Chapter 3 - Royal Merchants Were Worse

“Okay you oversized, rock-covered, pain in my ass,” I growled, shoving against the beast.
This was why I hated Utility Classes. I had memories from strength-based Classes that could have lifted the beast with one hand. Stars, my base stats were better than any beginner had a right to possess. But without a class that specialized in physical power, most of that potential stayed locked behind the system’s idea of “balance.” Which meant I was as weak as… well, a regular person.
Unfortunately, since the Stoneboar had been here for some time, the rest of the area was clear of even the simplest of monsters, meaning I was still stuck without my spell list. And that meant I couldn’t just push the beast into the cage with a flick of my wrist as I should be able to either.
I took a step back, glaring at the beast and debating if I should just kill it. I’d lose out on the resources, but the kill would bring me up to at least level seven and it’d also report to the nearby bounty boards that the Stoneboar had been slain… right with my name plastered to the world. And absolutely nobody needed that to happen.
Had I been a Beastmaster, capturing it would’ve also counted as claiming the bounty. But interestingly, the bounty system never seemed to account for someone capturing the targets through relatively mundane methods. It was something I’d taken advantage of many times before, hunting down the most dangerous of beasts and adding them to my collection in a way that let me keep their existence a fun little surprise for everyone.
Any hunter who came this way would just assume the Stoneboar had finally migrated… even though the beasts were notoriously territorial. This particular boar was more often than not left alone if I didn’t come this way to collect him though, so that didn’t worry me too much.
“Let’s see…” I mused, turning my attention to the cavern that had been turned into a makeshift home. There was a nasty smell coming from it and I made a mental note to come up with a system to consolidate that issue when I did find a good spot to set up.
That smell, as much as it disgusted me, was a good sign. It only took finding the first pile of dung to gather what I was looking for. Several grey-and-blue spotted flowers were growing out of it and I collected every last one using my Gathering ability. As much as I was loath to admit it, cutting out the manual need to handpick each one of the flowers was a useful skill. Not as useful as flinging fireballs or commanding armies of the undead… but useful.
With the Rare-tier Rockroot Weed in my possession, I mixed a basic Potion of Increased Strength. It wasn’t anything special, but with the basic reagents I had on me it was the best I could really do for the moment. But between that and a few vials of grease I kept in more abundance than I cared to admit–because trust me, you never actually knew when some slippery grease would come in handy–I would finally have the Stoneboar captured and then I’d be able to shove it into my inventory.
Five minutes later, after using maybe just a bit too much grease, far too much swearing, and causing the Stoneboar to crash unceremoniously into the back of the cage, I’d done exactly that. Once I’d shoved the gate closed, I gained enough experience between mixing the “higher-level” potion and capturing the beast that I gained another level. Which still only put me at four and, without the extra monsters that should have been lingering in the forest, that was as high as I’d be able to go for now, even if I used up all the remaining Rockroot Weed to make more concoctions.
Which meant that unfortunately… I was still stuck with traveling slow.
I was only just reaching the treeline on my walk back when I saw that the wagon trailing ours had caught up, a crowned sun dipping below a mountain emblazoned on the deep-blue cloth tarp covering it that made me immediately scowl.
“Are you kidding me…”
They should’ve been camped out in the fields… this just had to be one of the trade caravans. If I let my mind start coming up with insane conspiracies, I’d be seeing Frederick everywhere, and that was a form of self torture I refused to participate in.
I was still mentally preparing myself for it still somehow being him and his newly Activated baby ducklings of a party, when I found that it actually was just one of the kingdom’s trade wagons, and I felt mostly relieved. Woodrow looked outright surprised to see me, ceasing his conversation with another middle-aged man as I walked up, drawing my attention to him before I could really take in the newcomer.
