Taking Iseria by the wrist as she lost herself sightseeing around the city, I headed first for the restaurant.
When we passed by the butcher’s shop after I’d said I would sell the meat first, Iseria spoke up.
“Where are you going to sell the meat?”
“There’s a restaurant around here that specializes in meat dishes. I’m going to sell it directly to them.”
The meat had been well butchered and was still fresh, so there was no need to go out of my way to sell it to a butcher.
People only entrusted it cheaply to a slaughterer because they lacked the skill. I had the skill.
“Is anyone here?”
“I’m busy getting ready for business, so who’s—oh. It was you, black-hair.”
“It’s been a while. How’s business?”
“Maybe because it’ll be monster wave season soon, but it feels like we’ve had even more customers. So what brings you here?”
I stepped one pace to the side so the restaurant owner could see and gestured at the chunk of meat floating beside me.
Only then did the owner notice the roughly fifty kilograms of Wild Boar meat and look surprised.
“Isn’t this Wild Boar? What kind of ability do you have to catch something like this? You selling it?”
“I got lucky. I drained the blood properly and butchered it cleanly. It should be much fresher than butcher shop meat.”
The owner didn’t even care that the meat was floating in midair and examined its condition.
After looking it over, smelling it, and pressing it lightly with his fingers to check, he said,
“It’s definitely in good condition. Less gamy, too, and the meat’s tender. Looks like you killed it cleanly in one shot.”
“For a mere human, you have a good eye.”
“Hm? The way this girl talks…”
“Ah, I’m sorry. She’s a friend with some… mental issues…”
When the owner realized the Wild Boar’s head had been sliced off in a single spell, Iseria’s confidence swelled.
Still, since her way of speaking came with racial discrimination as a default… someone who didn’t know her could misunderstand.
Right now, after entering the city, she had her robe’s hood pulled low, so no one had realized she was an elf.
I simply passed Iseria off as a strange girl.
‘Stay still. If they find out you’re an elf, you’ll draw attention for no reason.’
‘Khh… I’ll repay this insult someday.’
Leaving Iseria glaring at me with frightening eyes behind, I opened the negotiations.
“I went through a lot to butcher, preserve, and bring this all the way from Kallian Forest. How about sixty silver coins?”
“Huh… It’s in good condition, but that’s too expensive. Let’s make it forty-five.”
“You know it’s hard to buy this much at the butcher’s, and the quality would be worse for the same price. Then how about fifty?”
“True. That’s true enough. Let’s do fifty silver.”
“Thank you!”
My original target had been fifty silver, so I’d deliberately called sixty, and the bargaining went according to plan.
Not that I’d sold it for all that much, though. The owner wasn’t a fool either.
It felt like he’d paid me a little extra as a commission, considering it was a high-quality product with labor and personal connections added on.
My shoulders grew lighter, and my pockets grew heavier.
Even if I saved up money in another world, there wasn’t really anywhere to spend it.
But maybe because of the inertia of being steeped in capitalism, hearing my plump money pouch jingle put me in a good mood.
“Sir. By the way, what’s a monster wave?”
“You don’t know? Ah, well, considering the timing, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
I asked about the “monster wave” he’d mentioned in passing earlier.
Just from the sound of it, it was fantasy-like and seemed dangerous.
The owner explained briefly.
To the north of Silvaerin lay the Kallian Mountains, and to the east were the vast Kallian Forest and the elves’ territory.
The elves were extremely isolationist, and when the magical beasts in Kallian Forest increased in number, they handled it themselves, so there was less need to worry about the east.
The problem was the magical beasts of the Kallian Mountains to the north.
The magical beasts that survived in that harsh wilderness were, every last one of them, tough and ferocious.
If they simply lived in the mountains, tearing at each other, it wouldn’t matter, but these magical beasts periodically attacked the city.
Mostly in autumn and spring, and right now it was the latter.
As for why those times in particular, they attacked in autumn to obtain food to last through winter, then after eating through all of that food over the winter, they attacked again because they were hungry.
Since I had been transferred to this world in winter, the timing just hadn’t overlapped.
If I’d kept living without knowing, that could have been a little dangerous. I’d heard some useful information.
“Thank you. Hope you sell a lot today too.”
