Many would say that you can’t be human and greet gods on a daily basis. Many would also say that you can’t sell items to those same gods, demigods, angels, demons, and the like and live to tell the tale. Sadly in the case of that common known fact, I’m an outlier. My name is Cordane and I used to be human, no seriously I’m telling the truth. Hah.. it doesn’t really matter whether you believe me or not but I was once human, I had a wife named Joul, and no kids sadly. We tried for years to conceive a child but eventually gave up she had her third miscarriage. The two of us were devastated, I stared into her deep hazel eyes as she constantly cried until she couldn’t weep anymore.
I cried as well of course, but not nearly as much as I should have. The day my wife was clear to leave the hospital I drove us home but, we were greeted by a man in a black suit wearing sunglasses and a hood covering his head. They say that people are willing to do almost anything at their worst times in life, and let me tell you first hand that the person who first said that should get a reward for being 100% right. My wife and I stepped out of the car and the man greeted us with a dangerous smile that would send alarms with anyone in a proper state of mind, sadly I wasn’t at the time.
The man calmly told us that he had a way that my wife and I could have a child together. Of course at first this sent alarm bells in my head but I still had a clouded judgement and let the man continue with his speech. “I heard that you recently lost your job on top of not being able to conceive so I figured it be easier if I fit the two into one simple solution for the two of you. Now Mr. Cordane if you would just sign here you will be able to work this newly opened position that nobody else has stepped foot in before and make enough money working to be able to afford the healing solution for your wife to have kids.”
When he finished I felt like I saw his smile somehow get even bigger than physically possible for a human being. Now, any normal person would have stopped this person and sent them away however, for me I was desperate beyond the normal capacity. I wanted to have a child to pass on my will to, just one will do damnit! I just received the contract in his hands and signed without any regrets even though my wife behind me was about to stop me I moved too fast for her to do so. Oh how I wished she stopped me at that time so I wouldn’t have to resign myself to this accursed fate.
After I signed that contract, everything around us fade to black and me and my wife were transported to the front of a very basic looking, wooden building. The surroundings was barren with nothing around it for miles. The exterior of the building showed it to actually look moderate in size similar to a two story house combined with a large backyard in size. The place itself looked like a open marketplace with empty shelves all over the sides of the building. The front had a double sided wooden door with a bell hanging on the top from the inside to notify when people arrived, although who would come to a barren wasteland with a store in the middle is beyond me.
The empty shelves on the walls of the market were made out of some form of tin and iron, covered in dust and at the center of the first floor stood a counter with a register on top which I assumed was for checking out of the store. The counter was in a U shape and fairly large with a door behind it leading to a large, empty storage room that looked similar to where production facilities store all their spare parts considering the size that looks nothing like what it looks from the outside.
The second floor was the living area that had many, many rooms to accomodate people but each room was barren with broken beds, no sheets or blankets, broken dressers, and almost completely destroyed closets. There were cobwebs all over the place and holes in the walls as well but thankfully there weren’t any bugs to speak of at least. When me and my wife finally came to a realization as to what we got ourselves into, I almost broke down then and there while kneeling on the floor, crying. Joul was trying to comfort me and calm me down by cuddling me as I bangged on the ground. After about thirty minutes I finally calmed down and came to realize just how easy Joul adapted to the situation and how much I’m struggling with it. I need to be stronger damnit, it won’t look good on me to struggle right now. As we stood up and got our barings, both me and Joul were bombarded with large, gray screens in front of us that made me both upset and somewhat relieved at the same time.
Congratulations Mr. Cordane for being the first Soul Merchant in existence of the multiverse! Now I’m sure you and your wife have many questions but you will have to figure those out yourselves if they aren’t answered by this message or the system that will be implemented to assist you in becoming a rich merchant. Also the contract that was signed for the job was a permanent position so neither you nor your wife will ever age again. Also you could try killing yourself if you do so choose but you will just end up reviving after a set period of time in that barren wasteland of yours void of any form of life.
As I’m sure you can clearly tell, this is very much real and so are the many things I will tell you about briefly outside of your job! The customers that you will deal with can consist of many types of beings ranging from, mortal necromancers, angels, demons, demigods, gods, and much, much more! What your job mostly entails is to sell souls to the vast fantasy multiverse depending on your rank as a soul merchant. The higher your rank, the better you can handle and sell souls. You can even give bodies to the souls for a price if you don’t want to sell them off and have them work for you instead. The currency used to purchase the soul varies by the customer but is ultimately converted into dae coins. These coins can be used for pretty much anything, except getting out of your contract of course :) [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/smile.png].
They can be used to upgrade your shop, add more facilities to your wasteland, buy daily necessities and obviously much more! You're probably asking yourself, if I wanted to screw you over, then why am I helping you so much? Well you see, you were the most ideal person out of everyone and everything else to be in this new position that the creator god decided to make to maintain balance and get a little cut out of it for himself. Any and all types of souls can be sold and it is up to you to deem it worthy or not to be sold. Also I wouldn’t let anyone touch the souls other than you or your wife before selling them because there is a failsafe installed to prevent stealing that can get pretty nasty if you ask me. You could probably already tell that your store looks a little……..barren. For that the system that is being installed will give you 1,000 dae coins to start with. With that I am finished with my message so good luck you two and bye bye!
