Chapter 37 – Traveling Merchant/Healer (Patreon)

We continued the following day and reached another rest stop by midday. It had fewer people than the previous one—probably because it was the middle of the day—but I decided to stop anyway. After we had lunch, I approached a large group of people.

“Hello there, I'm a merchant and a healer. Are you interested in seeing anything or need healing?” After saying this, I felt strange and self-conscious, but I didn’t let it show on my face.

One of the men said, “What do you have?”

“What interests you? Tell me, and I’ll show you.”

A woman slapped his arm and said, “Buying things can wait. If he is a healer, he can help Reno.” She turned to me, “Can you heal bones?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

She led me to a cart with a teenager sitting in it. “He thinks he’s a russ and climbs every tree he sees; maybe now he will learn his lesson.”

The boy winced but didn’t say anything. I diagnosed him, and he had a sprained ankle and a badly bruised knee. One Healing Touch, and he was fine. I didn’t even need to use Fortify Life Force; his body hardly used any energy, and he was healthy. He hopped off the cart, gave his mother? A sheepish look, and ran to the rest of the group.

“How much for the healing?”

“Three copper.” She looked surprised but paid me.

“Why did you look so surprised when I told you the price?”

“I never met a healer that charged less than a silver for anything.”

“Ahh, I like to help people and don’t like to exploit them.”

She patted my shoulder and said, “You are a good man. A little young and naïve maybe, but a good person.”

I felt myself blushing and thanked her. We returned to the group, and I showed them some things. The men admired my jeans, and I showed them some. They were a hit with the men, and the women admired the zippers, calling them a “clever invention.” I showed them a box full of zippers in every color and length. I wasn't sure about the zippers when I bought all the sewing supplies, but now I was glad I got them. They went crazy over them. The Appraisal said they were worth a silver each, but I sold them for 7 coppers; I still felt uncomfortable charging the full Appraisal price. I also showed them all my other sewing and knitting supplies and sold some of them. When one of them mentioned that they were a traveling theatre group, I got an idea.

“I also have theatre costumes.” I knew that I couldn't sell any of Earth’s “fancier” clothes otherwise; they all wore coarse, simple pants or skirts with laces and linen shirts. I showed them evening gowns, men's jackets, and colorful clothes.

“Those are noble clothes, not costumes.”

“Those are costumes of noble clothes, so they are cheaper.” I never would have thought of this counter-argument; I suspected my Merchant class was working in the background.

I ended up selling them a nice assortment of clothes, two rolls of fabric – one in red and one in purple – the sewing supplies, jeans, all the marionettes I had, some pillows, blankets, and cookware. After counting all the silver and copper, I made 37 gold, 5 silver, and 2 copper. They were good customers. Stretch made friends with the boy I healed, and they were running around all the rest stop annoying people; I personally thought that they were adorable.

Other people approached me, and I sold some other things, but a lot less. I made another 3 gold and 1 silver, mostly in copper coins. I spent about two hours at the rest stop, so I decided to continue and reach the next rest stop or camp on the road.

I reached the rest stop by evening, made some sales and healing, and again slept on a blanket so as not to look too unusual. Stretch found some children to play with and had a lot of fun while I “worked.”

The following day, after a few hours of traveling, we reached a town that looked very similar to the one I had visited. The road cut through the town, with shops on either side, streets with houses branching off the main road, and fields in the distance.

I located the inn – it even looked similar to the other one – and went in.

“Hello, traveler.”

“Good day. I want a room for two nights, three meals a day, and a hot bath in my room every day.”

“Two silver and four coppers. Food for the dog is another silver for two days.”

“There's no need; I have food for him. It's only for me, and he will stay in my room.”

“It’s your room, do what you want.” I really liked this world’s policy about pets.

“I’m also a healer and merchant. If you’re interested, I have fancy dishes to serve nobles. Also, if people in town need healing, I’ll rent another room tomorrow to treat them, if you don’t object to your inn turning into a treatment center.”

“A healer is always welcome; I will spread the word. For the dishes, I will call my wife.”

He called his wife from the kitchen, and I spent an hour showing her things. She bought less cookware than I thought but a lot of linen and was delighted with the prints.

It started raining again during the night. Ugh.

In the morning, I had a full common room waiting for healing. After breakfast, I rented another room, moved the bed aside, brought two wooden chairs from the common room – should buy some regular chairs for such occasions – told the people to arrange themselves by order of severity, and began treating them. In my experiments with the mukar/bison, I could control the amount of mana I used, so when healing, I tried to use the minimum amount of mana needed for the healing. It worked! By the end of the day, I treated everybody – this time, no operating required – and still had a little mana: 370/6900.

I paid for another two days in the inn – it was still raining, and I needed to regenerate – had dinner and went to sleep.

The following day, it was still raining. I went to the general store to offer my merchandise. Stretch refused to leave the inn, found a nice spot in front of the fire, and went back to sleep—lazy dog.

The shopkeeper was more amenable and bought quite a lot of general household goods and cookware for his store, not only for himself and his family. He did use the hated “too fancy” a few times, but I forgave him. This store also had a bucket with damaged used swords. Standard display method? I had an idea and took one sword.

