“Well then, Olya, it was a blast, but we better get going.” I slowly ended the evening as I waved him off.

“Wait, where to?” He smiled ignorantly, “I’ll come with.”

“No, well, you see…” I danced around the question, “We’re literally fresh off the boat, y’know? We don’t have a place to stay, so we’re going to find an inn to rent or something.”

“Oh, then why didn’t you say so?” He grinned, “I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, and he’s the innkeeper where I’m staying at. You can just ask him, I’m sure he’ll give you a discount!”

“Really!?” We were baffled by this piece of news, “Then by all means, lead the way!”

Practically skipping over to the building in question, we trounced into the inn before politely asking the innkeeper for a room to rent. Looking at us before spotting Olya right behind us, he rolled his Eyes and sighed. “You, fatty. What’s going on here?”

“Hey now, what’s with the nickname?” Olya sounded offended, “I got you two clients willing to pay full price!”

“Eh?” We turned to him, “Hey now, didn’t you say…?”

“Shh!” He shut us up before clearing his throat to address the innkeeper, “You keep calling me names like fatty and uggo and other shiet, so I think it’s more than fair to say you owe me one!”

“Oh boy…” I immediately braced myself for the shitstorm that was about to happen.

“So!” Olya continued his tirade, “I think you owe me and these two gentlemen a good deal! How about this, two rooms for the price of one! Hehe, do that, and I may just consider forgiving you for calling me all those names!”

“Alright, I see what you’re saying.” The innkeeper nodded his head.

“Wait, you do?” Shaid was at a loss for words.

“Hell no, get the fuck out of my inn.”

And with that, all three of us were rendered homeless, and thanks to Olya’s grand suggestion to follow him to the very edge of town in order to get to the inn he was staying at, it was now very much nighttime. The Sun had already set long ago, leaving only the cold of the night in its place. So what, pray tell, are we to do in a situation like this, you ask? Well…

“It’s thanks to you two that I lost my room, so you owe it to me to find us a new place to stay-!” Olya tried pinning the blame on us, but Shaid wasn’t having it.

“You stupid, ignorant, uncharismatic…!”

“Hey, hey! Quit it, bud, it ain’t worth it.” I separated them, “No matter whose fault it is, the problem at hand is still present – we need a place to stay in.”

“Sigh, I really don’t want to have to do this, but how about we just go back to the ship?” Shaid reasoned, “It will be safer than just lounging around on the street like this.”

“That’s a temporary fix, but then what’ll we do about tomorrow, or the day after that?”

“Who cares?” Olya shrugged nonchalantly, “That’s for tomorrow us to figure out.”

“That way of thinking will only get you into even more tough situations, y’know?” I lectured him, “But no. We need to find an inn to stay at. Somewhere close to the city and dock at the same time.”

“Oh!” Olya recalled something, “A-Ah, never mind…”

“What is it? Don’t hold back and tell us anything you know.”

“W-Well…” He scratched his double-chin, “If it’s a location like that, there’s only really one option then, but it’s kind of pricey.”

“Not to worry, we were given a huge sum of coins before coming here, so the price shouldn’t be an issue.” Shaid figured, only to ask just in case, “But just to be safe, how much are we talking about, amigo?”

“Around about ten gold per night.”

“Ten-?!”

Ten gold per night!? That’s like… Ten times the normal amount! While it’s true that Tanathos gave us a lot of money in that pouch of his, those funds were mostly meant for the wheat and soil, not the rent! No, we just can’t afford it. We’re gonna have to find another way.

“Hold on. It might work.” Shaid got to thinking, “Hey Schnell, I got an idea. Remember when we were kids, and tried bartering from a coal pencil to a shovel that one time?”

“Hm? What’s gotten you so nostalgic all of a sudden?” I chuckled, “But yeah, now that you mention it, we were pretty good for a couple of kids. Buying stuff for a lower price, selling it for a higher price… Our original goal was to buy our families a house, but we only ever got as far as a shovel before my dad saw us and broke it clean in half.”

“Yikes, that was the moment I started fearing your father…” He shivered, “But do you now understand what I am trying to tell you?”

“Yeah, I think I do.” I gave him a fist bump, “We’re the World’s best merchants, after all! And as such, earning us some more spending money should be a cinch!”

Thus, we immediately went to the town, scouring any and all alleyways for any nighttime vendors. Obviously, what we’re doing now is extremely dangerous, and any normal person should never even think to recreate what we’re doing, but since there’s three of us, plus we’re more than ready to fight off any potential attackers, we figured we’d be safe enough.

“Alright, this looks like a fine place!” I turned the corner to find a bunch of bums in an alleyway, “Anyone willing to pawn off some of your belongings?”

“H-Hey, maybe this isn’t so safe…” Olya hid behind me as all of the penniless bums approached us.

“Haha! Don’t worry, bud! As long as these guys have valuable things to sell, we’ll pay them fairly. Isn’t that right, Shaid?”

“Aye, it is as you said, amigo.” He smiled back, “Now then, everyone, here is how this is going to work – You will all form a line. If you have anything you wish to sell for some quick and easy money, you can offer it to us, and if we deem it valuable and genuine enough to buy, we’ll gladly take it off your hands!”

In actuality, what we were basically doing is making an impromptu pawn shop, which is illegal basically everywhere as far as I know. But that’s also partly the reason we’re here in this alleyway of all places. It’s also got the added benefit of having a ton of greedy and unschooled clients for us to scam, heheh…!

“How much for my grandfather’s monocle?” One guy asked.

“Hey, if I sell you my coat, would I get enough money to buy a house?” Another one interjected.