“Right. The wave’s coming soon, so be careful.”
We left the shop and began properly looking around the city.
Iseria, who had left the elven country in search of stimulation, was amazed by human civilization she was encountering for the first time, and like a five-year-old child, she touched every interesting thing she saw.
If it was something that didn’t matter even if she touched it, that was fine, but she also started touching expensive things like delicate ornaments and grimoires, which caused trouble.
“Hey! Don’t touch it if you’re not buying!”
“Ahaha… I’m sorry.”
In the end, I was the one who had to lower my head.
Iseria was only cowed for a moment by the stall owners’ scolding, then went back to looking at goods with sparkling eyes.
“Iseria. Take this.”
“What is it, Jin?”
“The money from selling the meat earlier. Half of it.”
I handed Iseria twenty-five of the fifty silver coins.
I hadn’t done anything when the Wild Boar was caught… but I had handled all the minor butchering, packaging, and finding a buyer.
Wouldn’t it be all right for me to take about half? Iseria was also staying at my house, after all.
Even as an elf, she didn’t seem ignorant of the concept of currency, so I only explained the approximate value of silver coins.
“Why do humans value this so much? Truly…”
After receiving the pouch of silver coins, Iseria looked awkward, as if she couldn’t understand its value, but soon headed toward a bakery with it jingling in her hand.
“Here. I want to buy this bread.”
“Welcome! That’ll be twenty copper coins.”
What Iseria had strode over and pointed at was a muffin, still giving off the warm scent of butter as if it had just been baked.
It looked delicious even to me, so for Iseria, experiencing the secular world for the first time, it was an irresistible temptation.
Iseria handed one silver coin to the baker.
Barely glancing at the change the owner gave her, Iseria immediately picked up the muffin and began gobbling it down.
“Mmm! Mm!”
“What, what’s wrong? Is it good?”
“Phaa! It’s sweet and fluffy! And the inside is so soft and crumbly, the texture is wonderful. What is this called?”
“Ah… that is called a muffin…”
After devouring one muffin in an instant, Iseria took out the change and counted it.
One muffin was twenty copper coins, and the change she had received was eighty copper coins.
After finishing her calculations, Iseria smiled brightly and said,
“Human! Give me four more of these muffins!”
“Yes~ Thank you~”
***
“Ugh, I’m full.”
“I knew that would happen.”
Iseria, whose eyes had gone wild over the muffins, ate five of them in a row on the spot.
She wasn’t suffering from indigestion, just groaning from fullness, so it probably wasn’t a big problem.
After eating her fill of muffins, Iseria no longer went around searching for things to see.
The first time was fascinating, but in truth, once you kept looking, it was just one similar scene after another, so she seemed to have gotten used to it.
Because of that, I headed to the ingredients market with an easy mind.
Winter had only just ended, so there weren’t as many goods as I’d expected.
The stale flour, salt, and spices I always saw, and the occasional spring greens.
There were also livestock products like butter and eggs. Milk was hard to find unless it was morning.
I passed by the familiar ingredients and went deeper into the market.
Before long, I came across merchants—or rather, adventurers—who had set up mats rather than proper shops. They were what I was aiming for.
Adventurers wandered all over the world exchanging this and that, so to speak, they were like human honeybees.
As expected, their displays had many things that caught the eye at once.
Suspiciously glittering powder, white and sharp horns…
As I kept looking around to see if there were any ingredients that could be used in cooking, the mat of an adventurer with striking bronze skin caught my eye.
“We have goods from the desert country and the Coral Islands! Come take a look~”
While examining the stall of the blond, tanned adventurer—the BTA—I couldn’t hide my surprise.
Just as he said he had come from the desert, all sorts of spices were lined up, including turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cloves.
Coriander and turmeric were one thing, since people’s tastes for them were extremely divided, but cinnamon and cloves should sell to nobles for high prices too. Why was he selling them here?
I asked the BTA for the price.
“How much is this?”
“Three silver coins per bottle. The others are all around that price too. If you buy them all at once, I can knock a bit off?”
“I’ll take them. Everything here.”
At my bold offer, the BTA blinked a few times, then came to his senses and smiled as he packed up the goods.
