Survival Of The Fittest

Mal knew that in this chaotic world, it was very difficult to believe a person. Therefore, Mal had already taken out a herb from his bag and had kept it inside his shirt pocket so that one could see that he only had a single herb.

He took out the herb and placed it on the table in front of the shopkeeper. After looking at the surprised expression on the face of the shopkeeper, Mal understood that the herb was something rare and valuable. "For how much you will buy this herb?" Mal said in a somewhat hoarse tone, as if he wanted to intimidate the shopkeeper but sadly for him it was like showing one's skill in front of a master.

"It looks like, it's your first time here." The man suddenly questioned Mal

"Yes.....Fuck" Mal answered on reflex but it didn't take him much time to realize his mistake 'I got baited' Mal cursed inside.

After hearing Mal's reply the smile on the man's face grew even wider. "Then let's get to know each other, first let me introduce myself. My name is Grant and I am a Level 8 water Elementalist, but my real occupation is that of an Alchemist." He introduced himself first, Mal had already forgotten about selling anything here, he just wanted to get out of the store, but hearing that the person in front of him was a level 8 Elementalist, Mal figured that now it was impossible for him to leave simply by turning around and walking out.

"I am here to sell this herb, not to chit-chat." Mal stood his ground as he angrily.

"Oh now come one now don't be like that, I introduced myself and it's just a basic courtesy for you to do the same," Grant said shaking his head, making it look as if he had been heartbroken from Mal's reply.

"Nevermind, I don't have time for all of this, I will just go to another shop and try to sell this herb there, I have heard that there are many more alchemist shops in the vicinity. I am sure that they would be 100% interested in buying this precious herb without speaking nonsense." Mal said as he turned around and started walking quickly towards the exit, but alas, as he had thought before, two burly men suddenly came out from nowhere and stopped him.

"What's the meaning of this?" Mal shouted without turning his back.

"Oh, it's just that, I don't like people who do not know how to act properly and as you are one of those, so I am just teaching you a friendly lesson," Grant said while shrugging as if what he was doing was for Mal.

"Don't make things difficult for both of us and let me go and I promise I will forget everything," Mal said as was still trying to bluff his way out of the store because he knew that if he got caught, then he would have to fork out every single herb in his bag and also there was a threat of him dying here.

"That would be for the best! You are not a brain-dead person as I thought you to be!" Grant clapped his hands and said amicably. "So just give me the 'Moon-Grass' and I will let you go."

'Do I have no other choice? But to give him this herb? The thing is this herb can be the only good herb I have but it can also be the opposite...' Mal was thinking about what he should do.

"Fine, take the herb..." Mal said. This was a decision he came to. He didn't wanted to risk his garden in the mountain getting discovered and the most important thing was he had no plan to die like this. If it would have been him of the past then for sure he would have tried to force his way out of the store like the MCs of the novels he used to read and then he would have waited for his plot armor to activate but, this was reality, not a novel. (Auth:- Well guess what? XD)

"I knew it, you are intelligent unlike those muscle heads outside. Now be a good boy and get out of this market, this place is not a place where trash like you can enter." Grant said as his voice grew a bit cold.

'Gulp...did he knew that I was a level 0 person, but how?' Mal gulped as he quickly ran outside the store.

After Mal left, Grant called one of his lackeys and asked him to quietly follow Mal.

'That was close' Mal breathed a sigh of relief. 'I should probably so somewhere less flashy than that store. The more fancy a store is, the more discrimination there would be and the discrimination in this new world was discrimination between the weak and the strong. 'Well it's not like this was something new, even in the world before, the rich and powerful had all the power, and the poor used to suffer.'

Mal this time cautiously moved around, patiently looking at each store. 'This one looks good!' Mal said as his eyes landed on a small ancient-looking shop at the edge of the road. Its name was 'Alchimia'

Mal entered the store and he was surprised to see that the store was empty, even the shopkeeper was not there. "Hello? Is there anyone here?" Mal paused for a second waiting for someone to answer but, after hearing no reply he continued, "I am here to sell some rare herbs..." *FSSHHTT* Mal hadn't even completed his sentence, suddenly a figure jumped from behind the table.

"WTF!!" Mal barely stopped himself from pooping his pants. 'WTF is wrong with people nowadays...how come there are weirdos everywhere I go?' Mal said to himself.

"Where is the Herb?" A cute female voice came out from the figure that was standing in front of him. the person in front of him was a young girl who was wearing a brown working suit and she also had pilot goggles on her head. She looked like a middle schooler from her height, the striking feature of her's was her pink hair which was styled in a bob cut. In short, she looked cute. (Auth:- This is totally not me :) It's Mal, I am innocent..)

Mal was stunned for a moment after seeing such a cute little girl in a place like this, then he shook the useless thoughts out his head and took out a similar-looking herb that he gave to Grant, but the difference was that this plant looked a lot vibrant and healthy than the plant he had before.

"There you go..." Mal said as he took out the herb from his pocket and placed it on the table.

Looking at the herb, stars appeared in the eyes of the little girl as she jumped towards the table and very carefully picked up the herb from the table, she was constantly smiling and laughing sweetly looking at the herb.

Mal saw her acting like a child who just got her favorite toy, he barely stopped himself from patting her head, 'this girl I must proteccc he thought.' (Auth:- JK Lol)

Finally, after looking at the herb for a full minute, she let go of the herb and asked, "From where did you get this herb?"

"It's a trade secret..." Mal said as he shook his head at her question.

"Do you know, what is the name of this herb?" the girl asked.

"Is is Moon-grass?" Mal said questioningly

"It's not a moon grass but a frekin sun-moon grass! The value of this herb in the market is at 100 medium ether shards!!!"

"WTFyingFuck" Mal barely stopped himself from shouting. As he knew that 100 medium ether shards were enough to buy a low-level magic ether weapon and a low-level magic ether battle suit.

Magic weapons were 10 times stronger than the strongest Normal Ether weapon same was the case with the battle suit, in short, he was scammed before when he gave the sun-moon grass to Grant for free, thinking that it would not have been worth it to gave up his life for a piece of grass. But, he was wrong!!

'I should have just betted my life for that herb' Mal's heart was bleeding thinking about the herb.

"Now, what do plan to do with this herb? Don't tell me you are here to sell it." The girl looked at Mal for a second and then started staring at the herb.

"I..."

-End Of Chapter-