Finding a location was not difficult. The most commercially developed area in Esterji City was around the Adventurer Guild, and Viten handled the matter in no time through his connections.
“Ha ha! Who do you think I am? I am Viten, the ‘Red Wolf’!”
As it turned out, Viten was quite famous among adventurers. He had begun his career as a mercenary before becoming the Duke’s personal guard knight, making him a self-made legend. Seeing only how helpless he was around Thalia, I had never imagined he possessed such an impressive side.
While Viten and the large men he called brothers set up the stall, Thalia ran around procuring the lengthy list of items I had requested.
Meanwhile, I trained under Karoi. Karoi had no intention of taking my circumstances into consideration, and I had no intention of skipping training over something like this.
Obtaining the Lava Elemental’s core would certainly be an extraordinary fortuitous opportunity. However, I knew well that receiving instruction from an outstanding teacher like Karoi was no lesser opportunity.
“One more lap! Grit your teeth and run!”
“Chris is watching you! Imagine Mabel is laughing at you!”
Instead, we finished class before noon. After recovering my exhausted body with a special drink, I boarded the carriage Lily had arranged and slipped out through the rear gate of the annex palace.
Thick paper had been pasted over the carriage windows, preventing me from seeing the scenery outside.
The most important part of this mission was ensuring no one noticed that I was the Duke’s son. Running a street stall would give people who disliked me ammunition to attack.
I passed through Esterji City without seeing a thing and arrived in front of the Adventurer Guild.
The stall was so convincing that it was hard to believe it had been improvised. The counter was spacious, and cloth covered the entrance to the workshop, perfectly ensuring privacy.
“Viten, begin.”
I pulled the cloth aside slightly and whispered to Viten. After giving his disguise helmet one final check, Viten shouted in a voice astonishingly loud.
“The miraculous item everyone has been waiting for! A wondrous miracle of healing crafted by an Awakened, now available at an unbelievable price!”
It was such a skillful line that it made me doubt his past.
However, despite Viten’s efforts, customers did not flock to us easily. There were as many stalls like ours as there were people, and the other shops shouted even more provocative lines.
They claimed to offer full refunds if their products did not work, said His Grace the Duke would not eat a meal without them, and insisted that after brewing and drinking their products morning and night, even their dogs had awakened Awakened Abilities.
This was why medicine was so easy to use for fraud. It was difficult to prove its effectiveness on the spot, so all they had to do was sell it first.
The other shops were in a similar situation. While flies buzzed around nearly every store, only one was packed with customers. At first, I thought the market was crowded, but I had been mistaken. Most of the crowd was waiting in line for that shop.
That shop alone had five barkers. One of their shouts pierced through the curtain and struck my eardrums.
“This very product favored by Young Master Iden Esterji himself!”
What?
“Unprecedented! One of a kind! A dual Awakened Ability of fire and ice that even Solitas was astonished by! The mysterious essence of that ability is contained in this very bottle!”
I nearly ran out of the workshop in disbelief. Who gave those shameless scammer bastards permission to use my name?
“Claim superior abilities for only twenty baht!”
Their price had no conscience either.
Most of the people lined up at the shop were mercenaries or adventurers. They wore shabby cloth beneath worn armor and carried leather scabbards polished smooth by countless hands.
They were people who earned today’s money to buy tomorrow.
I had seen many people like that in the city markets of the Central Plains. Because being weaker than others could mean dying while working, they had no choice but to open their wallets even when the fraud was obvious.
“Thank you! An excellent choice!”
What made those bastards clever was that they used my name.
Unlike Brother Mabel or Chris, I had a famous name but no real faction. In other words, it meant they did not have to worry about consequences for touching me.
“Just give the order. I will go over there and overturn the whole place.”
Viten growled.
“Forget it. Knocking them over will not make my business do well.”
To gather one hundred and ninety thousand baht, I needed to earn roughly ten thousand baht per day. I did not have time to get into a brawl with such insignificant people.
For quite a while afterward, I could only watch the scammers rake in money. Customers did not enter my shop at all, to an extent that made me wonder how this was possible.
When the red sunset began to fall over the street, I began to think I had to admit my strategy had failed. I also felt sorry for Viten, who had worked until his voice was hoarse.
Then it happened.
“A miracle of healing?”
Our first customer appeared as though by magic. He was unusual from the moment he arrived.
“Hey, that old man over there... Is he not the ‘Silver Hawk’? I heard he retired because of Overflow.”
“Even Divine Magic cannot cure Overflow, yet he is still wandering around in search of medicine.”
“He has to cling to even a straw. He cannot simply die.”
“He is only wasting money. If he gave that money to me instead, how nice would that be?”
The customer was an old man with white hair. Judging solely from the people’s reactions, he was someone who had built a name for himself through Martial Arts over a lifetime.
However, despite his reputation, the old man’s physical condition was terrible. The qi and blood throughout his body were twisted and blocked, to the point that I wondered how he could still walk on two legs.
“I have tried every medicine said to be good.”
The old man spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I have even received blessings, but they had no effect. Now the only thing I have left to rely on is a miracle, so today I will once again share my flesh with the likes of you.”
The old man took a pouch from his robes and tossed it over. It landed on the counter with a heavy sound.
“If you can cure me, take it. If you cannot, take down your sign and get out.”
“Um, what should we do? He has Overflow.”
Viten whispered uneasily.
Overflow.
So that was this world’s name for Qi Deviation.
This world had no internal cultivation methods. There was no particular reason to learn them. One could simply buy and consume materials from the abundant Spirit Creatures—monsters—with money.
The price of becoming strong quickly and easily was an equal measure of danger. Naturally, temple blessings did not work. Grandfather Colin had said so himself. Divine Magic could do nothing about something that was not a disease.
