There was a light knock on Wesley’s door early in the morning, rousing the elf from his slumber. “Yes…?” he called out groggily from his bed upstairs, pulling himself to his feet.
“It’s Prim,” the familiar voice called out to him. “I have an important message from the Land. As of today, a new building option has appeared. He thought that he should inform you before purchasing, given the nature of this building.”
“Mmm? What is it?” Wesley asked with a yawn, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he got dressed and began to make his way down to the door.
“A general store,” Prim answered patiently. “Due to how the tavern turned out, the Land is unsure what products this store will offer. However, its description says that it can both buy and sell common goods.”
Wesley perked a brow at that, opening the door and brushing his hair with his hand. “A proper store? This should be interesting.”
Prim nodded her head in greeting, turning to lead the elf out of his home. “He plans to build the store across from the tavern. Roads were also an option to purchase, but the store seems significantly more important at this stage.”
“Yeah, I’d be worried about his intelligence if he passed up a genuine store just for a few stretches of road,” Wesley chuckled, following Prim to the entrance of the tavern.
As soon as they arrived, the familiar shimmer began to appear. Timber, plaster, and stone materialized from nothing, rising up to create a two-story structure. The building itself was ten meters wide and twenty meters long, causing Wesley to let out a low whistle.
Sure enough, the appearance of the new building had already attracted the attention of some of the other residents, who came to check what new building had been created. As soon as it was done, Wesley stepped inside, seeing a well-lit interior. Wooden shelves were lined up displaying various assorted products, ranging from travel backpacks to bolts of fabric, blankets, hairbrushes, and more.
However, recalling the scene a few days prior with Hilda in the tavern kitchen, Wesley wasn’t entirely convinced that these products were really here. They may have very well been projections created to demonstrate the products themselves before purchasing.
Thus, he approached one of the counters, seeing a bundle of ten pens on sale for two small silver coins. Next to that was a large stack of paper, which he took into his hands, admiring the quality. “This is some good paper, not the sheepskin parchment that typically circulates.”
Then, he moved further, finding small boxes of bandages, soap, and so on. While the product types seemed perfectly normal, he could tell at a glance that they were created with more advanced techniques than what was commonly used.
That was when he came to the row of blankets, each listed for eight small silver. Reaching out, her ran a hand over the blanket, surprised by how soft it felt. “Honestly, I think that you could earn a fair profit trading the goods in this store with nearby cities,” he mused aloud.
Finally, he came to products that truly didn’t seem to belong. Rows of premade sandwiches, as well as tall, plastic bottles of various types of sodas. He had tasted the carbonated beverages in the tavern, and had assumed that they would be a specialty product exclusive to the tavern. Now, seeing such large bottles for only two small silver, he couldn’t resist wanting it for himself.
As he was moving back towards the counter, he found construction materials lined up on one wall, both bricks and lumber. This, at least, confirmed that the Land would not reject manual building, and might even encourage it. Visit NovelPing for the full chapter.
Once he reached the counter, a window appeared, allowing him to buy any of the products shown in the store. There was also a tab that allowed him to sell his own goods. Using that, he sold fifty goblin magic stones, earning himself two and a half large silver, which he then spent on some of the other products that he had seen. These products all materialized on the counter, held in a wicker basket.
“What happened to the stones that I sold?” he asked curiously, looking over at Prim.
The rabbit-eared girl shook her head solemnly. “The Land can absorb items sold to convert to points. However, the total value of those stones did not equate to a single point. I assume it must take a fairly large sum to give the Land a profit.”
“So twenty-five hundred gol isn’t enough for a single point? That’s quite the high conversion rate. Or, maybe it’s not, given that that was only a single transaction. If the principal is built on handling multiple transactions, it would make sense for it to build up over time.” As he said this, he walked out of the store, greeting the other residents who had gathered around.
“Hello, everyone!” He smiled brightly, waving his free hand “As you can see, a new store has opened up. I’ve investigated it myself, and the products inside are quite affordable and good in quality. There was even sugar, salt, and pepper.”
The residents widened their eyes at this. These basic spices were hard to produce in large quantities, due to the threat of monsters ravaging a farm. At the same time, transporting them between regions carried its own risk. Thus, they were typically priced beyond the means of the commonfolk, unless you were purchasing it directly in the city where it was produced, such as salt near the sea.
Several of the other residents stepped into the store to look at the goods, while those who remained outside clearly weren’t confident in their own ability to purchase anything. Seeing this, Wesley kept his smile on his face. “Lucille, Daniel? I believe the two of you were quite skilled in needlework? You can purchase bolts of fabric inside, and you may be able to sell the finished products back to the store for a profit. If you can’t, I’d be willing to buy them myself to sell when the merchant caravan comes by again.”
