Chapter 29 Consume (4) (1/2)

With the arrival of the mysterious merchant, Kahn’s and Doyle’s eyes grew wider.

“Hyung, do you also know the mysterious merchant?”

Doyle looked at Yeon-woo with a surprised face.

Yeon-woo lightly nodded.

“A little.”

“Hey, how can you be so mean to me? I thought we had something special going on. Ohoho!”

The mysterious merchant gave a silly smirk as he babbled out some nonsensical jokes. He didn’t try hiding his fondness for Yeon-woo at all, which made Doyle eve more astonished.

In fact, the mysterious merchant was not someone one could easily have access to. He seldom showed himself in the waiting room of each section, or in the boss rooms. There was never a set time or reason for him to appear. Therefore, most people stayed in the waiting room and waited for an indefinite amount of time for the mysterious merchant to show up. But now, he had just popped up out of nowhere.

Of course, it wasn’t actually impossible to personally strike a deal with the mysterious merchant.

“And also, glad to see you again, Kahn and Doyle. We haven’t met since you purchased the pass tickets, right?”

The mysterious merchant then greeted Kahn and Doyle.

“Oh, yeah.”

Kahn nodded with a sour face. He felt like he was getting a heartburn just by recalling how he had paid with his attribute points to buy the tickets to go to Section B’s waiting room.

The methods one could use to befriend the mysterious merchant were very simple. One was to rank within the top 10 in the tutorial rankings. That was how Kahn had acquainted with the mysterious merchant.

And the other was,

‘To be acknowledged by him.’

It seemed like Yeon-woo was one of those ‘acknowledged’ people.

Kahn thought it was understandable. Considering what Yeon-woo had shown him so far, there was no way the mysterious merchant or the guardian wouldn’t pay attention to him.

After the simple greeting, the mysterious merchant quickly turned to Yeon-woo.

“By the way, would you mind telling me how you noticed I was here? I was so confident that I was hidding pretty well.”

Kahn and Doyle nodded as well. The mysterious merchant was like the guardian, he belonged to The Tower, so normal players couldn’t notice their presence.

However, Yeon-woo flatly replied.

“It would be dumb of me not to notice you when you’re staring at me like that.”

*Grunt* “I see, you are not going to tell me.”

The mysterious merchant let out a groan at Yeon-woo’s reply. But under the robes, his eyes were giving off a strange glow. He had known it from the time Yeon-woo purchased the reset tickets for section A that no one else had bought before. In many ways, Yeon-woo was a very strange person. But the mysterious merchant put on his usual smile, suppressing his feelings from showing.

“But next time, please show me some wit and pretend you don’t see me. You’ve just ruined the fun, don’t you think? Ohohoho.”

Yeon-woo tilted his head as if questioning his true intentions.

“If we hadn’t known you were here, weren’t you going to wait and pocket our items?”

The mysterious merchant grinned.

“My, my, you must have read my mind.”

Yeon-woo shook his head as he looked at the mysterious merchant whose face was still filled with a smirk.

If I were asked to name things one should never trust in The Tower, the first thing would be the mysterious merchants. Contrary to what rumors say, that they don’t come outside very often, they always keep a close watch on players while hiding right next to them to pick up the items that they’ve missed or threw away.

His brother said that the being that players should be wary against the most, was the mysterious merchant.

They would never get the short end of the stick. Rather, they would be happy to dig around in filth if they could find anything profitable inside. They always kept an eye on players and secretly took things they abandoned and sold them at a high price.

If Yeon-woo had left the lair with only the items he needed in his hands, He would have shown up belatedly and taken everything left in the lair. Of course, Yeon-woo wasn’t going to give away his items that easily.

“150 Tokens.”

Sudden words without any explanation.

It was a bargain. The price for the ownership of the lair and the Blue Scale Scimitar.

Kahn and Doyle then turned towards the mysterious merchant with excited faces. But the mysterious merchant snorted at Yeon-woo’s bargain with his arms crossed.

“Oh dear, now you’re trying to bargain with me. But, you know, even the top rankers…”

“160.”

“…can’t get that….”

“180.”

“…many Tokens…”

“200.”

As the mysterious merchant went on talking, Yeon-woo kept increasing the number.

“250.”

“…do you think you can sell them at that price? Really?”

“300. You better take my offer quickly. The more you hesitate, the higher the number will be.”

Then Yeon-woo raised the corners of his mouth.

“And of course, if you don’t accept it, I will blow up the entire lair. Along with all the Magic Stones inside the lair.

“Magic Stones like those are pretty easy to get, I can…”

“I didn’t know you could get Magic Stones with a purity of over 70 so easily. Then I guess I’ll have to blow them all up.”

For the first time, the mysterious merchant’s expression became stiff. Yeon-woo saw through that, and that was exactly what he was aiming for. As such, his smile grew bigger.

‘As long as I’m not a fool, there’s no way I can lose if I know exactly what my opponent is after.’

It was only much later that the question arose in my mind. Why did Hargan’s Lair quest give us so few rewards? And why did it give ownership of the lair as compensation?

The Tower is a place where players are rewarded according to their achievements. So there must have been a reason.

Later, I figured out that Hargan’s Lair had a rich mineral reserve of fine Magic Stones.

But when I found out about it, I wasn’t too disappointed. Even if I had known beforehand, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with it.

A Magic Stone was a basic medium to store and deliver mana. It was similar to an electrical conductor on Earth. The stones with higher purity were more efficient in transferring mana, so those with a purity of over 70 sold at a very high price. That was the reason why the mysterious merchant had his eyes on Hargan’s Lair.

Of course, if the lair contained Magic Stones worth that much, I could take them for myself. But the higher the purity is, the more complicated the mining process becomes.’

His brother had also found it worthless even after learning about the secret of the quest.

‘I’d rather spend more time collecting Tokens.’