"Good morning, dear customer! How may I help you on this beautiful day?!" The saleswoman asked with a loud voice, before Stahl looked at her with a wry smile, and just to make sure, asked the most important question. "Erm… Just browsing for now. But just wondering…" Stahl answered, before scratching the back of his neck. It was obvious that the young saleswoman, who was not in any sense of the word unattractive, was expecting him to randomly ask her out, or ask her for her contact information, but she didn't expect what Stahl really asked next.
"Are you by chance an Omega, Delta, or Alpha?" Stahl asked, and the young woman looked at him in surprise, before crossing her arms with a smug expression. "Hehe, none of those three, young customer! I'm sure you haven't noticed due to the clothes that so many of the Artificials are wearing when they first appear, but I am one of this world! I am- Wait, what the hell are you doing just appraising me out of nowhere?!" The saleswoman asked with a wry smile, goosebumps forming on her arms after the weird feeling you experience when being appraised, but Stahl was just too bothered to care. She was obviously a player, but if she was going to pull some Chinubiyo bullshit, then he didn't want to deal with it.
[Player – Donni][Occupation – Merchant Apprentice][Level - 23]
"Mhm, Donni, listen here, I know that you're one of the three things I just asked you. I'm an Alpha, just so you know. So just drop the charade, and-"
"H-Haha, you're mistaken, dear customer! I am no-not one of those! Indeed, I am the secret sixth Original! Bask in my glory!" She exclaimed, and Stahl just turned around with a wry smile, looking at Komer who had a similar expression on his face.
"Heh, if you don't believe me, then ask these three!" Donni exclaimed, waving her hand to the side, where three young men stood with smug expressions.
One of them was a quite tall but skinny, and was wearing dark red mage-robes and held a staff with a bright red crystal at the top. Another one was rather short and had pitch black hair with dark leather armor, as well as two daggers in their sheats, one on each side of his hips. And the last one was really just an extremely average guy wearing full plate armor, a kite-shield bound to his lower arm, and a simple one-handed sword in its sheat to his right.
"Do not worry, young citizens! She truly is the sixth original, she has proven this due to her extreme prowess when it comes to being a merchant! She doesn't want to be known as such, though, because that would most likely influence her business!" The average-looking guy exclaimed, while the shorty was just picking his nose, and the tall guy was looking away as if all of this was bothersome.
"Komer, what the hell is going on right now? Am I having a stroke?" Stahl asked confused as he turned to the young merchant behind him, who was simply staring at a single large rock, seeming more like a small boulder at this point, standing behind the stall.
"Erm, Miss Original, what do you want for this big rock behind here? The one under the black cloth?" Komer asked with a wry smile after he managed to get a peek at the rock from underneath the piece of cloth, before Stahl looked at him with a frown, before Donni turned to Komer with her arms crossed. "Hmm… The boss said not to sell that under any circumstances…" Donni muttered to herself, before Stahl sighed loudly, grabbing a random gem, and holding it in front of himself toward the young woman. He was aware that the boulder had something special to it, so he wanted to get his business out of the way before Komer did his thing.
"First, sell me this. What do you want for it?" Stahl asked, and Donni turned around and smiled. "Ah, that's 20 copper!" She exclaimed with a smile, before Stahl scratched the back of his head and looked at Komer, who looked at him with a bit of surprise at that price, immediately nodding his head, meaning that it was at a good price already.
"I'll give you 10." Stahl said with a smile, and Donni nodded her head immediately. "Alright! Hehe, I'm getting better and better at bartering~!" She said, before Stahl silently held his hand to the side while Komer did the same with a silver coin in hand, simply letting 10 copper coins drop out of it onto Stahl's palm, before the young man silently paid for the small gem, which let him receive the Trading skill, before Donni turned back to Komer. "The boss is gone for a few minutes… I think he wanted to do something with it, but if you give me 1 Gold coin, it's all yours!" Donni said with a wink, fully expecting Komer to try and Haggle immediately, but rather than that, he took out a piece of paper and a pen, slamming it on the table. Swiftly, he filled out a few things here and there, and then turned it toward Donni and held the pen toward her.
"Can you sign this? Sorry, it's a tick of mine, I need to have people sign stuff all the time." Komer said, obviously quite nervous for some reason, and Donni looked at Komer confused. And that confusion immedaitely turned into shock when Komer pulled out a gold coin just loosely from his pocket. Obviously he pulled it out of his compressed coin, but to anyone not knowing that, it would have looked as if a gold coin was just such small change to him that he would have it loosely in his pockets. And so, Donni and the three random guys thought so as well.
With the thought in her mind that the boulder was just a random rock, Donni immediately went to sign the document. She was really just joking with the 'one gold coin and it's all yours' thing, but now that this random guy really did it, she obviously had to sell it.