Damaged Iron Sword
5 copper

“How much?”

“One silver.”

“One silver?! Please remember I’m a merchant, not just a person from the street. I know how much things are worth.”

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, thought for a moment, and said, “Four coppers.”

“That’s more like it, I’ll take it.”

I went outside and cast Mend on the sword. The chips and nicks disappeared, but it still looked terrible. I cast Clean, and the dirt and rust that was flaking off disappeared, but it was still rusty. Hmm. Purify didn’t do anything, and neither did Cleanse. I was stumped. After standing in the rain for a few minutes, thinking, I got an idea. I checked the Spell list and found Restore. It also cost two ability points like the light spell and was a channeled spell. 41 ability points left. It was a bit worrying; it was my first world, and I had already spent 9 points. Maybe I didn’t “farm” enough points?

I channeled the spell into the sword and could see it restoring. Magic is awesome. I returned to the store, appraised all the junk swords, and calculated 1 gold, 1 silver, and 3 copper.

“I’ll give you a gold for all the swords.” He thought about it and agreed. I didn’t want to restore all the swords right now; I was still low on mana and regenerating, so I stored them and decided to handle them later. I looked around the store again, looking for other things I could use this spell on, but I didn’t see anything.

“Do you have other damaged cheap things?”

“Why damaged?”

“Not everybody can afford good new things. I have a lot of good things, but nothing for poorer people.”

“Just a moment.” He went back and forth from the back of the store to the front and brought out three saddles that had seen better days, five swords, two of them extra-large, two axes, and a bow without a string. The saddles looked different from what I saw in the movies; they were shorter, thinner, and had more curvature in the seating area.

“How much for all of it?”

He thought about it and said, “Five gold.” My Appraisal showed me a total of 6 gold and 3 silver. I paid him mostly in copper I got on the road, and some copper from my personal stock from Earth.

He looked at the copper from Earth, “I never saw coins like this; where did you get them?”

“From my homeland in the islands in the south.”

“Do you have more?”

“Yes.”

He produced 63 gold and 41 silver coins and asked, “You think you have enough copper?”

“Yes, give me a minute.” He looked at me strangely. I had no idea why and didn’t ask; I was getting used to this particular look.

I counted out 6,710 coppers—it took a while. He also liked the pouches. The Appraisal showed their worth at 1 silver, and I sold them for that price. He was pleased about the cost, probably because he thought it was genuine leather.

“I have more old weapons at home if you are interested.”

“Very interested.”

“Wait for me a few moments to close, and I’ll take you.”

I waited outside, and after a few minutes, he joined me and took me to his home. It was a lovely two-story house made from wood and stone. It also looked fancier than its neighbors. He led me around the back to a big wooden shed and opened it. Inside was an extensive assortment of old and rusty weapons.

“Why so many weapons, and why are they in such bad condition?”

“After the war, many people sold their weapons, and my father bought them thinking of reselling, but nobody was buying weapons, so he got stuck with them. I try to take care of them so they won’t turn to rust, but it’s a lot of work, and I’m no expert. Once, I paid a metal mage to improve them or do something, but he could only stop their deterioration.”

“I see. How much for everything?”

“You sure? A lot of them are in bad condition.”

“Yes, I like a challenge.” He gave me another funny look but didn’t say anything.

He started sorting through the weapons, picking this and that one and looking at them. I think he also had Appraisal or something similar because his eyes kept getting out of focus. After ten or fifteen minutes, he said, “Fifty gold if you pay in regular coins. Forty-eight if you pay with the fancy copper.”

I counted out another 4,800 “fancy” coppers and stored everything. If my mana is full, I’ll start restoring them on the way when I stop for the night.

I returned to the inn, took a long hot bath, had lunch, and spent the rest of the day, and the next one, in front of the fire with a book. Stretch had the right idea about the essential things in life— lazy smart dog.

After two days, it was still raining, but we left to continue our journey. I didn’t want to get stuck for a week or two because of the rain, and the road looked still usable. My mana wasn’t full yet, only 5100/6900, but I could always regenerate on the way.

Our journey to the capital continued like this for another three weeks. One or two rest stops a day, make camp in the forest in my “fancy” tent, a town after a day or two on the road, heal people, sell some stuff at rest stops and the general store, buy old, junky weapons and other stuff left mainly from the war, and two days to regenerate and get out of the rain. The rain finally stopped after two weeks, and I wanted to kiss the heavens. Maybe I’m the spoiled one; the rest of the people on the road didn’t seem to mind it much.

After three weeks, I saw that we were getting close to the capital. We had only one more town after the one we were at. For the last two days, Stretch ate much more than usual and slept a lot. I identified him.

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Stretch
Adult Bushland Dog
Progress to awakening 98%

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Okay!!

I didn’t know what awakening entails, but I thought the town wasn’t the best place for it. Thank God I finished the healing yesterday. I took out my bicycle, woke Stretch, who wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, and headed out of town.