I headed for the street lined with stalls. More than fifty vendors sold all manner of goods there. Naturally, the quality would be a mixed bag. But I had Lady Metis on my side.
I peeked at the nearest stall.
‘Does this stall have anything worth at least twice its sale price?’
‘No.’
Apparently, everything there was either fairly priced or a rip-off.
I checked the neighboring stall next.
‘Does this stall have anything worth at least twice its sale price?’
‘No.’
This one too? I continued checking the value of the merchandise at stall after stall, but bargains proved difficult to find.
After checking them, it seemed like nothing but junk.
‘Does this stall have anything worth at least twice its sale price?’
‘Yes.’
“Finally!”
I shouted in front of the stall. The vendor looked at me as though I were a suspicious character.
“What’s gotten into you, kid?”
“Nothing. Sorry. Don’t mind me.”
While talking, I checked the items one by one.
‘Is this item worth at least twice its sale price?’
‘No.’
‘Is this item worth at least twice its sale price?’
‘Yes.’
The item Metis deemed valuable was a pot about the size of a person’s head. Several blue flowers were painted on it.
Hmm. I honestly thought it was beautiful, but it looked like an ordinary pot to me…
“You’ve got a good eye, kid. That’s porcelain popular in the Artemia Kingdom. Pretty blue, isn’t it? I’ll knock off 2,000 G and let you have it for 10,000 G.”
You discounted it awfully fast. This thing had clearly been sitting here. I had lived in the Artemia Kingdom all my life and never heard of such a trend. Highly suspicious.
The principal denominations of currency were:
Copper coin: 100 G
Large copper coin: 1,000 G
Silver coin: 10,000 G
Gold coin: 100,000 G
Platinum coin: 1,000,000 G
My entire fortune consisted of nine silver coins, or 90,000 G. For comparison, a meal cost about five copper coins, or 500 G.
‘Is this pot worth at least 50,000 G?’
‘Yes.’
Seriously? I should buy it for now.
“All right, sir. I’ll take this pot.”
“Pleasure doing business!”
I accepted the pot from the vendor. It was rather large.
After questioning Metis in more detail, I learned that it was apparently worth about 70,000 G. I would sell it for at least 50,000 G and turn a profit. Maybe making money would be surprisingly easy.
I doubted I could open a stall wherever I pleased, so I had no choice but to find a shop that bought goods. Carrying this pot around indefinitely would be far too inconvenient.
I asked a passerby where I could find such a merchant.
According to them, one operated discreetly in a back alley. I followed a narrow side street and arrived at a shop specializing in purchases.
“Excuse me, I’d like to sell something.”
“Hm? You want to sell that pot?”
The man minding the shop was a burly, heavily muscled older fellow. He looked much better suited to hunting monsters than running a store. What a waste of perfectly good muscles. He gave me a mildly annoyed look.
“Yes.”
“Let me see it.”
After examining it for a while, he named his price.
“Seven thousand G.”
You can’t be serious! Metis couldn’t be wrong. He probably wasn’t able to judge its true value.
“This should be worth roughly 70,000 G. Isn’t that offer much too low?”
“Huh? You questioning my eye for goods? What are you basing that on?”
That was difficult to answer. If I told him my skill had appraised it, he almost certainly wouldn’t believe me.
“Th-this is porcelain popular in the Artemia Kingdom. It sells well there.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like this being popular in Artemia. Anyway, if you don’t like my price, get out.”
He shooed me away with his hand. I had no intention of selling something worth 70,000 G for 7,000 G, so I quietly left.
I visited another shop afterward, but they offered almost the same amount. Neither merchant understood the pot correctly, so perhaps it couldn’t be helped.
“Even if I know an item’s exact value, no one will pay it unless I can explain why it’s worth that much. I have no knowledge, and I don’t know how to sell a product. This is a problem.”
All I had gained was a pot that was probably valuable. My grand plan to make a fortune through Metis appraisals was already collapsing. The Adventurers’ Guild would likely buy things too, so in the worst case, I could go there. They would probably pay fifty to seventy percent of its value. I couldn’t afford to take a huge loss simply because I insisted on receiving the proper price.
As I walked through the alley and considered what to do next, I realized suspicious men had surrounded me from both directions.
“Hey, kid. You’re new in town, aren’t you? Judging by your age and clothes, maybe the second son of some minor knightly family who got thrown out? Towns are dangerous places, you know. Don’t worry—we won’t take your life. Hand over all your money. Your clothes too.”
The man with a mohawk grinned as he gripped his sword. There seemed to be two men ahead of me and two behind.
Sadly, I was the eldest son, and they still threw me out.
‘Can I beat them?’
‘No.’
Hmm. Merciless.
Should I pay them? But if they took the little money I had left, I really would die. Time to run!
I spun around and sprinted at full speed.
“You little rich brat!”
Unfortunately, the men behind me were no weaklings. They caught my clothes with ease and yanked me to the ground.
“Ow!”
“Idiot. Looks like you want to learn the hard way!”
All four proceeded to beat me senseless. Their violence finally stopped after they had vented their anger for a while.
Even in a back alley, I could see people passing along the main road. Whenever one of them met my eyes, they looked away and left.
“You’ve learned your lesson now, haven’t you? Good. Search him for money. Strip off the clothes too—they should fetch a nice price.”
My clothes were made for a noble, so they were indeed valuable.
I gave up on everything and closed my eyes.
“—What do you think you’re doing?”
That beautiful voice rang through the filthy alley like a bell, cutting through the noise of the main road and my groans.
Author’s Note: Imagine 1 G as being worth roughly one yen.