The Peddler Returns
I Became an Apocalyptic “Physical” Therapist (68)
Pacific
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Anybody home?”
The man hammering on the door of Won-goo's Services was none other than Pacific.
Pacific's name carried weight even in Shelter Sabbath, but he didn't limit his activities to Sabbath alone. He operated across multiple regions. Classified strictly, he counted as something of a Named survivor — though what set him apart from the other Named was glaringly obvious: Pacific didn't do field hunting or fixer work.
If you had to pin a label on him, he was a peddler.
You could lump him into the same trade category as Dinosaur, but the differences were plain. He never stayed rooted in a single shelter, and the goods he dealt in started at a baseline of Gold Coins — high-end merchandise, through and through.
“Why are you pounding on another man's door like that?”
The one who found him was Won-goo, a chicken skewer clamped between his teeth and a bag full of more skewers hanging from his other hand.
“Chief Gong. Been a while.”
“Pacific. You really do have a nose for money, I'll give you that.”
“Heh heh. Word is business is booming around here lately, so I came to check it out. What, business not so booming? I don't see a single pair of hands minding the store.”
“I thought you'd finally fixed that speech of yours. Guess not.”
“That's just because it's been so long since I saw you, Chief Gong. I've polished myself up plenty, I tell ye. Gives me no end of headaches when customers can't follow what I'm saying.”
“And the IV drip's still there too. If you're sick, just rest. Who works through all that?”
Pacific had a saline line taped to his arm.
“Can't rest yet. Gotta earn more.”
“Aigoo…… Fine, get in here. You brought good stuff, right?”
“I only ever deal in the good stuff. Ye know that.”
“Crazy bastards, every one of you. Every damn merchant I meet says the exact same thing. Not a single one admits to dealing in junk. Even the Beastman trader at the shelter says it.”
At that, Pacific flashed his teeth in a wide grin.
“But seriously, is nobody here? You said business was booming.”
“Business isn't booming, so we're short on hands. Satisfied?”
“Aigoo…… Somebody's listening in, though.”
Creeeak.
Won-goo pushed the shop door open.
“Everyone's on vacation. You gonna eat those skewers or what?”
“I'd love to, I tell ye.”
Everyone who'd gone out to enjoy themselves had come back. Pacific dealt in high-value items, after all. There was no staying away.
So the shop filled up with the whole crew — every last one except a single member. That one was Dan-shin, who'd finally been granted a break after all this time.
“What's this thing, Gong?”
Won-goo was turning over an item shaped like a ping-pong ball.
“Throw it at the floor.”
Tuk!
“It stuck to the floor? Is it a trap?”
“Now go step on it. Hard.”
Woooong!
The instant Won-goo's foot pressed down, a barrier bloomed open, wide as the front door of the shop.
“Oh…… A barrier? How strong?”
“Extremely strong. Nothing's ever broken through one yet.”
“Blocks everything?”
“Magic included. Downside is the duration's short. Ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds means you'd have to nail the timing perfectly, huh?”
“Performance is rock solid, though. And it's rechargeable, so you can keep using it.”
“That much is a given. If it were single-use, what would you even do with it? I wouldn't ask you to turn it on in the first place. So how much?”
“Five apiece.”
“You kidding me?”
“I've got three on hand, but buy all three and it's ten per unit.”
“So ten Gold Coins. That's way too expensive.”
“It has a separate perk — no mana injection needed.”
“It self-charges?”
“Yep.”
“Now that's nice. How long does it take?”
“About a week?”
“That's…… an awkward number.”
“A barrier's the kind of thing you want to have. Plenty of uses for it.”
“What else?”
“Here. Let me swap my drip first.”
Pacific pulled a new IV bag from his bag and switched it out with practiced ease. Won-goo watched him the whole time.
“Pacific.”
“What? Need something special?”
“Be honest with me. You didn't come here just to see me, did you?”
“Hm?”
“I know you. Your energy's different somehow. Tell me straight. Trust breaks over the small things. There's another event, isn't there?”
“…Like a ghost, ye are. Aye, there is.”
“What is it? The Fishers passing through or something?”
“That's it. The Fishers are heading out on a hunt. They'll be stopping by here soon.”
“Then that explains it. Show me what you've got set aside for the Fishers, then.”
“That's exactly why I didn't say anything.”
“I'll pay. I told you I've got plenty of money.”
“None of that ‘settle it by resolving a complaint like last time’ business. That's the condition, firm and clear. Then I'll show ye.”
“I'll pay in real goods if I have to sell this shop to do it. So break out the merchandise. Might as well get a look at what Fishers actually carry, right?”