“Well I’ll be. I was just telling Dartigan here that a foolish kid went off and got himself killed. Figured you were a bit loony between purchasing space to Danwood and ignoring the danger I warned yah about… I didn’t take you for an adventurer, but nobody enters a Stoneboar’s territory and leaves–”
“I’m not an adventurer,” I said quickly, finally getting a word in as I eyed Dartigan. He had an overly styled handlebar mustache and thin, well manicured eyebrows above violet eyes staring in a way I didn’t like. I quickly added, “but there’s no Stoneboar out there…”
“Hmmm, wonder where that ol’ beast went. Not sad that he’s gone, but if someone managed to take care of it… might need to check in with the bounty board when I pass through the next town if one actually went up for it. Always good to know the strong adventurers for when yah need to hire some protection,” Dartigan said with a curious hum that I really didn’t like before his brow creased. “Must be a bit crazy if you went over there even after being warned.”
“Heh… I uh… was looking for some herbs… Rockroot Weed specifically…” I said, pulling a few of the flowers from one of my pockets, mentally making another note to find a backpack so no one actually realized I had a full-on dimensional space. While some bags with expanded space did exist, even among adventurers, a bottomless dimensional bag was considered rare and impossibly expensive. I could try to pass it off as one of the lesser types, but all the same I didn’t care to explain it away, so it was better to just not bring it up at all. “It grows from the dung of Stoneboars and can be ground up to increase the tier quality of animal feed.”
“Ahh… an Alchemist… guessing you inherited System Activation from your folks then? Where yah from and what’s your name?” Dartigan needled me, those violet eyes boring into me.
“Oh no, no family history, no place I really called home. I’m just Corbin, off to set myself up somewhere new after getting a bit lucky,” I said, taking a bit of a closer look at the man. While I might have thought he looked familiar, that could just be that his features matched any number of merchants I’d dealt with over the years. He was already proving to be just as annoying as them too. Since I assumed we wouldn’t just drop it at that, I quickly put together the quickest lie I could think of, trying to cover as much ground as I could. “And my Activation was really just a random chance… I was out picking some flowers, you know… easy things to sell to a merchant like yourself. Found a whole patch of Lion’s Dawn that I took a chance at clipping–that stuff is worth a fortune after all–when I got the notification and class assignment.”
“Forced Utility eh? Well it’s certainly better than staying inactive,” Woodrow said with a nod. “I’m still saving up to activate as a full Trader, but it sure ain’t cheap.”
“You can always join the Royal Merchants and let us cover your Activation,” Dartigan offered, causing Woodrow to wave him off.
“And be forced onto whatever route they want? Please, I’d be working that off for the rest of my life. No thanks.”
I mentally cursed once things finally clicked. Of course the man was a Royal Merchant.
The majority of the populace only looked at the surface, hearing the title and thinking of subsidized grains, scroll deliveries, and those little gold-and-blue ledgers that let smaller villages order things that they had no business actually affording. And sure, all of that was true and part of their duties.
But it was also true that the crown had invented quite the perfect excuse to put highly observant people on nearly every road in their sphere of influence. Which meant that Dartigan wasn’t just some hired driver, transporting goods for a quick buck while using the kingdom’s sigil, but instead was a man purposefully paid to notice things.
“So, you said you collected some Rockroot Weed, right?” Dartigan asked, turning his attention from Woodrow and back to me. “You going to use it for your craft or to earn some coin? I’d be happy to take it off your hands and would be more than happy to give yah a good price for it. The capital’s stock has gotten rather low as of late.”
“Oh, I was absolutely gonna craft with it,” I said, waving off his offer. “Like you said, it’s hard to come by and when you do see it available, the prices are far more than what someone like me could afford.”
“And I’d pay yah above even those prices. Stars, I’ll take that Lion’s Dawn if you still got it too,” Dartigan pressed, reaching into his pack of an actual satchel that jingled with coins.
“No really… it uh… even if I was going to sell them, I’d make more blending them into potions first. And I already sold the Lion’s Dawn. It’s kinda what’s financing most of this in the first place,” I said, trying my best not to show how annoyed I was getting over his insistence.
