NOVEL WEB Chapter 10: Transactions
Gil walked into the shop, ringing a bell above the door as he did. The walls were lined with shelves containing various nicknacks, handmade farm and fishing equipment, jars of pickled eggs and veggies, a few fresh eggs, small tea bags full of dried leaves, and an intriguing set of glass rods that Gil didn't recognize. An open chest contained well worn and patched clothes and shoes. There notably weren't any weapons except for a handful of knives and Gobu Gobu nail gloves.
A fresh faced young boy with black hair and a green vest perked up as Gil entered. He stood up behind his counter, beaming.
"Oh my! An outsider! Well, whatever you need, I'm sure you can find it here."
"I'm afraid I don't have much money." Gil admitted sheepishly. "I just wanted to see how your town is doing. A strong economy means a strong community, in my experience."
The kid straightened, and proceeded to defend the honor of Rim Elm's economy.
"That's just fine, we mostly operate on barter anyway." He explained. "I'm more of a middle man than anything else. I take in things people don't need anymore, or extra food and the like, and in return I pass on things from the store. My father taught me how to preserve healing leaves, and most people want to have a few of those on hand for emergencies. The hunters tend to be the only people buying doors of light, but I'm sure you know how useful they are when exploring further afield."
"Doors of light?" Gil asked blankly, before realizing his mistake. The kid's eyes might as well have turned into dollar signs as he plucked one of the strange glass rods off the shelf and began to upsell.
"This, my friend, is a Door of Light." He explained. "If you draw a door onto any given wall, it'll open a door out of whatever structure or cavern you happen to be in. Usually. It'll always bring you somewhere safer than your current location, generally somewhere you've been before."
Ok. Genre: RPG. That is an item to escape a dungeon. Gil had lived enough lives in modern day settings to be familiar with video game logic. An item like the one this kid was describing simply did not belong in a podunk town's general store, not in any world that made sense. Several other assumptions began to click into place.
"I see." Gil said, restraining his enthusiasm. "So, healing leaves? How effective are they?"
"Well they grow reasonably quickly, but our local variety doesn't tend to bear fruit." The kid was apologetic, as if he were referencing something obvious. "They work best as a tea, but just eating them or rubbing them across a wound is fine for abrasions and minor injuries."
Shit. Maybe I should have stayed for tea after all.
"And how effective are they as a tea?" Gil asked, smiling. Healing items from video game settings were worth more than gold in most other worlds.
"Very?" The shop keeper answered, puzzled. "I once saw a broken arm mend in about a day. It won't regrow lost limbs, of course, and make sure to set any broken bones before you drink it."
"That should be sufficient for most things." Gil fished through his pockets. He pulled out the meager bounty he'd scavenged from the Gobu Gobu. "I'm not sure how much these are worth. Ideally, I need at least enough food to feed two people for a week, one healing leaf, and a door of light if I could afford it. Also, I should probably tell you that there is likely to be a breach tonight."
The boy looked up from the goods, blood draining from his face.
"Why didn't you say something earlier!" The boy spluttered. He shoved a pair of thumb sized healing leaf pouches and into Gil's hand. "I've got to go. This is what you can afford with those. Tell you what, if you help with the defense I'll pay you in food."
"Deal!" Gil called after the boy before looking around the small shop he'd been left perfectly alone in. "Damn. High trust society."
Gil briefly considered ransacking the place, but thought better of it. He wasn't going back to the Skyblock anytime soon, and he didn't want to burn bridges anyway. So far, this was the first shop he'd found that sold food, and it accepted random junk as payment. He did grab a nondescript leather satchel and pinned it to his belt. He nicked a door of light from the back of the display, just in case, and put it with his healing leaves into his new belt pouch.
Many of the clothes were old, worn, and in need of repair. Gil thought Snow might be able to fix them up with a needle and thread, and filed that away as a potential money maker for the future. Take the clothes, repair them, bring them back for a profit. It would certainly be more productive than fucking Snow all day every day for a week, and much less likely to result in severe chafing.
The claw bracers were piled up in the back, with separate piles for the leather straps and metal spikes after disassembly. It seemed like this shopkeeper spent most of his time breaking down and reworking the junk brought in for trade. Gil nicked a few strips of heavily salted meat before leaving. It wouldn't weigh him down too much, and thanks to the high salt content it could make a passable broth all on its own.
He jogged downhill, passing the gates and a few houses as he did. The town was on high alert, with people bustling around to bar their doors and windows. Gil noted that only the men seemed armed, with nearly every male he saw armed with at least a spiked bracer and sturdy layered clothes. The women, in contrast, were all in long dresses, totally impractical for combat. None of them held themselves with the kind of confidence and dignity Gil would expect from magic users, either.
