‘Who’ll push me around now?’ I walked happily through the crowd as it parted ways to make space for Magnar. No one tried to push or get too close to us. First, Magnar had his golden thread on display. I could see the horror in the eyes of anyone that got too close.

  Second, Magnar was a beastman. No one wanted to try his strength. The street had plenty of adventurers and broad-shouldered men, plenty with scars and looking menacing. But Magnar had a way, his aura was different now. He felt like a man ready to face the entire world.

  ‘Where the hell does he pull this from? I lived two lives, seen what lays between life and death and I still can’t bring that sort of intensity… Heck, I’ve been training my entire second life to turn my body in a weapon and I can’t…’

  These thoughts however didn’t stop me from feeling smug. I no longer had to push my way through the sea of people, the sea was parting before me. I acted as the navigator, moving from one stall to another. I already took notice of the important ones while looking for monster materials in the morning.

  Fruits were the ones that sold the fastest since they could be eaten on the spot, much like snacks. There were no fast-food stalls so the replacement in this setting seemed to be fruits. Since I wanted to make jams, I couldn’t afford to miss the moment.

  First stall we went to together had a pale green, pear-like fruit. I picked one and brought it close to my nose. I saw the seller frown and move forward. I closed my eyes and inhaled it had a vanilla like smell. I placed it back down and picked another fruit type.

  It looked similar to an orange and had no smell. I put it down and picked another long, thin and black fruit. I inhaled again and was hit with the smell of wet earth and another familiar flavor that I couldn’t identify outright still…

  “Could you tell me what this one is like?” I point at the orange-like fruit.

  “Where’d you live to not know about common fruits?”

  “In the Whisperwood forest, to the south. Now please answer.”

  “That explains it… These round, yellow fruits are called mellis. They split into slices and are sweet like honey. You have to peel them first of course. The green ones are called liren, they are sweet, crisp and juicy, while the black ones are called kinth. They are creamy and have a slight earthy aroma and forest berries.”

  “Oh? That’s great. Do you have something sour?”

  “Yes, here, these flat orange ones are called sola. They are extremely sour; they are used more like a spice for food than eaten like a fruit.”

  I look back, over my shoulder at Magnar. He stood there with his arms crossed looking at the fruits. His eyes were locked onto the pear-like fruits.

  “What do you think?”

  “Hm? Why do you ask me?”

  “Well, you are often coming over at my place, how could I not serve anything forever?”

  “The liren.”

  “I thought so too…”

  I turned to the seller again.

  “How much for the liren and sola?” I paused a little. ‘Mellis look like oranges and separate like oranges… I’m not buying if the similarities go further’ Reaching this conclusion I added. “Are the mellis watery, do they have a lot of skins inside by any chance?”

  “No, what gave you that idea? The pieces are in a skin, but the inside is a mushy paste. A copper for twenty liren. And six sola for the same price. The mellis are twenty-two a copper.”

  “How comes the Sola is so expensive?”

  “The tree only bears fruit once in two years and not many of them at once, they are harder to grow and they sell harder as well.”

  “Alright. Six sola then, a hundred liren and a hundred and ten mellis.”

  “That’s a big purchase… Do you even have that much?”

  I pulled out my money pouch and after fiddling for a while took a silver out. “I’m out of smaller coins…”

  “I can’t exchange that…” the seller said defensively.

  I turned to Magnar. “Hey, do you still have the coins I gave you when returning that gold coin?”

  “Yes, wait a second.” He took out his bag and a smaller pouch from within that he threw at me. I snatched it midflight and threw at him two half golds. He caught them and placed them in his bag, then hid the bag back in his clothes. I still couldn’t understand how he camouflaged it…

  I opened the pouch he threw at me and took out a large copper and a copper.

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  “Here.” I extended my hand to the seller, but he didn’t take the coins yet.

  “Do you have anything to carry the fruit in?” Is what he asked instead.

  “We don’t.” I answered honestly.

  “Give me two more small coppers and I’ll give you sacks.”

  We were soon away. Magnar carried the two sacks with fruits.

  “What do you even plan to do with this many? They won’t hold over winter…”

  “You’ll see…I promise you’ll like the result.”

  “If you say so…”

  He had no idea… Only issue was that there was no sugar in this world so it might be a bit hard to make them as preservable as jams on earth. ‘I did make plum jam once back on earth… it turned out good, but it fermented slightly in the jars…’

  We continued walking through the crowded street. After picking out two more fruit types, namely jyun and pym. Jyuns were red and looked like a honeycomb, except each hexagon was popping outwards in a rounded form.

  Apparently jyuns used to be until ten years ago a noble exclusive fruit. They grew on cactus-like plants from what I managed to understand and were a specialty of Seridia Empire. Ten years back the household of Eisen brought a bunch of the plants and seeds and did their best to acclimatize them here.

  They succeeded and spread the seeds of the new plants, all because the head of the house, Marquis Viktor Eisen, liked them too much. After he entered in a fight with a ducal household for a batch of imported fruits, he decided that it couldn’t continue like that, not to mention that the prices were too high.

