I follow Silvia into a shoddy-looking building... umm general store?

Ding!

Inside is an old lady with a smoke pipe in her mouth sitting on a chair.

"Oh, if it isn't our little Silvia!"

"Good evening, Genda-san"

Silvia bows lightly, I follow suit.

"You finally have a boyfriend, eh?"

"No! It's not like that!"

Silvia proclaims as she blushes and looks away from me.

"Kakakaka!"

Genda has a cliché anime old hag laugh. No, never mind this laugh is really weird. No, in the first place I didn't watch too much anime, maybe it is normal?

"Good evening, Genda-san, my name is Hiro Fukuda"

"Mm, Mm, come here, tell me what you need, I'll give you a good price for being Silvia's boyfriend. Good, you are quite the handsome guy, well done Silvia!"

"Genda-san!"

"Kakakaka!"

All I can do here is give a wry smile at their exchange and walk up to the counter as Genda asked me to.

"Actually, I just want to sell a few items I got from the monsters I hunted in the outer regions of the Black Devil Forest."

I show her the potato sack in my hand.

"..."

"..."

Genda looks dumbfoundedly at Silvia, who nods somewhat apologetic back to her.

"What items are we talking about specifically?"

Oh, she looks really serious now! I pull out a few of the drops I brought with me, mainly from the Goblin Elites.

"I have daggers, short swords, shields, and armor pieces."

"Your whole bag is full with those?"

"...yes"

"Sigh... boy, Hiro, was it? I can't buy all that, you should rather go to the adventurer’s guild or merchant’s guild for that. As long as you are a member you can pretty much sell them whatever. And even if the adventurer’s guild somehow is missing funds, no one is stopping you from having a membership in both you know?"

"Umm, about that, I'm not part of any guild right now. I never planned to regularly work in a city as I am a traveler."

Now that I think about it, I don't know if the guild rules are the same as in the novel, many details have been different already. This might unexpectedly get embarrassing if my assumption were wrong? No, no I can blame some faraway imaginary kingdom for their differing rules! And Silvia also didn't react weirdly when I spoke with my assumptions in mind. Mmm!

"Hmm, so you're avoiding civilization? With your strength getting a decent rank shouldn't be hard, once you have a certain status in the adventurer’s guild the time you can spend inactive gets pretty long. Unless you spend years visiting a city it should be fine..."

"But if you really insist, just join the merchant’s guild, that place is all about money. With stuff like this, you should get a high-level membership in no time, Silvia can also be your referrer there."

"For now, I'll just buy as much as I can, I don't always get stuff like this sold so I won't hold back. Kakaka!"

"Mm, you can buy whatever you want from this."

Genda quickly takes out one item after the other, from the looks of it she also has the Appraisal skill. Wait, isn't this bad? All kinds of problems would occur if she used that on me!

While I am thinking about other stuff, she already finished selecting the items she wants to buy and pulls out a slightly bigger bag out of a small bag that's hanging on her side. Probably a magic bag with the Item Box skill imbued to it?

"I am buying these for 15,000 Rias, is that fine?"

"Um, no complains."

The novel described 1 Rias being worth 10 Yen, I don't know how that is supposed to work when both economies are so different but for now, I'll just keep that in mind. So, 150,000 Yen¹ About 1,300 USD or 1,150 €, huh? She took most of what was in the potato sack... No way that is a good price, right? She is a merchant, she probably pushed it extremely low expecting me to haggle, but I really don't care right now. I am happy to have some money to spend, and I have tons of items left too, so I should be fine even if this is potentially at a scam-like level.

"Ok, Silvia, I have some money now, next we buy me some clothes, I hope you can help me with the choices too."

"Mm, gladly!"

 

*       *        *

 

"Haaah... I'm tired..."

"Hehehe~"

Next to me, Silvia is hopping happily, we finished shopping for clothes for me and I'm pretty much poor again. She didn't hold back at all. We are currently on our way back to her shop. Since I can't use my Item Box, I am carrying a large number of bags right now. Is it too late to admit that I have a cheat skill like that? ² Normal people don't have this skill, they have at most an item/artifact with an 'enlarged space' Attribute. No no, I have to wait until I have some cheap storage item so I can pretend, ugh...

"By the way, how much does a room at an inn usually cost?"

"Hmm? I think they start at about 100R per night?"

"Silvia... I have 17R left."

"...."

Ah, she froze. Please continue walking we are almost there, while I technically have the strength to continue carrying these bags, it's not exactly comfortable. We are also almost back, you can't stop so close to the finish line!

"I'm sorry..."

"It's fine, I just wanted to know, it's not like I'm blaming you."

"N-no, because of me you--"

"It seemed like you had a lot of fun selecting outfits for me, I also had fun so it's all good."

"Then! Umm, if you want to... you-, you can sleep at my place!"

"Eh, that hmm, if you're fine with it I gladly accept."

Like that we walk to her shop, the 2nd floor seems to be her home or rather living space. After both of us changed into comfortable sleeping clothes

"Hiro-sama should sleep on the bed! I can sleep on the floor."

Didn't we graduate from -sama? You were fine just calling me Hiro before or did I imagine that?

"No, but how about we both sleep on the bed?"

"Eh? Wha-wha-wha--"

"I mean you're going to insist that I sleep on the bed and then I'm going to insist you to sleep on the bed and we're gonna keep that exchange going until we eventually agree that we both sleep on the bed. We can just skip that and reach the conclusion, no?"

"..."

"Is that fine?"

"Uuu, you... ok, we both sleep on the bed."

Like that we both lied down in the bed, barely not touching each other. I can feel her breath on my neck though. [Meditation] and [Quick Sleeper] please work hard.