Chapter 64: Item Box
The room I was taken to was small and modest. A pair of sofas with red cushions and a low wooden coffee table decorated with patterns on its legs were all there was in this room.
"Please, have a seat," said the kind attendant, pointing to the sofa on his right with one hand.
I nodded and sat down in the middle of the sofa, resting my elbows on my knees.
The attendant sat on the other sofa and, still smiling, asked:
"So, what do you want to sell that requires such confidentiality?"
"To begin with..." I reached forward and took the corpse of a gargoyle out of my inventory.
The stone creature fell onto the coffee table through the small ’interdimensional portal’ I created.
Unlike the Guardian, which only appeared to be a creature made of stone, gargoyles were made of rock just like Golems. That was why my Summons couldn’t eat their corpses, so I wanted to at least make some money from them.
"S-sir, do you have the <Item Box> skill? It’s an extremely rare skill among mages," said the clerk, more surprised by its sudden appearance than by the gargoyle itself.
"I’m not a mage, but I have an item that allows me to use <Item Box>," I lied shamelessly.
"An item... Then it’s even rarer." The clerk put a hand on his chin. "How much would you be willing to sell this item containing <Item Box> for?"
I took a deep breath. "Sir, I came here just to sell the remains of the monsters I killed. Could you please appraise what’s on the table?"
"A-ah, of course, of course. I’m sorry, sir."
The man’s eyes finally rested on the gargoyle and he began to analyze it. The wings were slightly burned, and the way the chest was cracked indicated that it had died from the fall just after its wings lost their strength.
"It’s a beautiful specimen of a gargoyle. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one up close. It’s not in very good condition, but the most important parts, the fangs, are intact. If we take into account that we have four large fangs, we at the Swordhand Trading Company can pay five silver coins for each fang and one silver coin for the rest of the body."
Unlike underground sellers like McNee, authorized Trading Companies like Swordhand were not in the habit of being flexible in negotiations. It was usually best to accept the initial assessment without hesitation, but I had a habit of not accepting things easily.
"It seems like a fair offer, but what if I told you that the other gargoyles I have are in better condition?" I asked with a smirk.
"More... gargoyles?" asked the clerk as his eyebrows slowly rose above his glasses.
When I took nine more gargoyles out of my inventory and placed them on the coffee table, the table creaked so loudly that it seemed as if a coin placed on the pile of corpses would cause it to collapse.
Most of the gargoyles I had were well preserved because Laufus had remarkable precision with his sword and could easily separate their heads from their bodies, a precision I did not yet have with my fire ability.
Seeing that pile of gargoyles, the attendant was left speechless.
Open-mouthed, he adjusted his thin-rimmed glasses and leaned slightly to the side to catch sight of me across the pile.
"Sir, may I ask a question?"
"Go ahead."
"On which floor did you find so many gargoyles together? As far as I know, it’s not common for them to appear in such large numbers."
This time, the impressive part was not the strength of these monsters, but their rarity. In that case, it might have seemed like I was looking for trouble when I decided to sell monsters and items I had obtained in pocket dungeons at the main market, except that this world did not have a system for controlling entry and exit from the Tower of Babel.
This meant that not even the Swordhand Trading Company, the Kingdom of Durtch, or the Church of the Golden Halo could tell when someone entered or left the dungeon unless that person reported it.
Given the scale of the flow of people, such negligence was understandable and let me give answers like this:
"I understand your curiosity, but I prefer to keep such a promising place completely secret."
This time, it was the attendant who took a deep breath. "All right, sir... In that case, we will maintain the offer of five silver coins for each prey and raise the offer for the gargoyle corpses to two silver coins each."
Satisfied with the increase, I smiled. "I accept your generosity."
In a few minutes, the clerk and some other employees of the Mercantile Company removed all the gargoyle bodies from the room, and he returned with a small tray full of coins.
"Here you are, sir," he said, handing me the tray. "Sixty silver coins."
This was a small amount of money compared to what I had earned with McNee, but for me it was just the initial appetizer.
"Thank you." I thanked him and with a simple touch stored all the coins in my inventory.
"Can I help you in any other way?" asked the attendant.
"Yes, please. Please evaluate this item for me as well."
This time, the item I placed on the table was not a corpse, but a rock filled with small crystals as golden as the sun, glowing like lamps.
The man’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened and sparkled with amazement.
"Sir, this is... this is... Please excuse me, I’ll be right back." The attendant left the room before I had a chance to stop him.
What was on the table was a Primordial Rock, an extremely rare and magical ore that worked with its counterpart, Terminite ore, which had the property of nullifying blessings and magical abilities.
When the attendant returned, he was accompanied by a tall, strong woman with short white hair and an eye patch over her left eye.