Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Selling Drop Items 

“Hey, are there pawn shops in this world?” 
“Sure, there are shops. But... what is a pawn shop?” 
I showed Kizuna the white box corpse that I’d stashed away in my bag. She cocked her head and looked confused. “Sure, you can use that thing as a box, but it won’t sell for much. The drop item you get from it is worth more.” 
I was starting to understand. If replicated drop items were as common as they seemed to be, then shops would rather buy real drop items. I’m sure there were also times when raw materials were worth more than their drop items. 
We did our best to absorb all the information we could at the guild. 
“Looks like there’s a lot going on—apparently there was a prison break in the next country over.” 
“There’s someone just like us out there.” 
“Seems so—but at least they aren’t looking for us. Oh, look. There’s a sketch of the wanted people.” 
“That is seriously a rough sketch. I can’t make heads or tails of it.” 
It looked like the sort of sketch that police officers made from listening to a witness’s description. The face might as well have been a yokai or something out of a kabuki play. 
“I’ve heard things about their prisons. They are supposed to be very rough. They have a way of negating your level gains and everything. I wonder how these people escaped?” 
 
“You don’t think it could be Glass or Raphtalia, do you?” 
If it was, then we were about to walk into some serious trouble. 
“Oh, I don’t think so. What are the chances? I’m sure they’re just fine.” 
“Right. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to find them. It wouldn’t be like how you showed up just in time to save us from those kappa.” 
“Hehe.” 
“Haha.” 
Kizuna and I laughed dryly. 
“Feh...” 
Uh-oh. We were laughing but Rishia started whimpering as usual. 
“Anyway, Glass is pretty famous in this world, isn’t she? If she broke out of prison, I’m sure we’d hear about it.” 
“Yes, well. . . It’s hard to know how much you can trust this type of information. They lie about the enemy state all the time. Saying things like people are on steroids when in reality their soldiers were literally giants...” 
“Sounds like we shouldn’t pay much attention to it then.” 
If it were true, that meant we’d have to find a way into the neighboring country. 
We didn’t have time to go chasing after every unsubstantiated possibility. 
“There are rumors that the neighboring country is developing new weapons. I hear things about savage monster experiments. It’s creepy.” 
“You don’t think people are just having fun spreading rumors, do you?” 
 
“Could be. Not everyone has entertaining lives like you and I do, Naofumi.” 
“The world might be like a game, but people can get used to anything, can’t they?” 
“Sure. But I hear they are researching teleport technologies, trying to duplicate the teleport abilities of the legendary and vassal weapons. They’ve already made a Return Transcript replica, but that’s not all...” 
“They’re trying to make it so that everyone can use teleportation skills? That’s unthinkable where I come from.” 
I had never heard of anyone trying to do anything like that in the world I’d been summoned to. Maybe I just didn’t know about it. 
We chatted for a while, and soon enough the sun began to sink low in the sky. 
“Naofumi, what do I need to do to learn to read the writing here?” Rishia muttered, flipping through a book she’d taken off of the shelf. 
That’s right. Rishia not only couldn’t talk to people of this world but also couldn’t read anything that they wrote. 
“I can’t read it, either. I can only handle conversation because my shield translates for me.” 
Kizuna agreed. “Same for me. The only reason I understand what Rishia says is because my weapons translate it.” 
“Oh... I didn’t realize... I thought that you understood our language.” 
“Kizuna, can you read and write the language here?” 
“Just the simple stuff. Glass was very insistent on it.” 
 
“Wow... I’m impressed.” I reached for the book that Rishia was flipping through. It was very old, but I thought I had seen some of the characters before. Sometimes, it even looked like there were kanji mixed in. Maybe I could read it if I had enough time to practice. 
The language in Melromarc was very different from what I was used to, like English and Japanese, so translating between them was difficult. 
I didn’t have the energy to invest in study, though. My shoulders started to ache. 
“It’s getting late. What should we do?” 
“There are some inns where we could rest. We should be okay since our escape hasn’t been reported. No one has recognized me yet. I don’t think anyone would, except for maybe some high-ranking officials.” 
“And you don’t think they will report our escape soon?” 
“I did hear some rumors about something popping out of the labyrinth, but everyone is saying that whatever it was disappeared immediately. We should stay cautious, but I think we’re okay for now.” 
I wasn’t sure I felt safe, but I’d still rather stay in an inn than out in the fields. 
“Do you have money?” 
“I sold some drop items I didn’t need, so I’ve got enough to cover the three of us.” 
“Should I sell some stuff, too?” 
“Like the box?” 
“No, like drop items from the world I came from.” I figured that they should be worth a lot, considering how rare they were in this world. 
 
