Chapter 125
The Cartel Market as a whole looked like a hotel lobby. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling scattered light around, and the floors and walls were lavishly draped in red carpets and cloth embroidered with gold thread. Neatly dressed staff in suits walked about on it.
They weren't gatekeepers with tentacles sprouting from their heads. Just ordinary humans wearing business smiles. As they tended to the guests walking through the lobby, they slowly approached Ian and Seo-ah.
“Welcome. Ms. Seo-ah Lee. Mr. Ian Shin. We've prepared chocolate biscuits as a simple welcome snack. Is that all right?”
“That's fine. The market layout is still the same, right?”
“Yes. Though we've built an arena in the room at the far end of B3, so feel free to stop by if you get bored.”
“An arena?”
Ian reacted. The employee, who had been wearing a friendly smile, handed him the box of biscuits and nodded.
“It's a place where Mysteries captured through requests are made to fight each other. We had some trouble during construction because the Colosseum ghost story might latch onto it, but we got through it.”
“……A strange place. Does it make money?”
“Of course it makes money. It's a system where people bet money and predict the outcome, so quite a lot of customers come by.”
“Ah, gambling.”
“It's a sacred system. If you're interested, please drop by sometime.”
The employee slowly withdrew after saying that. Ian looked down at the biscuits in his hand, cautiously picked one up, and bit into it. The sweet-and-bitter chocolate flavor lingered on his tongue before fading away.
“Is there somewhere you want to go first? Or should we split up from here?”
Seo-ah asked, holding a biscuit in her hand. Ian thought for a moment, then answered.
“Let's split up. What you're looking for and what I'm looking for are different.”
Seo-ah's main magic was necromancy. More specifically, ritual magic that used human bone ash as a medium. Aside from the fact that both of them summoned things, there was basically no overlap with Ian's category at all. It was only natural that the items they wanted would be different.
The summoning itself was wildly different in terms of cost-effectiveness, too. To summon a powerful evil spirit, you needed huge amounts of bone ash and blood, a jar filled with yin energy, and the corpse of someone who died in an accident.
By contrast, all Ian needed to summon a powerful predator was a few chunks of flesh and some blood.
What they did have in common was that if you made a mistake, you could still be torn apart by the thing you summoned. The difference was whether it was prepaid or pay-on-delivery.
Anyway.
The items Seo-ah wanted to buy and the goods Ian was after didn't overlap at all. So rather than waste time, it was far more efficient to split up and look for what each of them wanted.
“Let's meet back here in an hour. If you need more time, call me.”
Ian said, waving his phone. Seo-ah nodded and took a bite of her biscuit.
“Okay. If you finish first, call me too.”
“Sure.”
Ian gave her a faint smile, then started walking while looking at the map on the wall.
The Cartel Market was divided into the first basement level, where the lobby and various shops were located; the second basement level, where all kinds of weapons were sold; and the third basement level, where the arena was. Ian decided to look around the first level first.
'Since the Touch of Re-Creation is practically sealed for now, I should buy some flesh while I have the chance.'
Thanks to the Re-Creation magic recorded in the grimoire, he'd never had to worry about running out of materials, but now the number of times he could use the spell was inevitably limited. Even if his stock wasn't critically low, the spell used so much flesh that it seemed better to buy some with money.
Thinking about the price did make him frown a little, but what could he do? If he thought of it as the price of saving the world, it was something to be grateful for.
With that in mind, Ian walked into an appropriate shop. It was a wooden shop, and inside, processed byproducts of Mysteries were neatly displayed. Some gave off a foul stench, while a few others gave off a sweet fragrance.
“Well, well, we've got ourselves a customer.”
The shop owner was a frail-looking old woman. She was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair, and once she spotted Ian, she stood up.
“Welcome. Looking for anything in particular?”
“Nothing special. I'm just planning to buy a few reasonably cheap things.”
“Is that so? Then I'll give you some recommendations.”
The old woman chuckled softly and took up her cane as she stepped away from the counter. A thick peach fragrance wafted from the cane, which had been carved from peach wood.
“This is the eyeball of a Mystery called a Candy Giant. If you eat it, it tastes sweet, so a lot of people look for it. And this is the heart of a man-eating ghoul. I wouldn't recommend eating it, but it should be more than good enough as a material.”
“How much are they?”
“Five million won each, and six million won for this one. Will you buy them?”
Ridiculous prices. And yet they were much cheaper than the ones he'd seen in Cartel's online app store. Ian thought for a moment, then let out a long sigh and nodded.
“Then I'll buy those, and add other items in a similar price range for a total of about ten.”
“Oh-ho! A big spender, are you? Just a moment. I'll prepare them right away and pack them up.”