The Fishers were a strange breed of survivor. Unlike ordinary survivors who operated from a home territory, they drifted from place to place.
Wandering was nothing unusual — the roving merchants did the same. The difference was that the Fishers refused small jobs entirely. Where other survivors took whatever work the situation demanded, the Fishers hunted monsters and nothing else.
And not just any monsters. Only Large Species and above.
On top of that, their organizations were enormous. A group needed at least five hundred members just to qualify as a Fishing Ground.
Five hundred was the number on paper, but if all of them lingered in a shelter for even a single day, several Gold Coins would simply vanish from the local economy.
Which was why the Fishers only ever hunted the monsters classified as jackpots.
“So they're the ones chasing the jackpots.”
“Are there really that many of them?”
The question came up while Pacific had stepped out to fetch his goods.
“Plenty. Until recently, five hundred was the bare minimum — but these days, I hear there are even smaller Fishing Grounds operating below that.”
“That's…… hard to sustain.”
“It's sustainable. One kill is a jackpot. The Large Species monsters they deal in never even hit the open market. They trade directly with the Beastmen. I heard a single successful hunt starts at around a thousand Gold Coins.”
“Gold Coins?”
“What else?”
At that, Jeon Hye-ji tilted her head.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, it's just…… to maintain that many personnel, I'd think they'd need to earn even more than that.”
The corner of Won-goo's mouth curled upward.
“Would you say their hunt success rate is fairly high, then?”
“As far as I know, they strike out plenty. When a hunt succeeds, the whole region hears about it. But when's the last time you actually heard news of the Fishers? You haven't, right?”
“No, sir.”
“Then no hunt has succeeded around these parts — at least not nearby.”
“Then how do they stay afloat?”
“Oh, there's a way they stay afloat.”
Everyone's ears perked up. Mu Beob-sa and Lee Hyun-sung already knew the answer, but the rest knew nothing about Fishing Grounds. Most survivors were the same way — they'd heard plenty of talk about Fishing Grounds and the Fishers, but the ones who actually understood what went on inside them were vanishingly few.
“Alright! A Fishing Ground splits one to nine. One to nine in what, you ask? The ratio of rookies to veterans.”
“These days it's shifted to two-to-eight, I tell ye.”
“Oh?”
Pacific walked in through the open door, both arms loaded with sports bags, the IV line still taped to his forearm.
That was when Jeon Hye-ji noticed something odd.
Why did nobody escort him?
In Fresh's case it made sense — he wasn't a merchant. But Pacific supposedly dealt in extremely high-value goods, and not a single assistant was anywhere in sight.
She found that strange. The shelter was crawling with thieves. Could a man really haul a fortune around with no help at all?
She made a mental note to ask him later. For now, the Fishing Ground came first.
“Things have gotten rougher for the Fishing Grounds, huh. You're the expert on those — want to explain?”
“Nay. I'll set out the goods. Ye take it, Chief Gong.”
“Then, continuing on — when the Fishers go out on a hunt, roughly ten percent come back alive. The rest all die.”
“Ten percent of five hundred?”
“That's right.”
“The rest… all die?”
“Yes. And of that ninety percent who die, the vast majority are rookies. Veterans only account for a tiny fraction.”
“Ah……”
Now everyone understood how a Fishing Ground stayed in business. A hunting method that hurled most of its own personnel out as bait, all to chase a single jackpot.
“Am I making sense now?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“So the veterans of a Fishing Ground are true specialists. Specialists at killing giant monsters. Their Gifts developed along that line, their careers built around it. They're in a completely different category from ordinary survivors like us. What do you think, Pacific? That explanation up to standard?”
Pacific gave him a thumbs-up, still focused on unpacking his bags.
“So what kind of monster surfaced this time?”
“No idea.”
“Aigoo…… You'd at least know if it was land, sea, or air, surely.”
“Sounded like sea, I tell ye. Location was some island. There's a famous one around here, no? The one the gangs have been eyeing like hawks.”
“Buri Island?”
“Aye. That's the one.”
“What? A Large Species surfaced on Buri Island?”
“That's what I heard.”
“……”
Won-goo's expression hardened. A Large Species near Buri Island meant possible disruption to the business they were running in those waters.
But he refused to read the situation as purely bad. Even with a monster in the picture, it might not interfere with the business at all.
“Chief Gong. Buri Island — isn't that going to give you a headache?”
“Nothing's confirmed yet, so keep it quiet. I'll look into it later.”
Mu Beob-sa gave a small, silent nod.
“First up, this is the cheapest one.”
The first thing Pacific revealed was a net that looked like an anti-tank cannon.
“That's a capture net. Pass. Next.”
