CH 69

Episode 69 – Elven Grandma 

“Oya, if it isn’t Lewin! Have you come to sell plants and herbs again?” The grandma greeted me with a warm smile. It felt pretty nice to be welcomed with a smile like this.

“Yes, I just came back from gathering plants and herbs. It isn’t as much as last time, but if possible, would you be able to buy them like last time?” (Lewin)

“I see, I see. Of course, I’ll buy them. Come now, why don’t you show me what you managed to find?” (Grandma)

Hearing that, I took the bag of sorted plants and herbs and placed it on the counter. The grandma’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but she quickly took the plants out of the bag and started checking them with familiar, practiced movements.

“Saying that it isn’t a lot… that’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? I think this is more than enough to be considered a lot.” (Grandma)

“Well, it’s still less than last time… And for the time being, I did include medium quality ones in there, but are you willing to buy it?” (Lewin)

“Yes. The plants that you sold to me last time were sold off very quickly, so I need to make sure to properly buy up whatever you sell me this time too,” the grandma muttered with a slightly villainous grin. I really liked this grandma’s characteristically strange, crooked smile that she would sometimes give… it felt so reliable. Of course, I liked her normal, gentle smile too.

–Hold on a second… the plants I sold to her the other time, they were already all sold off?!

At that time, I was a little worried that she would go bankrupt from buying all of those high quality plants from me at such a high price, but I was glad to hear that she managed to sell them all. I mean, Elf’s Tears was a good store. I wondered if maybe this store had a big customer or something.

“It’s great that you were able to sell them all! I was worried at the time that they might remain unsold, so I’m relieved to hear that.” (Lewin)

“Kukuku. You were actually worried about whether or not it would sell? I said this the other day, but even though the shop looks like this, among the people who know of it, it’s very popular. Well…we can leave the chit chat for later, I’m going to do an assessment of these plants and herbs you brought me. It shouldn’t take as long as last time, so what do you want to do, Lewin? Do you want to wait here in the store like last time?” (Grandma)

“That sounds good! I’ll wait here.” (Lewin)

“I see, I see. Then wait just a bit for me, I’ll quickly finish up with this assessment.” (Grandma)

“Ah, grandma, I’ll help you carry them to the back. You’re walking with a cane… you’ve got a bad leg, right?” (Lewin)

“Don’t worry about me. There’s nothing wrong with my body… this cane isn’t here to help me walk.” (Grandma)

The moment she said that, she stabbed the cane down into the floor. And when that happened… the cane transformed into a sword. I couldn’t even process what happened, and when my eyes widened in surprise, the grandma cackled playfully with her usual “kukuku” laughter.

“This sword is actually a sword cane, for my own self defense. But… I do appreciate your concern.” (Grandma)

“So that’s what it was. Then your body is perfectly fine?” (Lewin)

“Ah, of course. See, I can move like this, full of life!” (Grandma)

The grandma spun around and around energetically with a bright smile on her face. She was always walking around with a cane, so I totally thought she had a bad waist or bad leg, but… it turned out that her health was completely fine.

Hmm. Why was there a sword inside her cane though…?

One question was answered, but the mysteries of the grandma only further increased.

“Then I’ll be back soon. Call for me if you need anything.” (Grandma)

“Got it. Thanks!” (Lewin)

After the grandma disappeared into the back room, I started looking around at the display shelves to kill time. I was looking around to see if there were any new products since last time I came, when a glimmering blue potion that wasn’t there before caught my eye.

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The product name displayed was Top-grade Magic Potion. The price for the bottle was a whopping 9 gold coins. Speaking of potions, they were normally consumed during battle, so for one to be 9 gold coins was kind of terrifying…

Such an expensive potion. If I were to buy it, I’d probably never end up using it out of fear of wasting it. I tried to hold my hand over the Top-grade Magic Potion to see if I could somehow appraise it, but… as expected, it was a potion so nothing happened. Hmm… what sort of incredible effects would it have?

My guess was that this potion was concocted using Magical Grass, so I wanted to experiment and see whether it would increase my magic power upon drinking it when my magic power was full.

Huh? No… there was another option.

Although buying this Top-grade Magic Potion would be too much, it could be worth it to buy a Low-grade Magic Potion to see if it would increase my magic power or not. If the Low-grade potion also increased magic power, and the increase was greater than directly ingesting Magical Grass, then I would want to keep ingesting Magical Grass via potions in the future. The potions in Elf Tear’s were more expensive than at a regular store for sure, but if I was going to be buying a potion, I would probably still stick with buying it at Elf’s Tears in the end.

Alright! I decided that after I finished selling the plants and herbs, I would ask the grandma about buying potions. After that, I sat there and stared enviously at the Immunity Herb for the remaining time until the grandma finished the assessment.

She was gone for probably 15 minutes. It was much faster than last time, probably because there were fewer herbs after all.