Chapter Five: Sales Demonstration
The next morning we crossed a bridge and followed the road to a large and vibrant shopping area. We set up shop in a corner and started calling out to customers. We even set out a straw mat to make ourselves look more like an official business.
Just to be safe, we bought some masks from a nearby store and wore them to hide our faces. There was always the chance that someone might recognize Kizuna, and we didn’t want that.
I clapped my hands and shouted as loudly as I could, “Come on over! You’ll never believe what we’re offering today! Any adventuring spirit would be crazy to pass this up! We’ve brought this unbelievable medicine from a distant land far across the ocean! Soul-healing water!”
Pedestrians started to take notice, and soon we had a small crowd of skeptical but interested people gathered around. Rishia and Kizuna hung back a bit behind me and chimed in whenever I stopped yelling to keep the momentum up. I had to tell Rishia to stop talking so much, because no one could understand what she said and it just made the customers more suspicious.
“What does it do?”
Kizuna kept the rhythm up and didn’t miss a beat. “Wouldn’t you like to know? There’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think you’ll be able to experience its full effect. But you! Over there! Yes, you!” She yelled, pointing at a group of three spirit people that had worked their way into the crowd.
I followed her lead and called out to them, “You are the only ones who will understand how invaluable this medicine truly is! Won’t you take a look? Won’t you try it?”
“Oh, um...”
The three spirit people came closer.
“Don’t worry. It’s not poison, and you don’t have to drink it! Applying just a small amount to your skin will make its effect clear! Please, try it!”
I poured a small amount into another dish and Kizuna passed me a brush, which I used to paint the soul-healing water on the spirits’ chests. At first they all looked skeptical, but soon their eyes lit up and they started to smile.
“It can’t be!”
“Is this for real?! I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“This is the invention of the century!”
The other spectators looked at each other in confusion, not understanding what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, the three spirit people were so excited about their experience that they were shouting at the top of their lungs.
“This stuff restores your energy! I can’t believe it!”
The crowd grew louder.
“That’s right! This medicine is made just for spirits! It restores energy— it’s amazing!”
“Feh... You sound different than normal, Naofumi.”
“You mean he acts different when he’s trying to sell stuff?” Kizuna whispered.
I wished they would shut up. I had to act that way if I wanted to attract customers.
If we had tried to sell the soul-healing water at a pawn shop or an apothecary, the staff would have been suspicious of us, and we would have attracted unwanted attention. Besides, they might have asked us how to make it.
And even if they had bought it, they would have just sold it to someone else, which would be inefficient. It was better to cut out the middleman and sell it ourselves.
“Today we have five bottles of this exceptional soul-healing water for sale. Have you all had the chance to sample it?”
“That’s right. Today we’re selling one bottle for one tamagin!”
The first spirit person flipped open his wallet and pulled out a small little bar of silver. Did they say tamagin? Did this world really use Edo-period currency? Did they use kohan, too?
“Then give us more!”
The three spirit people looked serious all of a sudden, glared competitively at each other, and started to fight over our stock of soul-healing water.
“Please don’t fight.”
“We’re limiting our sales to one bottle per customer! Please calm down!”
Of course they would want it—as far as they were concerned it was an amazing medicine that could get them out of any situation, no matter how rough.
Each of the three spirits purchased a bottle and left.
“We still have two bottles left. What do you say?” I asked the crowd.
The other customers still seemed to harbor some doubts. They must have thought it was a trick.
“I realize this is all quite sudden, so how about we use the remaining two bottles and allow all of the spirit people present to sample our medicine’s incredible effects for themselves? Please line up!”
Once again, I poured the contents of the bottles into a dish and used a brush to paint the medicine onto the spirits who had lined up for a sample. I kept going through the gathered crowd until I had used up all of the remaining soul-healing water.
The line in front of our little stand had grown very long by this point, and the spirits that had sampled the medicine had all grown very excited.
Quite a few of them stopped me to ask how I made it.
I made it with my shield—jeez. It was possible to make it from scratch, but it was a real pain. But of course, I couldn’t tell them that, so I just told them it was a professional secret of mine.
I was starting to get concerned about how much attention we were attracting, but then again, if I didn’t sell the stuff then I wouldn’t be able to get the materials I needed to power up my shield.
And I still had to buy an expensive travel voucher.
When I ran out of sample soul-healing water, I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention and announced, “Now that you’ve had a chance to sample our wares, what do you think? Surely you see that this is not a joke or a trick? Surely you have seen that we are selling genuine articles?”
Most of the spirits in the line nodded in response, and it was clear that the mood of suspicion had lifted. We’d earned their trust.