The two residents he called out to nodded their heads, moving inside. Meanwhile, Prim moved up behind Wesley. “There is a scheduled merchant caravan coming?” she asked, having not heard of this previously.
Wesley blinked, before letting out a light laugh. “Well, it’s not scheduled specifically to stop at this settlement. It’s the same caravan, I believe, that was with the original group that discovered the Land. They make their rounds through various cities, and cycle through once every two months or so. Though, if I send word back to Leonin about the products in this store, I’m sure that more local merchants will arrive to take advantage of the products here.”
Prim nodded her head in understanding, but then pursed her lips in thought. “The Land isn’t sure if he wants this. Given the level of development in this world, he’s concerned that there may be foolish merchants who try to frame the shop as a scam, claiming that their money was stolen without any goods being delivered. The Land does not have the ability to provide goods for free, even if he wished it, so such a scam could blow up into a major incident.”
Wesley simply chuckled at that. “There are certainly shady merchants that would try something like that. Especially in a settlement like this that’s lacking security. There may even be some that try to strongarm the store into only selling to them, either by blocking off the entrance or hiring high-level adventurers to scare away settlers.”
“Avoiding that will be quite the tricky thing, since we truly don’t have the manpower to protect this Land against those with high-level connections.” Wesley tapped his chin in thought, leaning back against the store’s outer wall. “There are a few different methods that the guild could propose. The most obvious one is for the Land to officially come under the guild’s protection. At that point, it would be the guild’s duty to handle security, and they would probably treat this area like a newly established dungeon town.” Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
Prim shook her head, denying this. “The Land does not wish for any organization to lay claim to it. There are too many power struggles involved there, and the only way to enforce that claim would be if someone attuned to the Land.”
“Not wrong,” Wesley agreed with a sigh. “The next option would be to sell these items directly to the guild, rather than going through merchants. You’d lose out a fair bit on profit if you do it this way, but the guild would be able to provide a half-decent price nonetheless. Then, you could set up a merchant contract, saying that only the guild has permission to perform bulk purchases. That would prevent most merchants from being able to complain, since if they tried to perform such a scam, they would be admitting that they attempted to violate a binding contract.”
“That is… more agreeable than the first method, at least,” Prim muttered. “Is there anything else?”
“The last option is the simplest,” Wesley assured her. “I simply don’t immediately report the new store to the guild. As I said, it will still be over a month yet before the caravan comes through. In that time, this Land could give rise to numerous other opportunities. Personally, I feel that it would be within my rights to withhold my report until the Land has reached a point where it will no longer be rapidly growing. That point should come after it has reached its point cap and run out of new buildings to purchase.”
“After all, if I were to send a new report every few days to announce such a groundbreaking discovery, the guild would simply grow numb to the reports,” Wesley winked as he said that, looking back at the store. “Speaking of which, are there any other new talents which can be put to work in this store?”
Prim hesitated, before shaking her head. “The Land has not sensed any new talents suitable for working in the store. It’s likely that this store was meant to remain unmanned. Also, there is something he wished for me to inform you of.”
Wesley looked over with interest, and Prim pointed towards a green bin with a circular hole, just inside the store’s door. “Once you have any trash, you can dispose of it there. According to the Land, that bin will purge any trash thrown into it.”
“And if something other than trash is thrown in?” he asked curiously, pulling a small silver coin out of his pocket and deftly flicking it into the open hole of the bin. The coin fell into the bin, but there was no sound of it hitting the bottom.
“...Then it will apparently be absorbed in the same manner as items sold to the store,” Prim answered with an exasperated sigh.
‘That’s good to know!” Wesley laughed, pushing off from the wall and walking back towards his house. “That means that we have an easy way of determining how much value it takes to earn a point through this process.”
Prim blinked at that statement, but nodded her head. “That is… indeed one method of experimenting.”
After leaving Prim behind, Wesley calmly made his way towards his own house. Once inside, he set the wicker basket on top of his table, grabbing one of the cups from his cabinet, and opened the soda that he had purchased. His body flinched slightly at the audible hiss from the bottle, as if he had angered it in his haste.
Still, once the bubbles rose and fell, he poured it into his cup and eagerly took a drink. His eyes practically lit up, looking at the soda as if it were some priceless treasure. He definitely didn’t want to bring in greedy merchants that would try to ruin this for him.