“You done?” Bon asked when he saw I’d opened my eyes, his mouth full of bread and potato. A crumb dropped from the corner of his mouth.
“Uh, no,” I said. “I actually wanted to ask you guys a question. What are the general prices of Enchanted goods around here? I was considering trying to buy some.”
Bon laughed, shaking more food from his face. “You think we know what’s going on out there? We’ve been stationed in this flamin’ outpost for years. Basically a prison cell with the bonus benefit of risking death every day. Don’t know Lyra’s shit about the economy.”
“Yeah,” Jannin nodded. “Don’t know much.”
“Last I heard,” Bon continued, “Enchanted goods were just the usual price. Just expensive enough that the folks that need it can’t get it, and the folks that already have too much get way too much.”
“Mhmm,” I nodded. “So, a basic potion of, say, Lesser Healing would cost…”
“‘A couple years ago? ‘Bout eighty, maybe ninety lyr,” Jannin said.
“No!” Bon suddenly shouted. “Jan, watch your mouth. It’s eyt now, remember?”
“R-right. Though in eyt, I’m not sure how much they’d have cost. Don’t remember the conversion.”
I frowned. “What are you guys talking about?”“When Empress Lyra was…replaced,” Bon said, “the new emperor, Etrin, replaced our currency. Didn’t want her face on our coins. We used to trade in lyr. Now we trade in eyt.”
“Ah,” I said. “So I guess you don’t really know much about how much things cost right now?”
“Not particularly,” Bon shrugged. “Why? Is it urgent?”
“No, no, I was just trying to make a choice for my Level-up, and I kind of need to know if I can get access to some specific Enchanted items before I can really decide.”
“Ah. Yeah, I guess there’s no taking that back, huh?”
I nodded. “It’s fine. I’ll just wait to choose until I get to a real town and ask some people there.”
“Mmh. Shouldn’t be more than a day’s trip or so, depending on your speed.”
“A-actually!” I heard a muffled voice, and looked around, bewildered. Who was that?
“Poppins?” Bon asked, looking at the bathroom door. Was the guy taking a shit trying to weigh in on the conversation?
“I, I may know something!” the muffled voice continued, and I heard the ruffling of clothes.
A few awkward seconds passed where I met Bon’s eyes in silence before looking back at the door. The ruffling stopped, and the door creaked open, out stepping the third guard, whose name was apparently Poppins.
“Uh, hey,” I waved. “...You said you could help?”
“Y-yes,” he nodded enthusiastically enough that his messy blond hair batted against his forehead. I realized I hadn’t actually heard him speak until now, and his hollow, shy voice didn’t really match his portly frame. “I, um, know about Enchanted goods.”
Bon frowned at the man. “Pops, what are you flamin’ talking about?”
“Uh, I just know,” he said, then turned back to me. “You won’t be able to buy them.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, you said you come from Koinkar, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“So you know about the kingdom’s downfall?”
I held back a laugh. Yeah, did I ever. Still, “downfall” was a bit harsh, wasn’t it? “...Right, the kingdom got invaded. But it’s not like it’s burning to the ground as we speak or anything.”
“Oh. You must not have heard.”
“...Heard what?”
“All countries have cut off trade with Koinkar. They do not see it the same way you do. As far as Barinruth is concerned, we don’t trade with Demons. And the other countries agree.”
“Okay, so it’s had a bit of a political fall from grace. What of it?”
“Well, the kingdom will certainly die out soon because of the lack of resources, so it is not just a political fall. It will shrivel and shrivel until it is erased. But that is not what we should be concerned about. Your kingdom is our main import of Enchanted goods. So, when we cut off trade, we cut off our inflow of everything Enchanted.”
“I mean, sure, I know the kingdom makes a decent bit of extra Enchants, but it’s not like you guys don’t have any Enchanters at all, do you?”
“W-we certainly do. But even a small decrease in total percentage would greatly reduce the number of Enchanted items available if demand is not equally reduced. And Koinkar’s export made up much more than a small portion.”
“Well who says demand hasn’t been reduced?” I frowned. “If Enchantments are suddenly more expensive, then people are going to want less of them. So sure, they may cost a bit more, but I should still be able to find them, right?”
“That’s the thing. Demand has not reduced. In fact, it has gone up.”
“Up?”
“Y-your Demon invasion, it is quite scary. What if the same thing happens to us? At the same time the empire cut off trade with Koinkar, we also began increasing spending, buying as many Enchanted items for the military as possible, to prepare for the possibility of war.”
“...Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense. And it’s going to take a while to try and train up brand new Enchanters to meet the demand, huh? So, what, for a few months you guys will just have nothing?”
“Not nothing. But non-military have found it hard to find anything for a reasonable price.”
“Damn,” I frowned. “Thanks for telling me. Wait, how do you even know any of this? I thought Bon just said you guys didn’t have any way to contact anyone.”
“Yeah,” Bon said, looking intently at Poppins, “I did say that, Pops. How did you get in contact with someone from the city?”
Poppins audibly gulped. “Uh, I don’t, um…”
Jannin, who’d been silently listening to this whole exchange, sighed and spoke up. “Someone from the near village snuck up here.”
Bon looked over, wide-eyed. “What?! And you didn’t report it?”