As I digested all the information I was notified that the system will be installed in another half hour so it gave me some time to think. Joul spoke up while I was thinking about the first thing we should do after this ‘system’ is installed. “Hun, I think we should get some cleaning supplies first or get a soul servant to do it for us if we can afford it. Also see if we can get some kind of storage for food and drinks that can prevent time from affecting them since even though we can’t die, we clearly still get hungry. Also some kind of solution to bathing and sleeping would help as well. If you need help picking out stuff just let me know!” She made that statement while beaming with a smile. I remembered that my wife is also an avid gamer so she is probably treating this as such which I didn’t mind all that much, it helped me calm down that way. it was then that we both noticed something that we missed as I calmed down just before the system installed. Her hair color and eyes went from hazel to a deep crimson red, her features were upgraded from before as well which enhanced her beauty to a scale unseen from before to the point that it was almost absurd. She told me that my hair and eye color changed to a calm silver color and I looked a bit more muscular than before. It seems like I also received an enhancement in that area as well. Just as I was going to take a deep dive into both of our new enhancements, another gray box popped up this time to notify us about the system being installed.
Welcome to the system user Cordane! A new class and ranking system has been created do to your current position. You are now a Soul Merchant and the first of your kind as well, therefore you will receive a bonus of 1,000 dae coins to start your blooming business. Your current level is one and your current soul merchant rank is also one. In order to increase in level you must sell souls to the beings of the fantasy multiverse. Souls can be obtained naturally or actively going into your wasteland to grab them. Be warned that going out to get souls, as it may be faster to make money this way can be more dangerous to the psyche. The system will clear all impurities in your mind but the memories of all the souls you go out to get will have to be lived through at a accelerated rated until their death in order to obtain them. User Joul has obtained the class of assistant soul merchant and can only sell souls obtained by the user Cordane to gain levels.
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Skills can also be gained by either user naturally by doing regular task. The souls are priced by the system, cannot be lowered and can only be raised in price by a small margin. Both users can also obtain souls by killing monsters this way either of you won’t have to live through their lives because you have caused their death. This is another way to level up and gain combat skills. The users will encounter a giant variety of customers and some with varying systems in places for their power scaling like cultivation instead of magic for instance. The currency conversion with be stated in the users head when customers come through. The users can open and close at anytime since there is no day/night cycle in the wasteland and there is no form of life here outside of the users. The system shop allows the user to purchase almost anything except the termination of their contract and even a miracle pill that will allow user Joul to conceive children can be purchased, however those children will also be immortal.
Once Joul and I took in all the information, I took a deep breath and we decided to make the miracle pill our goal even though it apparently cost five quadrillion dae coins. Funny enough though, if we make enough dae coins I can open up more types of businesses to make money but on a smaller scale like restaurants, dungeons, bars, and more. I’ve played enough video games and read enough novels to know what type of situation I’ve gotten myself and my wife into. While it isn’t a very ideal situation and we got cursed with immortality, it would probably take a long time anyway to get that pill so at least we have a goal. “Cor cor, is it okay if you purchase some of the stuff we discussed earlier? I browsed through the shop for a bit while you were staring at the pill and I found that you could purchase a fridge and pantry with a time stop enchantment on them for just 50 of those dae coins. Considering what they do, those dae coins must be worth a lot. Also you can purchase two of what I can see are called cleaning golems, to clean this store.
They can also level up from cleaning so that’s a plus in case someone decides to be a little bit a trouble in the future. A few more things we are gonna need that will cap out at the price of 900 dae coins with 100 for emergencies with be, a magic signpost that I will design so don’t worry about that, upgraded doors from wood to this magisteel as the system calls it so we won’t have people destroying our doors. Do the same to our front desk and counters for merchandise as well, install price boxes which, from what the system says will give the customer a floating description of the soul and the price tag in one of those floating boxes, an extensive bathroom and some pen and paper so I can list the food supplies we will need to you since apparently anything electronic from our era is out of our rank and too expensive.”
Joul I swear, organized and on point as always. I will thank whatever string of fate or god that allow me to marry her because I don’t know what I would do without her other than torment myself on what to get from the system and probably drive myself insane over this whole predicament. I purchased what she asked and when we got to the golems they came with their own cleaning supplies and looked like marionettes without facial features, wearing maid outfits. Joul quickly told them to get to work starting from the second floor as she wrote down any and all types of food she could fit in our price range along with many types of soap, toilet paper, wet wipes, and more. By the time I got to purchasing the extensive bathroom the system told me to choose a room to place it within and Joul led me to the first room on the second floor that was already clean to the point you could eat off the floor and there still wouldn’t be a mess there.