“Pfft, a coat for a house? Get real!” The first guy shoved him back, escalating the situation.

“What was that for?!” They started getting more violent before I had to intervene.

“Hey now.” I put my hand in between them, “Personally, I couldn’t care less about how you’ll settle your disputes once we’re gone. Actually, with how Entropa’s been waging Great Wars left and right, the economy’s so fucked that you might actually even manage to buy a house with that amount of money. But that’s on you to accomplish, I just want your stuff.”

“Tch!” The first guy backed off before handing me the monocle, “I want ten gold for it.”

“Tsss…” I inspected it a bit closer, “Best I can do is 2 gold.”

“No can do.” He snatched the monocle away from me, “I can work with 9 gold, but you’re just lowballing now. Remember, this is a family heirloom.”

“You’re putting way too much emphasis on personal sentiments, amigo.” Shaid added onto what I said, “It is as you said, but inverse. We can work with 3 gold, but you’re just highballing with your price. Please consider that we need to turn a profit here as well. That being said, 2 gold.”

“Tch!” He clicked his tongue, “8 gold!”

“2 gold.” I parroted Shaid’s price.

“Ugh, come on!” The guy didn’t seem to budge, “6 gold and 50 silver. Final offer!”

“Deal!” We immediately shook his hand as we handed him the coins.

The man’s face was as happy as a clam, despite him losing out on not only his grandfather’s heirloom, but also a ton of money. Heh, this thing here’s worth at least 15 gold, but since he doesn’t know how to properly value his belongings, I guess he’ll just be the one to get the short end of the stick. See here, the trick is to make your clients feel like they won, so they’ll come back later. That’s how you rope them in!

***

One after another, the people continued handing us their belongings, and by the time we bought everyone’s stuff, the Sun was rising, and we were all but penniless. Now comes the fun part – time to go to the town’s center and set up a proper shop during the day! This is where Olya comes in.

“Fueh?” He snorted as we woke him up, “What time is it? Did we get rich yet?”

“Quite the opposite.” Shaid explained, “We don’t have a bronze coin to our name.”

“What?!” He fell from the wooden box he was lying on, “What the hell happened?! Were we mugged or something?!”

“No no, everything’s going to plan, but we’re gonna need your name for the next part.” I elaborated, “You’re the Revisor, right? That means everyone fears and respects you in town, despite your less than respectable appearance.”

“Piss off.”

“Ignore Schnell’s words for now, amigo.” Shaid added, “Can you help us legalize a thrift shop in the town center?”

“Mn…” He thought for a moment before shrugging, “Maybe, I dunno. But don’t blame me if things go to shiet and you get put in jail.”

“Hey, even jail’s not so bad, what with the free shelter, food and drinks.” I joked, only for these two to make rather unpleasant faces at me.

In any case, we had made it to the town, bought up a stall with the little leftover money we had left, and got to work. While we were busy advertising and calling out to random passerby onlookers, Olya was busy dealing with all the paperwork in the background. With this, our little shop was legit, despite its sudden occurrence. Now, the thing that everyone was waiting for – the profit!

“This monocle… Why, it’s pure gold!” An onlooker inspected it, “And despite that, it’s only 15 gold coins?!”

“Yep! Good Eye, by the way!” I smiled as I showed it off, “Actually, friend, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but this monocle actually belonged to a Cardinian aristocrat. They really value their eyesight, so I had a really tough time getting my hands on one.”

Even if we ignore the fact that I made up the monocle’s backstory on the spot, I still can’t help but wonder why he would think that it’s worth it to give 15 gold coins for a gold monocle. I mean, if you’re really in the market for something like that, then just liquefying 3 or 4 coins at your local blacksmith’s would be more than enough, material wise.

“Hey, this coat…” Another person showed interest in our wares.

And so, the day passed as we practically tripled our funds. Best part of all this is that we didn’t even sell everything. There were still some leftover things that no one seemed to want, but even with that we were more than happy with the outcome. And if we take into account the fact that our original funds were supposedly enough to get all the wheat and soil that we needed, then we could comfortably afford our living expenses for the entire duration of our stay here. Mission accomplished!

“Alright, who thought to buy an empty book from those bums?” Olya picked up one of the leftover wares and flipped through it, “It’s literally unfinished! Got some text at the start, but like 80 percent of the pages are empty!”

“Well, we were pretty much just buying anything that looked flashy enough by the end of the night.” I explained, “We’re both pretty tired, so we didn’t look into it too much. It’s a shame, but I don’t think we’ll be able to sell it if it’s empty.”

“So what, do we throw it away?” Shaid asked.

“Are you crazy?” Olya reprimanded him, “A book is worth a billion coins, and an unfinished one is priceless given all the possible things that could eventually be written in it. If you’re gonna throw it away, I’d rather you just give it to me, then!”

“I mean, sure. It’s not like we’ll have a use for it.” I shrugged, “From the covers, it looks like someone’s diary. Just make sure to rip out the filled pages. We don’t want to intrude on others’ privacy.”

“Right.” Olya did as I said, ripping a couple of pages out of the book before shivering, “Yeesh. Did anyone else feel a chill run down their spine?”

“No, you’re imagining it.” Shaid noted, “But I guess you are right in that regard. We should probably hurry up and go find an inn for now. It is best we avoid draft.”

And so, after a grueling day and night of staying awake, the two best merchants in the world promptly checked into the inn they were saving up to rent before hopping into bed without a care in the world. Accomplished, we slept for the entirety of the next day, which left Olya to have to deal with all the cops showing up that day and inquiring about the suspicious shop some guys had mysteriously and suddenly set up in the middle of town. When we woke up, he was kind of fussy about it.