Capture nets were already in wide use — electrified versions, poison-injecting ones, sleep-inducing ones, all manner of varieties. What Pacific had laid out was simply the giant-monster edition of all of them.
And naturally, that made them expensive.
Most of what Pacific pulled out afterward was similarly mismatched to what the crew could actually use. Some items were unquestionably valuable to own, but the cost-efficiency was all wrong. Everything was scaled and priced for Large Species and beyond.
“See, this is why I didn't want to show ye.”
Pacific slipped in and out of a regional drawl mid-sentence, even while haggling fluently.
Still, there had been a reason Won-goo insisted on seeing the goods. If even one item here panned out, there was nothing to lose.
“What's that thing in the pouch? Can I open it?”
Won-goo pointed at something wrapped in black cloth.
“That's nothing much. Go ahead. Torn-up scraps of a grimoire, more or less.”
Inside was a book, shredded to pieces. The meaningless script inscribed across its pages had everyone assuming it was a spellbook.
But Won-goo knew exactly what it was. He screamed jackpot on the inside — and put on a bored face.
“A spellbook? Then our dear Mu Beob-sa could use it.”
“That thing's good for nothing. Nothing even shows up on appraisal.”
“What else?”
“The rest is gear they use themselves. But ye know how it is — Fisher equipment is dead crude. Different purpose entirely, I tell ye.”
With that, Pacific pulled out yet another item: a massive spiked trap.
“Now this one might actually be useful.”
“Spikes, aye? Whoa. Look at the size on it. But who's supposed to step on this?”
What Pacific had produced looked almost identical to a spike strip used against vehicles — except far bigger.
“Perfect for using on vehicles.”
“I suppose it would be…… but we almost never get into car chases.”
“Ye never know what life'll throw at ye.”
“Since you never know, it can't hurt to stock one. But is this thing cheap? If it's cheap, I'll take it. How much?”
“No haggling. Fifty flat.”
“See? Even the price is murderous. What…… fifty Gold Coins? Hey, that's enough money to turn some healthy brat into a Named. Are you kidding me?”
“Then… thirty.”
“Tch.”
“Look at the size. Set this thing down and wait a little, and the whole area gets nice and toasty, I tell ye.”
Pacific uncapped a water bottle and poured it over the spike trap. Steam hissed up with a sharp psst — and it had been deployed for less than a minute.
“How hot does this thing get?”
“Over a hundred degrees.”
The spike trap measured about ten meters long and a meter wide. In a word, it was a colossal spike strip. The blades jutting from it were themselves over a meter tall — intimidating, to be sure.
But at that scale, the truth was it was effectively useless against individual humans.
“It's awkward, though. Too big for one job, too slow for another.”
“This thing has decent specs, I tell ye. No mana charging needed, either. It's self-charging like the barrier ball. Just leave it out and the heat builds back up on its own. See the red glow along the rim? Red means it's charged. No red means it's not yet.”
“I get that it recharges…… but, haah……”
“Anything caught in it is finished. A vehicle just flips right over.”
“Look at the size of it — it'd be weird if it didn't flip. Though now that I think about it, it might not be bad for clearing out mindless trash mobs. Lay it around the Trailer and hunt over it……”
“Aye, exactly! It's all a matter of application. The product itself is good.”
“Would make a fine grill for cooking meat, that part of it.”
Mu Beob-sa's offhand remark. In an instant, both Won-goo's and Pacific's heads whipped around.
“Ugh, Master Mage. Why does meat have to come up right there?”
“I shall be quiet, that is the proper part to play.”
Won-goo's rebuke shut him up.
“Business is good lately, so I figured I'd take a punch to the gut for once. Got anything you can throw in?”
“That's already the cheapest item I have — how am I supposed to throw in more? And I gave ye a discount.”
“Discount my ass…… That was the original price and you know it. Want me to guess what you actually hauled this stuff in for?”
“Not the Fisher gear.”
“Then at least throw in something general-purpose.”
Pacific and Won-goo wrangled back and forth, haggling hard. In the end, Won-goo even managed to walk away with the pouch of book fragments thrown in for free.
“See you around, then.”
“If that spike trap ever comes back in stock, you sell it to me first. Turns out it'd be perfect for ringing the Trailer.”
“Will do.”
With the deal closed, Pacific vanished. And the moment he was gone, Won-goo made a big show of rounding up the crew.
“Gather up! Everybody gather!”
“May I ask why in the world we spent thirty coins on that thing.”
Mu Beob-sa chided him immediately.
“Elders who don't know should keep quiet. You think I bought that for no reason? I haven't taken a bullet to the brain, you know.”
“There is a reason, that being the case?”
“There is. Now everybody come here and listen!”