All of the beds, closets, and drawers were scrapped because joul said that stuff like that was barely four dae coins. Once I chose the room for the extensive bathroom, another door inside of the room was made and when we got inside we were surprised by how….culturally japanese it looked? I mean at the entrance there were multiple cubbies with baskets for you to place your clothes into and shoes with a closet on the side filled with towels. Further inside had multiple mirrors on either side with stools in front of them for you to sit on and a desk below the mirror for what I assumed were for bathroom necessities. Lastly there was the bath that was the double the length of the room the bathroom was connected to which was about the size as a Japanese one bedroom apartment. I purchased all the supplies we would need for the bathroom and Joul decided that this room would be ours. Before I got to purchasing all of our supplies for food and drinks I purchased a king sized bed with extremely comfortable pillows and sheets, a new dresser, closet, and desk.
Once we finished with our room we went further on into the second floor to find a barren room that could be used as a kitchen. I purchased the pantry, fridge combo, a stovetop, quite a few dishes, utensils, and all the food supplies we would need. “Cor cor, I think you should figure out the soul situation and figure out the best way to get some souls stocked up while I cook us up some food. I think a good way might be to fight monsters but that will have to be in the future. I still can’t believe we have basically been placed inside rpg purgatory but we should make the best out of it and live through this the best we can. I don’t know how long it will take for a soul to stock up naturally but I don’t think it will be very quick considering there are two more options to get them.
Also the system already gave me the advanced cooking skill at the second level so get ready for an explosion in your tastebuds tonight or this morning, I don’t know.” When she finished I just smiled and kissed her before heading downstairs and take another look around. Once I got downstairs I found that the golems were already in the midst of cleaning the first floor. I guess our little ‘tour had lasted a lot longer than I originally thought. I looked around and saw a dark green wisp which I assumed was a soul. The souls I received naturally were in relation to my rank so I don’t expect much from this soul. The system told me I could either stock this soul now and get a brief summary of its story or learn about it in a few seconds by touching the soul. The system told me that there was no harm in learning about naturally obtained souls so I decided what could a few seconds do to me, oh how wrong I was on my assumption as everything fade to black.
Pov change to Mook the goblin.
Once this one first opened its eyes to the tribe and the world, it was astounded by what was discovered. This one was given name by tribe chieftain Draidin. Dradin called this one Mook and Mook’s given job was to train and prepare for the hunt once this one was able to fight. Mook is determined to learn and Mook is willing to fight along with the tribe. Mook as learned that our kind is called goblins and the tribe had banded together to hunt for survival.
Mook was happy with tribe and this one got too happy as this one started to work harder than the other young goblins of tribe for female goblina named Mesala. Mesala weak but strong willed and Mesala impress Mook with look in eyes. Mook do everything to protect Mesala smile. This one train hard till point that this one passed out each day but got up stronger than before. Mook not know what time was till chieftain say it been three week since birth. Mook birth from goblin broodmother as all other goblins in tribe had. When tribe ready to hunt, tribe be attacked by accursed humans. Mook was hurt, this one was hurt bad. Mesala not smile that day, Mesala shot in head by arrow that day. Mook go on rampage, Mook MAD!
Pov switch to 3rd person
The goblin named Mook started to cry tears of rage as it grabbed a nearby male human and literally tore him in half by reaching both of its hands and stabbing it threw the center of his stomach before ripping him apart. The goblin Mook screamed so loud that as the rest of the goblins were slaughtered, it caused the humans to shiver in fear. Mook grew three times in size to the point of towering over the humans and received bulging muscles as well. His skin turned red and he yelled once more, this time causing the very ground beneath their feet to shake.
The skill that Mook used is a extremely rare skill born in goblins with a troll bloodline called True Rampage. The humans started to visibly sweat as they yelled for their mages to quickly start casting spells at the goblin. What they feared when they first came here came true in their eyes, they thought that Mook became a goblin lord. Sadly this was only a temporary thing due to the skill, if Mook truly evolved to a goblin lord then the humans would have stood no chance. Regardless, Mook still clawed his way through crowds of humans and spread blood on the ground like butter on toast.
Mook was yelling Mesala's name all the while killing the humans. Mook would have almost won the fight if it weren’t for the fact that the humans brought along an advanced fire mage to take him down. Within Mook’s rage before he died he massacred all but three mages out of the hundreds of humans that were sent to take down the goblin tribe. The goblin Mook still died upset and resentful but satisfied that he could avenge his tribe and most importantly, Mesala.
POV change to MC
Holy crap, what did I just witness? I almost fell over from the massive amount of information that was shoved in my brain within a few seconds. I wasn’t extremely overwhelmed persay, but more so surprised at how compelling a goblin could truly be. Mook and his tribe wanted to avoid humans and just hunt the surrounding animals but were hunted down and killed instead. It’s insane to think that he has that type of skill and that would be an amazing selling point for when we open shop!
Ahem, I clear my throat and make a note to myself to mentally prepare if I ever want to physically see what happened in a souls life before death. Thankfully it omitted a lot of details irrelevant to the situation but I wanted to know more about the tribe itself. Sadly Mook only seemed to care about himself and Mesala which I don’t really blame him for. I’ll probably learn more about their story if I obtain more goblin souls from that specific tribe.