Making Money Selling Otherworld Goods — Second Candidate Item: Premium Solid Wood Antique Furniture
Second Candidate Item: Premium Solid Wood Antique Furniture
Racking my memory, I realized I'd been to the furniture shop Oak Drawer exactly once before. Two months back, the nightstand beside my bed had broken — apparently I'd smacked it with my hand while thrashing around in my sleep. I'm no troll, and even I found it hard to believe that a metal-framed nightstand could fall apart from a light whack delivered mid-sleep-talk, but sure enough, one of its glue-attached legs had snapped clean off.
Money had always been tight back in the modern world, which is why everything I owned was cheap, Chinese-made junk. Half doubting, I'd stepped inside that little shop, wondering whether it would even carry a nightstand the right size for beside my bed.
It was a furniture shop run by an elderly man and his young daughter. They had plenty of pieces with a certain antique charm, reflecting the latest medieval fashions, but naturally everything was big, hulking, medieval-European-style furniture — nothing small enough for a cramped one-room apartment in modern-day Korea.
"We do custom orders! Just tell us what you need."
Just as I was slinking toward the door, deflated, the friendly young proprietress had beamed at me and asked what I was looking for.
"It's called a nightstand. You keep it beside your bed for small things — glasses, a cup of water, odds and ends like that..."
"Oh, I know! A nightstand. We don't have any ready-made stock at the moment, though. Would you like to place a custom order?"
Nightstands exist in this other world too? Well, they do have beds, after all.
"Then please tell me the shape and size you'd like."
"Shape-wise, a square, like a die... two identical drawers... size... about this tall? And about this wide?"
"And what kind of wood?"
"I can choose the wood?"
"Fir, paulownia, oak... we have all sorts..."
"Then... whatever's cheapest."
"Oak grows in abundance in the forests around Greenhill. I'll make it with that."
I remember giving her a rough guess with vague hand gestures, half in doubt, and the young woman mimicking every motion of my hands with the utmost seriousness. Yet when I came back three days later, there it stood, finished to the last detail: a square, die-shaped nightstand of one hundred percent solid oak in a lovely light finish.
It fit so perfectly — the height lined up exactly with my room's outlet and was just right for parking my phone, and the width was slim enough to clear my shoe cabinet — that I liked it far better than the one I'd used before. And the price? A mere fifteen coppers!
I babbled it out like a madman and she understood every word perfectly! A true artisan really is a true artisan!
"If I ever need furniture again, I'll be sure to come here!"
"Thank you! Feel free to stop by anytime — even just to browse!"
"Of course. I'll drop by often!"
I did say that. Everyone does, don't they? I never went back once.
Sorry it's been so long since my last visit...
Through the ivy-choked window of the small, aged, yet serene shop, rows of charming little furniture caught my eye, and — for the first time in ages — I found myself intoxicated by the warmth they gave off, wanting to buy something, anything.
Hold on... what do I actually need... Honestly, what I want is a new mouse, and they can't exactly make a mouse...
Sigh. I guess I'm just a man without an ounce of romance. The furniture's all lovely, and I need none of it.
How am I supposed to sell furniture with a sensibility like this?
Creak.
When I pushed open the Oak Drawer's aged wooden door, the old man — the father and master of the shop — was dozing in his chair, pipe clenched between his teeth. Naturally, there wasn't a customer in sight. The atmosphere was worlds apart from the rowdy Plenty Meat Butchery.
The old shopkeeper slowly cracked his eyes open as I stepped inside.
"Um,"
"Ah. The nightstand fellow."
"Yes. I'm the one who had the nightstand made. Have you been well?"
The old man apparently concerned himself with nothing but the crafting, because he showed precious little warmth toward me, a paying customer. I'd naturally assumed his young daughter would be manning the front — this was getting awkward.
"So what do you need this time?"
"Ah... well, it's not for me, actually."
"Then who's it for? Your wife?"
"No... I'm not married."
The old man tilted his head.
"Twenty-nine and never married? Is something wrong with your sexual function?"
"No! My sexual function is perfectly fine!"
What in the world—!
What a bizarre old man. Utterly rude to a customer!
Though honestly, this level of rudeness was about the local average for old-timers. And well, to be fair, he wasn't exactly wrong. In this other world, where most people married naturally at twenty or twenty-one, I really was a certified old bachelor by now.
Then again — how did he know my age if he couldn't even remember my name? Had I told the young proprietress my age last time? As if. Apparently the shopkeepers around here had some kind of community going.
