ALL NOVEL Chapter 48: Chores and Comforts
There was a deep, collective sigh of relief. Almost immediately, Marie started dividing up the last bits of work that needed doing, just so we didn’t have a chance to get into the mindset of relaxing before we could afford to. All the monster parts were suddenly dumped on me. A good part fit into my inventory once I took out my provisions, the rest was stuffed into bags which I carried.
While the others were taking care of their business, my job was getting these sold. We didn’t do any special commissions, so I was to first check the bazaar, and otherwise just check in with standard selling fees at the gateway hall, where I’d also be going once I returned to the other side.
Meanwhile, the others would deal with anything else that needed doing. Sorting out our base, getting our equipment cleaned and maintained. I did get enough time to swap out of my armor into more comfortable clothes. The leather needed a bit of patching up, and that was me being generous.
Instead of it, I wore a simple shirt and pants as I walked up to the hall. People still stared at me. The Edians, especially. I suppose the bags of monster bits would kind of give away my status as a Reflector.
Most of the Edians really looked just as human as me, though there was the occasional beastblood mixed in. Mainly catfolk and reptilefolk. Apparently, lizardfolk was degrading, which I kind of understood. Lizard wasn’t really an accurate term, and the translation made it even worse, according to what I knew.
Almost all of them swerved out of my way, only a few more confrontational ones didn’t. Most of those seemed like they wanted to bump into me and start a fight. I had to hold back a sigh as I simply shook my head and sidestepped myself.
Not long later, I’d made it to the bazaar. It was halfway up the hill, dozens of stalls peddling anything you could imagine. I headed over to the part that did alchemy, doing a rudimentary check of any stalls. A couple vendors recognized me, and I flashed them brief smiles, before offering out wares.
Hardly any accepted, but I was able to get rid off maybe a fifth of our parts for better rates than usual. Alexis, an alchemist we occasionally did tasks for, needed a lot of basic bits for experiments, and similar parts, so with how much kamaitachi fur we had… well, she was more happy about the bloodied bits than me, at least.
The rest I dropped of for the standard rate at the gateway hall. It was run by a conjoined bank, a conglomerate spanning across Eden and Neamhan called “Foundational Exchange”. They bought most materials - something the divines required them to do - and exchanged them for Edian currency. Said currency could easily be converted to money usable on Neamhan, for a small fee - which was also moderated by the divines.
Really, if it weren’t for the fact that they needed divine permission to trade at all, I’d wager they would be a lot worse. But they’d tried that. It was the first big uprising of Reflectors, and ever since then, the divines have been intervening to keep things civil.
This time, I knew the person I interfaced with. A young guy with slicked-back black hair, a black suit, wearing black sunglasses with very small lenses. He had a slight goatee, and pale skin that suggested he spent entirely too much time behind a desk and too little out there killing monsters.
“Mister Liok,” I greeted, giving a small bow.
The man bowed back at me. “Miss Bellum,” he said in a monotone voice. “Monster part exchange, I’m guessing?” He was already eyeing the bags in my hand.
“Yes, that.” I put the bags onto the table, and he already reached for them. “Decent haul, I’d say.”
“Seems like it, very varied as well. Monsters from further away?” he asked, having surveyed some of the bits as he hauled them into the back, to be checked by someone else. Meanwhile, he returned to his station.
“Yes,” I answered his question. “We had a further expedition this time. Divine mission for some healing I received.”
“Right,” he said. “If you ever need further assistance, know that temporary party members can be hired for-”
“Mister Liok, I have to politely ask you to spare me the marketing just this once. I have yet to shower since coming back, and I need you to understand my patience is running very thin.”
He wrinkled his nose at me for a moment. “Right,” he said. “Then I shall assist in the back so you may clean yourself off, soon. I assumed the blood was…”
“No, no, not the monsters. A good chunk of that smell is probably me.”
“Right.” With that and a final nod, he was off in the back, emerging a few minutes later. “Here you are,” he said, pushing a small tray over to me.