“You’re too much of a hard-ass, man,” Jannin said. “We knew you’d get us in trouble if we told you. Just kept it a secret so we could actually have someone to talk to. She left us a piece of Message Paper, and so we hid it in the notebook.”
“She?!” Bon looked even angrier, though for different reasons this time. “I wouldn’t have gotten you in trouble if you just let me talk to her! How long ago?!”
Jannin shrugged. “Couple months.”
“What is she, your girlfriend or something?” Bon glared at Jannin with jealousy. When he got no reply, he turned to Poppins. “Pops, don’t tell me she’s your—”
“She’s a hooker, you dumbass,” Jannin rolled his eyes. “Damn it Poppins, why did you have to go and spill the—”
He was interrupted by another yell by Bon. “You didn’t tell me there was a prostitute here?!”
“She’ll probably be back. Said we were good business,” Jannin said. Then he laughed. “Though, don’t blame me if you catch something. Said she was going down the whole line of outposts so she can buy a house.”
“I will literally buy her the house if she comes back here,” Bon said, dead-serious. “Do you even realize what you’ve—I haven’t even spoken to a woman in years, man!”
“Sorry,” Jannin laughed, “didn’t realize how important this was to you.”
“How?! How could you not realize—”
“Uh, guys?” I waved awkwardly. “Not to interrupt your little…thing, here, but uh, I kind of want to keep talking with Poppins. Kind of need to hear what he knows. Do you mind quieting down?”
“Uh, right,” Bon said. He cleared his throat and stood back up straight, seemingly in an attempt to look a bit more professional. Unsuccessfully.
“So, anyway,” I said to Poppins, “this local woman is the one who told you everything?”
“Um,” he said quietly, “actually, she told Jannin. I just read it all in the Message Paper when I was talking to her.”
“Yeah,” Jannin called over to him, “I thought we had a system there. I had the front side, you had the back. That was private stuff you were reading.”
“Sorry,” he seemed to shrink into himself.
I sighed, exhausted, despite the fact that I’d been technically getting rest this whole time. I’d forgotten what it was like to try interacting with strangers. “So, Jannin, how did you get this information from her? If she was your only source, couldn’t it just be hearsay or something? Or at the very least, it could just be a disruption to the local economy, not country-wide.”
“Doubt it. We weren’t just chatting for the sake of chatting. I was talking to her to try and get an Enchanted item. Wanted her to smuggle something over for me. But when I got the funds to her so she could buy it, after looking around, she came back and told me about the shortage.”
“Hm,” I nodded. “What were you trying to get? Maybe the thing was already rare, so the shortage hit it harder than the more common goods?”
He snorted. “Nope. She was getting me an Arcane Spell Crystal. Those ingredients are sourced right out of these mountains. Probably the cheapest Enchanted item in this whole area, no reason for it to be as expensive as it was. Unless all the Enchanters were pulled into the capital by the emperor to start working on military stuff.”
Hm. Well, that was unfortunate. But if Arcane Spell Crystals had their ingredients taken from Kingdom’s Edge, then maybe I’d still be able to find some around here. I needed one for Gravity Well, Ethereal Armor, and Sanguine Bond, so ideally I’d be able to get some.
Bon frowned. “You could get anything out of civilization that you wanted, and you decided on a Spell Crystal? I didn’t realize you took your job that seriously, Jan. I’m…I’m proud. Would’ve definitely bet you’d have gone for a Coldbox or something.”
Jannin laughed. “No, no, it’s an Arcane Spell Crystal. For Fruit of the First Tree. The next Upgrade lets me actually restore physical sustenance with it instead of just the buff effect, so I won’t even have to worry about eating our gross rations anymore, man. Ugh, it’ll be so nice.”
“...Oh. Right. Should’ve known.”
“Anyway,” I said, trying to get them back on track, “you wanted an Arcane Spell Crystal, but it was too expensive?”
“No, no, not too expensive. It was just way more expensive than I thought.”
“Oh,” I said. “So you already got it?”
“Yep,” he reached into his pocket and fished out a glowing purple sphere. “Right here. Been waiting to get Fruit to Rank 10, and I’m almost there.”
I barely heard the last part of his sentence, though. Because I was too busy staring into his hand.
An Arcane Spell Crystal. Right there in his fingers. That was what I wanted. And I may not be able to get one in town, if they were as rare as Jannin was making them out to be. But here it was.
I obviously couldn’t just steal it, they were made inert the moment you used them. But I didn’t need to steal it to Rank up my Spells.
I couldn’t do it yet. But once Time Loop refreshed, I could grab it, use it to Upgrade something, and then activate the loop to come right back to before I’d ever done anything, with an Upgraded Spell and them still having a completely functioning Spell Crystal. And I knew it worked, since that was exactly what I’d done with my Poison Spell Crystal when Upgrading Noxious Grasp. I still had the fully-functioning Crystal on my person, in fact.
I could finish making my Talent and Upgrade choices, go along with the little interrogation these guys were still wanting to do, and then once midnight came, I could grab that and power up my Spells. Finally.
“Ainash,” I messaged, “tell mother that we’re going to be staying the night here. I finally have what I’ve been looking for.”