Making Money Selling Otherworld Goods. I'm Busy Enough to Die, but the Whore Mary Keeps Holding Me Back
Ironically enough — or no, maybe in a way it's only natural?
Getting married in this world was far too easy compared to the modern one. Far, far easier.
It might be because this is a backwater village where nobody's standards are particularly high, but my changed appearance seems to work wonders on the women here. What happened at the Oak Drawer just now was part of that, too.
And no, I'm not being full of myself. Don't get the wrong idea.
I've never once thought of myself as handsome in the modern world. I'd never even heard anyone say so.
But I did work in sales, so I know very well the advantages a clean appearance brings.
Naturally, there wasn't a woman anywhere who liked the me of a few months ago — not a single copper in my pocket, reeking of cow dung. People saw me less as a man than as a filthy vagrant, a beggar; they probably figured even my black hair was dark because it was caked in cow shit.
But as selling modern goods stabilized my life, I washed myself clean, bought clothes that fit the local fashion, put in blue-colored contacts, and dyed my hair brown to match the people here.
And amazingly, that alone was enough for the maidens of this place to completely forget what I used to look like.
That alone already makes me quite the eligible groom, and on top of that, seeing me show up with new sweets every day, winning over children and adults alike and sweeping up a full sack of coppers daily, they might well think I'm far more capable than the average man.
Maybe that's why, ever since I started my business, I often caught the village maidens of Greenhill whispering among themselves as they looked my way.
No woman approaches me openly, but every maiden I pass on the street throws heaps of flirtatious glances my direction. One wears a dress with a plunging neckline and deliberately drops something in front of me, then bows down to show me her cleavage; another, on a quiet roadside where hardly anyone passes, puts on an act of the path being too narrow and crushes her breasts against my arm and shoulder, rubbing them as she squeezes by.
The maidens of Greenhill probably think I'm no ordinary man.
Because most of the simple, honest men here fall for that sort of thing nine times out of ten.
To conclude: I have absolutely no thoughts of marriage right now!
My business isn't even fully established yet — what would be the point of adding a family member at this stage?
And where would we live, anyway?
You want me to abandon my warm, cozy one-room — endless hot water, blazing-fast Wi-Fi — and set up a separate house to live with a woman?
Or bring my woman into that room and explain everything — the secrets of this room that even I can barely make sense of, and where I come from?
You think she'd believe me?
Let me say it once more: I will never, ever tell a soul the secret of this key I carry, or the secret of my one-room.
And no matter how honest a person is, greed for money wins out in the end. I have no intention of taking that risk on purpose.
Least of all with the women I might be meeting from here on — the ones whose bodies and minds aren't entirely sound.
Where I'm headed now is the weapon shop.
After stopping by the furniture shop of that shameless old man — the one who'd tried to marry me off to his daughter out of nowhere (the girl didn't look bad, to be fair) — I was starting to get a feel for a new line of business.
Sell weapons! Expensive ones, at that!
Weapons inlaid with the fine ornamentation and patterns unique to this other world are next to impossible to find in the modern one. Even when something exists, it's nothing but a cheap imitation stamped out by the thousands in a factory; it's rare for a piece to actually be hammered out by human hands or carved from stone and wood. In other words, not unique.
But here? Every single product is all handmade!
Blacksmiths of master grade, with careers of at least ten, twenty years, work around the clock without rest to keep the goods supplied. And at a fairly reasonable price, too.
There are blueprints for the products, but no two ever come out identical. They may look similar at a glance, but I know that examined closely, the finish and the grain differ. Every single item is a thing that exists exactly once in the world.
Weapons bearing those distinctive patterns, made stroke by stroke by hand, would definitely have market value in the modern world. Though that means I'll have to market them properly.
And one more important thing: are there really no legal restrictions?
I checked that before heading to the weapon shop, summoning my room with the key and getting online for a moment. I don't know how Korean law might change down the line, but as of now I confirmed that bladed weapons with rounded tips and no edge — carrying no risk of being used as lethal weapons — are classified as 'prop swords' and excluded from police regulation. No permit to own a blade required; anyone can buy them.