Various coins shone in there, each covered with small runes. These were the currency on Eden, called novas. They existed in a couple colours, namely copper, silver, gold and platinum. Well, colourwise, they were cut from a very different material.
I wasn’t even sure if it was a metal, but it certainly was very enchantable, since you could squish the right amount of coins together, channel some energy into it, and they’d fuse into a bigger one. Some people fidgeted with them, since the enchantments were very robust.
Essentially, with 10 copper novas, you could make a silver one, by squishing them and adding a little Qi, for me. It was also possible to break them apart to get change. Luckily, it also changed the weight of the coins, they all weighed slightly different amounts, and generally more expensive ones weighed more, but not as much as you’d guess.
I’d wager a silver nova weighed about as much as two copper novas. Maybe one and a half times as much. Enough to differentiate. Some merchants used it to see if they were counterfeits, as if the runes on them weren’t enough.
“Miss Bellum, please stop staring at the coins and pick them up,” Mister Liok reminded me with a faintly raised eyebrow.
“Right, my bad,” I said, quickly snatching up the currency. There were five golden ones, three silvers, and five coppers, all of which landed in my inventory. “Thanks, mister Liok,” I said, giving him a two finger salute. He returned a small bow, then resumed servicing someone else.
I headed back to the guild without any other incident, fidgeting with a stack of coppers that amounted to a single silver. I squashed them together to make the silver, then let it break apart again. It was kinda finicky to get that done with just golden Qi. I was still suppressing the mirror Qi, since I didn’t exactly feel like that needed parading around in the city.
Not too long after, I made it to the guild. Liam sat in the lobby in a black t-shirt and dark pants, and had swapped his cloth mask for another black cloth mask, though this one had a small white smiley drawn on the side.
“How many of those do you actually have, ninjaguy?” I asked, teasingly.
He looked over at me and almost rolled his eyes, though I could see the glint of mirth in them. “Enough.”
“Is that like… a dozen? Two? How meticulous are you?”
There was a long pause, as he seemed to consider. I saw his fingers go up one after another, then down again, then up, though I doubted he was actually counting. Seemed more like he was mocking me. “Probably about sixty,” he finally said with a resolute nod.
I chuckled at him, and lightly smacked his shoulder. “Alright, bud. I’mma head up and get the travelling smell off.”
“Sure thing, Fio. Ann is already up, most others should be back soon.”
“Thanks. Be back down soon.”
A quick shower later and I was very thankful for the fact that Eden wasn’t entirely medieval, using magic to generate hot water and disintegrate the waste that went down the drain. And there was a lot of dirt. I’d washed off a good bit of the crusted blood, but a lot of it was still stuck to me.
The water and soap took care of that, and soon I was back in a new shirt. What I’d worn until then was tossed to the laundry. We didn’t do it ourselves, there were services of water mages who took care of that for relatively cheap. Cheaper than getting stuff for it ourselves, and definitely less effort than doing it by hand.
I let out a long sigh, dropping into a hug by Ann once I was done with all that. We spent a couple minutes like that, before heading back downstairs.
Soon, one by one, the others joined. First Marie, with groceries, then Emilia, who’d dropped off things at our armor maintenance people. My leather would be repaired within a week, and by then, we could go and pick all our gear back up.
Then Matt finally came back, having filed our adventure with legislation, his least favourite chore, and eventually, the twins came back. They had communed with their goddess and reported our adventure, as was their “divine duty”. Granted, it was something required of all clerics who wanted to go out on adventures, but the practice still seemed a bit awkward to me.
We sat together, and enjoyed a long meal. Matt chatted about his new techniques, and I learnt a little from it. Emilia talked about the armorer, and the gossip she’d heard there, about parties who’d lost members and somesuch. Eric informed us about how pleased Lurelia was with our performance, and talked happily about the amount of contribution we got. We also split the coins evenly.
Towards the end of it, conversation ebbed, and we all ate. This was how it usually went when we were preparing to go back to the other side. Thoughts drifted to what was to do over there. Eventually, I opened my mouth again.
“We should meet on Neamhan,” I said.