Chapter 002: Collecting All Kinds of Information from Children

 

Translated by Gumihou

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com

 

The streets of the Imperial Capital was exactly like those one usually sees on travel brochures for European countries.

First, I strolled over to a place where a bunch of street children gathered together. Naturally, I chose the group that looked fairly young and not at all rough looking. I also took the precaution to establish my identity as a poor country bumpkin.

“Excuse me, I am from the countryside and am not familiar with this country. Would you be so kind as to inform me a few things about this place? I’ll treat you to some meat skewers from that stall over there.”

The children were all a little wary at first, but they could not resist against their appetite and nodded. I gave all the children two skewers each before starting on my questions. First, the serious matter of establishing the local currency value.

Here’s what it worked out to be.

1 iron coin – 10 ¥

1 bronze coin – 100 ¥

1 silver coin – 1,000 ¥

1 gold coin – 10,000 ¥

1 large gold coin – 100,000 ¥

1 platinum coin – 1,000,000 ¥

That’s as best as I can make out to after hearing their explanations. The meat skewers cost 5 iron coin per stick. A regular family of four could live off of 6 gold coins per month at a minimum.

Other important information I obtained was that Adventurers Guild and Merchant Guilds (The staple of any fantasy genre lightnovels) existed outside of any one country’s influence. By being affiliated only with each other, Adventurers and Merchants could travel freely between country to country and city to city without much problem.

The important point was that getting an entry level membership to either guild was fairly cheap. This was useful to me because Adventurers and Merchants attached to the guild would be given Guild Cards as a form of identification, allowing them to move freely to and from any country or city that has a guild. A country bumpkin like me or street kids like the ones I’m interviewing with no identification cards would have to pay an Entry Tax whenever we visit a new country or city.

Anyway, this was the basic template most human settlements followed.

By the way, I also took the trouble to find out more information about this country.

While it was true that this country was in a conflict against the demon race, it would seemed that trouble was started by this country.

The current propaganda was ‘Revenge Against the Demon Race!’ However, it looked more and more as though the true aim of the war was to conquer the demon races’ territory. Neighbouring human countries have also scented the burning winds of war in the air and people were slowly trickling out of the country in order to escape the conflict.

These ‘street children’ were really orphans from recent wars.

As expected, these children were surprisingly aware of their surroundings. Considering their unfortunate background, these kids had been earning their living honestly through odd jobs such as sending messages and completing other miscellaneous tasks.

Clearly, street children’s willpower to live was strong.

Anyway, let’s spend the night at an inn today and leave the Imperial Capital tomorrow.

According to the street children, there’s a regular coach service that travels to a neighbouring town called Kiels every day. This was good news for me, regular public transport was the safest after all.

Yes, let’s take the coach tomorrow and get out of this suspicious kingdom first, before making any major decisions. All plans would have to wait until I’m out of the Kingdom of Reijseger.

This was the main reason why I had asked for the money from those suspicious people. Whether it’s for food, travel or lodging, money would be needed. I’ll have to think of some way to make money once I’m out of this place, but for the moment, I still have the 20 gold coins from those generous people.

I consider these coins as apology money from the country that had basically kidnapped me from my world through an irresponsible summoning spell. Was it unreasonable for me to demand the compensation money for displacing me into another world?

Of course not!

However, while it looked like a lot of money for one person, it would not last forever.

At least, it was good enough to last me three or four months as long as I am careful. Anyway, there’s no point hoping for something better from such a shady black company kingdom.

For the moment, the most urgent thing was to get out this place as soon as possible.

 

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com ~

 

I was now standing in front of a clothing store recommended by the street children for its reasonable prices.

The reason for my stopping here was the standard black suit with tie ensemble that all Japanese salarymen are required to wear. It is never a good thing to stand out, which is why I wore my suit every day. Even in the sweltering summer we’re supposed to wear this black jacket and tie set. [1]

Unfortunately, the same suit was now making me stand out in this fantasy world setting.