But then again, it might attract unwanted attention if I started showing off tools and items that no one had ever seen. They might not even be able to read the item names—like what had happened with my armor. 
“That’s not a bad idea. Normal things from your world might fetch a good price here.” 
“It would depend on the dealer. We don’t want to attract too much attention.” 
Dealers decided what things were worth by considering their effects or their rarity. That worked fine if they knew what they were dealing with, but how would they react when they saw something brand new? 
The best test would be to see if Kizuna recognized the items first. 
“Well, I think we’re all tired today. Let’s save the money talk for tomorrow.” 
“There’s a larger town a little further down the road. Maybe we should head there first.” 
“I’m tiiiired...” Rishia sighed. 
I knew how she felt. Adventuring in unknown lands really sapped your energy. Our levels were low, too, so we had to stay on guard all the time. 
If we were going to make money and get better equipment, we should probably wait until after I’d powered up my shield and gained a few levels. I’d need a fair amount of money to make it work, anyway. 

At least we’d gained a few levels since we woke up in the cell. Rishia and I were going to have to level up together. But I was still worried about her poor stats... 
 
According to Kizuna, we were in enemy territory, which meant we would have a hard time recruiting additional party members. Still, I’d seen plenty of people that looked like adventurers out in the streets, so it wasn’t necessarily impossible. 
Kizuna led us to a nearby inn, and when we got to our room I started to think about what drop items I had that might sell for a good price. It was a difficult task, especially because I didn’t know anything about the local culture, and I didn’t want to cause trouble. 
There was so much I didn’t know, but Kizuna seemed to know what was going on, so I’d have to defer to her judgment. 
“I’ll show you a bunch of items that I have, and you pick the ones you think we can get a good price for.” 
“Okay.” 
I pulled out a few items that I’d stored in my shield, and Kizuna started to look them over. I didn’t know how she was evaluating their worth, but it looked like a lot of the item names were still legible in this world. I was grateful for that. 
“You’ve got so much stuff...” 
“I guess so.” 
“What’s in this bottle?” 
“Magic water. It replenishes your magic power when you drink it. Don’t you have that kind of thing here?” 

“Not that I’ve seen. Normally people use earth crystals to replenish their magic power,” Kizuna explained. She pulled a red crystal out of her weapon and showed it to me. “Holding this crystal replenishes lost magic power.” 

“Really? What a weird crystal.” 
“You think? The idea of drinking something to recover magic power would sound pretty weird to anyone from this world.” 
I decided to try it. I reached out and took the crystal from her. When I touched it, it snapped, cracked open, and disappeared in a puff of steam. 
Dragon vein unlocked! Received 3000 EXP! 
The words flashed in my field of vision as if I’d just won a battle. 
That was a lot of experience points! Certainly nothing to scoff at! 
“I just got a bunch of EXP from this thing...” 
“What?” Kizuna gasped. Then she took the bottle of magic water from me and drank it. “Wow... This replenished my magic power, and then it gave me all the experience points I needed to power up my weapon.” 
“You power up your weapon with experience points?” 
“Yeah. Aside from their levels, my weapons all accrue experience points as I use them. Then they get stronger through a leveling system. My wooden fishing rod is basically like a mid-level weapon.” 
“I see.” 
So Kizuna had her own way of powering up weapons. I wonder if we could utilize each other’s systems, like I’d been able to do with the other heroes. I was thinking it over when my shield beeped to alert me that the healing medicine it had been compounding was complete. I took the medicine out of my shield and set it among the other items we were considering for sale. 
 
