High speed leveling system

Chapter 6

A slight unrest began to arise inside my mind when I went shopping in the earl's territory metropolitan, Seryuu City.

It's a few minutes walk to the east of Martha's mother's inn.

Come to think of it, I haven't heard the name of the inn, the map says Monzen Inn; is that it?

Immediately after entering a series of food stalls, I smell something good.

Eh? Isn't this the smell of soy sauce?

Okonomiyaki and crepes are being baked on an iron plate. The seasoning seems to be soy sauce. Just as I thought, it's fine to call this a dream. There's no way soy sauce exists in a fantasy!

Even though I've just had a meal, I buy one of them.

"Yep, it's delicious."

I want pork cutlet sauce rather than soy sauce. The other stalls seem to be frying something that looks like croquettes. What a high-food culture for a fantasy!

I'm going around various stalls, trying various foods.

"How much is this gabo for 3 servings?"

"It's 2 Pennies."

"Expensive, isn't it 1 penny?"

"Young ma'am, like that, we couldn't eat then; How about 2 pennies for 4 then?"

"Give me 5 for 2."

"It can't be helped, since young maam's a beauty, I'll give in."

I listened to some interesting conversation between an aunty and a food stall owner. Haggling basic eh? Since I'm accustomed to just buying what's written on the price tag, it looks difficult.

>[Eavesdropping Skill Acquired]

"Anything I can help, young man?"

Fumu, from the conversation earlier a gabo seems to be about 0.4-0.5 pennies a pop. Since this uncle has arithmetic skills, he should've been able to calculate the minimum amount.

"I want to buy 2 gabo, is it alright with 1 penny?"

"You've heard the conversation just now eh? It's alright then. Young men have arithmetic skills too right? You're pretty good for such a young man."

It's just normal mental arithmetic though...

I got 2 gabo fruit for 1 penny. Gabo is actually a fist-sized red pumpkin fruit. Incidentally, a penny is an oblong-shaped coin weighing about 1 gram, it's a yellowish copper coin with high impurity.

>[Estimation Skill Acquired]

>[Haggling Skill Acquired]

But I didn't haggle it?

Is it because I saw the earlier haggle by the aunty?

While wondering what to do with the gabo fruit I looked around me. The stalls are all around the size of half a tatami yet there are many of them. Furthermore they're lively.

While looking around the stalls I raised [Estimation], [Haggling], [Arithmetic], [Negotiation], and [Scamming] skills to the max level.

After strolling around for 10 minutes, I finally found my goal.

I chose a large shoulder bag from one of the stall. The price is displayed over the bag thanks to the estimation skill. Handy.

It seems that I'd get hated if I suddenly bought it at market price. I understood the knack after 3 stores. I could get it to half the market price if I try to bargain for 3-4 times... but honestly, it's annoying.

The spoils from the stalls... [Large Shoulder Bag], [A Bit Stylish Bag], [Commoner's Underwear for Top and Bottom + 10 sets], [Hand Towel in Various Size, and Handkerchief]. The towel is just two pieces of clothes stacked together, I'm a bit dissatisfied.

Also, even though I can't sew, [2 Meter Hemp Cord - 5 Bundles], [Cotton Thread - 1 Roll], [Sewing Needle - 5], [Sewing Scissors], [Cotton Cloth], somehow there's a lot of them. Since I have the storage, there's no problem even if a lot of them end up unused.

In all, it's 4 silver coins. Unexpectedly, clothing is more expensive than food.

I don't think I need to say this, but the first thing I bought, the shoulder bag, is a dummy. I will put the things I bought into the bag and directly send them to the storage without being seen. I put some commoner's clothes inside the bag so that it doesn't look flat.

I wanted to buy some robes or cloaks but, only worn-out or cheap-looking things were available so I didn't.

That's right, I want to confirm the heat retention of the storage. I'll buy some properly hot things and put them inside.

Shopping is fun~

"Now then, I wonder what else?"

Chair lined up ahead of the stalls and there are a lot of old men who have been drinking sake since morning.

"Drinking in the daytime... Oh yeah, tableware!"

There should've been a shop that sells them among the ones I've visited so far.

That's right, shoes! I forgot about shoes.

I want a reminder~. There's a memo field inside the [Exchange] tab of the Menu, let's put the shopping list there.

It's been a while since I saw the Exchange tab, over there I found the reason why I was level 1 when I entered the city.

That status was the same as the one written on this page. The upper limit for each attribute is chosen from the drop-down box here. Even the skills and title can be chosen as [None].

However... I could give false info however I want.

I bought a pair of shoes suitable for rough journeys, and a robe matching the shoes, also a sandal for each foot.

