The Black Market
"Gasp! This formula...!"
The elixir masters' eyes went round as saucers.
"Solving a formula with thinking like this! An approach that appears in no existing theory! How in the world...?"
One by one, the elixir masters crowded in, running their eyes over the formula Bran had written out. Before long, awe and shock took root in their gazes.
"Here, let me see it too!"
"Good heavens... it's so elegant... so beautiful...!"
Among them stood a middle-aged man who studied the formula with the deepest, most complicated look of all—the only high-grade elixir master in House Stark, and a genius counted among the finest the family had ever produced. The Master of the Elixir Hall, Leon Stark.
"This was a problem I'd been meaning to research together with House Greyjoy, you know..."
House Greyjoy—a storied noble family whose elixir-crafting techniques stood unrivaled in the kingdom, their specialty elixirs appearing often enough at royal banquets to be a fixture there.
'No—even if these were Greyjoy elixir masters, producing a perfect answer on the spot, in a single attempt, would be impossible...'
As though he couldn't believe his eyes, Leon drilled his gaze into the formula Bran had written. Elixir crafting normally demanded a rigid process—blending ingredients according to standardized formulas, then subjecting the result to rounds of experiments and verification. But Bran had followed none of the old ways. He had analyzed the mathematical relationships between the variables and derived the optimal blending ratio outright.
Bran gave a wry smile inside.
'It's an algorithm optimized by AI. Against human experience-based knowledge, it's on a different plane entirely.'
And the solution to this formula was no mere academic achievement. Its practical value was enormous as well.
A young elixir master, unable to contain his excitement, shouted out.
"Hall Master! With this new formulation method, we can produce the Clear Sky Pill without Black Cloud Grass, the rare ingredient! Using far cheaper substitutes, no less!"
In an instant, the atmosphere inside the Elixir Hall transformed. Elixirs whose production had been stalled for lack of ingredients could now be made in plenty, using substitute materials.
Even Leon, normally the picture of composure, had excitement surging across his face.
"If we can achieve stable mass production with cheap ingredients...! We might close our Elixir Hall's chronic deficit in a single stroke!"
The words had slipped out of him before he knew it—then he suddenly realized Bran was standing right there and hurriedly cut himself off.
"Ahem. Bran, my boy. Since when... have you possessed such outstanding grounding in elixir science?"
Leon asked with an awkward cough.
"Honestly... you've given your old uncle quite the shock today."
Instead of answering, Bran offered a meaningful smile, drew a small wooden box from his coat, and held it out.
"A little gift for you, Uncle."
When Leon opened the box Bran had handed over, his eyes flew wide.
"This is...! The essence of a Single-Horned Python?"
An extremely rare elixir ingredient. Rumor had it the essence was a specific cure for strengthening a man's virility, and the powerful snapped up every last drop before it ever reached the market.
"Where in the world did you get something this precious?"
Bran shrugged, casual as could be.
"Caught it in the Forest of Monsters, with Ygritte."
"But a Single-Horned Python is at the very least a 3-Star monster..."
Lately his nights had grown lackluster and his wife had been giving him the stink eye, so his nephew's gift was all the more welcome.
"You truly mean... to give something this precious to your uncle?"
Bran answered with a roguish grin.
"Family shares the good things, don't they?"
Tucking the essence into his coat, Leon wore an expression of deep gratitude.
"When did my nephew grow up so much...? If any trouble ever finds you, you come tell your uncle at once. I'll take responsibility and see you through it."
Bran smiled to himself.
'And with that, the Elixir Hall Master's trust is mine for certain.'
It was oil for the gears of the plans to come.
That afternoon, Bran boarded a carriage and left the family estate behind.
Rattle, rattle.
'Medieval carriages are damned uncomfortable.'
Every time the wheels struck a rut, his body rocked this way and that. Having worked as an engineer in his modern life, engineering ideas surfaced in him as naturally as breathing.
'If I wanted to make carriages more comfortable using this era's technology...'
While he was lost in thought, the carriage rolled south, gradually leaving Stark territory behind. Before he knew it, darkness had begun to settle, and Bran turned his gaze to the window.
Unlike the barren lands of House Stark, smooth, finely dressed stone roads stretched out here.
'This is it—the Free City of Belogar.'