The clothes in the shop were all slightly shabby looking and second-handed. I picked out a standard, dull-coloured shirt and light brown trousers worn by pretty much everyone on the streets. These shabby looking clothes were unexpectedly expensive at 7 silver coins, with the coarse brown shirt at 3 silver coins and the trousers at 4 silver coins.

However, since the store also bought my suit, shirt and briefcase for 3 gold coins, I’ve actually earned an additional 2 gold and 3 silver coins. I even thought about selling off the things inside my briefcase, smartphone, stationaries, official papers and other small items since I had no use for them in this other world, but ended up stuffing the lot into my [Item Box].

Speaking of [Item Box], since it was a ‘skill’, should it be considered a rare thing? Do regular people have access to special skills like this?

According to the standard lightnovel pattern, an [Item Box] was something pretty valuable, but I don’t really have a way to determine this without giving myself away just yet. Anyway, before I can determine just how rare or common having an [Item Box] was, let’s not use it carelessly in front of people.

Luckily, the shopkeeper gave me cloth shoulder bag as a freebie for the ‘high quality’ clothes I just sold to them, so I just put all my small items into the bag. I kept my leather shoes on since it was not particularly eye-catching.

Before leaving the clothing shop, I asked the friendly proprietor to recommend an affordable inn for me. The place recommended by the lady was approximately three houses away, so I headed there first.

It costed 4 silver coins per night, plus an evening meal to stay at the inn. It was getting late, and I was feeling pretty tired by the eventful day so I paid the money and had my meal before checking into the room.

Once the door was shut, I checked all the windows and made sure everything was properly secured before sitting on the bed.

First…

“[Status Open].”

 

[ Name ] Tsuyoshi Mukoda

[ Age ] 27

[ Occupation ] Guy Caught up in a Summoning Spell

[ Level] 1

[ Stamina ] 100

[ Magic Power ] 100

[ Attack Power ] 78

[ Defence Power ] 80

[ Agility ] 75

[ Skill ] Appraisal  Item Box

[ Unique Skill ] Net Super

 

While I was at the castle earlier, we were informed that as long as we chanting the words ‘Status Open’, a semi-transparent window would appear before our eyes. Apparently, this was a special ‘Appraisal Skill’ that only Summoned Heroes have. (By the way, just as a reminder, I am not a Hero), and we could check our own status anytime.

Normally, they would need to use some sort of magical tools from the guild or temple to appraise a person’s status. Speaking of which, the person who explained it all to us had a particularly fervent glint in his eyes when he started talking about the exquisite craftsmanship of these magical tools, how a lot of blood and dedication was poured into making these special magical tools…

Maa, let’s not think about that for the moment. According to this craftsmanship otaku uncle, the average [Stamina] value for regular people was set at 70. So, it looked like I was slightly better than the average person on the street.

Since I and the other three summoned people have the [Item Box] and [Appraisal] skill in common, the special privilege being a summoned person appeared to have extended to me as well. I have to be careful about this.

The [Item Box] of summoned people were kind of special too. Special in the sense that its capacity for storage was unusually large. I overheard some of the hooded people talking among themselves about a legendary hero who had once killed and stuffed the bodies of 1,000 monsters into their [Item Box].

Which brought me to point number three. Languages. Summoned People had the ability to speak and understand the languages of this fantasy world. This was yet another privilege of a Summoned Person, a standard in all lightnovels set in the fantasy world.

Though I sometimes wondered why this special ability was not listed as a skill, I must be careful not to reveal these three abilities of mine and spill my secret identity as a Summoned Person (not Hero).

Finally, I came to the most problematic issue listed on this semi-transparent window.

The [Net Super].

Of course, I understand what Net Super was. Japan is a country that has a very big market for online shopping, you know? Sometimes, instead of giving out physical gifts, we would give catalogues instead and the person who receives the catalogue is free to order anything off that catalogue as long as they stay within a certain value. [2]

During the holidays, I would turned into a homebody and refused to leave the house and just order everything online. Food, beer, ingredients for cooking would be delivered to my house and I would stay at home and watch drama or read lightnovels, cooking when I wanted to because people who order takeout all the time were lame.

