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“Come on, man, this is an alpha wolf pelt. It’s definitely worth it.”

“I know very well this is a common wolf pelt. It’s 10 gold, and if you try to fool me again, it will be nothing at all.”

Balthazar adjusted his monocle with the top of his claw as he looked the clearly novice adventurer over. Most of them knew better than to haggle with a stubborn crab, but there would always be some that needed to learn the hard way.

His reputation boost with the Adventurer’s Guild was proving fruitful, as more of them were choosing to drop by during their outings, to check his wares, or sell their excess loot. But with more customers also came the annoyance of “newbies,” as he heard higher level adventurers call them.

“Come on, at least do 12 gold, that’s what they’d pay for it up in Ardville,” the young adventurer insisted.

This one was only level 3 and was desperate for coin, after apparently having spent all of his money buying the huge mace hanging next to his hip from a shop in town, despite not meeting the required Strength to actually use it.

“Then why don’t you go sell it there?” the crab asked, with a glance.

“Because, well…” the boy started, while rubbing the back of his neck and looking down at his own feet. “I’m trying to stay away from the market for at least a couple of days. Let things cool down a little. I… may have accidentally failed a seduction attempt on the blacksmith’s daughter.”

“Yeah, sounds to me like it’s going to be 10 gold then,” the crab declared, with a hint of smugness.

“Oh, fine!” the adventurer finally conceded. “You’re terrible, you know? And on top of it all, I had to get my boots all wet just to get here.”

Balthazar handed him the ten gold coins and watched the young adventurer splash his feet as he walked away from the inner islet. He had a point, and he wasn’t the first one to complain about it. Many of the clients had brought up the inconvenience of having to skip over slippery wet rocks in order to do business with him. While it did allow him to sell at least a couple of pairs of dry socks, it wasn’t really a good look.

Looking around at his pond, he also realized things were getting out of hand in terms of his inventory management. He purchased a large, heavy iron chest a group of adventurers were carrying from some local dungeon, and was now using it as storage for his gold coins, leaving just his old belongings and the Scroll of Character Creation in his previous hiding hole. But that hardly mattered for the many larger items he now had scattered all over his home. He needed better organization, storage, and also some more convenient access to his central spot.

Skittering around his piles of random goods, Balthazar picked out some basic materials and brought them over to where his chest was, under the central tree. He knew eventually rain would come, and that would be a problem for some of his products, so he figured some form of shelter would be necessary.

Carefully balancing it between his claws, he upheld a wooden stake about as tall as an adult human, and firmly stuck the pointy end into the soft soil. After repeating the process another three times, making a square of wooden stakes, Balthazar unfolded a large tarp and awkwardly attempted to throw it over the construction. A few pulls and corrections later, he stepped back and looked at the result of his efforts. The stakes were at uneven heights, as well as not entirely straight, the tarp was dragging on the ground on one side, but leaving the opposite area partially exposed to the sky, and while attempting to lay it out, Balthazar had accidentally made a tear in the fabric with his claw, leaving a large hole in it.

[Item crafted. Experience gained.]

[[Makeshift Shelter] created.]

[You have reached level 6!]

“That’s very funny, ha-ha,” Balthazar said, with a blank expression, as one of the stakes holding up his improvised tent fell, bringing the whole structure down on itself.

“This is a waste of my talents.” He sighed, while opening up his level up screen. “I’m clearly not made for this kind of manual labor.”

Seeing as most of the skills relevant to his Merchant class were related to Intelligence, he had decided to continue putting points into that for the time being. After increasing his Intelligence from 15 to 16, he moved on to the skills screen, eager to upgrade his Reading skill from a D to a C rank.

“Hopefully this will let me read faster than before,” Balthazar said, while picking up the geography book he had started on earlier.

Looking at each of the words on the page, he found them coming together and making sense much more easily, only stumbling on those with many syllables.

