“How about a snack?” I offered Lua, as we were walking through the town and I noticed a few street stalls selling food. I definitely didn’t offer it because I miss the burritos I got from Sam’s stall ba Alewatch. They really were great, so I want to see if we find something that is on a simir level.

  “Sure.” Lua immediately answered. “... I think this is the first time I’m going to buy food from a food stall…” She muttered after that.

  “Really? … Well, I guess that’s something. But you really didn’t try the street food ich.”

  “I was still getting used to food back then.” Lua said.

  “Oh, okay. I actually thought you were trying to keep the g a secret or something, sidering how quickly Ria begaing solid foods.” I’m not sure if solid foods is the right term, but they did basically go from a 100% blood diet, to eating anything and everything, so I think it should be.

  “... I think that is just how Ria is. She jumps into things faster than I do.”

  “Ah. I see. Well, want to piething? ick up anything we want, and if we don’t finish it, I put it into ste and it won’t spoil.” I reminded her of the cool features of my unique skill.

  “... then we just buy a bit of everything?” Lua asked, seeming almost ashamed that she would ask for something like that. “I … I want to give some to the others living in the vilge.”

  “Yeah. Of course we .” I’m not going to ent on my thoughts about that, but I do feel like that was, at least partially, an excuse. But at the same time, I don’t care if it was.

  Our first stop was a stall selling simple meat skewers, with just some salt as seasoning. You could get two of them for a copper , so they were a bit more expehan the ones ich. There, you could get three or four for a copper, but there could be a differen the amount of meat per skewer. The meat was … alright, but I wouldn’t call it great. But I might also be spoiled by the meats I usually eat. Even outside of the drago, the Earl’s manor always has high quality meat, so I’m a bit spoiled. I decided to not buy any to keep, so we kept going.

  one was a burrito pce, so I had high hopes, but holy, it was a disappoi. One burrito was 3 copper s, three times the price I paid for the same ich. Sure it was a bit rger, but they didn’t taste nearly as good. The meat was fine, but the vegetables were just bad.

  After ahree … mediocre stops, we finally found something I actually enjoyed. Sausages with mustard. Yeah, that’s all there was to it, but sidering that this was the first time I’ve had mustard, or at least something akin to mustard in this world, I quite liked it.

  “May I ask something?” I asked the stall keeper.

  “Of course sir. What is it?”

  “This … sauce, is it your recipe or do you buy it from somewhere?” I asked, trying to be a bit careful not to say anything dumb. And as I hadn’t seen mustard ich, it could be something he came up with.

  “Ah, the seed sauo, I got the recipe from a mert selling the seeds. He is from the south, and so are the seeds. I think the sauce is more on there.” He answered.

  “Okay. Do you have ara of this sauce, which you would be willing to sell?” I asked.

  “I sell some of it, but are you sure? It will quickly go bad, so you’ll o use it in a day or two. I could sell you the recipe and some of the seeds instead.” He offered.

  … okay, didn’t expect that. Free mustard recipe?

  “Yes please. … but are you sure?”

  “Yes. You two are adventurers, right? I highly doubt you two would get into petition with me, so I don’t mind.” He said, before bringing his face closer to mine. “And to be ho, I promised the mert who gave me the recipe that I would share it if someone early asked for it.”

  “.... alright. I keep that promise, if you want.” I said back. “So, how much for some of the seeds?”

  With twe silvers worth of mustard seeds and a recipe, as well as a handful of sausages, in my ste, we moved to the stall.

  After a few more stops, we finally reached the metal shop. In case you were w, Lua’s favorite food was these thin pahe stall owner would make two for one order, stack them, apply a generous amount of berry jam, and roll them like into a burrito-like shape, so you could hold them in your hand. And they were just two coppers a piece, so I ended up buying twenty five of them. The stall owner was a bit surprised by the rge order, but as soon as I got twe silver s out, she got to work making them. They were going to be the dessert for tomorrow, so I made sure I had one for every dhampir in the vilge, as well as us.

  The guard at the entrao the store stopped us, but I showed him the letter I got from the Earl a us in.

  Quickly after we came in, a male worker dressed in a nice … suit came and spoke to us. I’m a bit hesitant to call it a suit, as it isn’t a three-piece suit, as the ones you are likely thinking of, but one of the local suits. Like the one I’m having made for me.

  “Sir, Dame.” He greeted us. “What may I do for you today?”

  “Good day.” I greeted him properly. “We have two things. First, I’m here to pick up an order on behalf of Earl Sawyer. This letter will expihing.” I said as I handed him the letter. This was actually my payment for the letter of introdu. I had to act as a courier. Or would it be a deliverer? Vendor? … no clue. Well, I was supposed to pick up a small order of iron a to Sawyer city. “I’d also like to buy some for myself. Steel, iron, bronze and copper, if possible.” I requested.

  “Yes, of course. What amounts are you looking for specifically? And how will you be transp it?” He asked.

  “About 100 kilos of each, if possible. And we will transport it in my item box.” I answered. I didn’t want too much at once, as to not buy out the supply. “And maybe put in an order for ter as well?”

  “... I see. That is quite the amount. Are you sure your item box fit all of it?” He asked.

  “Yeah, it should. And I do have a detly sized magic bag, in case it doesn’t.” I answered, referring to my backpack. It was currently empty, and I actually had just kept it in my ste, as I didn’t for anything, but I had pulled it out before we got into town, just to look more authentic.

  “Good, good. Now we do have a small problem with that order.” The worker said. “While the copper, bronze and iro a problem, we do not have that amount of steel on hand, unless you are willing to take the low quality stuff. For a lower price, of course.”

