The offer of having the rest of the time during the Book Fair off was tantalizing, not to mention I could hear the siren song of my bed calling out to me even from here.
I think the polite thing would’ve been to decline or at least put up a token resistance saying that I didn’t mind staying for a while - but by this point I was completely done with things and just said, “Thank you very much.”
I had begun walking away when Mark yelled out, “Wait!”
I spun around on my heels, annoyed, wondering what it was now, when he walked out of the store carrying a bag of coins. “This is the commission from your sales.”
I took the bag, and it felt far heavier than I had been expecting. “Just… how much did Sonnet 95 sell for?”
“When people realized what we were selling, there was something of a bidding war,” Mark said. “It went to three times what we were originally selling it for.”
It was already being sold for far more than a normal grimoire, so this was almost highway robbery - but it looked like there had been many people more than happy to pay such a sum. As I thought more about it, I realized that they had sold it for as much as a Rank Two grimoire! That was insane!
I carried the bag of money home and then emptied it out onto the kitchen table. It was almost twice of what I’d saved up till now and more than made up for the lack of commissions and tips in the last few days.
I now had slightly under three thousand denarii at my disposal - while a part of me wanted to rush out and see how the Book Fair was, I was still so very tired, and decided to go upstairs and take a short nap instead.
At least, it was supposed to be short. I became aware of someone shaking me and opened my eyes to see Granny Qi, who was frowning at me.
“It’s midday already, how long do you plan on sleeping in?” she asked in a harsh voice. “And weren’t you supposed to be at work today? What happened? Did they fire you?”
“No… everything I made got sold out… gave me the day off…” I said, or rather, grumbled to her. “And I’m so tired… can’t I sleep another hour…?”
She sighed and shook her head, exasperated. “Alright, but if you’re not up in another hour…”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I didn’t even hear what she said as I had nearly instantly drifted back to sleep.
Just five minutes later it seemed, I became aware of someone splashing cold water on my face.
Now that woke me up instantly, and I leapt out of bed, to see Granny Qi using [Create Water].
“It’s been two hours since you asked for one,” she said as she stopped the spell.
I looked out the window, it was early afternoon.
The stupor of slumber still haunted me, but I no longer felt quite so dead inside as I got ready. The extra bit of rest had done wonders for me and my mood.
Instead of feeling like a strong wind could topple me over, I now felt somewhat refreshed in anticipation of what was coming up and ready to run out.
Now, I really became excited for the Book Fair! And the thought of all the money I had saved up brightened up my day all the more.
It was a good thing that Granny Qi had woken me up when she did - because any later and it would have been too late to get anything done. Then I’d be up all night because I’d slept too much during the day, and have basically wasted an entire time span of twenty-four hours.
Granny Qi didn’t take long to get ready. We usually didn’t head out of the house together unless she had to buy groceries or do something else that needed my help - if I wanted to explore, I tended to do it on my own.
It was clear though that she didn’t want to miss out on the Book Fair - and she wanted to show me some places that she knew were important. I appreciated that, after all, the Book Fair was so large that I would’ve gotten lost if I tried to explore it myself, almost guaranteed.
She was dressed up in a new scarlet robe and honestly looked far tidier than I did - I looked like I had hastily dressed myself after getting out of bed too late in the morning, which was true, but still, I didn’t intend to look at it. She looked me up and down and thought I was ‘passable’ though clearly she didn’t entirely approve.
The streets of Arconia were crowded like I’d never seen before as the two of us stepped out. There were alleyways where you couldn’t get a cart through, and there were streets so jam packed you couldn’t pass a person through. People were shuffling about, trying to get through this area nonetheless. Children, being smaller, whether human or lizardmen, could often be seen sneaking out of small crevices and crannies that their parents couldn’t. If ever there was a cart that got stuck somewhere, it would end up creating a huge mess of people who had to suddenly turn around while the owner tried to furiously get it unstuck. To add to this chaos, beasts of burden, whether donkeys, horses, or other animals, added their noises to the cacophony of sounds.
The city was nearly unrecognizable in its current state, though from how Granny Qi behaved this was just how things were whenever the merchant caravan came. I could see now how so many copies of Sonnet 95 had sold out, even among just the people coming into the city for the Book Fair, there would be more than enough to consume all the copies I had, let alone for those who wanted to sell it elsewhere in distant lands.
Granny Qi didn’t head towards the area where they would be selling books like I’d thought she might, nor to the spot to register for the upcoming tournament.