Chapter 191: Shopping (1)

 

Translated by Zzonkedd

Edited by Gumihou

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When we entered the Adventurer’s Guild, one of the staff members hurried off as soon as they saw us. Shortly after that, Yoran-san came to greet us, “Oh, have you been waiting long? As promised, we have dismantled the monsters and set aside the meat for you. Shall we head off to the warehouse?”

We all agreed and trailed after Yoran-san to the warehouse. Horace was already waiting for us.

“Alright, shall we discuss prices first? Oh, before that, I should hand over the meat, right? Right. Horace, has everything been prepared?”

“Oh yes! Meat from one Black Serpent, one Giant Dodo and two Cockatrices.”

The huge, literally monster size chunks of meat were perfectly normal to me now [1]. I stored them away quickly in my [Item Box]. I was glad to get some bird meat before I ran out. I was also pretty happy to have some Black Serpent, it’s been a while since we’ve had snake meat.

“Alright,” said Yoran-san once the last of the meat had been put away. “Let’s go through the prices of the goods, shall we? First, the Cyclops skin. Due to its excellent condition, I was able to get a fairly good estimate on it, 180 gold. The eyeball was, sadly, a little damaged, so we can only offer you 58 gold for it.”

Since Yoran-san already mentioned it yesterday, we were quite prepared for the bad news. [2] Nevertheless, since money was no issue for us. It didn’t really bother me. After all, it was still a cool 58 gold.

“Oh yes, there is also a magic stone. A very excellent specimen, 215 gold.”

Ehhh, goods from A Rank monsters sure pay well. [2] A single magic stone is worth that much [3]?

“And then we have the mission reward for the subjugation of this particular Cyclops. 350 gold.”

Woah, to think that taking down a Cyclops would be so rewarding. This is excellent, I was planning to go to the City and buy tableware so this money will do nicely.

“Well, there’s also the materials from the Black Serpent, skin, poison sac and magic stone, all worth 80 gold coin. There was no magic stone in the Giant Dodo, so the materials from the bird only amounted to 12 gold coins. As for the Cockatrice, the only things worth selling are feathers and meat. Since you’re taking the meat, the feathers are only worth 4 silver coins.”

Since our main purpose was the get the meat off our catch, any money we get from that is a bonus.

“So, the total comes to exactly 895 gold and 4 silver coins. Are you fine taking large gold coins as well this time?”

“Yes, thank you very much,” I said, thinking what a nice amount that is, just perfect for a little shopping spree.

“Very well, here’s 89 large gold coins, 5 gold coins and 4 silver coins. Please check it.”

“Let’s see 1, 2, 3… yes, it all checks out.”

“The guild is very relieved to see these two pending missions completed so quickly. It was quite unexpected. Many thanks, Mukouda-san.”

“No, no, since we’ve accepted the mission, so of course we must complete it. Also, everyone really enjoyed taking on such missions.” I said, gesturing to Fer and the rest.

“Hoh, hoh, hoh, is that so, is that so. Mukouda-san is a very promising Adventurer indeed. I have high expectations for you, so please work hard.”

When you say high expectations… that just puts more burden on my shoulders… [2]

I mean, I did basically nothing during our missions. The heavy lifting is all done by Fer, Dora-chan and Sui.

“Well, well, I hope to see everyone again.”

That was our signal to leave. After a final round of good-byes, my party left the guild. As I stepped out of the guild entrance, I was greeted by the energetic voices of 5 young teenagers.

“Oh,” I said, “you guys are pretty early.”

“Yeah,”

“We decided to gather a little bit sooner,”

It’s nice to see them so energetic, [4] “Then, I shall depend on you guys.”

“Awesome, let’s go this way first.”

We all trooped down in the direction pointed out by Anton.

 

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The first place we visited was Iida’s Company. A shop that specializes in the sale of various kinds of pottery items.

“When it comes to speciality items and variety, Iida’s has the best collection in Neihoff.” The five of them chorused together.

Hoho, I wonder if they’ve been trained to say this. Still, locals should know better than an outsider like me. Anton ran ahead and pointed excitedly at a large store, “Mukouda-san, that’s Iida’s Company over there.” [5]

As soon as I stepped through the door, a staff approached me, “Welcome to our store. Oh my, if it isn’t Severi Workshop’s fourth son…”

“Yes, it’s Anton. It’s been a while, Iida-san.”

“That’s right, you’re little Anton.”

“I am showing Mukouda-san, my Senior Adventurer friend, around the city and you’re our first stop.”

[5] Well, well, that explains why a child from a pottery workshop would risk becoming an Adventurer. The fourth son of any family would have very little hope of inheriting the family business after all.

[5] Still, Anton seemed very cheerful and positive as he introduced me to the owner, “Iida-san, Mukouda-san is an A Rank Adventurer and he’s looking for something unique.” He turned to Mukouda and said in a professional tone, “Iida-san is a great expert in earthenware products and has a great collection. If there’s anything you want to find she’s the best consultant in the field.”

“Oho, such a sweet talker, Anton.” Iida patted the kid on the head. Then, her eyes zeroed on me, “Hoho, an A Rank Adventurer you say? My goodness.”

Somehow, I felt a little threatened.

“So… what sort of pieces are you looking for~” Iida-san rubbed her hands together meaningfully.

