Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Narumi’s General Goods

Today, I’d arranged to raid the dungeon with Oomiya and Nitta. We planned to roam around the third floor, slaying orcs, and possibly explore the area around the fourth-floor entrance if we had time. According to Basic Appraisal, the monsters on these floors would all be “pathetically weak.” I would not get any experience points from them, but the girls had been good to me, and I wanted to do something for them in return.

That wasn’t my only objective, of course. The problem with being a bit of a social outcast was that I was often the last person to hear class gossip. Oomiya and Nitta were central figures in the class, so I bet that hanging out with them would help clue me in.

I also had to admit that the idea of spending time with two cute girls was a powerful motivator for any healthy teenage boy, especially when they smiled at me and made me feel welcome. Oomiya was drop-dead gorgeous. So was Nitta if I let myself forget who she was.

Naturally, I burst with excitement from the moment I woke up in the morning. I was so excited that I needed to take some time while performing stretches on the front porch to calm myself down.

I had thirty minutes before we’d arranged to meet, so I distracted myself by looking over the goods on sale at Narumi’s General Goods, my family’s livelihood.

Narumi’s General Goods was a small store catering to low- to mid-level adventurers. Most of the shop’s goods came from a distributor, while some were items my father had received from friends or found in the dungeon with his raiding buddies. The quicker the shelves emptied, the better our family ate.

The first items I looked at was a set of secondhand leather armor made from ordinary leather, like a cow or a pig, rather than demon wolf leather. Said armor came with bags and various accessories. My father would buy old, unwanted goods and patch them up to sell them. These items weren’t in demand, but the margins were good enough for him to continue stocking them.

On the topic of armor, I was wearing the light mithril-alloy armor that I’d confiscated from the corrupt proctor because my old demon wolf leather armor hadn’t survived the Volgemurt fight. I couldn’t afford to replace it, so this would do for now. But I would need to pick up better armor soon; mithril alloy wasn’t quite durable enough for a level 19 adventurer. That bastard the proctor definitely wasn’t eating delicious steak at the moment. I hoped he enjoyed prison food.

Next to the secondhand section was a shelf labeled “Narumi’s Top Picks!” upon which were stacked potions in eerie red and green colors. These were watered-down healing potions, less potent than the instant-acting ones I’d bought on the tenth floor. However, they were strong enough to heal scrapes and bruises and relieve slight fatigue, meaning they sold well among the adventurers that raided up to that point. Stocking these potions came with little overhead because they didn’t need certificates of authenticity from the guild. The downside was that their profit margins were tight, so the idea was to sell a lot to make money.

The three healing potions I’d bought from Granny’s Goods to put up for resale had already sold out. These potions were potent enough to heal missing fingers instantly, showing why adventurers and medical professionals were willing to purchase them at high prices. For this reason, counterfeits had flooded the market, and you needed a certificate from the guild to prove that the potions you were selling were authentic. The appraisal fee was a whopping hundred thousand yen per potion. Our stocked potions had each sold for seven hundred thousand yen, though, indicating the high demand. Thanks to that, our family’s hot pot had name-brand beef last night!

I’d usually lobbed most of my healing potions at undead monsters in the game because this would inflict major damage on them. But I wouldn’t chuck hundreds of thousands of yen worth of potions at monsters here. And so, I purchased six high-quality healing potions from the shop while my father was out at the guild to get them appraised for certification. I would keep reselling potions from Granny’s Goods until I’d amassed every name-brand beef in the world! Wait, no... The plan was to use the profits to buy better equipment.

At any rate, our finances were coming along nicely.

Near the register was long-shelf-life ready-to-eat food and camping equipment. We didn’t stock much because we couldn’t compete with the supermarkets, even though our customers occasionally purchased some of these in bargain deals with our other items.

I wanted to sell any items that I brought back from the dungeon at this shop. Once I’d come to grips with the art of selling, I could then open up a stall inside the Adventurers’ Guild, where there was better security.

Everything hinges on you, dad, I thought.

Now that I had finished wandering the shop, I decided to get ready to leave.

***

I arrived at our meeting spot in the square outside the Adventurers’ Guild a little early and was the first one here. As I wondered what I should do to pass the time, I received a phone call from Kano.

“Bro, please, please, please. Can I have another one of your swords? It’s just not the same if I’m not dual wielding!” she cried.

Kano was heading into the dungeon to power level our mother. I’d told her to try using a single sword. From the sounds of things, she’d gotten cold feet right before the raid and wanted to borrow another sword if I had one in hand.

“I’m at the square outside the guild,” I said. “Where are you?”

“Oh, hang on, we’ll be right there!”

I’d brought with me two mithril-alloy curved swords that I got free of charge after Sagara from the student council resolved my mithril ore dispute. I would give one to Kano. Although I would’ve liked katanas instead, I couldn’t grumble because I didn’t have to pay for them. Plus, the teary look on Kumasawa’s face as his hands trembled while handing the swords over to me had been satisfying.

I hung up the phone, leaned against a streetlight, and observed the comings and goings of the square. It was a Saturday, so the square was busier than usual.

Most people there were professional adventurers or hobbyists like my father, and a few wore equipment sporting the emblems of schools.

Several schools near the dungeon offered adventuring classes or clubs. Some had even given rise to famous adventurers and received many applications from all over the country, even if they weren’t quite as popular as Adventurers’ High. The students I saw all appeared to be having a great time, which was a delight.

The students from our school drew attention for all the wrong reasons. Such a group, probably a joint party from the First Swordcraft Club and the First Magic Club, were decked out in expensive mithril-alloy armor with embedded magic crystals and yelled at each other. These clubs had been full of troublemakers in DEC, and it sucked that the club members were so faithful to the game!