I thought of buying everything since I have the storage but I can't find shoes in the correct size. I'll just order it at the Main Street's shoe store later.

Hungry after a second round trip, I set my eyes on a store selling something that looked like ramen and went into it. Although the noodles are different, it's a proper ramen.

Other was kneaded flour coiled in a stick varnished with a miso-like substance then baked. It felt like a mismatch, but it was properly delicious.

I also bought cups, pots, and tableware that caught my attention, I bought them all. Also, a kitchen knife, hot pot, and frying pan. Somehow there were no cutting boards, do people here don't use them?

I casually bought a bathtub made of metal. As one would expect, the tub is too big to place into the bag so I brought it quietly to the back of an alley and put it into the storage. And since it would look unnatural if I went back into East Avenue, I decided to exit onto the main street.

♦♦♦♦♦

At the east street stalls overflow, making the street there squeeze on the center. Here, the main street is about 6 meters width, and horse carriages and human-powered carts are going back and forth on it.

Just like the street earlier, different from what I imagined of a fantasy, the street here is very clean. There are no bodies of dead animals lying around. There are also no bums on the alleyway.

The stalls are sparse here unlike on the east street, in exchange there are a lot of stores instead. There are many people with good attire walking around the street.

"Are collars popular?"

The people who are pulling carts generally wear collars. When I search for it, they're slaves. Mysteriously, all the slaves wear collars, the reason unknown.

A carriage coming from the downtown drops its speed to match the walking speed of the pedestrians.

The carriage passes in front of me. There are around 10 women slaves inside.

My eyes are glued to one of them. A girl befitting to be called Yamato Nadeshiko featuring black hair and black eyes, although she looks like she's been on a long journey. Since the great majority of people look like northern Europeans, this is probably the first time I've seen an Asian face.

The girl set her eyes downcast, our eyes met when she lifted it up and even though there was no dramatic development, somehow the little girl featuring an orthodox northern European face with light purple wavy hair standing next to her looked very surprised when she saw me. No well, It's troubling when you stare so hard at me... I'm not into little girls.

When I took a long look at the little girl, a pop-up with her name and level appeared next to her.

Kagari. Level 10. Her level is high for a little girl.

Further informations appear.

11 years old.

Title: [Witch of the Lost Kingdom][Mad Princess]

Skill: Unknown

The carriage disappears toward the west street.

Frankly, those were some trouble-inviting titles... No no, I won't approach it okay? Absolutely!

♦♦♦♦♦

Let's go back to my original purpose.

I searched the map for tailors or shoemaker and found them gathered near the side street, so I went there. Most of them had young women clerks which isn't fit for an old man, so I went into the shop with a kindhearted-looking middle-aged couple.

"Pardon me, Do you have a solid merchant-like robe with calm color?"

"Welcome, please come over here, we will bring you sample clothes. There were 5 ready-made goods on the rack there, but it's been selling well recently."

The husband guided me to the lounge and took out the samples from the interior. In harmony, the wife bring out a tea-like drink. It's an elegant cup.

"Since it'll be cold from now on, how about this thick fabric? If you're going on a journey then we can also prepare a matching waterproof cloak, how about it sir?"

These are excellent goods. Maybe. These are the types that the largest clothing store buy a lot with a lot of color variety, The 5 variety of the well selling goods probably also have cloak order accompanying them

The tailoring will need 5 days to finish. If I only buy one then it's only 3 days.

5 gold is quite a large sum, but it's a money needed for necessary things.

However, I want at least 1 change of robe before the day is over. I feel like I don't know the TPO if I go to the inner wall with this battered robe I'm wearing.

"Master, since this shop is only for tailoring, do you know shops selling ready-made goods? As you can see the robe I'm wearing is battered from the journey, I want to buy temporary clothes before the tailoring is done."

"For ready clothes, I recommend Poel Clothing on Teputa Street. Although it's my stupid son's clothes, I can assure his cloth-making skills. It's quite famous among the commoner so it's quite enough for temporary clothes."

Promoting his son's shop eh... I politely refuse when he's offering to draw a map, it's enough with oral instruction so I get out of the shop. I almost forgot to take the deposit receipt until I was called by the Mrs. Shopkeeper in a hurry.

I bought two robes, one is a calming dark brown color and the other is a gaudy red with yellow stripes. The former is as said before, and the latter, let's omit the story behind it. My line of vision went into the valley of the female clerk...

Of course, I also order shoes from the tailor. 1 for walking in the city, 2 boots for the journey.

When I came back to the Martha's Inn after shopping, the sun was already sinking for the day.