VERSATILE: ALTERNATE WORLD

It's very clear to me now how long I have not visited any city of Sandurk for quite some time. Seeing new establishments, new buildings, and the number of visitors the place has nowadays has already increased, roads are no longer just a trail in the sand separated by big rocks as they are now converted into smooth roads, allowing the carriages to have smoother time moving without the need to use a specialized vehicle. The past Sandurk is sure a far cry compared to the new Sandurk.

Aside from the visual changes, it seems the temperature also has dropped significantly. It's still a hot desert area, but it's definitely not as hot as I remember, which might be due to the help of some artifact found in the frozen region that reduces the city's temperature for a little bit to allow travelers who are not that accustomed to heat feel more comfortable with their stay.

Because I already departed around the afternoon, the sun is already set as I am approaching the castle. Because the meeting with Queen Tanya was not urgent, I decided to check around the shops to see whether I can find a good haul of materials or even new trinkets that are presently being sold.

As I walk all around the marketplace, checking on stalls, asking for prices, and buying stuff here and there, my eyes immediately caught a glimpse of a familiar figure.

The first guy who talked to me when I arrived in Sandurk... Merchant Tezach.

This time, he had lots of wares in his little cart. He is not actively calling customers now and from the looks of it, he is now resting and is currently drinking something, perhaps a beer or just a normal beverage.

I have not bought much from him because I rarely see him at that time and whenever he is up, I don't see any worth buying things on his crate and stash which is why I have not bought much from him. Because I am curious this time around, I decided to check on this guy and see whether he is still the same scammer yet good at giving good treasure if he does have one at a good price.

"You still sell, old man?"

The Merchant Tezach stops drinking whatever he was drinking and he looked at me with a frown on his face. When he realized that I was a customer, he put down the bottle of whatever he is drinking and stood up.

"Yes, yes. I do still sell, young man. As long as you are willing to pay, then I am willing to sell," the merchant smiled and started to rummage on his loot.

Based on his greeting, it seems he has already forgotten about me though I am not surprised especially without buying much from him, I barely built any kind of good connection with him. Of course, there's no need to do that.

Opening his little shop, he revealed all of his trinkets and all of the stuff that he has been selling since the beginning.

"Choose and ask for the price, depending on how valuable the item is, then maybe we can strike a deal."

There is indeed some good stuff he has on his trinkets. I even spotted a few ores that are not easily obtainable as well. In short, he is pretty much loaded with good stuff, and I haven't even checked his secret stash just yet and I am already seeing good sh*t here.

"How much for these things?" I asked, pointing to the unrefined ores among the collections.

"Good eye! This bunch of precious rocks is a bit hefty in price despite being unrefined, but you can have it for 100 gold each! Pretty good of a deal!"

"Eh, that's expensive. How about 50 gold each? Then I will take all of your stock."

"No, no, young man. I know I am just a merchant but I also know how valuable these things are even though it is unrefined. Just 100 gold each and we strike a deal."

"Then how about 70?"

"No. 100 gold."

"75?"

"100" _{Please visit fr𝗲𝚎w𝒆𝚋𝘯𝚘ѵel. c𝗼𝐦}

"85 then."

"Nope. If you don't like it, then just go and leave."

"90 then. I think that should be a decent price, especially since this other stuff is still unrefined. If you still insist then, forget it."

"Fine. Deal. Get your product and count it. I only accept gold, yeah? No credit."

I grinned as I managed to snag a great amount of that good stuff. I can create various accessories once they are refined after that so I am in great luck finding them. I managed to buy them cheap and are still unrefined by anyone else.

There are also weird trinkets that he has that I also bought and some toys that would be cool for Cotton and the desert wolves. In short, that short check I did was one of the best decisions I did.

Once I bought all of the things that interests me, I asked him if he got some secret stash and if he is willing to sell some to me.

"Secret stash huh? Well, since you brought quite a load of stuff from me, then it should be fine. But remember that this old stash of mine is more expensive than the stuff you just bought and you can't haggle for its price. If you want it, you pay it in full."

I nodded in response. Thankfully, I am no longer a noob when it comes to knowing valuable and useless items from his store so if he only has heaps of trash in his secret loot, then I shouldn't bother.

He revealed a much smaller collection of items to me but they are still quite a lot. Most of them seem to be weapons like shotguns, bullets, and stuff but since those are useless and I can make them on my own, they are the easy skip. There are also scrolls on his trinkets but then again, I can also make them so they are also easy to skip. I thought I wouldn't see anything good in his old stash but when I landed my eyes on one little booklet, I can feel an inexplicable power coming from it, resonating with the skeletons that are just waiting for my command to rise up again.

"How much is this?"

Tezach looked at the booklet in my hands and his face turned sour when he saw that.

"Oh, I thought I have thrown that thing away. It seems it was just hiding in plain sight huh?"

"Huh?" I frowned at his description of this booklet.

"It's some kind of a bad thing for me since this thing gives me the creeps. Those pesky birds always drop bones all around me, and I am getting annoyed already why they keep on doing that. Someone sold that to me one day and at that moment, I realized why he sold that to me. So that he can set himself free from the trouble of cleaning up bones. If you want that, I will give that to you for 10 Gold coins."

"10? But aren't you saying this is a bad thing for you? Why don't you just give it to me?"

"If I wanted to, I could do that but I am running a business here, and I will lose the money I used to buy this thing out without getting any growth on my money."

Since it is something related to my collection of stuff like this to complete the necromancer's power, I decided to buy it for myself.

"Fine, here you go."

He readily grabs the coins and tosses the item to me, giving me ownership of it now.

Since there is nothing else for me to buy, he closes his secret stash and sighed in relief.

"Welp, that was a good riddance. If you are getting annoyed by what it does, just throw it away, I tell you. It would be better to just throw it or if you like, destroy it even. Anyways, if you wanted to check for new goodies, check me again next week, I will be refreshing my inventory and perhaps you will find something in your fancy."

I nodded and he happily bid me farewell as he started counting the gold coins he managed to earn from me after buying the trinkets and stuff from him.

The booklet though, I wanted to check it out and resonate it to my collection but I decided not to do it just yet. There might be a chance it will be very troublesome and will attract the ire of the townspeople for causing havoc therefore, I should just head straight to the castle and meet up with the queen.

Sun has already set and the flames on the bonfires started to light up the whole city, making the streets lively for the people. Let's go and see Queen Tanya now.