I watched the party from a distance with growing distaste as it appeared they were in a heated debate over their raiding strategy. The swordsmen and magic swordsmen were at odds, and their argument had soured the mood in the square. Their raised voices made it easy to hear everything they were saying. Those from the swordcraft club wanted to command the raid and have the final say over the battle formations and the timing of magical attacks launched because they were worried about friendly fire*. The magic users scoffed and told them that a swordsman’s job was to act as a shield while they cast their magic. They thought they should decide when to launch magic strikes because they knew magic better and could ensure the greatest use of their abilities. As such, they also wanted command during every stage of the battle.

*TIPS: Friendly fire refers to casualties inflicted by one’s comrades, whether intentional or accidental.

How about you agree on someone to lead you before joining up, guys? I thought, exasperated. This decision is the sort of thing you should work out from the get-go.

Their argument was almost at the level of a screaming match, and several students unleashed their Aura. A fight was about to break out.

Are they all just idiots itching for a fight? I thought. They’re annoying everyone here!

Just when I thought things were about to go south, a female student wearing a fancy floral-patterned robe swooped in out of nowhere and began giving orders to the assembled students. The party immediately stopped arguing and grew silent. Students from the swordcraft and the magic clubs seemed to respect her and were obedient.

The hood of her robe obscured her face, but I could see her long red hair. She was petite and slender, making her look kind of funny carrying her huge staff.

I remember that the leader of the magic club faction is a red-haired girl, I thought. Maybe that’s her?

She’d shown up in the game a few times, though my only playthrough of the main story was a quick one after release. So, I remembered little about characters that weren’t important to the story or didn’t show up past the game’s opening stages.

Soon, their baggage carriers arrived with three carts stacked high with items and provisions. The carts were each pulled by a machine that had a driver’s seat and a magic gem engine. Their supplies would be enough to keep the party raiding in comfort for ten days at least.

Adventurers’ High allowed students to miss lessons to carry out long dungeon raids, giving students assignments to complete in the dungeon during their absence for extra credit.

Bonuses were also available, and a student’s grades would reflect their assignment’s difficulty and the depth of their raid. Students needed to find skilled partners to form powerful parties to defeat stronger monsters to achieve the best grade. That was why the First Swordcraft Club and First Magic Club had teamed up despite their dislike for each other; strength mattered more than personal opinion. The magicians seemed to be the ones leading this expedition, though.

I continued watching the group, fighting the urge to use Basic Appraisal to see how strong they were until I heard Kano’s voice.

“There he is!” Kano shouted to our mother. “Mom, over here!”

I was pleased that she’d equipped the two items I’d given her: the Sword of Volgemurt, a falchion we’d looted from Volgemurt, and the Blessed Pendant that we’d found in a treasure chest. When I’d used one of the wands to appraise the items at home, I had found that the Sword of Volgemurt was even more powerful than I’d expected. It gave a buff to single-handed attacks, a large buff to stamina, the ability to drain and absorb HP from enemies, and reduced its bearer’s weight. Enemies would use bombs from the eleventh floor onward, so it would be good to have a weapon we could use to steal HP from undead monsters. The sword’s sheath had gaudy decoration, so we’d covered it with cloth so nobody would notice it.

The Blessed Pendant was probably a unique item only found in the DLC area on the seventh floor. The pendant was also powerful since it gave you mana regeneration, increased your maximum mana, and added twenty to your intelligence stat. I wasn’t sure how much it replenished your mana, but it would be immensely useful in prolonged fights. The blue jewel was also rather conspicuous, though nobody was likely to spot it because Kano wore it beneath her clothes.

Both were ridiculously powerful items to find in the early floors, but then, so was the enemy we’d taken them from, so it made sense.

“Here’s the mithril-alloy curved sword,” I said, handing the sword to Kano. “Be careful with how you use it. Its center of mass is different from the Sword of Volgemurt, and it has no stat buffs.”

I hoped she took my advice to heart. If she broke the mithril-alloy sword, she’d have to use an ordinary rental steel sword again. She’d be better off with a weapon stronger than mithril at her level. It would be far too expensive to buy one, and we’d need to gather the materials from the dungeon to make it ourselves.

As I explained this to Kano, Oomiya and Nitta turned up right on time.

“Here we are!” said Oomiya, then spotting Kano and my mother. “Oh... Hello?”

The two girls had dressed up differently for the dungeon raid, and it was lovely seeing how cute they were in a new style. Oomiya wore her long hair in a ponytail instead of her usual pigtails so it wouldn’t get in her way during the raid. Nitta wasn’t wearing her glasses, making me wonder if she’d put contacts in. Both wore demon wolf leather armor, which higher-level adventurers usually employed. Still, it was a sensible cost-saving choice to buy better equipment that you could grow into.

“I take it you’re Narumi’s mother and...sister?” asked Oomiya.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I needed to hand something over, then we started talking.” Kano was still a middle schooler, so I couldn’t tell them she was going on a dungeon raid.

“My, my, aren’t you both very pretty?” my mother said. “My boy’s got game!”

“Hi!” chirped Kano. “I’m the little sister! Thanks for looking after bro!”

Kano and our mother seemed excited. Embarrassed, I told them to leave, yet they stuck around trying to chat with Oomiya and Nitta. In the end, I had to physically push them away.

“S-Sorry about them,” I said. “They can be a bit like that...”

“Didn’t you want to finish your conversation with them?” inquired Oomiya.

I was grateful for her thoughtfulness, but there was no telling what my family might have said if I hadn’t shooed them away.

With my family gone, I rallied my spirits and prepared to enjoy my dungeon raid with these two beautiful girls!