Town of Speranza

After I had booked my room at the biggest inn of Speranza, I decided to walk around and check the shops and stalls. Both Jackson and the sub-commander, Harvey, joined me too.

I heard Jackson say something like: "I'll go with him, just in case…" then Harvey responded with: "Yeah, I should go too…"

'Umm, hey guys, I'm not some sort of troublemaker kid, alright? Why are they treating me like I'm going to cause a commotion or something!?' I thought.

'Oh well, it's fine either way. It's more fun to tour around new places with other people… At least…That's what my wife used to say…'

As we walked around, we passed through a street that was filled with stalls selling veggies and fruits.

The main things that caught my attention were tomatoes and grapes. Tomatoes were called "tomos," and grapes were called "kupos," but obviously, I refused to call them that.

'If I can bring some of these to End Town with me… he he he,' I thought as I rubbed my hands together.

My evil smile must have been very apparent because Jackson could instantly tell that I was up to something.

He wouldn't understand, but tomatoes to me equaled tomato sauce, which meant I would be able to cook a bunch of new dishes. The ones that were mainly on my mind were pizza and pasta. Although I hadn't thought of a way to make decent pasta yet, pizza was totally doable.

As for the grapes, I thought I could use them to make wine. I was technically a minor, but it's not like I was going to drink it, at least not yet.

When I told Jackson that I wanted to make liquor out of grapes, he said: "Oh, so you wanna make wine?".

That's how I knew that wine not only existed in this world, it was called the same as in my old world, which was pretty curious.

Having an already existing wine production company in this world wasn't really what I had in mind, but I was still looking forward to planting all of these fruits myself back at End Town.

A bit more walking and touring later, and I found a stall selling something I didn't think I would ever find. Olives.

The woman who owned the little shop apparently lived in a village to the north of Speranza and had an abundance of fruit trees, but apparently, her olive trees were her most precious crop.

Olives were called "poms" in this world, and when I asked her if she made any "pom oil," she raised her eyebrow in confusion, then told me that people mostly used them on soups, salads, and in certain high-end dishes.

'I see, so poms- I mean, olives, are regarded as a delicacy here, but they have no idea they could be extracting the oil…'

At that point, I had another idea.

I introduced myself to the woman. Her name was "Miriam," and I asked if I could get a sapling of an olive tree to plant at End Town. Of course, she seemed to not like the idea at first.

Miriam was the only person in the entire country who had olive trees, and her production wasn't exactly big. Having someone else plant even more olive trees and maybe even surpass her own production could put her at risk.

That's why I gave her an offer. If she allowed me to double the production of her olive trees, or even triple it, I would turn the olives she gave me into oil free of charge, then send them back to her so she could also sell them.

Of course, End Town would be keeping some of the olive oil that I made. The problem was that she had no idea what olive oil could be used for other than dressing for salad.

'Well, if she could tell that it would be a good salad dressing, this woman might have some sort of crazy culinary sense!'

While olive oil could be used for salads, what I really wanted to do was fry stuff. I bought a sack of olives from Miriam and invited her to come to the inn later that night so that I could show her what olive oil could really do.

After that, Jackson, Harvey, and I kept touring around, looking at more shops. There was still a certain place I wanted to visit, and that was the drugstore that had been selling my potions here at Speranza.

From what I heard some of the knights say, it seemed like they were extremely more expensive than in End Town.

When we arrived, a young woman greeted us and made space for us to walk in. Behind the counter at the back, there was a bald, and somewhat fat man that seemed to be wearing pretty expensive jewelry.

"Ho? A royal knight! Please come in. Let me know if you need anything!" said the bald man while glaring at Harvey.

The sub-commander wasn't wearing his full plate armor, but his extravagant royal knight sword gave him away. Well, it's not like he was trying to hide it anyway. Before Harvey could say a word to him, I interrupted them.

"I'm looking for the "Healing Potion(+)" and the "Holy Panaceas." Do you happen to sell those here?" I asked.

"Ho? I see this kid knows a thing or two about potions! Of course, we do have them. They are right on that counter in the corner." he said as he pointed at a shelf with a few dozen of my potions.

The prices were, just like the knights said, pretty outrageous compared to the prices we had at End Town.

The "Healing Potion(+)" was being sold for 2 platinum, same for the "MP Potion." He didn't have any of the "MP Potion(+)" in stock, and the "Holy Panacea" was being sold for 1 big platinum coin.

Those were the highest denominated coins, and as far as I knew, nobody in End Town even had one of those. To put it in perspective, the most expensive potion that Mr. Olliver sold was the "Holy Panacea," and it was only 3 silver.

"What the hell are these prices?" I expressed my thoughts out loud while glaring at the bald man.

"Ho? I thought you knew your stuff… Very well, kiddo, let me give you a lesson. These potions are not just any healing and MP potions. These were made by a super-powerful master alchemist who supposedly lives deep in End Forest. All of the materials are carefully gathered from one of the most dangerous areas in the world, converted into these high-end potions by him, and then carefully transported by dozens of adventurers here. So, you see? These potions are worth this much!"

Both Jackson and Harvey looked at each other with an embarrassed look.

