I was back in the city, with no emeralds in my inventory for me to get a place to sleep.

Instead, my inventory was filled with raw wood, ready to be exchanged.

For that, I first visited a few workshops to ask if anyone has the Fletcher job.

"I have it, but if you want to sell wood, you can do it directly with me, there's no need to waste such good resources."

My mind froze for a moment, trying to think of a way out.

My Trading tab is vastly different from the people of this world.

How does trading work for them in the first place?

Let's say you're a weapon smith but don't have the necessary level to craft with iron.

A fellow villager would come to you, and pay 4-6 iron ingots and 20-30 emeralds to buy an iron sword from you.

It's crazy expensive, but if you don't have the necessary levels you can use this alternatively.

Now, what do you get as the seller, since you're using the System to trade, not yourself?

You get a percentage of the items you get paid.

In this case, you can choose to get 1 iron ingot or 5 emeralds.

That's why the librarians were so happy to trade with me, since I was given them money for nothing.

Now the Fletcher job has a trade where you could sell 20 blocks of wood for 3 emeralds.

This could be used for profit but it would require a lot of time and effort towards cutting trees.

Now the craftsmen in front of me would prefer to buy the wood directly than waste it just for 3 emeralds.

But I had a different trading system than him, and it was more profitable for me to use his tab.

Quickly I had to think of a reason he would let me use his tab without getting suspicious.

He's a Fletcher, he makes arrows, and sticks are one of the components to make them.

Flint is also used, but I think he would want that trade to go hand in hand, since you can make good knives with them.

That leaves me with feathers. Is there even a trade that uses feathers?

I'll try it anyway.

"Sorry I don't have wood right now, I just butchered a few chickens of mine and I wanted to sell their feathers."

"Ahh, carry on then."

Bingo!

I got what I wanted.

The trading tab appeared in from of me.

30 Sticks > 1 Emerald

1 Emerald > 17 Arrows

24 Flint > 1 Emerald

I quickly traded my sticks for 10 emeralds until it was blocked.

Then I ran away before the man would ask me how many chickens I killed to get so many feathers.

With those emeralds, I bought myself some ink and went to the most busy street in the area.

After walking around for a little, I found an empty corner where I built myself a stall with 6 planks and 4 fences.

Then, I placed a few blocks underneath me to write something on the upper planks.

Then I got off my tower and stayed behind the counter.

Over my head, I had a pillowcase with two holes for my eyes, and the rest was covered by a black cloak.

I waited for a while and saw some people on the street stop to read my sign and raise an eyebrow or laugh.

But my embarrassing moments didn't last forever as a lady came to my stall.

"Is it true what is written on the sign?"

"Yes, of course! You'll let me use your trading tab, and I'll give you two emeralds."

"Just this, no catch?"

"No catch mam."

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"Hmm, ok I'll do it."

With that, she showed me her trading tab and I quickly sold all the sticks I had.

"Here's the two emeralds, thank you for your time!"

The woman hesitantly took my emeralds and went on her way.

I got the first customer with success.

And for the flowing hours, I managed to get 10 more Fletchers.

At one point I had a small line forming which made me happy.

I had to stop a few times mid-trading so I could craft more sticks.

It's a good thing that the crafting table in my inventory works instantly and I don't need to hammer at it for a few minutes.

After I didn't get any more customers for a while, I destroyed my stand and placed a sign saying that I'll be back tomorrow as well.

At the end of the day, I had 96 emeralds in total.

A little over 10 emerald blocks.

And at the current market, 1 diamond is equivalent to 1 emerald block.

It's not cheap but not pricey either, since it's hard to find a place to buy those precious gems and harder to find someone willing to craft for you.

So now I had in my possession 1 diamond block.

Not the amount I needed to buy a large ship, but I think this would be enough for the pirate girl to trust me that I'm serious about this.

With that, I went back to my hotel after making sure nobody was following me.

Paid for one more night, and went to get some rest until I had to meet with the pirate girl.

POV: Captain Mad Siren

I hit the trashcan out of frustration.

That stupid barman wouldn't serve me booze anymore because I said something stupid yesterday.

I don't even remember what I told him last night!

How can you fault a woman for something she doesn't know?

Who cares about that old man anyway, I'll find another bar.

I walked along the busy streets looking from side to side if someone wanted to rob me, or an easy prey for me to rob.

Unfortunately, it's hard to find someone without experience in the underworld.

"Wait, isn't time for me to meet that weird guy?"

While I don't remember what I said to the old man last night, I remember every detail of what happened afterward.

I tried to enjoy the disines of the poison so my mind wouldn't go back to my dead crew when all of a sudden I bumped into someone.