Ahaha, how merchant like of her, well, I did came to buy things after all. So this is not a bad thing. “I haven’t really decided yet. I’d like to take a look around and see if anything catches my eye. Ah, I’ll be visiting Anton and Bridgette’s family workshops after this, so it would be helpful if you could show me something a little more unique.”

Iida blinked down at Bridgette and nodded, “Ah, you’re the young lady from Dovan’s Workshop.”

Ah, looks like everyone knew each other. “If that’s the case, I’ll show collections that could not be found either at Severi or Dovan,” Iida said. [5] She was very frank and upfront, it’s nice to deal with straightforward people like this.

Iida-san gave me a private tour of the variety of pottery at her shop. There was no one else here but us, so she was able to show off a lot of very nice pieces. Some were completely impractical, of course, like vases as tall as Fer. When I showed more interest in the plates, dishes and cups, she effortlessly began to show me pieces in different styles and designs. [5]

“You have a wonderful selection here.”

“Thank you for the compliment. I must confess, I too love pottery and have accumulated a lot over the years. I ended up having too many in my house and warehouses and decided to open up this shop. Now I can buy whatever nice pieces I like and admire them before they are sold and buy more later.” She grinned, “It’s a wonderful system” [5]

There were certainly a lot of different types of pottery on display. Rustic Japanese style teacups and teabowls as well as fine white bone china in the European style painted with delicate flowers and little pictures. It was quite the feast for the eyes. [4]

According to Iida, each workshop at Neihoff developed their own style of moulding, firing and glazing their pottery. Most of them would incorporate magic into their work. Considering the number of ways magic could be used in pottery making, pretty much every single workshop has their own secret specialities and was very different from each other. [6]

“Oh, this one is…” a large deep plate caught my eye. It looked like a good fit for a noble and powerful monster like Fer. Thus far, I’ve only served him food from wooden bowls and cheap pottery plates from generals stores.

I still don’t have proper plates for Sui, while Fer and Dora-chan just gobble up their food from whatever vessel I put their meals in. I guess they don’t really care about their plates, but I do feel that I should give them something more respectable to eat out of. [6]

The plate that caught my eye was moderately heavy looking and done in Japanese style that looked a lot like the ones produced by XXyaki. The colour looks good too and the though the finishing was muted, it gave off a nice calm feeling to it. Nothing too flashy or colourful, just right for a powerful being like Fer.

Yes, very nice.

I should get this.

What I really wanted to do was ask Fer and the others for their opinion, but since everything in here was just too breakable, I don’t want to court disaster. In the end, all my familiars, except for Sui, had to wait outside. [6] Sui was currently napping in my leather bag as usual [7].

Eh, well, I guess I could just pick out their plates for them.

Let’s see, I should get a different colour for each of them at least. This blue-green plate looked good. Oh, and this dark blue plate shot through with streaks of light purple is also very nice.

“Dear customer, you are interested in this one?”

“Yes, I really like this one…”

“You certainly have a good eye. This is an excellent specimen from the Filmaino Workshop. Their work has been receiving great interest and they are the new rising stars of the pottery world.”

Oh, rising new stars, was it?

“How much is one of these?

“The large plate goes for 18 gold coins each.”

That’s kind of expensive. However, if I think about it, ceramics in Japan are the same. Certain types of pottery and ceramics are expensive because of the workmanship and type of clay used… also, I have the money and I really wanted that plate… [8]

“Alright, I’ll take this one, this one and that one too.”

“Thank you very much~”

“May I look around a little more?”

“Naturally, please take your time.”

How kind, I took my time as advised and ended up buying 5 pieces of different mugs and teabowls done in the rustic and muted Japanese style as well as a full European style porcelain tea set consisting of 5 cups and saucers.

I really like the calm and rustic feel of the brown mugs, as well as the unglazed teabowls in its natural ash colour. The European style tea sets have a very elegant and delicate feel to it. The blue flower patterns against a white background gave it a very luxurious look and would be very nice to have tea or coffee in.

The grand total of my purchase for the day went up to 73 gold and 8 silver coins. Since I bought a lot of stuff, the nice lady even gave me an 8 silver coin discount.

Iida-san sent me off with a smile and a, “Do please come again.”

The five teenagers trailed after me. Their eyes glittering as they murmured, ‘A Rankers certainly are different’ and ‘A Rankers are really rich’.

Ahem, “Shall we go to Anton’s family workshop next?”

“Yes! This way please!”

 

[Gumihou: It’s nice to see other characters, lol]

 

[1] Added a Little Detail: To interrupt the monotony of meat, gold, precious item transaction

 

[2] Structural Change: Connected some floating paragraphs into one.

 

[3] Structural Change: Trimmed off unnecessarily repetitive information. It was originally something like:

“Here, this thing is 215 gold,”

Wow, so it’s 215 gold.

“I see, wow, 215 gold.”

Like, seriously? Are you paid by word count?

 

[4] Added a Little Detail: Dialogue tag with a little action to indicate speaker.

 

[5] Structural Change: Trimmed off repetitive information and put in some additional details to make it less stilted and more interesting.

 

[6] Addition Detail & Structural Change: Give a bit more vivid detail on how the workshops are different and connected two floating paragraphs.

 

[7] Note from Zzonkedd: Sui must be so cute here~

 

[8] Addition Detail & Structural Change: Give a bit more vivid detail on how the workshops are different and connected four floating paragraphs and dialogue.

 

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