we just don’t have that much money in our guild right now… We’ll deposit the rest after we’ve processed the remaining monster corpses.”
“That works.”
I readily nodded.
With just 15.5 million, I could still make a fortune. It’s the amount of money that can buy three mansions in the empire.
Almost anything can be purchased with that.
After that, I continued to wander around the market. Perhaps because it was the capital with a palace, the goods sold nearby were all of good quality.
I bought various items there.
Enchanted butcher knives, magic scrolls, spell catalysts, potions, and so on…
Each time, the merchants tried to take advantage of me, but I remained consistent in my attitude.
I was a shrewd talker.
Bang!
“These f*cking bastards are playing games.”
“Where did you learn your tricks? Should I pull out your tongue?”
“I’ll give you three seconds to adjust the price. One, two, three…”
Every time, the merchants, trembling with fear, reset the price to normal. Sometimes, a few of the more terrified merchants lowered their prices even below the normal range.
Thanks to that, I was able to spend less than expected.
“He’s crazy! A crazy person has appeared in the market!”
“Spread the word to the people around. There’s a suspicious character wandering around right now, so be careful…”
Merchants are fundamentally mutually beneficial beings.
Price manipulation, market monopolies, scamming… In order to conduct various business activities on a large scale, the help of those around them is essential.
Because of this, it could be said that the merchants’ network of connections is as complex and extensive as a spider’s web.
The merchants I encountered quickly passed on news through that network.
Thanks to that.
It had only been an hour since I entered the market.
Once the merchants who had tried to take advantage of me disappeared inexplicably.
“It’s a relief…”
It was a fortunate turn of events for me as well.
Although it became difficult to take advantage of others in return, at least I didn’t have to stress about making each other blush in embarrassment.
“Now that I’ve found everything I need in the market…”
I glanced briefly towards the sky.
Various colored towers were rising endlessly towards the high heavens.
Mage Towers. A place where all kinds of magic books and magic items were lined up.
It was also the next place I was heading towards.
And so, I redirected my steps towards the Mage Towers.