Seeing me standing there awkwardly, the old man seemed to grow embarrassed himself; he shuffled off to the workbench at the back and started applying varnish (not actual varnish, but something very like it) to a half-finished wooden chair.
"I take it your daughter isn't coming in today?"
A sidelong glance.
A jolt.
Why is he staring at me so icily? The man who'd just asked whether my equipment worked was suddenly this touchy about whether his daughter clocked in? I'm not interested in your daughter! She's a friendly, cute girl, sure, but I never thought she was all that pretty.
Before anything even stranger could come out of his mouth, I decided to simply state my business.
"Well... the thing is, I actually run a confectionery business here in town, and I've been mulling over goods I could export back to my hometown to sell. This town has plenty of fine things, so I wondered if furniture might be one of them..."
"Hah!"
Brush in hand, the old man let out a short bark — half dry cough, half dry laugh — and spoke without so much as a glance my way.
"Like what? A mortar and pestle? A phlegm bowl — the vessel you keep by the bed for hocking up phlegm? A cattle trough?"
Then he wheezed out a laugh through his phlegm-rasped throat, all by himself. It wasn't funny in the least.
"That's exactly why I'm so torn, sir. I'm making the rounds to see whether there's anything worth selling at all. And you're quite right — I doubt anyone back home would buy things like that."
Figuring there was nothing more to gain, I offered a quiet farewell and turned to leave. Then came the scrape of a chair as the old man rose from his seat.
"Come here a moment."
Huh?
Without warning, the old man waved me after him and headed deeper into the shop. At the back hung a single rough old curtain caked with sawdust; when he drew it aside, the space opened onto the rear yard — an outdoor workshop with a small terrace all his own.
"Oh, so this is where you do your work."
A great paulownia tree stood at the center of the yard, ringed by planes, saws, and every manner of tool. He must have been at work until that very moment, for the largest bench bore a full-sized adult's chair. Even to a layman like me, it was plainly no ordinary chair for common townsfolk.
It was nearly complete: the backrest was upholstered in padded crimson velvet, and the silver armrests were fitted with ornaments of copper. There, too, I could make out the crest and motto of a noble house, engraved in fine intaglio script. One look told anyone it was a piece of luxury furniture fit for nobility.
Oh, so he makes things like this too?
But this part's metal. I thought this old boy only worked wood.
"Do you collaborate with the local forge as well?"
"Well now. I suppose that's what being in trade yourself does — you've got a sharp eye, young man."
While I was busy admiring the chair's armrests, the old shopkeeper opened a large wooden crate sitting in one corner and drew something out — a long shape wrapped in velvet cloth.
Shff.
As the cloth fell away, it revealed itself: a scabbard set with resplendent jewels.
"Whoa."
At its center, two lions faced one another, roaring as they bore aloft a great blue gem between them; along its sides ran, once again, the family crest and motto. Honestly, at my present level — never having so much as faced a noble customer — all I could surmise was that this was a commissioned piece bound for delivery to some noble house. Anything more was beyond me.
"For a piece this intricate, the usual assumption is that you shape the wooden body first, then hand it off to the metalworkers to be finished."
"Isn't that how it's done?"
"The final stage always falls to the wood. The finished metal has to be attached and fixed to the wood, you see. Cast-metal ornament won't deform under any reasonable pressure — but let the wood so much as crack, and you start the whole thing over from nothing."
Wow — expert-level information...
Suddenly the old man seems like a different person?
In this other world, cast metal was regarded as the cutting edge while woodwork got written off as cheap goods. And yet here he was, holding steadfastly to this trade all the same. I found myself feeling oddly respectful.
"How much would something like this fetch? And how long would it take to make?"
"With the materials in hand, the making itself is quick. What matters is securing fine wood, fine metal, and fine gems. And if the weapon is to carry magic, then engaging a mage who can properly lay the enchantment becomes another factor on top."
"Magic, too..."
"Even with everything perfect, a weapon can shatter in the middle of the enchanting. When that happens, everything becomes as if it never was."
"I see..."
Come to think of it, I'd read in the books at the village library that top-class adventurers and wealthy generals grown rich through war carried weapons imbued with a mage's spells or a priest's blessings. Those were unique items — every one of them bearing a name of its own.
Honestly, when I'd first fallen into this other world, who knows how many times I'd dreamed of a second life spent swinging one of those splendid weapons and flinging spells about. Of course, after two years of hauling cow dung at a ranch for a few measly coppers, I'd long since folded such fat fantasies away.