The shop owner laughed in satisfaction and began packing the processed goods from the display case. Watching her, Ian idly fiddled with the cigarette pack in his coat pocket.
'It's even more irritating now that it's gone…….'
Originally, he'd gathered materials while handling requests at the same time, but now that he couldn't do that, it was truly frustrating. Fortunately, he had enough money; otherwise, he really would have had no choice but to buy them while practically spitting blood.
He knew there was nothing he could do about it, but that didn't stop him from getting irritated. Ian ran a hand roughly through his hair and tapped the cigarette pack.
After a moment, the shop owner, having packed up all the processed goods, gathered them together and stuffed them into a plastic bag.
“Here you go. Since I'm feeling generous, I'll only charge you 50 million won.”
“…….”
Instead of answering, Ian silently held out his card. The old woman chuckled, snatched the card, and swiped it through the reader without hesitation.
[Payment completed. Please remove your card.]
Along with the familiar notification sound, she handed the card back to Ian.
“Thanks! Come again!”
“……Yes. Hope you make lots of sales.”
Haa.
Ian shoved the plastic bag into his bag, letting out a sigh whose count he no longer knew.
[……Mmm?]
Perhaps because it smelled blood, the Deep Sea Hound Travelogue, which had been waiting patiently, twitched slightly. He lightly stroked the grimoire's cover and wandered the corridor in search of the smoking area.
At that moment, a shop came into view.
[!+!+!+!New product imports complete for chain smokers!+!+!+!]
A flashy signboard stood in front of the shop's entrance. Staring at the store that any smoker would have no choice but to notice, Ian opened the door as if enchanted and stepped inside. With a jingle, the door swung open.
“Welcome!”
The woman sitting at the counter greeted him warmly. Ian looked around the shop and slowly walked toward the counter.
The shop was packed with cigarettes. From ordinary cigarettes to foreign cigarettes Ian had never seen before, and even cigars, they were all packed in glass display cases. He stared intently at one reddish cigarette, then turned to the woman.
“Is this a cigarette specialty shop?”
“Yes! We carry every cigarette that exists in the world!”
“Where are the new products?”
“This way!”
The woman immediately pointed a finger at the pure white sticks displayed behind the counter.
They didn't look any different from ordinary cigarettes. In other words, utterly ordinary.
“This is a product manufactured by the Clock Tower.”
As Ian studied the cigarettes closely, the woman leaned in beside him and explained.
“There's a school called the Alchemist School, you know? It's a school that specializes in alchemy. These cigarettes are made and distributed by them.”
“…….”
“There are tons of flavors. Plum, apple, lemon, mint, and so on. There's probably a flavor for anything you can imagine. For people with unusual tastes, I hear there's even a sewer-smell flavor!”
“No, I don't need that.”
Ian replied at once. The woman laughed, ahaha, and scratched her head.
“Right? There's no way a handsome customer like you would like that sewage-flavored slop!”
“Flattery's unnecessary. More importantly, if it's something made by a mage, does it have any special effect too?”
“Oh, of course. In fact, this is a cigarette that's not a cigarette.”
The woman rubbed her hands together with a wicked smile.
“It's actually something made to help you quit smoking.”
“……Quitting smoking?”
“Yes. A fantastic smoking aid that removes all the toxic substances in cigarettes and lets the smoke clean your lungs! And on top of that, it even wipes out all the withdrawal symptoms caused by not smoking once you light it up!”
“Is that really true?”
Ian asked back with a genuinely surprised expression. The woman smiled broadly and nodded.
“Of course! There is a side effect, though. Once you smoke one, you have to smoke at least once a week, but that's not exactly a hard thing for chain smokers, is it?”
“……You're right. What happens if you don't smoke it?”
“Your lungs rot. That's all.”
She added that once your lungs were fully purified, the side effect would disappear too. Ian let out an exclamation and nodded.
The risk was far too low for the conditions.
If you asked whether lung rot was really that big a risk, he'd say it wasn't.
“No, wait—if you smoke, your lungs rot in the first place, don't they?”
So really, you could say there was no risk at all. The effect was good enough that if you didn't buy it, you'd be an idiot.
'Yeah. What's the point of cooking healthy food and even exercising if one cigarette ends everything? Might as well take this chance to quit smoking.'
He hadn't ever really decided to quit smoking in his life, but there was no reason to pass up such a good chance. He immediately turned to the woman and asked, looking excited.
“How much is it?”
“100 million won for 60 cigarettes!”
“……What?”
Ian's face froze in an instant. The woman tilted her head with a bright smile.
“100 million won!”
“…….”
“If you're having trouble deciding, how about sampling one first?”
“……Just one cigarette.”
He smoked it.
“……Ah.”
That day, 100 million won vanished from his bank account.