  He spread the seeds so that he wouldn’t be the only one growing them and to lower the prices. His family was deep in the military, and he couldn’t pull away resources just for his likes. So instead, he crashed the prices like this.

  ‘Extravagant and overbearing…’ I said hearing the story, but after having a piece, I understood why. They had a cherry like flavor and were hot like chilies. I never thought of this combination before, but it was quite addicting.

  Pym were small blueberry like fruits, tasted a bit like grapes. With all these bought, Magnar carrying two sacks and me another two we returned to the tower. We left the sacks of fruit and returned to the market.

  This time I needed to focus on vegetables… Plenty of options here too! Problem? I couldn’t really differentiate between the two. ‘I’m in a fantasy world and lived in a forgotten corner of the world… How am I supposed to keep up with all of this…’

  In the end I went with what I could recognize. Vyl, a spiral-shaped blue carrot… It had a slight pepper taste too, and Solm, a potato-like orange colored tuber. These two were used in soups and lasted a long time… By asking around I found out about some more such as groll and runt and bought some of them too.

  Grolls were like a knotted root. By looking at them I just knew they’d be hard to peel and clean, but if I were to make good food, I couldn’t turn them away. They tasted like parsnip and garlic. Meanwhile runt was a sort of tuber with a harder skin that popped when boiled. They had a nutty flavor.

  Our shopping continued, we went twice for vegetables and once for beans. We bought a sack of oat-like cereals. The taste and shape were similar, but it was named boli. After vegetables we went to buy coal. The price was higher than last time, and it would continue to grow, but if I were to be able to keep warm this winter and keep working, I needed a large amount.

  I bought some lumber too since it was easier to light up and burned longer. Along with these I bought more billets. On our last return to the tower, I stopped dead in my tracks. My senses picked on a restless aether. Sharp and fast, an aura that was like nothing I felt before.

  I rushed towards the source. Magnar caught by surprise by my outburst suddenly stopped.

  “Where are you going?”

  “There’s something I need to see! No time to explain.”

  I rushed through the now emptier streets and took a turn. Two stalls later I found the source of the aura. An old woman was seated on the ground. In front of her was an almost empty rug. There were some trinkets, some flowers and in a bowl a lot of thick silky strands.

  Behind the bowl was something that looked like a gland and some long hairy legs and a fat abdomen all of them insect parts. Those monster parts and the silky strands were the source of the aura I felt. Now that I was near them, I couldn’t be wrong.

  I brought my hand closer to the bowl and the hairs on my skin stood upright. They were charged with static!

  “Hello there child, may I help you with anything?”

  “Yes! Where do you have these from?”

  “Oh, my son brought them back from his last hunt, saying they were very valuable.”

  “How much for them? All the parts?”

  “Three gold coins.”

  “Pfff…” I was blown away. ‘What do you mean three gold coins?’ “That’s way too much!”

  “I’m not selling for any coin less.”

  “No wonder you couldn’t sell them.”

  “My son did not die with those horrendous burns forever imprinted on him so that you may complain about the price! Three gold or I’m not selling.” The old lady got mad and shouted at me.

  “Ha… How did the burns your son suffered look?” I asked so that I could confirm what I needed.

  “Long and jagged spreading over the surrounding skin like the branches of a tree.” The old lady said, her voice trembling.

  ‘Is she faking it or is it for real?’ I was looking at the pitiful display and didn’t know what to do. Was I to comfort her? But I was impatient. This had to be some high rank beast, I was surprised no one bought it yet. ‘Damn it, three gold is all I have left…’

  “Did they all follow a pattern?”

  “Not that I could tell, but from all his wounds all of the burns seemed to go down to his feet.”

  ‘This is it. For sure an electric beast… I can’t miss these… But the toilet… Argh! Who cares about a fucking toilet! I’ll just earn the money back!’

  “Three gold you said?” I took out my money pouch, took out some small coins then poured the rest out in front of the old lady. A gold coin fifteen silver, seven half silvers, twelve large coppers and thirty coppers.

  “I’ll take them off your hands now.” I hurriedly picked up all the monster parts and left. Soon I caught up to Magnar.

  “What are those?” he asked seeing me hauling them like trophies. “And why are you hugging them? They look gross.”

  “These, my big friend, are the parts of a beast that uses lightning.”

  Magnar’s eyes went wide. “No way! Where’d you even buy them? There’s no one idiotic enough to bring those to the market instead of an ‘auction’.”

  “‘Auction’? What does that mean?” I asked having never heard the term before.

  “It’s a place where multiple people compete for an item by offering more money… I actually didn’t know about those either. Father explained them to me before I came. He said I should keep an eye out as that’s where the best stuff is…”

  “I can see why…” ‘That is auction! There are auctions in this world! If I make some good weapons out of all these, I can try to sell it at one…’

  We walked quickly towards the academy and to the tower. I couldn’t wait to study my new treasures! If by making aether flow through these I could create electric fields, then the sky was the limit!

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  ?? Author's Question:

  Cato just spent his entire fortune on lightning-attribute monster parts. We know he’s an engineer at heart—do you think he’s going straight for a Generator to bring electricity to this world, or will he make a Lightning Weapon first?