The Merchant

"Scientists have announced that a burst of energy from the sun will reach the Earth in the evening today. Pieces of energy that cannot be absorbed by the Earth's magnetic field may cause storms on

Earth, please stay indoors."

Luck looked out his window as he watched the morning news on his computer screen.

He could see the lightning breaking through the darkness of the night, turning night into day.

"Luck turn off the electronics, there's a storm outside!" a woman's voice was heard from inside.

His mother was old-fashioned, thinking that stormy weather would damage electronics.

"Damn, storms have gotten worse since the nuclear war! Turn that computer off!"

"I'm twenty-five years old and he's still trying to interfere with me." Luck grumbled hoarsely.

He turned off the news on his computer screen and opened the game he always played.

"If I don't get a noob on my team this time, I'll rank up! I even lost the game I played on 23/10/15!"

As he was choosing a character to play on the character selection screen, he saw a flash that illuminated his room, ignoring even his closed curtain, followed by a deafening explosion.

The lightning struck the lightning rod of the building he was sitting in, and through an opening in the lightning rod cables, it passed into the building's power line and started to burn all the electronic devices in the building one by one.

Luck, who was frozen in place from the sound he heard and the fear he felt, fainted before he even had a chance to take his hand off the computer mouse, feeling a pain piercing through his body.

"Luck, did you turn off the computer..." Luck's mother opened the door to his room and walked in to see Luck asleep at the closed computer with his head on the keyboard.

"It's not enough that you've been sitting at the computer all day, now you're sleeping at the computer desk..." She closed the door to the room and left.

The next day.

"Luck breakfast is ready!"

Luck's mother waited at the breakfast table for a while and when she didn't hear anything from Luck, she got up in a rage, thinking that Luck must have gone off to play games again.

"Didn't I tell you not to play games at breakfasttime!" she opened the door to the room and walked in to find Luck still asleep at the computer table.

He took the slipper off his foot and slapped Luck on the back.

Luck woke up with a pain "AAHHH!"

"Did you sleep at the computer desk all night?!" her anger was evident in her voice.

"No I didn't sleep..." he denied in confusion.

"Are you lying to me? You've been sleeping on the computer table since last night! You've become a computer addict!"

"Wash up and come to the breakfast table!" 

Luck was confused as he watched his mother slam the door and leave.

The last thing he remembered was that he was about to play a game and he heard a terrible noise accompanied by a flash and then he felt an incredible pain in his hand.

Luck's eyes widened in horror at the realization and he tried to turn on his computer, but no matter how hard he pressed the power button, it wouldn't come to life.

"no, no, it can't be..." Luck hurriedly opened the hatch next to the computer case and was greeted by a heartbreaking sight.

The whole motherboard was blackened, and the RTX 6030 graphics card he had just bought melted in parts.

"Ahh, fuck!"

"LUCK BREAKFAST!" came an angry voice from inside.

Knowing how angry his mother would be if she found out the computer was on fire, Luck sat down at the breakfast table as if nothing had happened.

"Breakfast is great as always." He praised his mother, looking at the breakfast on the table.

"Stop kissing ass, clean the dishes, I'm going to work." She said with a smile.

Luck looked after his mother as she ate her breakfast and left, put his head down, and started to wash the dishes.

After studying business administration at the university, he still couldn't find a job, and with his brother studying at the university in Izmir, the whole expense was on his mother's shoulders. 

His father had died a few years after they had immigrated to Istanbul when he was a child, forced by the immigration policy of the World Government.

When he returned to his room, he put on a suit. He had left his charred computer at the computer repair shop in the hope of finding a job where he could earn some decent money.

"I hope I can find a job."

When he stepped out of the door of his room, his eyes darkened for a moment and he felt as if he had stepped into the void, but the feeling was short-lived.

His vision returned as he felt solid ground beneath his feet.

What he saw was not his own house. He was in some kind of inn where a lot of people in strange clothes were laughing and eating. 

Next to the tables were many weapons such as swords, shields, spears, and staffs. People were wearing all kinds of armor.

"Are you just going to stand there? Don't block the door to the inn." A gruff voice came from behind him.

He turned around, frightened that someone was calling him from behind when he least expected it.

It was a large man with a long beard, wearing leather armor and an axe hanging from his back.

Noticing Luck's blank stare, the man said, "Would you step aside or shall I pull you aside?"

"Oh no, no need, go ahead." He stepped to the side, frightened.

"Huh," the big man shouldered Luck as he entered the inn.

"Ahh," he cried out in pain.

"Is there a problem?" 

"No, no." Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, whether from pain or fear.

Trying to figure out where he was, Luck stepped out of the Inn and saw medieval-style stone buildings, horse-drawn carriages on the road, and armored soldiers on patrol. 

Everyone was going from one place to another as if they were busy with something. 

Suddenly he heard two passers-by talking.

"Did you hear that Alec the Wizard killed a lava lizard?"

"Yes, I did, he's even going to sell lava lizard meat in the marketplace."

"No way, if I can eat mana-rich 3-star monster meat I can leap to become a 2-star warrior."

"Yeah, it's lucky for us that the meat of a 3-star beast is not useful for a 5-star wizard-like Alec."

"I hope we can get a few pounds of meat."

"I hope we can get a few gold pieces for a kilo of meat."During this conversation, the two hurried off to what they called the marketplace.

Luck heard this conversation while they were wandering around and started to follow them.

As Luck followed the duo, he noticed that people around them kept turning to look at him as if they had seen something strange.

"It must be the suit I'm wearing." He was aware that he was dressed very differently from the other people around him.

On the way to the marketplace, he learned from what he saw and heard around him that there were 3 types of capital: bronze, silver, and gold. 

100 copper was equal to 1 silver and 100 silver was equal to 1 gold.

Street food ranged from 1 to 10 coppers, while a sword was sold for about 40 silver, according to a

shop window. According to a sign in an inn, the nightly room rate was 20 copper.

After a while, they came to an area where a group of people were gathered. On a stage in the center of the empty square lay a lizard with red scales and black horns, and next to it stood a middle-aged man in a pointed hat holding a staff.

That man was Alec the Wizard.

Even the people in the various shops around the square came out and looked at the man in the center of the square.

Nodding his head as if satisfied with the fullness of the square, Alec coughed slightly to attract people's attention.

He poked the lizard with his staff and said, "Here is a 300-pound lava lizard, I will sell its meat and other ingredients, anyone can bid."

"3 gold for 1 kilo of meat!"

"3 gold on me!"

"10 gold for the horns!"

"I'll give 15 silver for the gall bladder."

"3 silver for the teeth!"

"100 gold for the hide!" Said a well-dressed rich man.

Everyone in the square breathed in the air.

100 gold pieces was a lot of money, many of them had never even seen that much money together before.

On the stage, Alec had a big smile on his face. It looked like he was going to make even more money than he had expected.

"The lava lizard's hide is yours, Mr. Halt." 

Luck was looking at the person who had taken the lizard's hide, and the same man was looking at him.

There was a look in his eyes as if he had seen a rare beauty.

"This man doesn't have strange tastes, does he?"

Under Luck's gaze, the man called Halt started walking towards him.

When he came in front of Luck, he held out his hand, "Hello, sir. I'm Halt Star. I'm a merchant, can we talk?"