That took me by surprise since I didn't see the figure a few moments ago.

And while my mind is not fully functional, I'm not the Captain Mad Siren without having skills to defend myself.

The figure tried to help me, and I took this opportunity to get some emeralds and acted like a defenseless but cautious girl.

The man took the bait, and I led him to an empty street where I took my trusty iron sword and stabbed his stomach.

Only for my hand to hurt and the sword to fall to the ground.

I quickly jumped away as my heart started to pound louder in my chest.

I wasn't the hunter, I was the prey.

We tried to talk for a little until finally I drank some milk so I could be more conscious about the moment.

Admittedly, splashing the bucket of milk on my face wasn't the best idea, but some managed to get into my mouth and the disines was gone.

Now I looked closer at the man, unfortunately, the only thing I could see was his black cloak.

Even if this street was poorly illuminated, I should've seen the outline of his head.

But the only thing I could see was darkness behind the hood.

When I found out what was the reason for bothering me, I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He wanted to find the one-eyed fish that gave me nightmares while I sleep.

The beast shot something out of its big eye and destroyed my ship.

We tried to run away on our smaller boats, but the fish kept swimming, picking us one by one.

I was the only survivor and I blame myself for leading the crew to their death.

If I didn't get that stupid map, from the stupid hag to that stupid treasure I would still have my pirate crew bringing fear to the sea.

And this man said he wanted to hunt that beast alone like it was nothing.

I was angry at him for thinking such things and angry at myself.

I told him to leave, but he kept insisting.

Finally, I told him what we're the minimum requirements for this and surprisingly he said he would get the money.

I didn't want to believe him, but it was clear he wasn't a normal man even though he didn't know anything about ships.

No captain in their full mind will sell their ship.

And even if they did, they wouldn't sell it to a stranger, they have their connections for this.

But it's not like there was no hope.

While we couldn't buy an old one, we could pay someone to build a new one.

It would be more expensive, but it would help us in the long run.

As for a crew, I can make something easily with my name and the new ship.

I arrived at the street where we last met not seeing anyone.

Did I arrive too early, or was it all a ruse to laugh at me?

"You finally arrived, I thought you chickened out and left town."

Out of the shadow, came the man with the black cloak.

Where did he come from? The shadow wasn't even that dark!

"I just lost track of time, I'm sorry if you waited too long."

"It's my fault that I didn't mention an exact time. So have you thought about the deal some more?"

I looked around in case there were others that I hadn't noticed before, but we were the only ones.

"Yes, as long as you get the money I'm willing to go over my part."

"Good, unfortunately, I didn't manage to get 10 blocks of diamond in just a day, but I managed to get one, and in the next few days I'll get some more. Do your contacts accept Emerald blocks?"

He said that as he handed me 9 blocks of Emerald.

The blocks were heavy in my hands, reminding me of the days on the sea.

This was roughly my payment for a few weeks as a captain.

But after fixing some damages to my ship, I had the same payment as my crewmate's.

If he managed to get this in one day, he either sold everything he had or robbed some rich businessman.

Either way, as long as he keeps them coming well managed to get a ship in no time.

"This is not nearly enough, but if you manage to get this consistently, we can start something."

"That's good to hear, how's your side going?"

"I didn't find anyone willing to sell their big ships, but I know a place where you can build your ship."

He stayed in silence for a few moments and I was getting worried that I stepped over a line.

It's so annoying that I can't see his face, I just want to shove a lantern in there to see if he was even human.

"Will I be able to customize it, or is there a certain model they follow?"

Good, so he wasn't going to kill me.

"As long as you pay them, they'll make it from gold as well."

"That would be an interesting project, but I'm on a time limit so I can't waste it getting more emeralds."

Was someone following him or what?

"Do you think you can start the order now to get the materials, and later I would add some of my ideas?"

"Sorry man, the boys won't start anything until you get them three more of those."

"Ok, you can keep those for now and we would meet back here in 3 days, roughly around the same time. I should get the necessary emeralds to start the project, then you can guide me towards this team to discuss about my ideas."

The blocks of emeralds are a token of trust, and a test for me.

If I ran with them he will either kill me or know I wasn't a good deal, but if I can keep it safe he will trust me more.

The worst part, is that I don't have a lot of emeralds in my name, and now I'm like a woman that's starving with food in my inventory that I can't eat.

I wonder if he planned this all along?

"Sure, sounds fair to me."

With that, the man took out a pearl and threw it away, disappearing in front of my eyes, leaving me alone in the dark alley.

"That's a bit dramatic in my opinion."