The timing was just right, so I continued, “However, this medicine is very difficult to produce, and therefore our stock is somewhat... limited. I do not think we have enough for all of you gathered here today. Therefore, I suggest that we meet here tomorrow, at this very same time and place, to auction off our remaining stock.”
The crowd clapped. It was just the reaction I’d been hoping for. I suspected that some of the people that would come would be middlemen themselves, hoping to make a killing.
“Excellent! The auction will be for five bottles of soul-healing water, the same amount we brought with us today. I hope to see you all in attendance,” I said, ending our business for the day. We left as soon as we could.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? Everyone will be watching us, and we might not even make very much money off it!”
“What’s this about tamagin? I almost burst out laughing.”
“Naofumi, do you know something about this place?” Rishia asked.
She was the only one in our group that didn’t know anything about Japan.
“That’s what they use for currency here, so you’ll just have to get used to it. By the way, they use doumon, tamagin, and kinhan: 100 doumon is a tamagin, and 100 tamagin is a kinhan.”
The currency worked the same way in the world I’d just come from. But these names were just too much. It took all the discipline I had to keep from laughing. It’s like they were straight out of Edo-period Japan, only not quite.
“You’re talking about the auction? No, it’s perfect. The word will spread and all the nobility in town will come out to the auction.”
“You planned that out?”
“People love gossip. The size of the line is proof enough that we aren’t lying. Just wait. You’ll see.”
Heh heh... I hadn’t done much business lately, so I’d forgotten how much fun it could be. I really didn’t mind making money through the mercantile life. In fact, I liked it a lot.
“Makes me think you must have some good con men as friends back where you come from.”
“Feh...”
“Rishia, it’s about time you stopped freaking out about every little thing we run into here. We need money to survive, get it? Kizuna didn’t have that problem because she started out with money.”
“Well that’s true, but... but... I like business, too, you know. Just not as much as you do, Naofumi.”
It was looking like we were going to spend all of our time until the next day chatting, so I decided to focus on fighting to level up while we had the time.
Rishia would need to level up first, so I stayed behind and she went with Kizuna to hunt some monsters in the fields around the town. When they came back, Kizuna looked concerned.
“It seems like there are a lot more monsters out there than usual. What could it be?”
“Is there an activation event going on?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a limited-time phenomenon that occurs in the world we came from. The monsters give more experience when you kill them during it. Know what I mean?”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of something like that. I wonder if that’s what’s happening. The monsters seemed stronger than usual, too.”
After that, I went out with Rishia to hunt the cardboard boxes. They were a little stronger than the one we’d fought in the labyrinth, and we got more experience for killing them, too. Hm... Well, there was no doubt that they were stronger than the balloons back in Melromarc. I had no idea why the monsters would be stronger in this world than they were in the world I’d been summoned to. But if everything was stronger here on average, that might explain why Glass and her friends were so powerful... right?
The next morning, we went back to the main street and set up our shop. And of course we were careful to wear our masks.
By the time we were finished setting up, there was already a crowd of people waiting for the auction to start, and a lot of them weren’t spirits. That’s what I was hoping for. Anyone would want it. I was selling a medicine that replenished energy in a world where there were hardly any ways to do so.
There were researchers and middlemen merchants, adventurers that wanted it for use in battle... all sorts of people. Also, at the back of the crowd, there were some excited people that looked like they might have been government officials. They were probably in the service of the local nobility.
Kizuna swore that we didn’t need any official permits to do business there. If we needed something like that, I would have sold my wares in secret, behind the market.
Of course there was still the possibility that the noblemen might use their authority to stop the auction, but they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t want an angry crowd on their hands, would they? If anything, it looked like they were planning on joining the auction themselves.
“What a fantastic turnout! Thank you all for coming, despite your busy schedules!”
I handed the bottles of soul-healing water to Kizuna and Rishia for them to line up on the table.
“Now then, the efficacy of this medicine has already been proven, so rather than review the facts that are already known by all, I would rather just start the auction!”
The crowd erupted in cheers. It was so easy—like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey.
I felt like I’d found a tree that grew money. People were easy to control when they really wanted something.
I’d learned that in an online game. In MMOs, you can go hunting and find rare items. Some games would allow you to automatically sell the items, but others would let you hold an auction to sell the items to people that weren’t able to go on the hunts themselves. I’d made it a hobby of mine. I did it all the time.
So I felt really comfortable in the auction environment. It was easy to sell things to people when they were ravenous with desire. I could tell I was going to make a lot of money.