Of course, with steel swords that could be ground to an edge, the buyer does have to sign a written pledge to the police promising not to sharpen them.
In other words, no obstacle to selling.
Good.
Next thing to weigh: the margin rate. Would weapons bearing the special patterns and carvings unique to this world be expensive? What would each product's cost be, and what margin would it leave me?
Naturally they'd cost more than the weapons commoners use for hunting or the standard-issue arms of low-ranked soldiers. But not that much higher — I won't be hoarding rare pieces fit for nobles, generals, or top-class adventurers. I'll be buying mid-grade products that ordinary C-rank and D-rank adventurers would purchase and use.
Then I'd add a touch of fancy craftsmanship, attach a story of my own making, and package them as special weapons. Which means I may need to look into craftsmen later, too — and as I get to know these products, there are bound to be problems I haven't yet identified.
The country was at war until recently, and now that it's one of the victors, the inventory must be overflowing. Customization might even be as varied as the furniture the old man makes.
I quickened my pace.
The weapon shop sits deep inside the residential quarter, past the market. An old, run-down arms store serving the guards and knights who protect the village, the male residents who'd form a militia in an emergency, and the adventurers who drift through now and then. Truth be told, I only knew where it was — I'd never once set foot inside.
The problem was that to reach that part of the village, I had no choice but to pass through the dark back alleys on the fringe of Greenhill's residential quarter — the slums.
In that neighborhood — a stretch of narrow alleys strung one after another, so tight that not even a rider on horseback could enter, let alone a carriage, where sunlight barely reaches even at high noon — you can meet people you'd never cross paths with anywhere else.
Lifelong beggars with no hope of ever climbing back out, alcoholics, madmen, petty and serious criminals, sex offenders, lepers left crippled by years of torture for crimes they'd committed, fences selling goods of unknown origin, apothecaries and doctors peddling unverified strange remedies...
And above all, there are the whores who sell their bodies for a few coppers.
This is also the only brothel within Greenhill, a town that has no proper red-light district of its own.
Women exist here who, for a price barely enough to buy a bowl of soup or a hunk of bread, will smile and open their bodies to welcome you anytime — even if you come to them filthy, caked in cow dung, dirt, and sweat.
How do I know all this so well... I didn't want to know, either. If you're broke and look filthy, you naturally drift here.
"Hey. Snack seller~"
A grimy woman with mocha-colored skin, wearing a ragged patchwork skirt blotched with grime, waved at me in recognition. It was a long skirt, but torn so badly her thighs showed plain as day, and her top — ripped by someone (though it looked like she'd torn it herself on purpose?) — left her chest fully bare, so that every time she bowed her head her breasts were on open display. Utterly shameless.
Her bare skin — thighs, chest, every bit of it — was marked with scars, large and small.
...
I ignored her. I know who she is. No — I know her far too well. In fact, that woman is the only woman I've ever slept with in this other world.
She's drunk every single time I see her, and I have no idea where she manages to drink that much. In this town, clean water overflows in the stream if you're only diligent — there's no need to go drinking ale.
"Lucieeel~ why are you pretending not to know me?"
"Mary. Don't say my name."
Because of that woman, the loiterers hanging around nearby started sneaking glances my way. The clothes I'm wearing are far too clean for this street. And I'm carrying a bit of money now, too.
Right now, I'm in considerable danger.
"Where you going? Give me just one snack~"
Apparently the formula Luciel = delicious snacks has been established, because anyone who knows me even a little puts on a show of familiarity and raises hell trying to tear snacks off me.
"Just go away. No — I'll go. Don't follow me."
"Why, why... just one snack~ that black stuff you called chocolate last time, that was tasty."
"I said go."
"Luciel~ why have you gotten so cold lately? You made a little money selling snacks and now you're dumping me?"
"Dumping you? As if."
I'd been trying not to engage, but what she said was so absurd the words popped out of me before I knew it.
It wasn't a matter of sleeping with her once and throwing her away — that woman had drifted onto this street in the first place already carrying some intellectual disability.