Bran spoke to the coachman, Alden.
"Alden, drop me here."
When the carriage came to a halt, Bran slowly set foot on the ground. Alden looked at him with worry written across his face.
"Young Master, are you certain you'll be all right on your own? This place turns dangerous once night falls..."
"I'll be fine. Come back here at noon tomorrow to meet me."
Alden's face still held its unease, but he raised no further objection.
"...Take care of yourself, my lord. Then, with your leave."
After the coachman departed, Bran walked slowly down the street. A free city where neither king nor noble held sway—commerce flowed freely, and public order was just as freely neglected.
'In Belogar, they say you guard your own hide.'
The reason Bran had come here. The Black Market.
The Black Market was an underground bazaar where anything at all could be bought and sold—goods hovering on the blurry border between legal and illegal, even things the kingdom itself deemed taboo.
'This city shows its true face at midnight.'
Bran followed the road. Before long, the hour arrived, and red lanterns began to flicker alight one by one—the sign that the Black Market had opened for business.
Passing beneath the entrance hung with red lanterns, the first thing to catch his eye was a small stall selling masks. Bran's gaze swept over them until he picked up a fox mask with a little bell jingling on it.
"I'll take this one. How much?"
The mask seller answered curtly.
"Ten coppers."
Ten coppers—a laborer's full day's wage. A touch steep, but Bran picked up the mask without a word of complaint.
'On the Black Market, hiding your identity is rule number one.'
The reason Bran had come to the Black Market. It was to dispose of the elixirs crafted from the Chauwang's essence.
One hundred mid-grade elixirs—a quantity far too large for any single person to handle without drawing suspicion. So the Black Market, where bulk trades went through without any identity verification, was the natural choice.
On his way to his destination, Bran decided to browse the market. Goods of every shape and description lined the streets, and the merchants raised their voices before their stalls.
"Low-grade flame stones, a mere nine silver!"
"Mid-grade frost blade! Special price today, eighty silver!"
Bran could have sworn to it—most of what they were shouting was a lie. There was no way Black Market goods came cheaper than the open market's. Quite the opposite: inflating prices several times over to fleece the customer was the unwritten law of the place. In the end, fishing a genuine bargain out of here rested entirely on the buyer's eye.
Bran looked around with the heart of a man searching for pearls in the mud.
Then one merchant, not content with merely shouting his pitch into the air, came right up and addressed him directly.
"Good sir! Don't just walk on by—come have a look, even a quick one! I say this only because some truly precious goods came in today!"
Bran nodded as if he could hardly refuse.
"Hm, hm. Well then, why not?"
As if he'd caught the sweet scent of an easy mark, a smile spread across the merchant's lips.
"Might you be looking for anything in particular?"
"I'm in the market for armor."
The merchant's face brightened tenfold.
"Armor? Then you've come to the right man! A truly remarkable piece only just arrived, as it happens. Right this way, sir!"
He explained, practically glowing.
"Sir, this armor is a Giant Centipede Carapace, crafted from the shell of a Giant Centipede monster. It raises your defense—the supreme artifact for a tank and a frail mage alike!"
"A defense-boosting effect? Oh my! Wouldn't that make it a divine artifact?"
The merchant nodded with utter confidence.
"Yes, exactly so! Mid-grade, 5-Star! An armor that nearly touches high-grade!"
Sneering inwardly, Bran activated GPT's artifact appraisal function.
Scanning...
Appraisal Result: Small Centipede Armor (Low-Grade)
'Mid-grade, he says. Figures. Tsk tsk.'
The gap in value between mid-grade and low-grade was at least tenfold. Bran deliberately kept his face blank as he asked.
"How much?"
"Just seventy silver and it's yours!"
Bran raised his voice, feigning astonishment.
"A mid-grade 5-Star artifact for a mere seventy silver? Isn't that awfully cheap?"
Mid-grade artifacts were ordinarily worth a hundred silver or more. The merchant lied straight through his teeth.
"The artifact's owner was desperate to sell, that's all. Buy it, sir, and you'll be sitting on a windfall."
Bran stroked his chin, pretending to weigh it over.
"Hmm. It almost feels like I'd be losing out if I didn't buy it."