Altogether, it was twenty-two silver coins. It was originally twenty-four, but he discounted two coins.
Though the bottles were smaller than a handspan, it didn’t matter.
Once I registered the items in [Mana Market], it would just be a click away anyway…
In Earth’s medieval history, spices were so precious that one kilogram of pepper was even traded for the same value as one kilogram of gold.
Considering that, the spices I’d bought just now were absurdly cheap.
“You didn’t buy anything else, and then you bought a whole pile of things that reek of strange smells. Ugh… achoo!”
“Just you wait. With these, I can make food far more delicious than tofu.”
“Sniff… As if! Nothing is more delicious than tofu!”
Iseria, who had been watching my shopping, sneezed at the pungent scent of the spices.
Indeed, unless someone had cooking ability, it would be hard to recognize their value.
The spices I bought today weren’t often used in Korean cuisine, but it wasn’t as though I ate Korean food every day. There were many uses for them in various ways.
I could make Chinese food, Central Asian and Eurasian dishes, or even drinks.
‘Hummus? Lamb skewers? No, should I make curry?’
“Kang Jinwoo-nim!”
While I was happily agonizing over the culinary horizons that had expanded in an instant, I heard my name from behind.
What was this? Was there anyone who would call me that familiarly?
I turned around in confusion and saw Arthur, the knight who always came with Duke Kailan, approaching while waving.
“Hello. Fancy meeting you here. What brings you to the city?”
“I somehow ended up hunting a Wild Boar. I came by for the first time in a while to sell the meat and look around.”
“I see. And the person beside you is…?”
“I’m Iseria. I’m staying at Jin’s house.”
I had been about to introduce Iseria in her place, but admirably, Iseria introduced herself without any racial discrimination.
Why had she suddenly become so docile?
Iseria and Arthur narrowed their eyes and looked at each other.
Then, almost at the same time, both of them looked away.
‘Real recognizes real. Is that it?’
As for me, I was an ignorant nobody with no physical ability, mana, or anything else, so I couldn’t tell, but since both Arthur and Iseria possessed outstanding martial strength, perhaps they sensed something from each other.
Still, Arthur didn’t seem to judge her a suspicious person, as he continued speaking as usual.
“I had the day off today, so I came out to the market for the first time in a while, and what do I see but a familiar back. To think it really was Jinwoo-nim.”
“Ah, now that you mention it, you’re in casual clothes. You work hard.”
“Haha, not at all.”
Now that I looked, Arthur was dressed completely in civilian clothes, without even light protective gear.
Seeing someone who always wore armor and maintained a sharp atmosphere looking relaxed like this had a different sort of charm.
Like that, Arthur, Iseria, and I walked through the streets while chatting lightly.
About how pretty the city was because it was well maintained,
and how I’d bought goods at a good price today…
It was trivial everyday talk, but unlike meeting at the restaurant as usual, meeting outside made him feel like a friend, which was nice.
Arthur and I were probably around the same age… though whether Arthur thought of me as a friend was another matter.
When we arrived at the central plaza on foot, Arthur said,
“I’ll be heading in another direction now. Are you going back, Jinwoo-nim?”
“Yes. There’s nothing else to do, so I was thinking we’d slowly—huh?”
Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!
Just as we were about to part with a promise to meet again, the bells in the direction of the northern wall began ringing one after another, and the bell in the plaza watchtower followed.
It wasn’t a particular hour, nor was there any kind of event.
As I stood bewildered by the sudden ringing of bells, Arthur’s expression rapidly hardened.
“This is bad. So suddenly?”
“Pardon? What, what’s going on?”
“It’s an emergency. I have to go at once, so it’s hard to explain… The guards will help with evacuation soon. Please follow their instructions.”
Arthur ran toward the knights’ garrison in such a hurry that every second seemed precious.
Perhaps because he was using mana as he ran, he disappeared faster than most horses.
The atmosphere of the town instantly grew chaotic as well, and the shops and stalls hurriedly packed up their goods.
Amid the flustered commotion, my eyes happened to turn toward the tall northern mountains.
The white clouds and blue sky had, before I knew it, been covered by dark clouds, casting a shadow over the ground.
And I saw it.
Magical beasts, visible as small black dots, swarming down from the mountains.