Would an enchanted magic weapon actually perform in the modern world? And who would decide what it was worth?
I had plenty of questions, but in the end the old shopkeeper never breathed a word about price. With high-end custom work like this, everything is made to order, so the price is simply whatever the maker asks. He hardly stood to risk soiling his reputation and credibility by letting a two-bit confectionery peddler like me in on such figures.
"Thank you for the fine look around."
Even so, it had been a decent harvest. My head felt clearer now — and come to think of it, there was one important thing I'd overlooked.
The goods I sell can't be too many in number, nor too large in volume. Even if I eventually hired help with the packing so I wouldn't have to do it myself, every last product would still, in the end, have to physically pass through the shoe cabinet in my room before it could reach a buyer. If I ran a high-volume, low-margin operation and packed a bare minimum of two hundred boxes of cheap cups a day, my room would be so choked with delivery boxes that I'd lose not only my place to sleep — sooner or later the pile might wedge the door shut for good.
In other words, whatever I sold ultimately had to carry a high price per unit, be limited in quantity, and be small and light enough to fit comfortably inside a standard delivery box.
I studied the scabbard on the table once more, and I was certain. Items like these, with their distinctive medieval-European-fantasy ornamentation, would find demand among the enthusiast circles of the modern world without fail. If similar pieces could be produced steadily at a reasonable price, supplied without interruption, and if I could draw in a solid base of consumers and turn these into a brand — it wouldn't be a bad play at all.
Therefore: furniture, rejected as well.
In its place, I decided where to visit next.
"Oh, and one more thing."
"Yes?"
"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to marry you to my daughter, Amelia."
"Wh-what?!"
At the old man's abrupt words, I doubted my own ears. He had definitely said marry.
But his tone was so offhand — the tone of 'well, since you're here, why not stay for a cup of tea?' — that I spent a good long while convincing myself I'd misheard. It was absolutely not an invitation to tea. The old man was saying, 'Since you're here, why not marry my daughter?'
"You're of age anyway — time you were married, no? Our girl's hopelessly shy, you see. She can sell furniture well enough, but she hasn't the first clue how to catch herself a man."
"No, I— um— what on earth—!"
"Grew up without a mother, and still she runs the shop and the household brilliantly all on her own. And her cooking goes without saying — superb."
"I... yes... is that so. Um..."
I was too flustered to summon a single word of reply — and right at that moment, an even more awkward situation arrived.
The shop's young proprietress — the old man's daughter — had returned. She must have just come back from the market, for the basket on her arm was heaped with meat, vegetables, and bread.
"I'm baaack~ Oh my, we have a guest! Welcome, welcome!"
She flashed me a bright, radiant smile, knowing nothing at all.
Ugh. I hadn't thought of her that way one bit, but the moment I heard the old man's words, I couldn't stop seeing her as a woman.
I have to go. Before the old man adds anything else and makes this worse, I need to be gone.
I tried edging toward the exit one careful step at a time, but the young shopkeeper planted herself squarely in my path, beaming.
"Oh, you're the customer who bought the nightstand! Is it serving you well?"
"It's... serving me very well."
"Is there something else you need today?"
"Well..."
Why are her teeth so white and perfectly even? This woman! It's too much — I can't get a word out!
This father and daughter each had their own special talent for putting a man on the spot.
"Amelia, what do you say to him as a husband? He's quite decently handsome, no?"
"Wh-what?"
"He said it himself, too — nothing wrong with his sexual function."
The young proprietress — Amelia — instantly began boring holes into my face with her eyes. Within seconds I watched, in real time, as her face steamed over scarlet.
Then, all at once, she ducked her head low and murmured,
"I... it's all so sudden... but if Father and this gentleman are both willing..."
This is bad!
"Well then, I'll take my leave! Thank you for your advice today!"
I turned my body sideways, slipped through the gap past Amelia, and out the door. One more hurried bow, and I was clear of the furniture shop for good.
"...Leaving so soon?"
Behind me, I caught one last glimpse of Amelia's disappointed eyes, her face still flushed red.
"I've got a lot to do! Until next time!"
"Please come again... I'll be waiting...!"
No. Don't wait.
Short of a catastrophe, I'm never setting foot in here again. Even if the nightstand — no, even if my computer desk — breaks, I'll fix it with my own two hands.
From a distance came the old man's voice, bellowing after me at the top of his lungs.
"Next time, at least stay for a meal!"
No thanks!