On the day of the meeting with the young merchant, I had to rush to the lunar road to be on time. On the last three days before the agreed time, I went into a crazy expansion spree, which resulted in my numbers going up to the planned 40 undead.

Of course, I didn’t manage to harvest all of the 13 new skeletons from level 10 or above beasts. That would be insane considering our current battle power. However, I did manage to add another four level 10 beasts, two wildcats and one porcupine, while the rest came from levels 8 and 9.

Even so, the result was more than satisfactory. I now have under my command, six at level 5, eight at level 4, twelve at level 3, and fourteen at level 2 beasts. Sadly, I didn’t level, but I can feel that I’m a step from it. I guess I just need to raise a skeleton from a level 11 beast.

Thankfully, I somehow managed to cross over 20 km in the morning and arrive at the road just a little later than the time we met last week. Unfortunately, I still had to wait for another two hours before the road cleared and I could approach the merchant alone.

At first glance, the merchant wasn’t carrying much. I could see a small bulge under the cloth cover of his cart, but that would only fit six or five baskets. Nonetheless, I couldn’t complain, after all, he couldn’t know how much loot I would bring for the exchange. Still, it didn’t seem like he had enough to exchange for the materials of four level 10 beasts. Maybe he didn’t believe it last time…

This time, my approach didn’t cause fear or anxiety to the man. In fact, he was looking relieved after seeing my satchel and the number of skins over my shoulder. He’s too naïve… I wonder what he will think when he sees the rest…

I pushed some evil thoughts away from my mind and put the closest thing I could from an honest smile.

“Hello there, friend!”

Now closer to the cart, I could finally confirm that he only brought a small portion of what my loot was worth. Hence, I couldn’t maintain my smile; it froze into an awkward twitching expression.

“Good afternoon, young man.” He didn’t seem to notice my obvious discomfort with his end of things.

Oh, so he’s trying to pull the age card on me? I hope he doesn’t try to fool me… Damn, I really wanted to get a long-term partner to take care of my loot.

“How do you wanna do this? I can go first if you…” I wasn’t going to accept any nonsense, but then he only smiled and talked before I could finish:

“How about we start with proper introductions? I’m Johr.”

He extended his hand, which broke my tough business stance. I looked at the hand for a couple of seconds before extending mine.

“I’m Shain.” Maybe I had misjudged him.

I really wanted to establish a good partnership, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. It would be too much trouble to find another willing rookie merchant.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“You really have some good things this time…” Thankfully, he started talking business instead of continuing the chitchat.

The whole living in the woods and being a heretic abomination was making me a little unsocial, but since I couldn’t share my struggles with him, what was the use of trying to be friends? Of course, I would prefer to have a cordial relationship. Business doesn’t go well with rudeness.

“Actually… I have some other things too. I can bring it here with two trips…” I was embarrassed to ask him to go into the woods with me. But what else could I say?

“…”

He looked at me with a complicated expression and then glanced at something on his belt. Anything I could think of would make the situation worse, so I went for honesty.

“I won’t mind if you hold your magical weapon…”

“…”

His expression turned even stranger.

“I’m sorry… It’s just…” He tried to explain himself, but I honestly didn’t care.

“I understand, really. Take your weapon out and let’s just get this over with.”

Well, considering that the situation wouldn’t be getting any better, I just turned back and started walking towards the forest.

“Let’s go, Johr.” I called him just to be sure that he understood.

“Okay…”

This guy… I thought he was going to patronize me, but he turned childish again.

Then, we walked back to a clearing that I had prepared specifically for conducting our trade. He, of course, kept some distance from me and the weapon ready in case someone jumped on him. Actually, I don’t think that his weapon would be efficient if he was attacked from all directions at once. Truly, only now do I understand how unreasonable I’m being. Thankfully, this guy is really a desperate rookie.

“That’s… a lot.” I heard him seeing from behind me when we entered the clearing and saw the piles of meat.

“It’s not that much… Half of the meat is cured. That pile is from yesterday, but those are from two and three days ago. I don’t know if it’s fresh enough to sell…” I started explaining and pointing to the piles of meat.

“For the love of Gods, you need some preserving powder. If had known, I would have brought you a couple of kilos… We need to get this to the market as…” He no longer seemed to care about a potential ambush. The merchant passed by me and went directly to the piles of meat.

“This curing process is a little… archaic, but it’s not so bad… I think it can sell for a fourth of the price, but we need to sell the rest fast.” He sounded excited.

“Sure... Let’s trade it quickly, so you can take it away faster.”

“This…” He froze and turned to me with apologizing expression. Here we go…

“I didn’t bring enough to exchange for all of this… Maybe half of it…” He saw my serious expression and quickly added:

“It’s not because I didn’t trust you… I just didn’t have enough money. Most of the things I sold went into paying a debt I owe to the Trader’s Guild. I only managed to save 20 silver plus the 50 I got from selling your things… I’m really sorry.”

Well, I didn’t have many options aside from trusting him. Regardless, he wasn’t asking for a discount or anything.

“It’s fine. Let’s just see what you brought, if it’s not too little we can trade.”

“Sure. Sure.” He was ecstatic with that deal. How could he not be? He was again getting the enormously better part of the deal.

We went through the things he brought and I was happy to discover that they weren’t as few as I initially thought. There were two baskets of vegetables, one full of grain, one with herbs, some salt and dry roots commonly used as spices, an old clay cooking pot, some bowls, a knife, some clothes, a pair of poorly crafted leather shoes, and a healing potion.

In truth, I was surprised that he got all of this for only 70 silver. Spending one gold would be impossible but these things should be sold for at least 80 silver. Suddenly, my impression of this funky merchant increased by several levels. I lucked out on this one!

Now, my current loot was an entirely different conversation. Johr couldn’t estimate how much they would sell for. According to him, it should be at least one and a half gold, but it could go for as high as two gold. The big difference was mostly because of the meat. However, I could only trade it with him – and pray that he would come back.

Of course, I did entice him with an agreement to meet again in another week.