“In Danwood? No offense to the place but there’s a reason the crown doesn’t have a direct trade route with it. You won’t find anyone able to purchase that stuff from yah there,” Dartigan said, reaching up and rubbing his chin. “Weird place to be traveling for an Alchemist in general now that I think about it…”
Regardless of my self-control, my jaw still clenched. This was why I hated the Royal Merchants. The majority of them had way more common sense than the average person and even worse, they were observant. I’d curse myself for selecting Alchemist instead of Farmer later, instead deciding the only thing I could do was lean in on it and hope he’d just drop it.
“I know it’s a bit simple, but a life farming has always sounded nice and simple. And really, there’s a lot of ways that I could use the different mixes I can make as an Alchemist to grow stuff far better than most.”
“An Alchemist farming? Heh, now that’s not something I’ve heard before, especially with how much you could make selling good potions to the crown… How’s the Rockroot Weed figure into that if you’re not selling it though?”
“It’s got a lot of good uses, especially for a farm. Feed, soil enrichment… Lot’s of good ways to increase the quality of the eventual crops,” I said, noticing that even Woodrow seemed a bit curious now.
“Really? You’re going to use a battle reagent for farm improvements? Kid, you really are crazy,” Woodrow laughed and Dartigan smiled.
“Hey, all great innovations were done by someone a little bit crazy,” he said, giving me a nod of approval. “Who knows, maybe young Corbin here will revolutionize the kingdom’s farming techniques.”
“Oh stars, I hope not,” I said with an awkward laugh, drawing another curious look from Dartigan. “Just… you know, revolutionizing things is far from a simple life.”
“Well you got me there,” he said, dropping his coin satchel back into his bag before retrieving a gold-and-blue ledger from it. “How ‘bout this. I still got a delivery I gotta make in Hedgely, but my scheduled delivery date is a couple weeks out. I’m well ahead of schedule thanks to some improvements I’ve added to my wagon here recently. So, if you sell me, say, three of those Rockroot Weeds, then I’ll happily make a quick detour over to Danwood first and old Woodrow here can stick to the roads that he won’t break a wheel or turn his cart over on.”
“Huh? Why would you do that?” I stared at him.
“Well the local property clerks in Jestings that handle Danwood and the other smaller towns are quite slow to actually send representatives, and a new Activated without a surname to speak of would end up spending weeks just getting the initial paperwork filed since they refuse to work through Messenger Hawks. You might get lucky and find one willing to do the initial paperwork and the purchase order in one trip, but you’d have to be nice and friendly with them,” he said with a smile.
“And Royal Merchants are authorized to do all of that as direct representatives for the crown…” I muttered and he nodded, his smile growing wider. “Okay still… Why would you go out of your way to help a nobody like me?”
“Oh, because a smart nobody setting up shop is always a good thing, especially one with the guts to wander into a region that hasn’t quite found its footing yet,” Dartigan explained, flipping open the ledger. “Now, how’s thirty gold for the sample sound?”
As much as I hated the idea since spending any more time around Dartigan than necessary seemed like a terrible plan, I also hated the idea of having to wait weeks just to make my purchase. Regardless of how little attention I wanted, I was going to have to register my claim one way or another, so it really didn’t feel like it mattered too much, especially since any local clerk that did visit would probably have all the same questions that Dartigan had.
Better to just keep it isolated if I could… yeah, that’s how I was going to manage this.
“Okay Dartigan, I’d appreciate the help,” I said, reaching into a pocket to pull out one of the Rockroot Weeds. “Waiting weeks would put me behind on getting things going after all.”
Dartigan smiled, his hand moving across the ledger with lightning speed as a notification flashed across my eyes.
[New Contract] Type: Verbal Originator: Dartigan Ward (Royal Merchant) Reason: Travel/Claims Witness Cost/Exchange: 3 Rockroot Weed at 10 Gold Coin each
“In the name of King Dawnmere, third of his name, and under the authority of the Royal Merchants, it’s a pleasure to make this deal with you, Corbin.”
Of course there was a contract, why wouldn’t there be. And of course the merchant would initiate it as a verbal contract that had no need for a signature.
I was smarter than this… I knew that I was, so if I was annoyed by anything, it was my own stupidity. Because while slow was annoying… Royal Merchants were worse.