At his favorable response, a greedy smile bloomed across the merchant's face. The mere thought of pocketing a few dozen silver in commission alone seemed to lift his spirits by the second.
But then Bran suddenly pointed at a different armor.
"How much is this one?"
What he pointed to was a battered old armor whose years were plain at a glance. When Bran showed interest in something from a humbler price range, a flicker of disappointment crossed the merchant's face.
"That one's only a low-grade 1-Star armor. Compared to the mid-grade 5-Star Giant Centipede Carapace, it's a shabby little thing."
Determined to sell Bran something today no matter what, the merchant ran down the armor before him and propped the centipede armor up once more.
'When a merchant whose daily bread is inflating value calls something low-grade, this thing probably doesn't even qualify as an artifact...'
But at that moment—
'Thor's Blessing' Armor
Grade: High-Grade 1-Star
Bran's eyes flew wide.
'Well, well! A high-grade artifact?'
His expression nearly slipped, but he buried the reaction at once and asked with a perfectly flat face.
"How much for this?"
The merchant answered listlessly.
"That one... just give me ten silver."
A dirt-cheap price befitting a low-grade 1-Star. Bran smiled inwardly.
'As I thought—this man has no idea what this thing is truly worth.'
He picked up the armor without a moment's hesitation.
"I'll take this one. Ring it up."
Though it was nothing like what he'd have made on the centipede armor, the merchant had still turned a tidy profit, and his energy came roaring back.
"Decisive as ever, good sir!"
He fetched out some premium wrapping paper.
"Shall I wrap it for you?"
"No need. I'll wear it as is."
And he put on the armor. In that instant—
Fwoosh!
The moment mana poured into the armor, it resized itself to fit his body of its own accord, radiating a brilliant light. At the same time, the caked-on grime of years washed away, and it gleamed as if brand new.
"Gasp!"
The shoppers nearby cried out in astonishment. An artifact that responded to mana meant it was high-grade or better.
"Th-that's! A high-grade armor!"
Anything high-grade and above could rightly be called a divine artifact. Only then did the merchant realize what he had sold.
He'd marked it up several times over what he'd paid—yet his head was already filled, not with thoughts of profit, but with pure regret at having let a high-grade armor slip away for pocket change. His face gone ashen, the merchant scrambled to call Bran back.
"S-sir! Just a moment...! P-please, have a look at our other goods before you go!"
Bran waved a hand, the picture of disinterest.
"That's quite all right. This is all I need. Thanks to you, I'm walking away with a fine piece. Good selling."
He strolled out of the market at a leisurely pace. And then, after he had walked some way down a dark alley—
a rasping voice came suddenly from behind him.
"Hey. Look over here."
He turned to find five men with vicious weapons slung crookedly over their shoulders, grinning like wolves. One look was enough—the words 'I'm a bad man' were practically written across their faces.
"That thing you're wearing under your coat? Yeah, that. Hand it over nice and quiet while I'm still asking nicely. Do that, and I'll let you keep your life."
Street robbers like these were a dime a dozen on the Black Market. Which was why, unless you were exceptionally confident in your own strength, bringing an escort along was simply common sense here.
The hulking man who appeared to be the leader smirked.
"Tsk tsk. You can't go wandering around alone, so green to the ways of the world. Think of it as a fine education, yours for ten silver. What do you say? Cheap for tuition, no?"
He knew the armor's exact price. Apparently he'd had Bran tailed from the very shop where he'd bought it.
Bran replied lightly.
"And if I refuse?"
The hulk snorted, as if the question were beneath him.
"So you're the kind of fool who only comes to his senses when he hears nails going into his coffin. Boys."
At the hulk's nod, a mantis-faced man dragged his broad saber along the ground and stepped forward.
"Kek kek kek! My 'Crimson Demon Blade' finally gets a taste of blood."
Giving his own sword a name, no less. The man was deeply committed to the bit.
"Hey, careful not to scratch the armor."
"Boss, with that guy's sword skills, you think he could put so much as a nick on a high-grade armor?"
"Fair point, come to think of it."
The men snickered. But for all their careless attitude, a thick stench of blood wafted from that broad saber. It meant this was a man who had killed his share of people.
"Hyaah!"
The man's broad saber came hurtling down, as if to split Bran's skull open.