Anyway, the problem now was how to make use of this unique skill. After some thought, I chanted the words-

“[Net Super].”

…nothing happened.

What should I do now?

Anyway, let’s try touching the semi-transparent window. Maybe it’s a ‘touchscreen’ rather than ‘voice operated’, right?

Anyway, let’s touch it…

I lifted my index finger and gently poke at the words ‘Net Super’, and the whole window display changed.

“Wait, doesn’t this looked like the Net Super website I used before?”

That’s right, the semi-transparent wind had changed into something that looked a lot like the AEON website [3] I often shop at.

Suddenly excited, I selected a 500ml bottle of mineral water at 8 iron coins and sweet bun at 1 copper coin. The selections went into the shopping cart, everything reacted exactly the same way it should.

Now that I thought about it, even though the currency used on the window was the local fantasy world type, the prices here were the same as the ones in Japan. Nice!

Next was ‘checking out’ the items, of course. I couldn’t wait. However, when I tried to do that, a separate window popped up with the message [Insufficient Funds. Please Top Up.] There was also a box [] below the message.

“Top-up? How am I supposed to ‘Top-up’? With money? Am I supposed to put money into this little box here?”

Well, this was a fantasy world after all.

A little afraid, I selected a silver coin and brought it nearer, and nearer to the middle of the 2D box which… sucked the silver coin right in.

The message disappeared with the box and the website (was it a website?) asked for confirmation of purchase. I hesitated once but pressed [Confirm]. The window dissolved into silver particles and a cardboard box appeared in front of me.

It was the same box that I would receive whenever I ordered something from AEON. Excited now, I opened up the box and found the bottled water and sweet bread I had ordered earlier.

“Oohhh, this is really useful!”

Those noble leaders of the kingdom only know that Net Super was a non-combative skill, and therefore not important in their eyes. As for the other three high schoolers, all three laughed at my skill, but that’s because they have not realised just how useful it could be.

As long as I have money, I don’t have to worry about not having food. Furthermore, the Net Super could be used to make money too.

While I did not have cheat skills of a hero, this unique skill could make me very rich. Very, very, very rich if I play my cards right.

I’ve already found out from street children that salt was very expensive in countries that were far away from the ocean. Spices and sweeteners, such as pepper and sugar only touched the lips of rich aristocrats.

Well, with [Net Super], I can easily get hold of salt, black pepper, white pepper, sugar at modern Japan online service price. Just a tap here, a tap there and [Ding! Ding!] I’ll have everything I need. I can resell everything at a much higher price in this world and the profit would just come rolling in.

I should also take a look and see if there were other things which I could buy for cheap and sell at a high price here. After all, the modern online supermarkets now sell things beyond food-related products. One could buy daily necessities, clothes, as well other things could fit in a box. Even perishables like raw meat and fruits.

If I’m going to make money by selling things, I should apply for a membership with the Merchant Guild. Especially since I would need to move from country to country easily. Suddenly, it occurred to me that it would probably be unwise to leave a registration of myself in this country.

If I ever made a name for myself as a merchant, the greedy leaders of this black company country would probably make trouble for me.

Never mind, let’s focus on Plan A first.

Get out of this kingdom and go to a neighbouring country.

Since I’ll be on the road starting tomorrow, I probably won’t be able to sleep in a proper bed for a long time.

So, let’s rest for the sake of tomorrow.

 

[Gumihou: I’d probably do the same, lol. This is great, who cares about politics and war, let’s make money and live well!]

 

[1] I added some trivia details re Japanese salarymen suits

[2] Added more trivia of Japanese online shopping

[3] Check it out, lol

https://shop.aeon.com/netsuper/01050000060350/page-not-registration

 

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