“Good news,” Mark said. “We’ve sighted the Book Fair outside of the city walls!” There had been talk of them coming closer and closer, with many people coming from the nearby villages in anticipation of the same. But today, they were spotted from the walls, and the market would start in two days.

During the actual Book Fair, we wouldn’t be working, but would take turns manning the store, so we had some time off of our own to participate in things during the Book Fair. That was all fine and good for me, but Mark’s next words hit me like a sledgehammer.

“Ah, we’ll need you on the first day, Stefan,” Mark said nonchalantly, but I wanted to faint at that. So I would get no rest between all this work and my shift during the Book Fair? From one point of view you could say I was lucky to get it over with as soon as I could, but it was honestly getting to be too much.

The real kicker was that I was on the cusp of filling out nearly all of my Rank One grimoire slots - in short, I would soon reach Rank Two. But I had to put making grimoires of my own on hold because of having to work everyday. It was too much to ask to do that, come home, and then rack my brains for the script for a new grimoire. No, all I did was work and sleep nowadays.

With that in mind, the next day, I decided to take a look at the Book Fair on my own. Granny Qi’s house was near the walls, so it wasn’t that much of a trek to go there, and once I was atop the walls, what I saw blew my mind.

When they had said that a ‘merchant caravan’ was coming, I had imagined at most a group of a few hundred carts and thought that maybe a couple of tents would be there outside.

This however, looked closer to like there was an entire army parked outside the city walls! I could’ve been wrong about this, but I thought there had to be at least twenty to thirty thousand people there. Tents were set up all along the circumference of the wall, and it was clear that not everyone outside would be able to come within the city walls. They would have to set up their wares outside the walls, and even now I could see people from the local villages bringing in carts with their produce to sell.

The produce I was most interested in were of course, grimoires, but that seemed to be only a fraction of what people were setting up for sale. There were all manners of delicacies to feast on which made my mouth water even from this distance, different kinds of clothes, swords, armor, pets - whatever you could seemingly imagine was apparently on sale there.

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The word ‘merchant caravan’ really did not give justice to what I saw - it looked more like an organism made up of countless limbs that was ever-changing. From this high up it looked like I was watching a giant multicolored anthill, or an amoeba with countless pseudopodia constantly changing and shifting in shape.

Looking upon it seemed to re-energize me, if I still had some mana left I might’ve even tried making a grimoire on what I had seen, but I didn’t have that much energy in me.

Perhaps all the work I had put in would finally be worth it?

The next day I had to get up half an hour earlier than I normally would have - and I felt absolutely dead inside as I trudged my way to Lauren’s shop. I was ten minutes later than the agreed upon time, but by this point I had almost stopped caring entirely.

To my surprise, Lauren herself was there to greet me. I didn’t see much of her, she spent most of her time in her office, probably working on a Rank Three grimoire, and it was Mark who I actually interacted with.

Today though, she had come there to seemingly welcome me personally. She had a slight grin about her, revealing rows of pointy teeth. Even now, I thought lizardmen smiles were more terrifying than reassuring, but I was able to tell the difference between a smile and a lizardman baring its fangs at me.

“Good morning, Stefan!” she said. I was a bit taken aback that she remembered my name, but it was probably easier for lizardmen to learn human names than the other way around. Mark came out of the shop and stood alongside her. “Good news - your grimoires are all sold out!”

I stopped right there in my tracks. “Sold out? Already?”

“Yes,” Mark said. “We were talking to someone last night, and upon hearing of your product they bought all of it.” He chuckled to himself.

“Ah, if only we had five of you,” Lauren said. “We would be swimming in denarii then.”

I guess I should’ve felt happy that my hard work had paid off - but the thing was that on the contrary it felt like an enormous letdown. I had put in several days of work to make them, and they had all been snatched up in minutes? It felt anticlimactic.

“Are you… alright?” Mark asked hesitantly. I think he could pick up something of my thoughts from my face.

“Uh, yeah, just a little tired is all,” I said.

“Oh, well, I know how hard you’ve been working,” Lauren said. “Why don’t we give him the rest of the time off?”

“Ah, right,” Mark said. “I had wanted you here because I knew that grimoire of yours was going to be a surefire bestseller, and thought that some people might want an in-person translator, but now that it’s all sold out… I guess there’s not much for you to do here then. Take the rest of the day off, matter of fact, I think we can go the rest of the week without you well enough.”