CH 174

Episode 174 – Treasure Hunt

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I had been waiting in line for about an hour. With the line inching forward little by little, I finally arrived at the entrance of the store. I had already gone through the trouble of waiting in line, so I had wanted to take my time looking around. But now, the line was twice as long as it had been when I joined the queue, so out of consideration for the people behind me, I decided not to stay too long.

Having heard that the shop was popular, I just came here haphazardly without much of a plan. As I stood at the front of the entrance, I immediately began to regret not doing more research about the place before coming. But if I had come this far already, there’d be no point in overthinking things. I still had a good amount of money to spare, so I could just purchase the items that caught my eye.

Having decided that, I entered the shop and found that the inside was sectioned off with ropes in a way that allowed customers to make one full lap around the shop without breaking the line. They sure had come up with a great way to prevent the store from getting too crowded while also allowing the customers to see all their wares.

Marveling at the ingenuity of their layout, I picked up various items and put them in my shopping basket as I walked along with the line. I wasn’t thinking too much about ‘what’ the product was at the moment. Aside from the items that I didn’t really think I would ever need, I just put things in the basket as I continued along the procession.

Some kind of ominous-looking fluid, a stylish box, a questionable stick of some sort.

Even though the shop interior wasn’t very spacious, my shopping basket was full by the time I had finished my lap around the store. As this store was quite popular, the products wouldn’t be cheap by any means, so I was a little nervous about what the total sum would come out to. I placed my basket down at the last stop of the line, which was the check-out counter.

“Welcome. I will have your total sum calculated in just a moment.”

“Thank you.” (Lewin)

The employee to whom I had handed the basket checked over the items and calculated their costs with a skillful hand. I stood there staring fascinatedly at the employee’s hands which seemed to move with no wasted gestures. In several dozens of seconds, the employee finished calculating the price for all the products.

“The total comes out to 1 platinum coin, 5 gold coins, and 5 silver coins.” (Shop Employee)

I wondered if there had been some kind of mistake given the high price and how quickly the calculation had been done. But even though I doubted it a bit, there was no way I was going to be able to do the calculation at a remotely similar speed, so I just handed over the money.

I had been looking at the price tags as I was putting items in my basket, but the price turned out to be higher than I had expected. It was a bit hard to hold myself back from the products at a store as popular as this one, and I regretted for a second time not doing my research before coming. With a large number of items in hand, I left the Perfect Circle General Store.

Well, even though I had only gone to one shop so far, I had somehow ended up with far more bags than I had anticipated. It was probably a good idea to go back to Ponpokotei to sort out the things that I had bought. Since I could always look over the items I had bought at night, I decided to leave the bags in my room and head to the second store right away.

I returned to my room and set down the large number of items that I had bought at the Perfect Circle General Store before heading to the second store I had in mind, which was called Green Formula. This shop was the biggest apothecary in Landaust.

I had gone to the Perfect Circle General Store first since I wanted to get there before it got too crowded, but the shop that I was most interested in was this Green Formula. I had heard that they had all sorts of potions as well as some rare plants on sale. Plus, they seemed to be selling brewing stands, which I needed to make potions. I was also curious if they would buy the plants that I synthesized. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that this would be the most important store to me while living in Landaust.

I immediately went into Green Formula. The shop was slightly smaller than the Adventurer’s Guild on Main Street, but this meant that it was way larger than Elf’s Tears. Along with the exterior of the shop, it was also spacious on the inside, and there seemed to be a second floor. Plants were being sold in an area on the left side of the store, while potions were being sold in an area on the right side of the store. The second floor was where unusual products were sold, including brewing stands.

I was curious about all of the products… But I decided to first head to the area on the left, where the plants were being sold. I wanted to buy up all of the plants that I hadn’t appraised yet, but since I had already spent a lot of money at the Perfect Circle General Store, I had to hold back a little bit with my purchases.

For now, let’s go through the whole store while appraising everything with [Plant Master].

Hmm…Just from looking near the entrance, it seemed that this area near the doorway only had common items on sale. After appraising them, they were plants like Medical Herbs, Magical Grass, Antidote Herb, and All-Herb, which were all things that I had appraised before.

…However, as I appraised the plants, I realized that the ones being sold here were slightly different from the plants I was used to seeing in Grezesta. Let’s see… The most drastic difference was between these two Medical Herbs.

I picked up the two pieces of Medical Herb being sold in the store and appraised them again.

[Name: Medical Herb]

[Level: -8]

[Effect: Healing (Miniscule)]

[Fertility: ???]

[Origin: Dungeon (Landaust)]

…

[Name: Medical Herb]

[Level: 58]

[Effect: Healing (Medium), Detoxification (Low), Poison Resistance (Low), Paralysis Resistance (Low), Heat Resistance (Very Low), Cold Resistance (Very Low), Temporary Physical Augmentation (Very Low), Drowsiness (Medium)

[Fertility: ???]

[Origin: Dungeon (Landaust)]

In this manner, even though they were both Medical Herbs, they had completely different effects. Even though they were grouped together as Medical Herbs, their effects were so different that they were like entirely different plants altogether. The difference in their effects was most likely due to the fact that they were products of the Dungeon, so the difference in levels was drastic.

The price for both of these Medical Herbs were the same across the board. Even though Medical Herbs were things that I was so used to seeing, appraising them was fun and felt akin to hunting for treasure.