He also noted he now understood what a syllable was, despite not recalling ever hearing about it. He figured that’s just what being intelligent was like. He just knew stuff naturally, because learning was so last week.

Closing the status screen and tossing the ruined tarp and stakes to the side, he began contemplating the area between the islet he was on and the edge of the pond leading to the road. Some kind of bridge would be ideal, so that his clients could walk across without getting wet. He didn’t understand their aversion to water, but who could understand humans, anyway?

Going through some more of his materials, he picked up some wooden boards he had bought recently. They would make for a decent floor, but not as they were now. Eyeing the hacksaw next to him with suspicion, and then his own pincers, he dropped the wooden boards and turned around to return to his book. “Nope, not even gonna try that.”

***

Flipping the last page of his book, Balthazar slammed it shut with satisfaction. While it wasn’t very fluent yet, he could tell his reading had improved considerably. So much, in fact, that he would soon run out of books to read, and would need to rely on adventurers returning to town from their exploring with more.

Taking the book in his claw, the crab crossed the water to the front of the pond and placed it next to all the others he had neatly displayed in a row over the rug with the trinkets and baubles. Looking up at the sky, Balthazar was pleased by the lack of birds, even if it made him feel a little suspicious.

They had been very absent lately, and while he would like to believe it was because of some kind of migration, or simply because of all the new commotion around his pond, his instinct told him they must have been up to something, perhaps something nefarious.

As he pictured dozens of songbirds descending upon his home to pick up his storage chest and fly away with it, something caught his attention in the distance. A small black dot on the horizon, approaching from the plains.

Shaking off some grains of sand from the edges of the rug and readjusting his monocle, Balthazar readied himself to greet his potential new client. But as the figure became clearer in the distance, he began having a feeling of slight unease growing inside him.

It was a man, straight posture and determined walk, all his clothing black, from his expensive looking shiny boots to his silk shirt, covered over the shoulders by a long cloak, dark as a moonless night. Standing out from all the darkness of his clothing was his long straight hair, of a nearly white silver color, despite his still young facial features, which surrounded two piercing icy blue eyes.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As he approached, Balthazar looked at him through his monocle.

[Level 19 Dark Mage]

Whoever this Dark Mage was, he radiated an aura of dread that made Balthazar uncomfortable. But he was still a merchant, and not one about to be intimidated out of a possible business transaction. After all, this guy looked like he could afford expensive stuff.

“Good day to you, mister. Would you perhaps be interested in some charmed necklaces?” Balthazar said, with one arm stretched towards the items on display over his rug.

The mage looked down at the crab from the corner of his eye, without even turning his head, and with a slight scoff, continued walking.

“I have many things that could be of use to a mage such as yourself,” Balthazar persisted. “Mana potions, a few enchanted rings, perhaps this Tome of Levitation?”

Coming to a sudden halt, the man raised his black gloved hand, as if signaling to someone behind him to hold.

“Did you say you have a Tome of Levitation?” he asked, with a clear, calm, yet commanding voice.

Intrigued by his gesture and the noises coming from behind his cloak, Balthazar leaned slightly and saw a small figure, its head barely the same height as the mage’s waist, very thin, almost skin and bone, the skin of a grayish green tone, large pointy ears, wearing only a pair of ragged pants, and holding a large sack on his back. It was a goblin.

“I asked you a question, crab,” the man said, a hint of impatience and irritation in his voice now.

“Yes… yes, that’s right, I got one right here,” Balthazar said, pointing at his selection of books, but still more interested in the creature behind the man.

He had seen goblins before, rarely, they mostly lived in caves, or deep in the forest, and avoided places where adventurers dwell, but there had been a couple of times in the past where Balthazar had been bothered by young goblins throwing rocks at his shell from up a cliff behind his pond, before running away laughing as he snapped his claws threateningly at them. They were wild and primitive creatures that lived in small tribes, and weren’t particularly liked by anyone, but something about this goblin seemed different.

