I stared at my broken earring mournfully. I had gotten this pair as a gift from my friends for my 16th birthday. One was a grinning silver skull with small red gems for eyes, and the other was a silver heart with a large crack running down it. Ironically, it was the skull one that was broken, not the heart. When I had picked it up to put it on this morning, the post had snapped right off and fallen to the ground, making me spend a full ten minutes trying to retrieve it.

Normally, I could just glue it back on. Being summoned to another world didn’t exactly equal normal. I doubted the glue they had here could be used for this.

I sighed loudly and slipped it back into the pocket of my borrowed pants. The tank top and basketball shorts I had been wearing had finally been sent to the laundrywomen’s after a careless arm movement had knocked a bowl of stew off the table and onto me. My sports bra was still good to go though. Every few days I could just soak it in the washbasin in my room and let it dry over the heating stone. The nights right now were rather cold so every room had one.

Arswen and Arsral’s clothes were too short to fit me, and we hadn’t had the time yet to go out to buy me clothing, so I was wearing the clothes Arslop, the oldest brother, had left at home. They were long enough, but a bit baggy. I wondered if I could just keep wearing them. Slightly baggy clothing was my thing.

“Excuse me…”

I wiped the morose look off my face and straightened up, smiling at the light blue haired woman.

“Yes, how can I help you?” I asked.

“Would you happen to have any of the listed ingredients?”

I hummed as I took the list she gave me. It had stuff like Norwen Bear bone, Lizapier scale, and Derae venom.

Cleimeph’s customer base doesn’t consist of just adventurers looking for equipment and potions. A good portion comes to buy monster parts to make equipment and potions. We also buy these things from them.

There are two main ways to get monster parts. One is from shops like ours, either by buying what’s already in stock or placing an order. The other is to put up a request at the adventurer’s guild, which is more expensive.

According to one of the books Arswen had given me to educate me about this world, the difference between a normal animal and a monster is that monsters are, for lack of a better description, corrupted by mana. There are two ways monsters are made. Either existing monsters breed or normal creatures are forcibly corrupted. That’s how liches and zombies come about, by the way.

Monsters mostly stay in their dungeons, attracted by the cores inside. The weaker ones aren’t as affected by the pull though, so if you step out of town, you’ll find plenty of them roaming freely around. Occasionally, a strong monster will escape from the dungeon, causing a large loss of life and disruption in trade routes. The brothers’ parents had died in such an incident.

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I checked the store catalogue. Norwen Bears, which are pretty much just bears with three horns protruding from their heads, are fairly common in the nearby dungeon, Lair of the Mad Serpent.

Why is it called that?

Well, legend says that deep, deep down in the final floor of the dungeon, lurks a giant blood red serpent, one eye a malicious gold and the other, a mass of scar tissue from when a brave adventurer had gouged its eye out in a final heroic act. Its existence has never been officially confirmed, for all who manage to struggle their way down to the final floor of the Lair never return…

Or so I was told. Honestly, it’s probably just a load of bullshit meant to lure adventurers to the dungeon and subsequently, the town.

Well, it wasn’t like I’d be going dungeon-diving anytime soon anyway. When I had brought up the matter with Arsral some days prior, he had given me an unimpressed stare.

“What level are you again?”

Fair.

“Hm, Norwen Bear parts should be in aisle 5, shelf 12. Lizapier parts should be two shelves to the left of it, and as for Derae venom… I’ll check if we have any available.”

Lizapiers were bipedal lizards about half the size of an adult man, and were also fairly common in the Lair. Derae (which were just frogs with fangs lol) weren’t as common as Norwen Bears and Lizapiers.

I gave the list back and the customer nodded in thanks, before going to the shelf I’d pointed her to.

I poked my head through the door leading to the living area of the shop. I spotted Arsral, who was writing in the ledger on the dining table.

“Hey, boss, someone’s asking for Derae venom.”

“How much?”

“Uh, I think it was 10 grams.”

“Tell her we don’t have any available. The apothecary already placed an order. Oh, right. It’s almost time for lunch. Light up the stove for me.”

“‘Kay.”

I walked to the stove and activated the fire stone.

“That all?”

“After you’re done with the customer, close the shop and go pick up Arswen from school,” Arsral instructed.

“Uh, you sure? I have a terrible sense of direction.”

“It’s right next to the bell tower. Just head for the huge tower in the middle of the town.” He closed the ledger and rolled out of the kitchen. “Can’t miss it.”

Well, even I shouldn’t able to get lost then, provided that I don’t suddenly turn blind in the middle of the journey.

I went back to the shop area to see the blunette waiting patiently at the counter.

“Sorry for the wait. Unfortunately, we don’t currently have any Derae venom available. Would you like to place an order?” I asked, weighing the bones she’d set down.

“Yes, please.”

“Great! Please fill out the form.” I grabbed a form from under the counter and slid it over.

She looked at it for a moment, before looking up.

“I, uh, I can’t write,” she said, embarrassed.

That wasn’t uncommon among adults in this world. The residents of Etir were lucky in that some noble had decided to do some good and set up a school here. I briefly wondered who had written the list.

“No problem. I can fill it out for you.” She looked relieved when I said that. “Just tell me what you go by, where you’re staying, and what you want.”

I grabbed a pen, dipped it in ink, and filled out the form for the woman, ‘Senga’. Writing with a quill pen had taken a while to get used to, but I’d eventually gotten the hang of it. With that said, I couldn’t wait for the day my level was high enough for me to conjure a ballpoint pen. Annoyingly, your skill levels couldn’t be higher than your actual level. Seriously, someone could have told me that before I tried to conjure a thousand toothpicks in order to raise the level of [Conjure].

“Done.” I set the pen back in its holder and blotted the paper. “The parts will be 980 tals.”

I smiled at her as she handed me the exact change. “Thanks for shopping at Cleimeph. Please come again.”

She gathered up her purchase and paused, staring at my face.

“You know, you’re a lot different than I thought you’d be,” Senga commented. My smile turned wry.

“Is it the piercings?”

She laughed.

“Yeah.”