Damn. It's one of those worlds. Gil thought. Gil had originally come from a land of magic, in a culture where warrior women outnumbered their male counterparts. He'd never quite come to terms with the many settings where it was considered strange for women to take up arms.
Worse, it meant that he was unlikely to find any girls worth keeping in this town. He already had a top notch domestic servant with niche magical abilities. He really didn't need a farmer's daughter, especially with his food budget as tight as it was. There was a remote possibility that some of the women were out hunting, but he didn't get that impression. There would have been at least a few women with knives at their belts if that was socially acceptable.
Gil dutifully knocked on doors he passed, informing the inhabitants of the imminent attack. He noted one young man with green hair, who stepped behind a curtain to put on his hunting clothes before asking for more information. The green hair told Gil that this man, Ixis, might be important. If nothing else, he was a physically fit young man who seemed ready for some excitement. Ixis, in turn, was fascinated to meet an outsider.
"So, have you seen a seru in person?" Gil asked. He was drinking a bit of healing tea and eating a slice of bread slathered with some very salty butter. Gil was a guest, and more importantly he was a person that was living on a very modest food budget. He'd take what nutrition he could find. "I actively avoid them when I'm traveling, so I don't know if there are any unusual varieties around here."
"I've only seen them outside of the mist, so I've never been in danger from one." Ixis admitted. "Gimards, I think they are called? That was the only seru native to this region before. They were used to light fires, sometimes to heat forges without fuel. I was a kid the last time anyone willingly wore a seru."
Gil's mind was already turning Ixis's words over in his head before the young man even finished. So, these seru creatures could make fire, or at least the local variety could? Combined with the earlier revelation that the mist drove animals mad, Gil concluded that Seru were some kind of magical livestock. Biologically engineered magic items, perhaps? Valuable, but when they turned against their masters they rapidly destroyed a civilization that relied on them. Classic story of hubris.
"Well, I thank you for the tea," Gil said, sipping the extremely bitter brew politely, "I'm feeling drastically better."
He had checked his bandage, and the injury was already knitting back together. That tea really did work wonders, though he also felt drowsy. He checked his tablet, and saw that more than an hour had passed since he'd tried to capture Tetsu.
"There is one more thing I'd like to ask before you leave." Gil steepled his fingers. "A matter of business."
Ixis cocked his head to the side.
"I'm willing to hear you, but I don't know what I could do to help a business." Ixis said. "I'm just a hunter."
"I think I could use a hunter." Gil said, "but only if you're willing to sell me your soul."
Ixis reeled as the full implications of the offer flooded his mind. He would be at this man's mercy, yes, but he'd also be able to leave his walled town. Ixis had lived his whole life under siege, while his youth passed him by. He'd never really been exposed to true malice from another person, so he was fairly trusting overall. The offer had been a Hail Mary by Gil, who figured that the worst that could happen was another rejection. He was pleasantly surprised when Gil nodded.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm up for it." Ixis said, smiling. "I'll sell you my soul if it means I get to see other places."
"Great." Gil said, "make it through the night, first. If you have time, put together food and supplies for three people going on a long journey. We will need them."
Alas, on his way down to the crystal tree, Gil found that Ixis was not actually an important individual despite his unusual hair. He had the "bit character" tag, and was only tier two. The combatant tag meant that he was probably a better fighter than Gil, at least for now. Maybe he'd be worth keeping around for at least a little while despite his lack of importance.
Sell Price: 1 Gacha pull
If this is what a T2 bit character was worth, who knew what a true T1 no name would sell for? Gil supposed that he would find out eventually, when he accidentally nabbed some random background character.
He continued from door to door, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and made sure everyone knew about the imminent attack. With any luck, the village would be able to repel the attack when on guard.
Vahn and Nene were in one of the houses, measuring Vahn for a set of protective clothing. Apparently all the hunters wore suits of improvised padded armor. The green haired young woman they were visiting, Mei, seemed to be a rather skilled tailor. Gil subtly gave her a once over. She could apparently make passable quality armor, but she had a fairly unremarkable figure. In addition, the casual touching that went into measurements implied a certain fondness for the blue haired wonder.
While he had just been reminded of how easy it was to jump to erroneous conclusions by Ixis's irrelevance, Gil marked Vahn as someone to stay near during the night's festivities. He seemed to be disproportionately buff, his sister had a distinctive face, and the green haired chick had "childhood friend love interest" written all over her. Tetsu had also been training him, so most of the distinctive looking people in town were either directly connected to him or in the same age bracket. Probably the main character.
If the guy turned out to be a one man army Gil would stamp him, but he would really prefer to find someone easier on the eyes. He kept the stamp in his pocket. If the city burned down, Gil could offer Vahn refuge on the Skyblock. This guy would almost certainly survive.