I sighed. 'Even though I want to give this baldy an earful, it will be better if he just sees it by himself…'

"Hey, baldy. You say these were made by a master alchemist, right? What was his name?"

"B-Baldy!? Ehem…" the man tried to compose himself.

"If you knew your stuff, you would know that potions are signed by their creators, so if you use a spell like 'Inspect,' you will see."

"Is that right?" I said. "Then inspect me…"

I had all of my information hidden, only leaving my name and age visible to anyone who inspected me. The same thing that I did with the knights.

The man glared at me with a bit of anger on his face, which then turned into a fully frightened and panicked face. "Wh-what… It can't be…"

The man began to apologize profusely to me in front of his employee. She seemed pretty shocked, so I supposed this guy didn't break down like this very often.

I accepted his apology and told him to compose himself since I wanted to end my business there quickly so I could go back to the inn and make some olive oil. Surprisingly, he composed himself pretty quickly and introduced himself as Saul.

'That's a merchant for you…'

I told him that I was definitely not okay with him selling my potions at such a high price. His excuse was that going back and forth between Speranza and End Town cost quite a lot.

Every time he wanted to pick up cases of potions from Mr. Olliver, he would have to travel with at least a dozen adventurers. At first, I didn't know if I should believe him, but Jackson confirmed that many of the adventurers that arrived at End Town from time to time always came after escorting a merchant.

So technically, this guy was bringing adventurers to our town, which was a really good thing. Also, I had seen the dangers of the road myself. If that troll was that much of a problem for a knight's order, I could see why he would need more than 10 people when traveling through that road. But even then, the prices were still way too steep.

At first, I was going to cut off this guy's entire supply of potions and sell them to another merchant at Speranza who would sell them at a fair price. But when I thought about it, this guy was bringing a lot of business to Mr. Olliver, so that would also hinder him.

'It's good I brought this thing…' I thought as I opened my void pocket in the middle of the store and pulled out a stone tablet. My very own creation, the "Delivery Tablet."

I explained to Jackson, Harvey, Saul, and his assistant everything about my creation:

The way it worked was quite simple. It had an enchantment that I had created myself using teleportation magic that connected to a much bigger stone tablet that was in the basement of my home at End Town.

From there, I could place pretty much any item on the tablet and transport it to any of the smaller tablets.

But it didn't just work one way. I had it made so that the small tablets could also transport items to the one in my house, although depending on the amount, they would probably have to do a few separate deliveries.

The main reason was for people to be able to send payment for their items to me without using adventurers as delivery drivers.

I told Saul that I would give him one of my small tablets and that Mr. Olliver would be conducting the deliveries from my home. The condition was that he would have to sell the potions at a much cheaper price.

In the end, we agreed to these prices:

"Healing Potion(+)" would be bought from Mr. Olliver for 8 copper and sold for 5 silver, the "MP Potion" would be the same thing.

The "Holy Panacea" would be bought for 3 silver and sold for 5 gold, which I thought was still extremely expensive. However, Jackson let me in on a little piece of information, and that was that the people of Speranza were simply wealthier than the people at End Town, so paying 5 gold for a miracle medicine was actually cheap for them.

'Well damn… Now I feel like I'm the one scamming Mr. Olliver… People in town have been doing better lately. Maybe I should tell him that he can up the price a bit… I mean, if anyone in town needed one of those potions, I would just give it to them for free anyway…' I thought.

After reconsidering, I asked Saul to pay Mr. Olliver a bit more for the potions, and he surprisingly agreed. He probably felt like he was ripping off Mr. Olliver too.

'Call it a merchants' mutual respect… or something like that…'

After I had left my "Delivery Tablet" with Saul, we finally departed the shop and went back to the inn for the main show. When we arrived, Miriam was already waiting for us at the bar's counter.

The inn's first floor was pretty much a restaurant, and I asked the manager for permission to use the kitchen for a few minutes. I told him that in return, I would show them a new recipe for their inn.

I went to the kitchen in the back with Jackson, Harvey, and Miriam. I opened the bag of olives that I had bought earlier that day and placed them all in a bowl. Then, I started focusing nature magic on it, just like I had done with the chamomile to create shampoo.

A few seconds later, I was able to separate the oil from the olives. I discarded them and poured the fresh oil into a bottle, then turned on the magic stove in the kitchen.

This stove was pretty well made. It had a fire enchantment that is what allowed it to create the fire to cook, but it also had knobs to fix the temperature.

It was the closest I had seen to a normal kitchen from my old world.

I opened my void pocket and pulled out some hard bread and cutlets of a redback boar, which at this point, I just called it in my head "Premium Pork" because that's how it tasted.

I smashed the hard bread in one bowl, then cracked a few eggs in another. I coated the boar cutlet in the egg first, then the bread, and then on to the frying.

Once the smell of the fried cutlets surrounded us, I could almost hear my companions salivating. When I turned around, the chef and all of the cooks were watching me along with them.

'Hmmm, maybe I should cook more than one…'

Needless to say, the fried cutlets were a huge hit, and everybody loved them. Miriam looked really motivated and grateful, so I was happy I could give her another of my "Delivery Tablets" to start doing business with her.

'I can't wait to have the people at End Town try some fried food.'