  “... that depends on the price. I think I e up with uses for the low quality steel.” I iionally gave him an out.

  “You could also put in an order, and we will have that ready. But as high quality steel is our most wanted product, it does have quite the waiting list.”

  Good to know. But as far as I know, I should be able to turn iron into steel, and the same should go for turning low quality steel into higher quality steel. I think the process involves getting the iron, and steel, into a molten state, aing it flow down a coal tunnel or something like that. Then you separate the ‘bloom steel’ into high carbon and low carbon steel, and you are done. Some of my monsters will likely know better, but I think that is at least somewhat close.

  Of course if their ‘low quality steel’ is cast iron, instead ht iron like I’m assuming, we might have some problems. I don’t think cast iron be turned into high carbon steel, as cast iron has a higher carbon tent than high carbon steel. At least the high carbon steel I want. The ohat is good for making ons and armor.

  Spoiler Okay, so to set things straight, that is wrong. Cast iron be verted into high carbon steel with the use of a basic oxygen fur melts the iron and burns off the excessive coals by bsting super heated oxygen through the molteal, bringing the carbon tent down. This is literally how iron and steel are made. You bst hot air through super hot 'pig iron' which is iron with around 4-5% carbon tent. But Bria know that, at least not yet. Just an FYI so I’m not spreading misinformation. Well, at least too much of it.

  [colpse]

  I ended up pig up the entire 100 kilos for the copper, bronze and iron. The ‘low quality steel’ they had turned out to be some sort of super high carbon tent stuff called pig iron, and I holy wasn’t going to pick it up, until Laura tacted me. She had been talking with Kotetsu in the factory and Kotetsu said we could use those things for a few things, so I ended up pig up about 70 kg of pig iron and 30 kg of steel.

  For the prices, the copper was just three copper s per kilo. So in total, the entire 100 kilos came to just three gold s.

  The bronze was a bit more, at 5 copper, or one small silver, per kilo.

  The iron was 7 copper per kilo, whereas the pig iron was 4 copper per kilo and the steel was 25 copper per kilo. I have to say, not all that expensive. Sure the steel was a bit expensive, but I was expeg a lot worse.

  My total came to 25 gold, 1 rge silver and one small silver. Again, holy speaking, I was expeg a price double that at least, so I’m more than fih this.

  I also picked up the Earl’s order, which was for 100 kilos ht iron, or something like that. I don’t know what he pns to do with it, but I don’t really care.

  I guess ohing worth mentioning are the ingots the metals came in. There were three sizes, at least what I saw. 2 kilogram ingots, 5 kilogram ingots and 10 kilogram ingots. All of my stuff was the 5 kilo ingots, except the pig iron, which was in the form of a lot smaller ingots, only about 500 grams per ingot, as it still cked processing.

  I did get some looks from the worker as I just casually stored all of the metal into my ste, but as he didn’t ask, I don’t o answer with a lie. Then I made sure Tahlia would use that material quality increase on all of the metals, so they would be as high of a quality as I could have them. And as a free service, I also did it for the Earl’s wrought iron, because why not? If he asks, I’ll bme this pce.

  Then I put in an order for 500 kilos of high quality steel, 200 kilos of copper, 200 kilos of bronze and 200 kilos of iron. I got some looks for it as well, but as soon as I brought out half of the total price, which is the norm here when you order something, the wot to work writing up a tract for it. And as he noticed I had money, he offered some of their premium stuff as well. Well, they only had one, but it was mithril, so I made sure to get 50 kilos of mithril added to my order as well. I actually wanted 100, but they said that would be impossible. FYI, mithril e 3 gold per kilo, making it 12 times more expehan steel. But holy, it might be worth the price.

  The total preorder price was 15250 copper s, or 152 gold and twe silvers. Also known as not even one day's worth of Upstart Goblin money.

  “... I think you overdid it a little.” Lua ented.

  “Really? I think I kept it on a reasonable level. I holy would have loved to take double that amount.”

  “... yes. You overdid it.” Lua repeated. “Let’s go look at some clothes .”

  Our stop was a clothing store. Because Lua asked for it. But this town had mostly work clothing for mine and fery workers, and the regur stuff was quite overpriced, yet ugly, so we quickly called it quits. We could just go shopping in Sawyer city instead.

  Instead, we left the town and headed out. Luckily the guard at the town’s gate had ged, so ra questions for us about our one day stay.

  When we were far enough away from the town, I summoned Gradius and we flew back to the west gate of Sawyer city.

  “Wele back, Sir.” The guard weled me. By now, most of them … well they didn’t know me, but they knew of me. You know, Overdrive and the mithril medal with the Sawyer family crest does that.

  “Thanks. May we e in?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. As soon as I see the papers of you and your panion.” He reminded me that even if he knew me, I still had to show my guild card to him. Sure I could show the medal and ‘force’ my way in, but I have no real o.

  I got out my guild card, while Lua got out both her card and her papers stating that she is stable. Dhampirs have to show both when they get into a guarded city or town.

  We walked through town, stopping at a few pces. Including a clothing store or two and Agatha’s pce. She had some choice words, mainly for me, but it's nothing I didn’t hear from Laura’s father when I first met him. It involved certain … bedroom acts. Actually, pared to Laura’s father, Agatha let me off easily. Probably because I did regrow her arm and because dhampirs ’t get pregnant uhey choose to. I reminded her that we would be ing tomorrow m to ‘escort’ her, and the so we could get to the Sawyer manor before diime.

  O set of introdus left. Let's just hope they won't have too bad of a rea to Lua's wings.