BXBX NOVEL Book 4 - 4-4. Flea Market
Although it’s depressing when there are too many errors...
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"You could die before you could raise your level."
"It’s alright, I have plenty of safety margins prepared."
I ignore Arisa who keeps talking in high spirit, and ask for Liza’s thought.
"Liza, do you want to go to the labyrinth city too?"
"I will go to wherever master go to."
"I’m grateful for your deep loyalty, but I’d like to hear Liza’s opinion. Since I will still be the one who make the final decision, please tell me your honest feeling without refraining."
Listen to subordinate’s opinion and implement them as it is ⇒ If it fail, blame the subordinate, I won’t be like that. I’ve decided not to be like that when I was in subordinate’s position on my work. Don’t impose absurd assignments!
"I would like to go to the labyrinth city if permitted."
"Hey~ I’m having a good speech here, listen~"
"I’ll listen to you later."
"Che~, you’re treating me differently than Liza-san~"
I ignore Arisa who becomes a bit sulky.
If we go to the labyrinth city, the advantages are as follow, Liza and the girls could go around freely, the discrimination would be minimized (it probably won’t disappear), and Arisa and the girls could raise their levels.
The disadvantages are... None? Nono, I’ll be parting with people I’m acquainted in this town, like Zena-san and Nadi-san. She worried about me so much, while here I’m thinking such cold-hearted thing.
"Well, I have no intention of settling down in the labyrinth city, but it could be nice to go on a tour there."
"Tour... This isn’t like our original world."
Isn’t it fine? Different world tour.
"Rather than that, where is this labyrinth city located?"
"I don’t know?"
Oy, princess.
"Wait, don’t look at me with those eyes. I do know that it is on Shiga Kingdom, but I don’t know the exact location."
Should I buy some simple map from the bookstore? My map only display the wilderness from back then and Seryuu city, so it’s unusable for this case. I’m not entirely sure of this but it probably could display the whole area only if I’ve been there first.
"Master you don’t have horses or a carriage right?"
"Nope."
"I wonder where they’re selling it?"
Since the square near the gate has an area full of big stables, I’ll ask there. Usually I would ask Nadi-san, but I’ve just tasked her with a request earlier, so she’s probably not available now.
"Since you can afford a house then you must be able to afford horse and carriage, but for the sake better journey, let’s look for hidden treasures for traveling expenses!"
Arisa points at a flea market. This girl sure has an iron heart. Even after she was thoroughly ignored, she’s not discouraged.
The flea market is open on the place where the slave auction was held yesterday, on the widest square of the east district.
The slave traders’ carriages and tents remain as they were, but the stalls that were selling sake and foods in the midnight are gone, in their places, dozens of merchant open their business showing various junks lined up on a space about as small as a desk. There might be more than 100 of them.
"Master, I have a request before we charge ahead."
"I’ll listen for once, what is it?"
"I want permission to use two magics. They’re <> and <>."
After she explained the effect of those magics, I give her permission. The former is a magic to "Somehow" able to discern magic tools and the latter is to recognize someone who is approaching with malicious intent.
Since there doesn’t seem to be any particular harm, I allow her. Of course I could do it myself even if I don’t let her, but I’m not the kind of a person who like to prohibit anything and everything.
"This! This is surely a find!"
The tool that Arisa proudly proclaim is a magic tool for sure, a broken one according to appraisal. The name of tool is [The Invitation of the Dream Flies in the Moonlight Night], that questionable name come up, and the appraisal result is [▲▲▲ but ●●● in order to □□ did ●▲ playing ● namagu]. As usual, description of this world’s magic tools feels like harassments. The shape itself looks like a musical instrument or a music box, but the decorations are obscene so it’s probably a lewd tool.
"It looks like it’s broken, so no."
I go out of the stall while the shopkeeper promote the tool as a work of art, and we look around other stalls. It’s fun to go around stalls in this kind of flea market.
Because I see the same short wand I bought back then for less than half the price, I bought two of them. After I bought it, I realized that it was a waste of money... but it could eventually be useful for something.
Other things are ornamental strings to tie Pochi’s and Tama’s short sword sheath to their belts, I also buy tassel decoration for Liza spear. Each of them only cost several copper coins.
In typical RPG, leather products are usually expensive, strangely, from what I’ve heard from the nii-chan shopkeeper, in this season they kill a lot of goats who don’t hibernate, so they stock up a lot of leather products making it cheaper.
Because prices are considerably cheaper on flea market, it’s harder to shop than on normal stalls.
I didn’t forget to buy a ribbon as a souvenir for Lulu. It’s a pink colored ribbon about 50cm long. The color is lighter than the stole Zena-san bought this morning. I wonder if the dye come from this neighborhood?
A lot of suspicious medicines are being displayed, but according to appraisal skill, they are just fake energy drinks with no effect. I’m interested with the energy drink part, but since the skill doesn’t tell me the ingredients, I refrain.
