Merchant Crab: A LitRPG Adventure, page 7
“How did you learn to speak anyway?” asked Madeleine.
Interrupting his chewing, Balthazar did his best not to choke on the piece of pie that had just gone down a little too fast. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the explanation of how he touched a mysterious glowing scroll taken from an adventurer who died right in front of him the previous morning.
“I, uh… just woke up like this one day.”
“Really?” she asked, surprised.
“Yep. One day I was just doing normal crab stuff, and the next, I woke up and I was like this. Weird, I know, but what can ya do?”
“The gods sure work in mysterious ways,” the baker said, pensively.
“Sure do. Anyway, since then, and once I realized I needed to find more of this delicious pie, I began trading goods with passing adventurers in order to earn some coin. Which reminds me…”
Balthazar pulled out a coin purse and carefully opened it with the tips of his pincers. “How much for these?”
“Oh,” the girl said, “you really don’t have to. While I do sell my baking at the market in town most days, I can’t really bring myself to take the money of someone who went to such lengths just to taste something I baked. The whole reason I came here in the first place was because I couldn’t believe there was a talking crab asking for a pie baker, and I wanted to see it with my own eyes. Besides, you gave me an excuse to take a few hours off and come down to this beautiful pond and spend some time watching someone enjoy something I made more than I think I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
“Are you sure?” Balthazar insisted, “I really don’t want any rumors spreading around that I don’t pay for my stuff.”
“Yes, I’m sure. You can keep your money, and this stays just between us. I don’t want anyone knowing I give out free pies either,” she said to him with a playful wink.
“Alright then, but just know that I’ll be wanting more of these, and next time I will be paying.”
“Yes, sir!” Madeleine said while standing up and doing a mocking salute.
“In fact, once I have a large enough fortune, I would be very interested in paying you for the secrets of your craft.”
“The secrets of my craft?” she repeated at him, stifling her laughter. “They are just recipes. Here, if you want to get started, I’ll even lend you one of my recipe books.”
Pulling the satchel she was wearing across her torso to the front of her waist, Madeleine retrieved a thick book with a green checkered hard cover from within and offered it to the crab.
“I always carry one with me in case I get bored and want to do some reading. Don’t judge—reading cookbooks is my form of entertainment!”
Balthazar took the book into his pincers, feeling an unusual sense of humility.
“Are you sure? This must be of great value to you.”
“Don’t worry, I have piles of different recipe books back home,” she assured him with a frank smile. “Besides, this isn’t another freebie. I’m only lending you the book. You have to give it back when you’re done reading it. And you’d better take good care of it. If you get it wet, I won’t be bringing you any more pie!”
“Thank you, Madeleine,” Balthazar said with a smile.
“You’re welcome, sir crab. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got my own business to return to.”
“Of course. And remember, if you need anything from my wares, just say the word. I’ll even give you a friendly discount.”
“So we’re friends now, eh?” she said playfully. “Can’t say I ever befriended a crab before, but I’d be very happy to be your friend, Balthazar.”
“Same here, baker girl. I hope we will continue this friendship for a long and sweet time!”
As the pair crossed back to the edge of the pond, the girl stopped and looked at the assortment of items laid out on the rug.
“Hmm, you know, I do need a new wooden spoon.”
“Say no more!” Balthazar grabbed the wooden spoon that was displayed between a cracked ladle and a slightly rusty butter knife and offered it to Madeleine. “Let’s consider this a trade for the two pies, shall we?”
“Fine with me,” she agreed, taking the spoon and putting it inside her basket.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Balthazar said.
“I will come back in a few days for the book and the plates, and I’ll be sure to bring you something else for your sweet tooth.”
Waving his claw at the girl as she walked back up the road, Balthazar felt a sense of satisfaction he wasn’t familiar with until then. The previous day had been chaotic and full of great changes to his routine, but today was like a great pay-off, with his business plans beginning to take shape and his search for the source of delicious pie-bearing fruits, he found himself excited for the coming days and to find out what they would bring.
[Items traded. Experience gained.]
[Wooden Spoon traded for Apple Pie + Pumpkin Pie]
[You have reached Level 5!]
The notification startled Balthazar as it appeared, but he found himself more interested in something else instead. He was still holding the book of recipes the baker had given him, and he was wondering if even he, a crab, would ever be able to make such magical creations as the pies she had brought him today. As he opened the book to a random page and began looking through it, eyes darting from one page to the next, a frown began to form in his expression.
“I can’t read any of this!”
NINE
REPUTABLE MERCHANT
With a yawn and a stretch, Balthazar emerged from the sand to a brand-new morning. Scratching his backside with his pincer, he lazily sidestepped to the water to wash away the sand from his eyes, followed by a quick gargle and another stretch. Still feeling slightly grumpy, he put on his monocle and picked up the recipe book Madeleine had left him the day before.
What good was a book if he could not read it? He had even gone through other books that were up for sale, and they were all impossible for him to read. Attempting to look at it through his Monocle of Examination was also useless, as all it did was show him its name.
