ART Of Survival - Chapter 14

Mal for the one last time, atleast for now, looked at the ancient brush and stored it inside his camping bag. As Natalia had said before, he can store things bought from the store in the inventory but the brush was not something he bought. It was something she gave away to Mal.

After that, he came outside the cave and started walking towards the river nearby to freshen himself up. I should collect some expensive-looking herbs from the secret garden, Mal was planning to sell some more of them.

“I should try to get the mid-grade awakening potion as soon as possible and then I will go hunting,” Mal said to himself as he made his way towards the garden after washing himself in the river.

-Outside The Cave-

Few meters away from the cave, there was a bump in the bushes, it was constantly raising up and growing down as if the bush was breathing, and it was indeed breathing. This was the burly man from the day before, after hiding in the bushes for the whole night, he finally gave in and currently was sleeping soundly.

-Back To Medicine Garden-

“I should have bought a medicine guide…I have no idea which of them are rare and which of them aren’t” Mal thought for a sec then started plucking out the expensive-looking herbs from the ground such as the abundant sun-moon grass and some rainbow-colored flowers. “This should be enough…” after filling out the entire bag of his with herbs, he went back to his cave tidied himself a bit, and moved out towards the market.

“I have to think of a permanent way to enter and exit the market.” After thinking for a while, he wore his battle suit and tied the spear on his back, “now I just have to hope that I am looking like a hunter otherwise things would get a bit rough.”

If things go as planned then he would be able to enter without any problem, if the guard stops him from entering then it would be a bit of a problem for Mal.

‘Here goes nothing’ Mal took a deep breath and exited his cave, ‘huh what is this?’ Mal saw a man sleeping in the bushes, ‘and I thought I was pitiful, it turns out that there are people who don’t even have a cave to sleep in,’ Mal shook his head and without disturbing the sleeping man he quietly left.

After a few minutes of jogging, Mal reached the market’s entrance. After thinking for a while, he put on a rough-looking mask, took a deep breath, straightened his back, and walked forward.

Upon seeing Mal arrive, the guard’s eyes widened not because of Mal but because of the fact that Mal was wearing magic armor. In regular shops, magic armor was generally priced at 20 middle grade stones and that was for the lowest of the low quality ones and the one Mal was wearing was high-quality magic armor and it also had a custom paint job on it.

“He must have spent more than 50 middle-grade shards, that means either he is the son of someone important or he is a high level person.’ the guard gulped as respectfully moved out of Mal’s way.

Acting tough points +100 [Auth:- what reference is this? (•‿•)].

After walking away from the guard’s sight, Mal moved to a corner and wiped the sweat of his face. ‘phew thank god that worked’

After taking a few deep breaths, he started walking towards the ‘Alchimia’ shop.

*trrrinngg* The sound of the bell rang as Mal entered the shop. Yesterday he was not right in the mind to notice these things.

“Miss Natalia!” Seeing that noone was there at the counter Mal called out Natalia’s name, but there was no response.

‘She should be there…’ Mal thought as he moved towards the counter and yes Natalia was at the back of the counter sleeping soundly.

Mal with a gentle smile moved his face towards her [Auth:- Stop, I will call the FBI ಠ︵ಠ] he moved closer and closer till he mouth was very close to her face, he open his mouth slowly and…

“MISS NATALIAAAAA!!!! YOUR SHOP IS ON FIRE!!!!!” He shouted on the top of his lungs.

“Ahhhh” a lound scream escaped Natalia’s from her mouth as she stood up and started looking everywhere.

“Where is the fire??” she said and while glancing around he saw the ‘gentle’ faced Mal standing at the front of the counter with a smile on his face.

“Why are you here?” she asked Mal in an annoyed tone.

“Because I want to sell some herbs and buy other things” Mal said with a smile.

“Oh…” realisation dawned upon Natalia as she remembered that yesterday they had signed a contract.

“Okay give me the herb’s you want to sell…” Natalia said plainly as she extended her small hands towards Mal.

“Okay” without wasting anymore time, Mal took out all the herb’s from his bag and placed them on the counter which one again surprised Natalia.

“This…” No matter how many years she had lived, seeing this many high level herbs still made her heart beat faster.

“From where the hell are you getting these herbs from?” she couldn’t help but ask

*shhh* “Trade secret” Mal said mysteriously

“tchh… don’t tell me if you don’t want to…what a stingy person” she said in a dissatisfied voice. “The total this time is 700 high grade shards, would you like to refund all of it or would you like to buy something?” she asked Mal like before.

“…”

“How…how much again?” Mal couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“699 high grade shards.”…. she said

“Sell” Mal shouted out loud as was afraid of the price going more down and above all, the price now was 69…9 Noice. [ಡ ͜ ʖ ಡ]

“Okay, so would you like to withdraw all of the shards?” Natalia asked neutrally.

“No, please get me a vial of medium grade awakening potion and high nutrition drink powder I want enough to last me 6 months and also a sleeping bag that can be used in any terrain, 100 monster repelling incense and finally a software that includes information about all the level 0 and 1 monsters plus it should also have info about various plants.” Mal had already thought of a the things he wanted to buy, so he didn’t spend time searching for things because for Mal, time was money.

“That would cost you 500 high grade shards….are you okay with that?” Natalia asked him to confirm.

“Yes” Mal said without any hesitation.

“Give me 5 minutes” Natalia said as she went inside the back room.

‘With this I should be ready to complete all the things in my checklist’ Mal sighed as he again thought how lucky he was to find this shop.

After 5 or so minutes, Natalia returned with the same tablet in her hands that she had yesterday.

“Transfer the stuff” Natalia handed the Tablet to Mal and he quickly transferred all the things to his inventory.

“Do we get infinite space in our inventory?” Mal was a little stunned after looking at the things he had in his inventory. The things were enough to fill a whole room.

“No you don’t, the things you can store gets stacked in a 100 things/per bundle ratio, and you get 200 of these slots for levels 0-20.

“I see, thanks for the info!” Mal said politely as he bowed and turned back to exit the shop.

“Stop!” As he was walking towards the exit, he heard Natalia call him out.

“Is something the matter?” Mal asked with a confused look on his face.

“Yes, give me 1 high grade shard” Natalia demanded.

“But why??” Mal was taken aback by the sudden demand of hers

“I don’t give info for free, for the thing you asked about the inventory it was worth 1 high grade shard, now gimme”

*shatter* “There was a sound of something shattering and it was Mal’s heart.” You could have told me sooner, Mal said in a depressed tone.

“Are you going to give me the shard or not?” Natalia said impatiently.

“There you take it…” Mal gave her the shard with reluctance.

‘I should just leave this place as soon as possible, otherwise she will steal me off all of my money.’ Mal thought as ran outside the shop.

‘Now all that is left is to fight some monsters’ Mal said with a tinge of excitement and fear in his voice.

“The hell is near, I have to get ready as soon as possible”

-End Of Chapter-