Chapter 42 "Street Stall"

"...that's what it was..."

This exchange is somewhat like deja vu...

　It was nighttime again.

I was talking with Heidi, who had joined me, about the events that took place during the day.

　"Yes. About three couples came to my side..."

　"By the way what happened? Did you kill them?"

　Heidi shook her head.

"There is no way I would have done that in the city! I disabled them all and turned them over to the Knights!"

　What? You didn't kill them?

　Those people are going to come back.

Well, they didn't kill her, so that's good.

"I honestly underestimated the boy's impatience. I didn't expect him to try his hand the next day."

"That's right. I thought he would be a little more patient."

　Heidi scratched her cheek with a troubled look on her face.

"I should have known when he started sabotaging business just a few days after approaching me."

　"Well...I understand what you're saying, but what about tomorrow? By the looks of things, they'll be back tomorrow, right?"

........It's a hassle......

　I'm sorry to say this, but I'm going to have to change my lodgings tomorrow.

　I'm careful, but if I kill any more people, I'll be traced back to them.

　"We have no choice. We'll change lodgings tomorrow."

　".......I understand."

　You don't look convinced.

I wonder what she's getting so worked up about with someone who just happened to be passing by.

　"I'll start looking for a place to stay tomorrow morning. We'll move on as soon as we can."

　Having decided on a plan, I decided to take the rest of the day off.

　After I get all the troublesome things out of the way, I'll go to the market and take a look around.

　I haven't seen both the north and the south of the city properly yet.

　Heidi said "good night" and quickly fell asleep.

　I turn off the light, lie down and quietly close my eyes.

　Who should I watch today?

　This is the story of a man.

　He was the third son of a farmer born in a village on the outskirts of Medream territory.

　He was fed up with working on the farm day in and day out.

　The farm itself was to be taken over by his older brother, and if things continued as they were, he would be his brother's errand boy in the future.

　He couldn't stand to be used by his older brother, who wasn't very capable, and left home at the age of 15.

He was convinced that he was a can-do guy, so he went to Willied early on to become an adventurer.

　He succeeded in becoming an adventurer, but then he ran into a wall of reality.

　He could not advance in rank as an adventurer.

　After five years of hard work, he was able to raise his rank to blue, but it stopped there.

Once, he pushed himself to go on a quest to defeat a dangerous monster, but he failed.

　He was seriously wounded in the process.

　That was the end of his adventuring career.

　The quest broke his heart.

　He lost all motivation, became addicted to drinking and fighting.

He was a thug who could be tough with humans, but not with monsters.

He was originally blessed with enough talent to become blue, so he has a certain amount of ability.

　Thanks to this, he was noticed by people in the underworld, and he was completely immersed in the underworld of threatening and hurting people, and before he knew it, he had become accustomed to a life of hurting others and getting paid for it.　

　He had a younger brother and his business was going well.

Then one day.

The client was the lord's boy who always favored him.

Although he personally disliked him because he was always picky, he was a good customer because he paid well.

　The request was to harass a certain inn.

According to him, the inn was in the way because he was planning to clear the land where the inn was located and build another house.

　Most likely, it's a mansion to keep women around. It is said that the boy has quite a number of mistresses.

　It must be a hassle for him to stay at the inn every time he wants to.

Inwardly, he wished he would die while he was doing his job.

　The job itself was easy.

Stick to the inn, find a weak-looking one, and hurt him or her with a false accusation.

All he had to do was to insinuate to them that they would suffer the same fate if they stayed at the inn when they left.

Since the inn was not that prosperous in the first place due to its location, he could inflict a lot of damage just by that.

　He was paid on a daily basis, so it was a very tasty job for him.

　That day, as usual, he followed the guests coming out of the inn.

　He looked like a small fish with a yellow plate.

　He was a cheeky fellow with a woman with him. And he was quite a top-class guy.

He told some people to catch him and followed the guy with about two people.

Let's take him into an alley at a suitable place, hurt him, and then have fun with the women.

　The man seems to be heading to the Gnostic cathedral in Muslim Sacred Mountain early in the morning.

　It's not a good idea to mess with him there. The holy knight is keeping an eye on him.

　If you are a resident of this city, you are no stranger to the horror of the holy knights.

　It would be dangerous to touch him.

Therefore, he decided to wait until the man came down the mountain and attacked him.

He didn't come down the mountain for a long time, which made him frustrated.

　The sun was high in the sky when he came down.

He had been waiting for the man for a long time, so he had a lot of things piling up.

　He decided to give him a thorough beating, even if it meant taking it out on him.

With a smile that contains a hint of contempt, he drags the man into the shadows.

When he was about to start with the preliminaries of extorting money, something impossible happened.

One of his men's arms was torn off carelessly.

He pulled off the man's arm as easily as if he were picking grass.

At that moment, he felt his life was in danger and tried to run away, but....

The man breaks the leg of his minion and uses magic at an unbelievable speed to freeze his leg and block his movement.

　As he manages to escape, the man turns the rest of his minions into wall stains.

　After that... he is dismembered all over his body at the end of the alley, suffering unimaginable pain... and then it's dark.

　Ending.

　...I hear it's a common thing in this world.

There are many people who change their jobs to hoodlums following the same pattern.

