CH 23

Episode 23 – Immunity Grass 

TL Note: Sponsored chapter (3/3). Thanks KrazeyK for your support!

“I’ve brought some pretty high quality goods, so I think I’ll be fine. For the time being, could you take a look and provide an assessment of the goods?” (Lewin)

“Oh my, quite confident, are you? I don’t mind, but if I find that these goods don’t meet my assessment standards, you would have to pay an assessment fee, is that okay with you?” (Shopkeeper)

“Oh? There are quite a lot. Let’s see, I’ll go one by one then. Hmm…” (Shopkeeper)

Like a completely different person, the shopkeeper deftly drew a knife from her pocket and with well-rehearsed movements, nicked the surface of the plant. From there, she proceeded to scoop a bit of the plant essence with her finger and tasted it.

“I see, I see… I will try another one.” (Shopkeeper)

“You… it seems I’m dealing with a professional. The quality of those two herbs I assessed just now were just as good, if not better than the quality of the herbs that I normally get from the adventurers that I exclusively hire to maintain my shop’s stock.” (Shopkeeper)

It was a bit presumptuous to be calling myself a professional, but at least doing plant appraisals for all those years wasn’t just for show. Even with the [Plant Master] skill, appraising plants was still pretty much my only strong point.

“I’m glad to hear that. In regards to the other plants that I brought today, I believe they are of the same level of quality. If it’s good with you, I’d like to sell these to you.” (Lewin)

Among the few products on display, there were some interesting things lined up. A bunch of shelves with plants of a variety of uses and effects quickly caught my eyes. I didn’t really ask the shopkeeper beforehand, but when I held my hand over the plants and herbs to appraise them, I found that they were all high quality without exception. The Medical Herbs were being sold for 1 copper coin each, and the Magical Grass was being sold for 5 copper coins each, which was pretty expensive. I thought it was okay to set a price like that since the herbs were all high quality, but only I knew that for certain since I could appraise them. It made me appreciate that old lady shopkeeper’s keen eye for quality, but it also made me realize why people don’t really frequent this store, since the general public can’t distinguish quality as easily.

I kept looking through the plants, appraising as I went, when I suddenly stopped in front of this one plant. It had such a shockingly high price, at 1 platinum coin. The name on the sign beneath the display was Immunity Grass. It was something I had never heard of nor seen before. Its appearance was very strange, with a myriad of whirlpool patterns etched on the leaves. When I held my hand over it to try and appraise it, since it was something I’d never seen before, a bunch of question marks showed up on every information category.

I was seriously curious what kind of effect it had, but I had no means of being able to consume and appraise it since I didn’t have one platinum coin. A platinum coin was yet another thing that I had never seen nor touched since I was born.

I felt reluctant to leave such an interesting thing unknown, but I walked away from the display shelves. I decided I would ask the grandma about the Immunity Grass later. I figured I might as well ask her about the Dumbbell Weed too while I was at it. Knowledge about Dumbbell Weed was probably quite an esoteric subject, but I felt like there was a chance she might know about it.