The hunter was quite concerned nobody would buy his pelts. He already had sold the meat to a butcher, but these were nice hides and he was hoping to get a good price for them. The issue was this was a new town, barely just an outpost hastily erected to support logging in the area. Since it was closer and safer than lugging his haul back towards Hein it was worth taking a chance on. Luckily there had been a butcher's shop already set up, but he didn't know if there was a tanner.

  "Excuse me is-"

  "Have you seen-"

  "You don't happen to know of-"

  A squat old man picked wax out of his ear, then motioned. "On the far side!"

  "The far side?" the hunter asked.

  "Eh, there's a little shop right behind the blacksmith's. No one's had the stones to go in it, you'll be the first. Hehehe."

  "Umm... does it buy animal skins?" the hunter asked.

  "Hell if I know! I don't even think it's open half the time!"

  "But-"

  "There's no tanner and we import all our supplies, you're going to have to roll the dice kid."

  The hunter peered around the side of the blacksmith's shop. It was close to the main gate of the outpost, the muddy dirt path went straight in front of it, there were no other visible paths.

  "Behind... it?"

  The hunter cautiously made his way around the side of the building, this had to be some type of prank. The old man had seemed the type. However the wall went on for a long time, longer than expected, and when he came around to the other side there indeed was a store there. It gave him pause. It had the same rough hewn construction as most everything else, but the hunter eyed the large dark glass that spanned almost half of the front of the building.

  There was a sign hung above the door written in curling Merlen. Dark Tidings.

  The hunter looked at it and gulped. He proceeded to the door, all of the glass was dark, he couldn't see through it. He briefly considered running away, but that would be awfully silly, this was still inside of a patrolled settlement. There would be no danger here... he thought.

  Hesitantly he pushed the door open. It responded to his lightest touch and swung open with a creak until it hit the greeting bell above, and a clear, delightful sound rang out. He crossed the threshold.

  The store itself was empty, all except for one robed figure. All of the counters were bare and desolate, the towering shelves behind the robed figure had nothing on them. The hunter slowly approached.

  "Can I help you?" the figure asked.

  It was a girl, wearing dark black, almost blue robes. They had no pattern to speak of, but as far as the hunter knew, only institute mages or adventurers wore robes like these, and she didn't give off the impression of being either.

  Adventuring equipment, especially that of mages, could cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of mer, and her robes didn't look cheap. On her head was a very characteristic wide brimmed pointed wizards hat that looked the same as her robes. Peeking out from under the brim were curled red locks and rather pointed, astute green eyes.

  "Hi- hi! Do you buy pelts?" The hunter stammered.

  "I suppose I do."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Umm--- that'd be nice, you might be the only place in town that does."

  The mage's lip curled in amusement. "Desperate are we?"

  "Well... I could always take them back to where I usually sell them."

  She cocked her head. "Far from home?"

  "Not too far, maybe half a day's walk. I came down here for the foxes." He said unslinging three pelts hanging from his belt. "...If you'd like to take a look at them."

  "I suppose so."

  The hunter placed the three pelts on the counter, and the girl picked them up one by one and inspected them idly.

  "15 mer." She said putting one down.

  "20 mer." She said placing the next one down.

  "17 mer."

  She placed down a copper bar and two mer.

  The hunter looked at the currency on the counter top, and then swiped his hand over and picked it up. "Pleasure doing business with you." deciding not to push his luck, and having gotten what he came for, he left.

  Sheileen waited till he was out the door and then let out a bemoaning sigh. "Ahh! So scary!" her head hit the counter top with a thunk. "Why did somebody have to walk in?"

  "Oh well, it's not terrible. Maybe I'll actually be able to make it as a store manager."

  She picked her head back up and glared at the new pelts on her counter. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

  Nevermind that, it was good to work with currency. In the game it had just simply been gold coins. But here it was replaced by mer. It seemed like one game gold coin was roughly the equivalent of one mer. What was interesting was the denominations. A copper or bronze mer coin was simply one mer, however a hundred of those coins was the equivalent of a silver mer. And a hundred silver mer was equal to one gold mer coin. After that were platinum mer, mythril mer, and a few others.

  There were also bars, little rectangular sticks of metal about the same length as a coin. They were worth fifty of their respective coins. So a gold bar was worth fifty gold mer, a silver bar was worth fifty silver mer, and a bronze or copper bar was worth fifty mer. There were also rounds, little spheres about the size of a fingernail that had one flat surface. They were worth twenty five of their respective coins.

  If she was going to be dealing with coins a lot, at least it was kind of fun.

  Sheileen took the pelts into the back, there was a simple wooden door behind the counter that led into a hearth and living room. To the sides were a few branching hallways and crafting stations. But the central area was dominated by a flickering fireplace, an ovular plush red rug and some expensive dark leather couches set up in a semicircle around the rug. There was a cozy warmth to the room.

  Sheileen eyed it warily, she still hadn't decided what she was going to do with this shop that was the result of the demon king's legacy. It would be a shame to destroy it, but was she really going to go along with what that man wanted?

  She ignored the fireplace for now and took out a crude tanning rack from her inventory. Then she set it up out of the way in a corner. Then began the process of preparing one of the newly bought pelts and applying different tanning agents to it.

  Thankfully she had everything she needed. Her inventory, like usual, was a mess, and it didn't seem one to one from the game. She might have actually gained more clutter. But it didn't matter, she still retained most of what she remembered from the game such as high level crafting components, and an absurd amount of coins and various staffs and bits of armor. That clutter included everything she needed to tan hides.

  Her friends that she played with had been in the same guild as her, and since she was the girl that was terminally online, they usually dumped most of their unused gear and resources onto her. She had been the treasurer, the crafter and the general thankless backbone of the guild. Of course it had been a small guild, made mostly out of convenience. It was similar to the store in some ways...

  But anyway, she ended up with lots of gear and supplies she never knew what to do with. Of course there was also an extreme amount of resources in her bank vault, and then hoards of stuff in the guild's vault room as well, but most of it was just left to sit there, she had way too many resources just in her inventory to be worrying about that, though she did wonder if all that stuff was still out there somewhere.

  Tanning a plain red fox pelt ended up being simple, and with all her bonuses to leatherworking the process was completed in minutes, instead of the days it would normally take. She was level 762 in leatherworking after all. Not insanely high level, but respectable. She got the sense that while that was pretty good for the game, now that she was in a living breathing world it might be more substantial. That was just a hunch though.

  She sighed. The fact that her first customer had brought in just normal red fox pelts concerned her. He hadn't looked to be high level, and she had given a good price for the pelts, the exact value she had [appraised] it to be worth. But they weren't monster pelts, how was she going to make money or increase her levels with low level materials?

  She sighed again, and started the next pelt for tanning. What was her life going to be like from now on, she wondered. She wasn't sure how much stock to even put in her new circumstances. She'd just have to wait and see.