“Now then, let’s start the bidding with the price I’ve already received for one of these bottles—one tamagin!”
“One tamagin, 50 doumon!”
“Two tamagin!”
“Three tamagin, 30 doumon!”
It didn’t take long for the competition to heat up. Things were progressing just how I wanted them to. I just had to manipulate them to keep bidding.
Normally, it would be hard to get people to bid so aggressively over a single-use item, so I had to make sure I didn’t push it too far. I had to watch out for the officials in the back, too.
Honestly, I just wanted to get a bunch of money and hightail it out of there.
“30 tamagin!”
The competition was growing fierce. The crowd had gotten louder.
Back in Melromarc, that would be the equivalent of spending 30 silver pieces on one bottle of medicine. “I hear 30 tamagin! 30 tamagin!” I clapped my hands.
The bids grew less dramatic after that. People mostly just raised their bids by a few doumon here and there.
Finally the auction ended, and the bottle sold for 30 tamagin and 83 doumon.
“Will that be all?”
The crowd fell silent.
“Very well then. Sold for 30 tamagin and 83 doumon!”
I took the money from the winner and gave him a bottle of soul-healing water. The man looked like a normal merchant. None of the noblemen participated.
I flipped through my wallet to take stock of the sales. Did I have enough to purchase a travel voucher yet? I looked over at Kizuna for advice. She shook her head.
So I didn’t have enough. I might have even needed a lot more.
Well that wasn’t going to work, was it?
Fine then! I’ll just have to get crafty!
We shouldn’t stay in the town for too long. With all the people around, things were bound to get chaotic.
I signaled Kizuna with my eyebrow, and she immediately understood.
Rishia stood beside her, holding the bottles of soul-healing water, and Kizuna stuck her foot out and tripped her.
“Ah!”
She dropped a bottle of soul-healing water and it shattered. But unbeknownst to the public, I’d secretly switched out the contents for plain water.
“Oh no! What a waste!”
“Feh... I’m so sorry!”
“You’re destroying our products!”
Before we left the inn that morning, we’d already agreed on the plan.
Rishia had been affected by Itsuki’s warped sense of justice, so of course she was a little worried about the ethics involved, but it was how I wanted to do things, and she eventually agreed—not that she had a choice. I pretended to shout at Rishia, who continued to apologize, before I turned my attention back to the crowd.
“Apologies! Due to my clumsy employee here, we only have one bottle remaining! She’s an illiterate fool! Hear me? I’ll make sure you pay for all that!”
“Fehhh!”
The crowd started booing Rishia, and pretty soon they started throwing things at her. That was probably enough of that. If I let it go on for much longer, poor Rishia would probably lose her mind.
“I’m terribly sorry, but we are down to the last bottle. Everyone, please
find it in your hearts to forgive her.”
I took a deep breath, paused, and then announced as loudly as I could, “Now then, let us begin the auction for the final bottle of soul-healing water!”
“Three tamagin, 20 doumon!”
“Eight tamagin!”
“15 tamagin!”
“30 tamagin!”
Got ‘em. Everyone had been holding back because they knew there would be later opportunities. But once they were faced with an unexpected setback, they lost sight of their limitations and really threw themselves into the bidding war. They couldn’t help themselves. From where they were standing, they thought they only had this once chance to get their hands on a rare, unbelievable medicine.
They thought they’d never have another chance.
As long as you can get your customers thinking of things in those terms, you can get the prices to rise.
And rise they did.
“Three kinhan!”
“Three kinhan, 50 tamagin!”
Some of the town’s noblemen had worked their way into the crowd and had started a bidding war with the merchants—it was the perfect situation to make the prices soar.
The rest of the crowd had fallen silent. They waited breathlessly to see how high the auction would go.
“Four kinhan!”
“Ugh...”
“Will that be all?” I asked, watching to see if anyone would continue the battle. “Sold! For four kinhan! Everyone, thank you! A round of applause for the winner, please.” I clapped my hands to signal the end of the auction.
The winning nobleman came walking over and handed me the money.
So the first had sold for 30 tamagin, and the last had sold for four kinhan. Not bad at all.
The man was clearly wealthy, so I’m sure four kinhan wasn’t too much for him to shell out. Still, the look in his eyes was curious. He could have been after the production method. He could even be an assassin.
I didn’t care. I’d made a lot of money off of a single bottle, so I was pleased.
Back in the world I came from, the stuff helped people concentrate, and even then it was still pretty expensive. Of course it had a different effect on heroes.
Now I just had to keep an eye out and make sure no one tried to attack us.
“Thank you all very much for coming!”
The crowd cheered, and we hurried away.
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