And when she did so, Komer did something surprising. He took his pen, stabbed it into his arm, and then used his own blood to write something onto the back of the document. While that was going on, Donni looked at a certain middle-aged man excitedly.
"Ah, Boss! Look! I did it! I managed to sell this stinky old rock!" She exclaimed, and immediately the owner of the stall looked at Donni with confusion. "W-Wait, you don't mean this rock, do you? Do you?!" He asked as the two guards that were following him looked at each other nervously as well.
"Huh? What's wrong? Yeah, I just said I sold it, why?" She asked confused, and Komer managed to reply for her. "Because you just sold Maroon worth a few Black Copper coins for a single gold coin…" Komer said with a wry smile, nearly collapsing onto the ground at the ridiculousness of this situation, before Donni looked at her boss happily.
"What?! I sold you something worth a few copper coins for one gold?!" She asked excitedly, before her boss looked at her with eyes that could kill. "No, not a 'Copper' you moron, 'Black Copper'!" He yelled out, and now every merchant from the surrounding stalls was listening, before Komer began to explain.
"Black Copper coins are the currency above Crystal Coins… Meaning a single copper coin is worth 100 crystal, 10000 Platinum, one million gold, 100 Million Silver, or 10 Billion copper…" Komer explained with a wry smile, feeling completely confused at the raw sum of that money. Sure, he wouldn't ever be able to exchange that much with the exchange limits set for the gold-to-money exchange system that would be established for the game, but even then… That was most likely not the kind of sum players were supposed to meddle with. And all of the others knew so as well.
But for some reason, that much money was just sitting there directly behind a random stall in a random merchant town, guarded by nothing but a piece of cloth and an idiotic merchant apprentice.
"N-No, that's not the case! That's not the case at all! This is mine, she had no right to sell it!" The man exclaimed in a complete panic, but Donni just looked at him in shock. "N-No, you said I should sell everything here in our plot if I can!"
"Yeah, but not the one thing I told you not to sell! It's protected by a fucking rank 8 protection circle anyway! You know what, that doesn't matter in the slightest! Kid, if you know what's good for you, you'll just walk away." The man said with a wry smile, before even the Guards stepped up to his side threateningly, but Komer expected this, and as such showed them the contract that he just completed with his scribing skill.
"Technically, I'm currently the owner of that Maroon. The contract was signed and approved by the God of Contracts." Komer exclaimed, before looking at the guards with a grin. "It has my and my companions' full protected in mind for the following year, so don't even try to touch us. Anyway, how about we go somewhere less crowded and talk about the situation there, alright?" Komer suggested, turning around with to the guards. "Isn't that a good idea, Royal Protectors?" He asked, and the Guards looked at each other with shock in their faces, before nodding their heads.
"Accompany us to the Lord's mansion immediately. We will be taking the Maroon with us so that it is constantly within your sight, do not worry." One of the Guards exclaimed, before Komer nodded his head and looked at Stahl with a grin.
"Sorry, I think we'll need to push what we had planned today back a bit. Tell the others we might need to stay a day or two longer. And tell your grandfather to check his CCG." Komer said, and Stahl nodded his head confused. He knew that 'CCG' stood for 'Capsule Connection Gadget', as in the phone-like gadget that let him chat with players like normal even outside the game. Komer most likely planned on filling him in on everything like that. And so, Komer was being escorted by two 'Royal Protectors', one of which stored the large rock in a some kind of spacial-ring of some sort, while the owner of the stall was following behind them, trying not to pass out.
And so, Stahl stood there alone surrounded by four idiots.
"What just happened?" The tall idiot asked, and the short idiot tilted his head to the side. "Did that guy say 10 Billion Copper coins?" He muttered, and Stahl immediately nodded. "Mhm, he did…"
"Drag, Dier, Dark… Was I just completely ripped off?" Donni asked, and Stahl once more immediately nodded.
"Yes, because you're obviously not an original…"
"I know, but it helps sell things to Artificials…" She admitted, before Stahl shook his head in confusion and just quietly stepped away, leaving not only the three D's but also their completely new fourth member alone.
---
"And he really said Maroon?" Evalia asked after she was filled in on everything by Stahl, who just nodded his head, still not fully understanding what exactly happened. "Yeah, that was that really rare material that Grampa needed for the Core Guardian, right?"
"I think so… But that's kind of insane… We really need to keep in touch with Komer through all this, who knows what the hell he's up to in there?" Evalia asked, and Stahl simply shrugged. "I have no idea, but he apparently created some kind of magic contract beforehand, so he's seemingly protected through all this. He even said the 'God of Contracts' accepted it."
"I'm so confused…"
"So am I…" Stahl quietly answered, before Evalia, who was currently wearing the relatively simple wooden 'Mask of Hiding' she was given before by Eisen as well as a long robe with a hood, leaning against Stahl's shoulder as the two of them were sitting at a well in the center of town.