[Recipes from Grandma, Vol. 3]
But if he could read that, how come he could read nothing else? It made no sense to his crab brain, just like the characters on those pages. Perhaps he could only read things in that strange scroll’s “system” because they were exclusive to him? He had tried looking at the Scroll of Creation again, but it had remained dormant and lifeless since the day he used it, so that was of no help.
Whatever this thing that kept assaulting his eyes was, it was starting to wear out his patience with its lack of explanations.
“Where is a manager when you need one?” the grumpy crab said to himself. “Also, what is a manager anyway?” He scratched the top of his shell in thought. “Bah, probably something useless.”
The whole thing had left Balthazar so annoyed that he hadn’t even felt like going through his level-up screen the night before. He had invested so much in being “intelligent,” and what good did that do for him if he couldn’t even read? Maybe if he had invested everything into more Strength, he would have been able to smack the words out of the book.
He began wondering if all those attribute and skill points even really did anything, or if they were just a placebo effect. But at the same time, he then also wondered how in the world he understood what a “placebo effect” was.
“Wait!” Balthazar suddenly shouted. “Skills! Maybe there’s one that could help me.”
Bringing back up his level-up screen, he quickly bumped his Intelligence to 15 and moved on to the skills menu. Scrolling his eyes up and down, looking for something that looked relevant, he suddenly stopped and smacked the side of his claw to his shell. “Of course, why didn’t I think of checking here before?”
[Reading: F]
[The ability to read and write the common language]
[Next Rank Requirements: Intelligence 6]
[Upgrade]
Having only one point to spend at that time, Balthazar pondered for a moment on whether he should spend it here. The “common language” was almost certainly the one all the adventurers and Madeleine used, as it was so, well… common. This was clearly the right skill for what he wanted to do, but would it be worth it? As he looked at the book in front of him once more and wondered about all the potential pie secrets within, he made the decision and pressed [Upgrade] on the skill.
Waving the wall of text away with his eyes, he quickly opened the book and attempted to read from one of the pages.
“In… in great… in gradient…” Balthazar slowly muttered, with difficulty. “Ah! Ingredients!”
Readjusting his monocle, he attempted to continue through the next paragraphs.
“Flower? They eat flowers? Wait, no, it’s… flour. Huh, alright then.”
Closing the book with a loud thump after a while, the crab sighed.
“This is going to be tough. Clearly, a D rank in Reading barely lets me understand what I’m reading. How do the small human children do it? They must get extra skill points, I bet.”
Bringing his status page back up, he felt a slight satisfaction in easily reading through it.
[Status]
[Name: Balthazar]
[Race: Crab]
[Class: Choose]
[Level: 5]
[Attributes]
[Strength: 3]
[Agility: 2]
[Intelligence: 15]
[Primary Skills]
[Medium Armor: B]
[Speech: B]
[Fishing: C]
[Slashing Weapons: C]
[Reading: D]
“That’s new,” Balthazar said, looking at the class field. He recalled seeing it there before, but it had always been marked as “undefined.” Was this going to let him define one now?
Focusing on it for a moment, a new menu popped up, not too dissimilar from the skills one, except this one seemed to list choices of classes. At the top of the long list floated a short piece of text.
[Classes unlock access to certain skills unique to their type. Certain levels of skills will also only be available to specific classes.]
“Ooh, now you start explaining things, eh?” Balthazar exclaimed, as if talking to someone in front of him that wasn’t there. “It would have been nice if you did it from the start, you know?”
Scrolling through the many choices of class, he felt lost as to what to pick. There were typical ones, like [Archer], [Fighter], or [Wizard], but also things like [Alchemist], [Miner], and even [Sailor], but none of them seemed like a proper fit for a crab like him.
Looking at the recipe book on the ground, the crustacean remembered Madeleine and how she was labeled as a baker. The amazing creator of wonderful pies and other baked goods. Could this be his calling too?
Excitement made his breath tremble as he picked the tome of recipes back up with both pincers. How difficult could the path of pastry weaving really be? He flipped through a few pages, trying to pick a random step on one of the recipes in order to get an idea of what it would take to do what the girl did.
“Take the dog… No, the dough,” Balthazar read with difficulty. “Spread it on a… flat surface, and… and need? No, no. Spread it on a flat surface and knead it using your fingers as—”
The crab stopped reading and lifted his eyestalks from the pages with an annoyed expression before tossing the book aside again.
“Well, never mind that! I ain’t got no fingers!” he exclaimed, holding his mighty claws up in a shrug.
The crab tried thinking what his talents were, and looking around, he concluded he had been showing a good sense for trading, selling and buying things, making deals, and that’s when he saw a class that caught his eye.
[Merchant]
[Specializes in trading, can sell and buy things for better prices, as well as start their own merchant business.]
“That’s it, that’s my pick!” Balthazar said, one pincer stretched forward.
