"[Appraisal]."

The shopkeeper waving her hand as he walked out. Yesterday him would have purchased at least a small bag for propriety's sake. No, not real propriety. Perceived propriety. However, as it turned out, donning a fastened white tunic and all-cover pants were enough to give him the look. So why bother?

Of course, Ed disagreed. Well, not that his reserved butler told him off to his face. But the slow cadence, the unusual stop between each and every sentence were really, really telling that his choice of attire was not particularly respectable.

Not every day that his own butler slapped him with phrases like ‘young master are you truly going out like this?’ And the way he said it. Emphasized, punctuated with gravitas of disappointed father. He almost reeled when hearing it.

But how else one could do a well-planned market research without raising an eyebrow besides pretending to be a particularly strict housekeeper's help? True the cloth might be a bit of a rundown. And he was not going to argue that based on the role he tried to play in this town, kind of ...improper. However, he wasn't going to do two or three token purchases at every store just for jotting down their prices.

Especially this store. This cheat. It was well hidden, but just behind the leftmost corner barrel, he could perceive the slightest tingling, the signature twin buzz of a rune; one from the mana crystal powering the rune and one from the rune itself. Which if he had to guess, was a [Preservation Rune].

Which was fine on its own. After all, preserving your goods was just that, good sense. Like yesterday, he saw four to five butchers, collected their processed meat on one sort of public stall/warehouse that had [Preservation Rune] engraved on it.

Yet it another story altogether if what you're selling were preserved foods. It needed to be preserved in absence of the rune. Which of course it did.

Unfortunately, in what he touted as the best of rule lawyering, the shopkeeper never once claimed that her wares were dried goods. Customers just assume it was with how brown and aged the grain look under the slightly dim yellow lighting. Which was genius, if it weren’t used for misleading purposes. Those fresh grains were easily twice the weight of the dried ones.

Not that he could do anything. Most he’d just note the store and pass the name to Mrs. Crombe, but knowing the old woman, she already knew that.

Walking back, he flipped his notes again, rereading the result. As with that last cheat, it made the fifth store today. He needed to process the data later. Spreadsheeting, cataloging, doing prices/weight ratio, all that. But for now, his preliminary finding showed that groceries price were more or less the same with a five to twelve percent variation between all districts. With the innermost district, the hightown, bore the highest price followed by surprisingly, the outer.

Though to be fair, they were mostly single-item consumer stores where the formers provided convenience and the latter’s compete in pricing. The cheapest were the wholesalers which concentrated at the inner, but they require a very bulk purchase, if he didn't remember wrong it was around fifty stones minimum for the aforementioned gaily seed.

Another item that gained his attention was ores, which as it turned out, were one of this town’s main export. At least that what he could infer from looking at the adventurer guilds quest board. The stuff also quite varied, he found at least there were five different common ores sold. Three mundanes, two magic with iron being the most common.

Also it kind of big industry. By his rough count alone, the association at least employed around a hundred miners and another two hundred support staffs; security details, admin, and transporter just to name a few.

Although, all paled compared to the last one. The last but not least ones. Yes, that right! Magic!

Well, magic items. But yeah, Magic! Unfortunately, besides purchasing few necessities like the pebbles for his home lighting and several chunks of mana orb for a planned experiment down the line, he couldn’t really splurge. Since you know, money.

However based on his cursory glance, they were abundant through and through, with almost all general stores sold some kind of magic item. With pebbles being most common. There were also few stores that he found to specialized in enchantment. Which supposed to be the major focus here with the academy and all.

For example, three days ago, he saw a display of a glowing red sword —which was aptly named as [The Blade of Heat]. The attending shopkeeper boasted that it could break through even the skin of Ironhide, which supposed to be a very tough monster. He just nodded. He didn't know what Ironhide was.

Also more interestingly were several scrolls that also sold alongside the sword. Particularly those of [Fireball], [Water Spouts], and [Harden]. Although he really, really curious, they netted a price that he couldn’t justify to purchase. Perhaps later, if his venture were more successful.

And it also needed to be noted how most of the scrolls he was offered were low-tiered ones. At least if his status screen corresponded 1:1 to the [Chronicle]. Thus it either the magic knowledge was in its infancy or better-tiered spell only catered to select customer. Probably the latter.

Either way, the tallies were in! He could finally say after a whole five days of running around that this town had a viable unfulfilled niche that oddly suitable to his classes; potion!

It wasn't like there were no potions per se. After twenty hours of subvert interview and *ehm* eavesdropping. He could safely say that all burgeoning adventurers with self-respect to his own life would pocket at least one lifesaving enchantment on their person.