　Also, they are overconfident in their abilities.

　How can they be so confident when they've fallen so low?

　I'll be careful too.

　"...you are going. Guest."

　"Oh, I'm sorry. You don't have to return the money."

　It's morning and we're greeting the old men before we leave the inn.

　The old man seemed apologetic and wanted to return some of the money.

　I told him no before he could say anything. A refund would be out of line.

　He was a bit annoying, but he was an interesting old man.

　I would like to talk to him again if I have a chance.

　I'd like to hear about the unusual techniques he used.

　"No...okay. I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"Not at all. Well, the inn was cozy, so it wasn't so bad."

　We were there less than a day.

　The proprietress and her daughter looked somewhat regretful when they saw Heidi, but when did they get to know each other?

　That's a great communicative ability. I probably wouldn't be able to do that.

　I went out to town to look for a new place to stay.

Fortunately, it was not the festival season, so many inns had vacancies, but all of the better quality inns, like the Golden Thread Pavilion, were already occupied.

　We decided to stay at an inn near the Adventurers' Guild in the eastern part of the city.

　To be honest, I liked the Golden Thread Pavilion so much that I was annoyed that the boy had kicked me out, but I decided to change my mind.

　After putting our luggage in our new lodgings, Heidi and I talked about our plans.

　"What are your plans for today?"

"I don't have any plans, so if it's okay with you, can I go with you?"

　Hmmm.

　I'm going to look around the market today.

　Heidi said she was going to visit the market yesterday.

Would you guide me? Well, I know most of them.

　"I'm going to visit the market today. If you want to come, that's fine, but can I ask you to show me around?"

　Heidi nodded several times, her face shining with happiness when she heard that.

　"I'll take care of it! In that case, let's go quickly. What are you looking for... any kind of armor?"

She began to talk about the market in a high-spirited manner.

　This is what I call machine gun talk.

Seeing Heidi still talking, I thought I was speaking too soon.

　The market, located in the northern part of the city, boasts a wide selection of goods, and the main street is filled with stores and stalls, and people watching the stores and stalls.

　There are two main types of stores. As mentioned earlier, stores and stalls.

　Stores are run by merchants with deep roots in the city and boast stable quality.

　Stalls are run by merchants who come from outside the city and sell goods they have purchased during their travels.

　Unlike the stores, the quality here varies, but you may find unexpected bargains.

　In fact, it is said that there have been cases where the merchant who acquired the item sold it for a bundle and then discovered its true value and found it to be a bargain.

　Because of this, it is said that there is no end to the number of people who buy suspicious tools and weapons at street stalls in search of romance.

　It's a tasty story for a merchant, isn't it?

　If you do it right, you can sell even junk at a reasonable price.

　It may look like a scam, but this is a different world where people are responsible for their own actions.

That's the way it goes.

Heidi seems to be a romance-seeker and is looking at the goods at the stalls with her eyes like saucers.

　I also ran my eyes over the items, but only lightly....

Oh, man.... There are a lot of stinky products.

　A pot of good luck.

　　Touch it several times a day and it will bring good luck to the owner.

　　It is so fake that I don't even want to touch it.

　Water of wisdom.

　　It is water from the Aspidoceron Great Falls. If you drink it, your mind will be clear and your magic chanting speed will increase.

　　I'm pretty sure this is just water from a well somewhere around here.

　Devil's necklace.

　　It is used to summon demons at the cost of the owner's lifespan.

　　I don't know if it's real or not, but I don't know why they would sell such a thing in the home of the Gnosis.

　The Sword of the Brave.

　　The sword that destroyed the demons that once attacked the world.

If it breaks easily, you can pass it off as "you were not qualified for it".

　This is an extreme example, but most of these stinkers are like this.

　But...sometimes there are interesting things.

　I picked up a rusty sword.

It is a very old and deteriorated piece of metal, but it has an unusual shape.

　It is hard to see due to rust, but there are grooves evenly spaced on the surface, suggesting some kind of gimmick.

　If it is what I think it is, it might be quite useful.

　...Whether I can use it or not is another matter.

　Besides, it's a good experimental material to test the ideas I've come up with so far.

　I'll give it a try soon. I told the shopkeeper and paid for it.

The shopkeeper looked at me and examined the sword with a curious look on his face.

　I guess he was surprised that I would buy such a piece of junk.

　Without prior knowledge, I would have reacted the same way.

　"What are you going to do with a sword like that?"

　Heidi asked me as I was walking around and touching the rusty sword.

"Oh, I don't care about the sword itself, but I'm interested in the gimmick of the sword...the trick, in short."

　"The gimmick?"

　"I can't say without checking it out."

　I couldn't say anything definite myself, so I changed the subject somewhat forcefully.

　"Well, what did you buy?"

　"Here it is."

　Heidi showed me the dagger at her waist.

　The shape is similar to a knife, with a blade and a peak similar to a comb.

　It's called a sword breaker. It is designed to destroy the opponent's weapons.

　"Kukri was chipped in the village, so I wanted a replacement."

Oh, I remember she said it was chipped during the Death Worm battle.

　She also bought some other magic stones.

I thought she was buying a lot of strange things since she was looking at the stall so intently.

　I was relieved to hear that, and turned my attention to the next stall.