“What’s this?” 
“It’s a restorative item. Healing medicine. You rub it on your wounds to make them heal.” 
“I wonder if it’s like our curing medicine?” Kizuna said, pulling out a similar-looking item. 
“We drink this to heal our wounds. But that’s right—I saw you rubbing medicine on your cuts after the fight with the kappa.” 
“There sure are a lot of differences. This really is a whole different world.” 
“The scary part is what happens when the items have different effects.” 
She had another good point. We had both experienced different effects when we used items from each other’s worlds. The idea of getting weapon experience from drinking magic water sounded crazy to me. I’m sure she felt the same way about the crystal and I. 
That reminded me of something important. I pulled out a bottle of soul-healing water and passed it to Kizuna. 
“What’s this?” 
“It’s called soul-healing water. It restores your SP.” 
“SP... You mean soul power? I’ve never heard of an item like that. From what I’ve heard, you can only recover lost soul power through weapon effects, or absorbing it, or by recovering over time.” 
Well... It looked like this world didn’t have any way to rapidly restore lost SP in an emergency. I’d have to pay close attention to that. If I used a skill like Iron Maiden, which took all my SP, then I’d have no way to use other skills until I recovered my SP. 
 
“When I fought with Glass and her friends, L’Arc dumped a bottle of this over Glass, and she became really powerful.” 
Kizuna looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. 
And I could understand why. The implications were tremendous. 
Glass’s people, the spirits, depended on energy for everything, even their levels. If they had a lot of energy, then everything about them, their strengths and abilities, would grow very powerful. 
But according to Kizuna, it was difficult to recover energy once you used it, and most of the time people were forced to wait for it to recover on its own. What would it mean if these the spirits suddenly discovered an item that would allow them to regain any lost energy instantaneously? 
“You mean this stuff can recover a spirit’s energy?!” 
“That’s what it looks like.” 
“Then this item is priceless! Any spirit out there would do whatever it takes to get their hands on it.” 
“So you think we should sell it?” 
“No one will know what it is, so there’s no telling what will happen. Are you okay with that?” 
“Sure. Who do you think I am? I guess we decided what we’re selling tomorrow.” 
I had gotten quite a bit of business experience under my belt when I was a traveling merchant back in Melromarc, so I had a few ideas when it came to making money. 
 
“Then there’s the magic water, power-up stuff. And I’d like to get my hands on a lot of those earth crystals.” 
“You think our power-up methods can be used at the same time? Should we try and share what we know?” 
“Yeah.” 
The more I knew about how to power up my weapons, the stronger I would be. Anything that could help with that was worth a shot. 
“Well I already told you about the weapon experience points, right? What else? There are slips of paper you can stick to your weapons to add different functions... I know of a bunch of different ways. I’ll start with...” 
I tried a few of the power-up methods that Kizuna told me about, but my shield didn’t show any sign of reacting. Kizuna was having the same luck with her weapons. But she also said that Glass had told her about a power-up method and that she’d been able to make it work. 
“Glass says that you can take the magic power from defeated enemies, or any power that has leaked out of enemies and is hanging in the air, and absorb it. Then you can use it to power up your weapons. I was able to do that. So I want you to know that I do believe what you’re telling me.” 
“Yeah, I feel the same way.” 
It’s not that I didn’t believe her. 
I couldn’t have used the methods I’d learned from the other three heroes if I hadn’t believed in them first. So I don’t think it was a problem with my belief in the ideas. 
 
“I know that it won’t work if you don’t believe in it. So I’m trying. If it doesn’t work, maybe it has something to do with coming from a different world.” 
“That could be it. The systems might just be so different that they aren’t compatible.” 
“Too bad. If it had worked, we could have gotten really strong.” 
“Yeah.” 
Kizuna and I nodded in agreement. 
The truth was that the power-up methods I’d learned were the reason I’d survived as many battles as I had. It was too soon to jump to final conclusions, but there was no point in sitting around fretting over it. 
The next steps were obvious. The easiest way to get experience was to get my hands on earth crystals—and I would need money for that.