And to be precise about what happened back then, I didn't want it from the start. As on any other night, I was sleeping on the pavement because I couldn't afford the inn, when that woman crawled up onto me naked, stripped my clothes off without a word, and pounced on me. It turned out she was so drunk she'd mistaken me for a customer.
Whether my body wanted a woman's or not, my first experience in this other world was with that cheap whore who spreads her legs for any man, on this filthy stretch of pavement.
It had already happened, and the past can't be erased. Well, I didn't refuse either, so I've got no right to complain — but I never want to be tangled up with that woman again.
If I'd had so much as a crumb of a snack on me, I'd have thrown it to her to shake her off, but of course today was my day off, and I was carrying nothing but money.
"Aww, honestly, Luciel. Fiiine~ if you wanted it that bad, you should've said so ages ago~"
I hadn't said a word, but suddenly, with a lewd little expression, Mary put a hand to her waist and flipped her skirt straight up, showing me what was underneath.
Sure enough, she had nothing on under it. And it wasn't just Mary — unless it's the dead of winter, most prostitutes wear nothing beneath their skirts. Underwear that keeps getting stained filthy with men's semen is a luxury.
"Come on, hurry up and come in."
And Mary flopped right down onto the pavement.
She was always like this. There's no designated place for the prostitutes here to do business. Wherever a woman lies down is at once her shop floor and the place she has sex. As long as it isn't a sloped road, soaked in piss and shit, or badly uneven flagstones, anywhere will do for taking a man. The ones who put on a bit of airs lay a single cloth over a straw bundle the ranchers used and threw away. And if they're a little lucky, a traveler passing briefly through the village takes them to the inn he's staying at, to wash and sleep. And do it again there.
Insane.
Until just a few months ago, I was in the same boat as this woman. No — back then her lot was actually better than mine, and there were times I envied her. She was a woman, so while I, a man, rolled in cow-dung fields all day long, all she had to do was roll on the comfortable pavement with men and a day's bread money came out of it. I was jealous. If only I'd been born a woman... I used to think.
It's a secluded alley, but there are plenty of eyes watching from all around. Of course, they're not looking at Mary's worn-out bare lower half — they're looking at me. Around here, a man and a woman stripping off and having sex on the street isn't a particularly novel sight.
Some of them are bound to make off with the money pouch or the clothes I've set down on the road while I'm rolling around naked with this woman. No — if that's all, I'd count myself lucky. Someone could just as easily club me from behind, knock me cold, and strip me clean from head to toe.
"What are you doing~ come on, come in~ my thing's already soaked and waiting for you~"
When I didn't react, Mary, still lying there, spread both legs wide and used her fingers to part her sex and show me.
Just as Mary said, her thing was indeed wet.
But it wasn't arousal produced by her own body — it was glistening with the white semen some unknown man had left inside her the day before. She doesn't even wipe herself down properly afterward, apparently. She doesn't use any contraception either — it's a wonder she hasn't gotten pregnant by now.
"Hoo."
I let out a sigh, as if I had no other choice. Mary took it for a signal of consent and wiggled her lower body all the more, flaunting her wiles — and with the motion, a drop of the cold semen pooled inside her hole stretched out long like gum and dripped down onto the pavement.
I took a single copper out of my money pouch. One. Exactly one.
For a woman like you, one copper is more than enough. Honestly, even that isn't money you deserve.
I bent down and, like slipping a coin into a piggy bank, pushed it into Mary's spread-open hole. Just as she'd said, she was wet, so the small copper slid into her body without any resistance and vanished.
"Huh? What are you doing?"
Not following any of it, Mary stared at me with bleary, drunken eyes.
I raised my head and, facing the few back-alley men watching me, called out loudly.
"One copper to the first man who fucks this woman. The money's inside this bitch — go ahead and take it out."
"Wait, wh-what? What does that mean? Luciel?!"
With that, I left Mary's side. In an instant, men's eyes flashed from every direction, and like a pack of wolves they all fell upon Mary's body at once.
Whether it was a cry of ecstasy or a shriek of pain, the whore's voice came ringing off the alley walls to my ears — but I had plenty to do, and I quickened my pace.