“Would it be all right if this takes a little time?”
The old man looked surprised.
“I have waited five years. I can wait a few days without issue.”
“It will take five minutes.”
Behind the curtain, I picked up a pen and began drawing a talisman.
A Qi-Dissipating Talisman was an offensive talisman that scattered an enemy’s qi, but when one’s own qi attacked one’s body as it did now, it could also be used for treatment.
“It is done.”
Viten took the talisman from me.
“You only need to carry it in your breast pocket, whether you are awake or asleep.”
“......That is all? You are saying I only need to carry it in my breast pocket?”
The old man could not believe it easily.
“Yes.”
The talisman’s role was to buy time for his twisted qi and blood to settle into place. I expected that he would be able to live normally after a few months.
“However, you will never be able to wield a weapon and fight again. This does not return your body to how it was before you became ill. It merely removes the symptoms eating away at your body.”
“I do not care about Martial Arts. As long as I can cure this illness...!”
The old man held out a trembling hand. At the moment Viten placed the talisman in it, tears the size of chicken droppings fell from the old man’s wrinkled face.
Unable to continue even a single sentence, he stood still and simply wept.
“What is going on?”
“Hey, did you see that?”
Just as people began to whisper, the old man stretched both arms toward the sky and cried out.
“It is a miracle!”
The old man’s shout rang throughout the marketplace.
“A miracle! A miracle has happened!”
The old man shouted until his throat nearly burst. Then he clutched the talisman tightly to his chest and ran off somewhere.
“Hey, did you see that Overflow patient running?”
“What in the world happened?”
“The Silver Hawk has been completely cured?”
Utter confusion descended upon the market. Amid it all, Viten opened the pouch the old man had left behind.
“...Young Master Iden.”
Viten’s voice trembled as much as the old man’s had.
“This is not baht. It is gold.”
***
Treating the old man became the catalyst for my business to soar without limit. Before the sun set on the first day, every unit of our initial stock was sold out. The next day, everything we had prepared sold even faster.
As a result, I had to hold up arms trembling from training and draw talismans for hours at a time.
Still, I felt good. Beyond the money, I was satisfied to rescue potential victims of fraud.
I was truly pulling customers away from the competing shops in droves. For the first few days, Martial Artists with Overflow symptoms like the old man came most often. As time passed, the requests became increasingly varied.
People who wanted diseases cured, people with broken arms, people who wanted to awaken Awakened Abilities...
I could not grant every request, but in fields where they were effective, talismans displayed powerful and immediate results.
There was no need to wait long either. Customers could feel the effects from the moment they received a talisman, so naturally they flocked to us.
“Hey, did you pay the stall fee?”
“Whose permission did you get to do business here?”
Flies began to gather too. It was as though they had come here after learning their lines somewhere... Though this was clearly another world, there was a pine-like constancy to them.
Every lowlife was handled by Viten alone. I did not even have to step forward.
The bastards were knocked flying by a single headbutt from Viten. After spitting out curses about making us regret it and telling us to wait and see, they fled into the alley.
Of course, those bastards could not make me regret anything. The reverse might be possible, though.
Ten days after opening the business, our balance passed one hundred thousand baht. By then, it felt as though the Lava Elemental was already in my arms.
“Viten, the Lava Elemental is still there, right?”
“It is doing very well. It has grown so fat that it is nearly protruding through the iron cage.”
Now, I even had this question. With money coming in as though I were raking it in, did I really need to become Duke?
When our sales had far surpassed one hundred thousand baht and were climbing steeply toward our goal of two hundred thousand, an unexpected visitor came to see me.
That day, I had just arrived at the Guild to begin business. A middle-aged man dressed in luxurious clothes stood where my carriage was supposed to stop.
“What business do you have?”
To avoid revealing my identity, I asked without opening the window.
“My name is Adras. I have come to see the renowned healing Awakened in person.”
“I do not know you.”
“That is disappointing. Have we not been good neighbors for ten days?”
...So he was the bastard selling my name.
His shop had somewhat fewer customers, but business was still good. Its main product was not healing remedies, but Awakened Ability triggers.
“I am not interested in you.”
“Let me be direct. What do you think about entering a partnership?”
“I believe I said I was not interested.”
“It will only take a moment.”
The man reached into his robes and removed a glass bottle filled with clear water.
“This is my main product. I call it ‘Essence of the Elements,’ but it is actually ordinary water. I drew it from a stream in the residential district.”
He was openly admitting it was trash.
“With this insignificant water, I earn three hundred thousand baht each month.”
“So?”
“I am asking you to imagine it. If my knack for turning even ordinary water into gold combines with your Awakened Ability, how great a fortune could we build?”
I gave Viten a signal.
“Give the order.”
“Tell him to get lost.”
“You heard him. If you do not want to see something unpleasant, get lost.”
Viten held up his disguise helmet threateningly. A few days earlier, that helmet had taught a lesson to more than ten thugs with a headbutt.
“...So that is your answer. Very well. In any case, regret will be your burden, not mine.”
The man delivered a line as stale as any lowlife’s.
“You need only know this. I earn three hundred thousand baht every month, but less than thirty thousand ends up in my hands. Consider carefully why that is.”
The man pulled his hat low and left.
His words made the rest of that day unpleasant. I did not understand their meaning until the following day.
“Is it true that heretics are hiding here?”
“That is correct. Their impiety cannot be expressed in words.”
It happened when I came to work as usual. The marketplace suddenly grew noisy, and a group of warriors in white armor, carrying swords and shields, appeared.
At the front of the group stood the scammer I had met yesterday and an old man with white hair who looked strangely familiar. He wore loose priestly robes and held a thick book of doctrine in his hand...
“May you rust! Lead the way at once!”
...Colin?