He was smaller, despite not being a child, and he seemed weak, almost emaciated, with a miserable look on his face, probably in part because of the massive weight of the sack he was struggling to hold on his back with both hands. As he shifted the weight on his shoulders slightly, a thick black iron collar became visible around his neck, with runes engraved on its surface. Balthazar scanned the goblin through his monocle and saw he was only a level 3.

“Let me see that,” the Dark Mage demanded with an outstretched hand.

“Say, that’s a peculiar traveling companion you have there,” Balthazar said, while handing the tome to the man.

“That? It’s just a goblin I collected off the side of a road a few weeks ago, to carry my things. Stupid thing can’t even fight.” The silver-haired man was scanning the cover and back of the tome, as if looking for signs of it being a fake. “I’ll give you 100 gold for this.”

Balthazar pondered for a moment, his eyes still on the goblin, who seemed ready to collapse to his knees at any moment.

“Tell you what, it doesn’t seem like you have much use for the little guy anymore,” the crab finally said. “Why don’t you trade me the goblin and the tome is yours?”

“This pathetic thing?” the mage said, with a mocking disbelief. “He’s barely good for carrying things anymore. I doubt I’d keep him for much longer. You can have him.”

The Dark Mage snapped his fingers, and the collar dropped to the ground, open. As it did, the goblin immediately fell to his hands and knees, letting go of the loot sack.

“You belong to the crab now, understood?” the man said, while picking up the collar and handing it to Balthazar.

“No thanks, the deal was just for the goblin, you can keep that.”

“Suit yourself,” the mage responded with an arrogant look, as he pocketed the collar and scanned through the first pages of his new tome.

“And do me a favor. Don’t cast that on yourself anywhere near my place, will you?” Balthazar said. “I don’t want you falling to your death and devaluing my products.”

The Dark Mage looked at the crab with a disdainful scoff, but didn’t respond. Finishing his quick scanning of the tome’s pages, he threw it inside the bag and snapped his fingers once again, this time causing the bag to lift itself off the road, hovering in place, before steadily following behind the man as he walked away.

Turning to the goblin that had now stood back up to his feet, Balthazar approached him slowly. “Hey there. You alright? Need anything?”

“Thirsty!” the goblin pleaded, with a raspy voice.

“There’s a pond right over there. You can drink from it.”

With surprising speed, the goblin dashed to the edge of the water and fell to his knees, desperately using both hands as cups to bring water to his mouth and drink.

“It’s alright, there’s plenty of it and it’s not going anywhere,” the crab said, walking up to where the goblin ran. “There’s some jerky in the crate over there too if you want it once you’re done. Sure looks like you need it.”

“Yes, yes,” the goblin said, gasping for air between large gulps of water, “silver man evil, give no food!”

The creature seemed capable of understanding basic human tongue just fine, as Balthazar expected, even if his speech appeared somewhat limited.

The crab wasn’t particularly fond of goblins. Or anyone else, for that matter. But while 100 gold was a lot of money, it would pale in comparison to what a pair of opposable thumbs could do for his trading spot in the long run. And he also found starving someone while forcing them to work for you to be particularly distasteful. If you’re going to work someone to the bone, at least keep them fed, so they last longer. That’s just common sense.

“You got a name, goblin?”

“Yes, yes,” the small creature responded, standing back to his feet. “Druma!”

“That’s… a name, I guess. Nice to meet you, my name is Balthazar,” the crab said, while the goblin took some slices of beef jerky from the crate and began eating them ferociously. “Would you be interested in a job as my assistant, Druma? Great conditions, competitive pay. Mainly food, but you seem to need that.”

“Druma no have tribe no more,” the goblin started, while nodding his head between chewing. “Crab free Druma from evil man. If crab give Druma meat, Druma follow crab now.”

“That sounds like a fair deal to me,” said Balthazar, as a prompt appeared in front of his eyes.

[Add Druma to your party?]

[Yes | No]

“Why the hell is this system throwing me a surprise party?!”