Confirming his selection, the screen returned to the status page, where it now showed [Class: Novice Merchant].
“A novice, is it? Not for long, funny words in my eyes. Not for long.”
The day had been quieter than Balthazar was hoping, with few clients passing by. He had hoped that the rumors started by the archer boy the day before would have spread and attracted people curious about a talking crab trading things on the side of the road, but today there had been very few adventurers coming down from town heading to the forest or the plains.
One possible explanation was the fact that Ardville also had another gate facing west, with roads leading both west and southwest, which was apparently much busier than the south one, as he had learned from an adventurer who stopped by and bought a couple of trinkets. Since there wasn’t much else other than the Black Forest to the south, not as many people came that way.
Taking advantage of the quiet afternoon, Balthazar had tried picking up on his Reading skill, making it a few pages into Madeleine’s recipe book before realizing he had no idea how most of what it described worked. He had always just eaten his food as it was—pick it up, put in mouth, chew. Simple.
But these humans had entire rituals around their food preparation. They took things out of it, they added others, they heated it up, then cooled it down, they cut it, then they mixed it back together. It was madness to him. Why would anyone spend so much time playing with their food like that?
But he also kept remembering the end result that was Madeleine’s pies, so maybe there was a good reason behind it after all. He still couldn’t conceive of ever doing half of the stuff described, however. Maybe cracking walnuts—that step he could see himself doing better than any human.
Accepting that his calling was in coin-making—especially after discovering how long it took to bake something that would take him just a few moments to devour—he came to terms with leaving the baking to true artisans like Madeleine and focusing himself on gaining more money in order to get more pies. He was going to earn that dough!
There were still a few other books lying around that he could now understand, so he put himself to reading the ones that sounded like they’d teach him useful information, such as a book with the local history of the area, a financial journal, and even a “Guide to Windmill Maintenance.” That last one wasn’t particularly useful to him, but it had lots of drawings and figures, which he liked.
It was while deep in one of his reading moments that Balthazar heard a horse trotting up the road. Putting his book down, he moved over to the entrance of his pond and watched as a robust brown horse approached, pulling an open two-wheeled cart behind, surrounded by two adventurers slowly walking alongside it, plus another in front of the horse, leading it with one hand on the reins. All with tired expressions on their faces, mud and other unknown forms of goo splattered all over their armors and vestments. They were all different classes of adventurer—the one at the front was Level 14, while the other two were Level 12. The horse was just Level 3.
Seeing the leading adventurer hold his step and clutch the hilt of his sword when noticing the large crab staring at them on the side of the road, Balthazar quickly broke the tension. “Hail, adventurers. Nice day for a stroll, ain’t it?”
While he thought his attempts at being friendly could still do with some more work, Balthazar was relieved to see the man relax his hand from the sword.
“Oh, that’s right,” the man said in a casual but tired tone. “I heard about a talking crab on this road. Guess that’s you.”
“Sure am,” the crab confirmed. “And not just a talking crab, but a merchant too, in fact.”
“Merchant, is it?” said one of the other two adventurers as they both joined at the front of the cart to see the crab. “Sell us a couple of nice beds, would you?”
“Ah, yes, I certainly would, if I had any, but I’m afraid I’m fresh out. I might be interested in buying some of the loot you fellas have there, though.”
“Loot?” said the front man. “It’s not loot we’re carrying back to town, crab.”
“It’s not?” Balthazar asked, with curiosity, while stepping around the cart to look at its back.
“No, just these two,” the man continued.
The back of the cart had its lid dropped open, and two pairs of legs could be seen hanging from it, feet almost dragging on the road. Raising himself higher on his legs, Balthazar looked at the two men lying on the cart. One had a protruding belly, sticking out of his suit of very worn-out armor, and the other a face that resembled an ugly fish, covered in scratches. He recognized them from the day before.
“Are they… dead?”
“Nah,” said the third member of the group, while holding two fingers in front of the crossbowman’s nostrils. “Still breathing. Just passed out and pretty banged up.”
“What happened to them?”
“They got more than they bargained for,” said the leader. “Went deep into the forest and got ambushed by some giant spiders.”
“Yeah, lucky we found them when we did,” continued one of the other two, “or they might not have made it.”
“Also,” added the third adventurer, “lucky for them they had those poison cure potions with them, or they’d be two shriveled-up corpses right now.”
The man signaled toward two empty bottles sitting in the cart’s corner. Balthazar recognized them as the two potion bottles he sold the pair the previous day.
He wondered to himself what were the odds that the story he made up on the spot about poisonous spiders in the forest in order to sell them the potions would turn out to be accurate. Pretty high, apparently.
“Yeah, in fact,” the higher-level adventurer said to the other two, “didn’t the big guy say they bought them on the road on their way there while he was still conscious?”
“That’s right, he did say that,” confirmed one of the two companions. “Even scolded the other one for trying to complain about their price.”
“There are no other traders down here,” the man said, turning to Balthazar. “Did they get those potions from you, crab?”
