Chapter 6: Chapter 6 - Mana artisan
"Hello! Is anyone here?"
Mark, followed by another man and a woman, entered a store in one of the cities close to the forest.
With a carriage loaded with the things the empress gave them plus a few things they had to sell, they travelled for a day to get to this city. Luckily the security was pretty lacking so they could enter it under the guise of traders. Which wasn't exactly a lie.
"Welcome! Are you here to buy or sell?"
A middle-aged man came through a door on the back. He had brown hair and a full beard. His clothes were nothing special, with dirty clothes with a lot of marks from hand wiping it was obvious that those were clothes he usually worked in.
"We're here to sell. But uh… It's quite big."
Mark's troubled face said everything that was needed.
Shaking his head, the man said.
"Don't worry. Just bring it to the back. The path on the left will bring you to the gates on the back."
Mark continued chatting with the man, whose name was Chavier, while the other two moved the carriage.
In no time, they were all opening up the entrance to the carriage, showing the goods to Chavier who was very surprised by what he saw. Considering his shop that made potions and certain equipment using monster parts he was expecting a high quantity of goblin carcasses or something of the same type. He didn't expect them to bring corpses from giant ants and some strange skin.
"Huh… Can I examine those ants? I haven't seen any like those so I'm not sure I can make any use of them."
"Sure, go ahead."
The ant corpses were surprisingly heavy, but Chavier did not seem to have much trouble picking them up, clearly he was very used to carrying heavy things. Probably something that his job needed a lot.
He started by squeezing the ant's abdomen and then made a small cut with a knife, taking note of the red blood coming out. He next paid attention to its feet which were pretty normal, so he finally started looking at the head.
On its head, instead of the usual two antennae there were four. Two of them were the colour of the body and the other two, which were bigger, were more translucid and whiter. He didn't know why the ant had those two extra antennae, but he also didn't investigate further, there wasn't much he could find out by simply looking.
Its compound eyes were common to normal eyes, but its mandibles definitely weren't. They had 4 mandibles; one pair was sharp while the other was blunt. It wasn't hard to guess why, the sharper ones were to cut while the blunt ones were used to crush. Through the mandibles, and assuming these ants lived in a colony like normal ones, he concluded that these were worker ants.
"I'm willing to buy these. Even if they do not serve for the recipes, I know with normal giant ants I am willing to take the risk. You said the egg was from an ant, right? I'll take that one too."
Mark nodded with a smile and then pointed at the shed snake's skin.
"What about that one? You don't want to even see it?"
Shaking his head Chavier replied.
"No, that is too big for me to work with and I'm already taking a risk by buying these."
In the end they settled on a good deal and Mark ended up telling where they came from. Not detailed though, only that they had a small village inside the forest. He also asked if he knew some mana artisan in the city to which he recommended a bar that a lot of people frequented at night, including a supposed famous mana artisan.
…
"You're saying you're from a village that's in the forest?"
Now at night, in the tavern, a lot of lousy drinkers were listening to their conversation. For them it was always nice to talk with the new faces that appeared on in a while and have them tell them their stories.
"For sure."
They all burst out laughing. A village in a forest that filled with monsters just wasn't that believable. Although a lot of people knew magic most people only knew it on a surface level, like making a fickle flame in their hands.
Most of the villages still lived in underdeveloped conditions, while the big cities had city wide, sometimes kingdom wide, transportation, villages barely had good water. From there came the reason for their unbelief.
"Even if you laugh at us, we will still welcome you in the future when you need it."
Suddenly, their laugh quieted down as a person entered the bar. A fairly tall woman, purple hair with eyes the same colour. She was wearing pants, a white blouse and her hair was tied up. Clearly, she didn't belong to the same class as the people drinking here.
Doing a quick scan around the area she sat down at their table and all the others that were close went back to their seats.
"I heard you were looking for me?"
Her small smile seemed to tease them but her somewhat close voice said otherwise. She had come to this bar when she received word a few outsiders were looking for a mana artisan in town.
Quickly Mark and the others explained their situation and why they were looking for her. They were asking her to come work for them for a while. Although they couldn't give out a big payment they could provide her with food, safety and a place to stay during that time.
During the talk they did not reveal anything about the colony apart from the fact that they had a woman as a leader.
They would also provide her with the necessary materials and, at her request, fund any research she'd like to do as long as it did not endanger their village.
As soon as they all accepted the terms a big smile blossomed on her excited face.
"So… When are we going?"
"Unfortunately, we will have to stay a few more days. We still have a few things to sell."
For her there was no problem, with that time she also could get her things ready. The time she would be working there wasn't set but from what they said she was expecting from a few weeks to a few months, so she had things to prepare.
…
In the next days, they sold what they could. The herbs were easy to sell since they are well known, but their price wasn't that high.
The snakeskin on the other hand was harder. They managed to sell it to a blacksmith that saw potential in its defensive capabilities.
The blacksmith also tried to get his hands on information about the snake that shed that, but Mark did not say anything even when offered a big price. In the end, the man settled for a deal where they would bring more of that skin to him first if they ever found more.
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