But here, lifesaving could mean a whole lot of things. Sometimes it could mean buying 50 gold sword that had been enchanted with [Flexibility] so it didn’t get shattered on the first impact, other times was not skimping on the guild discount bin when buying [Mana Light].

For injury though, while things like [Philter of Restoration] and [Invigorating Whiff] do exist, so did he hear, they tend to come in a very, very low rate.

The circulating rumor —which he definitely not stole by pretending to be a pass-out drunk— was that they only came from five-fold mazes on the 15th floor, dropped by hidden treasure box which had 8 in 10 chances to be mimic. And it was literally snapped up the moment it hit the market since the best C rank only farmed up to 7th floor. It didn't mean people weren’t injured though. People just tend to take a mundane way when they're dealing with injuries —pouring either water or spirit into their wound before bandaging them. Or they just stopped, resting, and return to the town if the delve was too hard. After all, as the guild said, ‘life is the most important.’

He agreed with that sentiment.

"Have Restia visited?"

It was late afternoon when he arrived at the mansion proper and had changed to the afternoon wear when Edward knocked on his bedroom door.

"Yes, young master. Lady just left at the twelfth bell,” he said putting down the water basin on the floor just before spreading two layers of folded towels below it. “For such short notice, she advised that only storefront at Aglen Street that meet your requirement."

He nodded, plunging his red, aching feet to the basin. Letting the cold water seeped in.

Ah. His feet! How those movie protagonists never complain about their feet after walking god knows how many hours?

"How much does she quotes?"

"Three hundred gold for one renting years. Seven thousand for—"

"Just buy the lot. Tell Restia to withdraw it from my account."

"Young Master,” the butler tone rose. Hesitant. “It'd be unwise to spend such sum—"

"Ah ah. I need that lot to be private property, Ed."

Of course, Ed was right, if you considered a normal point of view that was. The sum was indeed ridiculous. Not to mention his limited money cache. But what can he do, skimp? He wasn't even sure how this medieval fantasy world handled a contract.

He meant it'd be obvious the property price would skyrocket the moment he started to market his potions. If it turned out great.

Well, at least he thought it would.

Did people really think the original store owner wouldn’t amend his price by then? Spiking it up so much he needed to leave, and lose all of his customers.

Would he even get a grace period? Eviction notice? A simple sheet of paper denoting his store had moved and where it moved? Or it’d be just straight-up ten thugs, marching —breaking his door, demanding him to pay a thousand gold more each year?

He simply couldn't risk it. Not with this kind of venture.

Not to mention from what he gathered, Ar'endal originally was never meant to be an adventurer town. The neighboring countries were mainly concerned about containing the dungeon break. The empires and the principalities used to send alternating campaigns to the area. While it true there was quite demand from the mana stone that the dungeon monster drop, maintaining a standing army was a particularly expensive endeavor.

The book said it one of the first settlers who suggested to open the dungeon for public use; advertising it as a get-rich-quick scheme. It was quite a success supposedly, the break rate was halved. However, because of that, the government itself was basically comprised of what he determined as loose gathering of treasure-hunter, it safe to say that they cared little about anything but maintaining their fount.

And if his little tangle with Restia were any indicator. It wouldn’t be surprising there was a skill to evict someone from their property, lest if it was rented.

His gold deep, but not as deep as those big pockets.

"As you wish young master," his butler nodded, his slightly puffed-up cheek seemed to hide a defeated sigh.

"Ah Ed, before I forget, for tomorrow go ahead and buy a coach. Emphasize ...practicality would you?”

“Certainly young master,” he said blinking his eye twice. “...may I suggest also to hire a [Coachmaster] to take you around?”

Euca nodded at the suggestion, he couldn’t be taking care the house if he also needs to drive him around. Understandable.

"Yes, of course. Should we consult Restia on this?”

“We could young master, but—” he coughed. “Alverre was having rearrangement a few weeks ago. And it might be presumptuous, but I know few ...good men that will do some fine work without the need of going through the guild.”

Ah, understandable. He did look at Restia’s waived fee. Half month salary for successful introduction? Unbelievable. So who’s this [Coachmaster]? Friend? Family?

Well, it’s a bit of nepotism, he didn’t really like this but—

—he needed to reward his butler somehow. Loyalty after all fickle. Money, money was real.

“Okay. I’ll trust your judgment on this,” he said nodding at the man. Which the latter look relieved, and ...thankful? The man almost bowed, before he caught himself halfway in the act.

“Also, tell Mrs. Crombe to send all meals to the study,” he said, interrupting. Sparing his butler from the embarrassment. “Don't wait for me. I'll be there for several days at least. Just inform me when it's done.”

“Yes, young master. Anything else?”

“No thank you Ed. You’re excused.”

“Very well, young master. Have a good evening.” the butler smiled, taking back the basin and the towel with him, closing the door.