They’re also selling soap and pomade among other hair products. I’m not buying the pomade because the smell is too strong, but even though the soap is an expensive item for this market and as much as one big copper coin, I buy it without hesitation since it has nostalgic scents of milk soaps. I only want to buy one but Arisa desperately pleas, "This is good stuff!", I ended up buying all seven of the stocks.
"Master~ this! Buy this~."
The thing that Arisa offered are... glasses. Since these don’t have lens, it’s just a frame.
"What do you want this for? This kind of thing."
"Of course it’s for master to use! There aren’t enough glasses boys in this fantasy world! This is the first step to bring the fetish to this world~~~~."
I give a chop to Arisa who started to scream incomprehensible things to silent her. The shopkeeper says that it’s one silver coin, but I don’t buy it of course.
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The neighbor stall has cards-like... Isn’t that Karuta. From appraisal, it’s an item passed down from the ancestor of Seryuu city’s earl from ancient Yamato era. It’s not a magic tool but it seems to be under effect of fixture magic. The market price is 10 gold coin.
"Onii-san, you have discerning eyes~ This is a toy from the ancient empire."
Arisa interrupts, "Eh~ How do you play it?", while looking playful.
Ignoring the shopkeeper who start spouting some random things, I’m fascinated with the pile of papers in front of me. There are five 30cm thick stacks of book and papers tied with string, among them one is worth 100 gold coins. It’s abnormal compared to the other bundles which are only valued for about one big copper coin each.
"How much is that toy?"
"It’s 3 gold coins, but for the cute young lady here, I’ll give you 7 silver coins, how about it?"
I pretend to be interested with Karuta and listen to him. Its asking price is about 1/7 of the market price. I could get some profit if I resale it, but it’s bothersome to look for the customers.
Arisa loses interest after hearing the price. She seemed to have wanted it because it’s nostalgic, but it seems that she didn’t really want it to that much.
"It’s a bit expensive. How about these bundles of papers, are they some kind of reading material?"
"They don’t have any value, but since they’re made of papers, burning it would be wasteful, so I’m selling them in bundles."
I casually enter into the topic with the shopkeeper.
It seems that it was disused things from when he was sorting things for a certain wealthy person. He wanted to sift through usable books to be sold later, but found out that most of them are just paper useful only for scribbling.
"How much is it? It looks like most papers are writable on both sides, so it should be able to be used for the children’s writing practice."
"Right then, I’ll give you one bundle for 3 copper coins. If you buy them all then I’ll make it 2 big copper coins."
I decided to buy them all. I’ll have the unnecessary papers for Lulu and the girls to learn letters.
I put the papers to the pouch from the bag and give it to Liza. I was going to carry half, but Liza refused.
"Customer, if you want to teach letters, how about you use this item here?"
He shows me cards with Shiga kingdom’s vocabularies, while the back sides are drawn with the picture of the corresponding letters. The picture is monochrome but since the lines are highlighted, you can understand how to write it. On the [Water] card, I don’t know what’s drawn on it, but there are only a few like that.
1 set consist of 100 pieces. They’re written with ink pen one by one. It must have been made with enormous effort, but the market price shows that it’s only 1 silver coin.
"Those are some interesting cards."
"This is something that I thought myself, I was thinking of using it to teach the children in my hometown."
From what he said, it was originally made from wood wastes and ink. He thought that it would sell well so he earnestly asked a painter acquaintance to make one set, and he promoted it heavily to the chamber of commerce but the production cost and the selling price were too lop-sided. It seems that the production cost 4 silver coins while chamber only want to pay 1 silver coin for it.
"So this was all drawn one by one?"
"Yes, of course it was..."
Won’t the cost become cheaper if you use printing?
Arisa stops me. She puts her forefinger on her mouth.
"What?"
"Weren’t you trying to suggest printing?"
"Yeah. ...Anything wrong with it?"
"When I was in the castle, I’ve never seen printing. It’s dangerous to carelessly introduce technology you know?"
"Even though there’s casting, they don’t know printing?"
"Technology seems to be something like that."
Arisa who had failed once insists, I’ll stop suggesting the printing.
I apologize to the shopkeeper for having private talk during the negotiation.
"I’m sorry, it was a difficult story to tell."
"I’m sorry too, even though there are only few people who are interested with this..."
"I want to buy 1 set, how much is it?"
So the interest was low? Even though that it could be popular.
He cites 4 silver coins. That’s the production cost.
"Is it fine? Then won’t you not profit from this?"
"It’s fine. If I can give this product to a person who understand its worth."
I’m a bit moved with his melancholy.
It’s a good idea, it would be a shame if it just fade away.
"Why don’t you think the way to produce them next time? Since there should be demands, you could think about the price afterward. You could look for cheap material, or a way to mass produce them cheaply, it’s fun to do various trials and errors."
I thought that he would think that it’s just some needless words of the customer during the payment, but maybe because he found a fellow who understand him as an inventor, his eyes start to regain its strength, after confirming that, I go toward other stalls.