The Merchant Summon
The Second Survival Route.
A new function of the Safe Zone, earned the moment Agriculture was unlocked.
"Hmm..."
Minhyuk frowned up at the hologram window drifting over the Safe Zone, turning the thing over in his head.
Is this its way of telling me to change jobs, become a farmer, and live off that?
He had staked his life on plunging into the jungle, and with the daily diligence of gathering cucumbers he had somehow scratched out a field that let him just barely feed himself. Even so, he knew it wasn't enough. No matter how little he tired of them, no matter how good they tasted, a person could not live on cucumbers alone for all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.
But what if it didn't stop at eating? What if he sold them, and actually got something back?
Castaway life on a deserted island would grow that much richer.
First, though, the cucumber consumption...
Minhyuk looked out over his field. Five seeds, taken from the overripe cucumbers. Thirty cucumbers from a single vine. Seven days from the moment a seed sprouted until the harvest. Which meant one hundred and fifty cucumbers a week.
But between Minhyuk, Kkureung, and Wilson, the three of them ate exactly twenty cucumbers a day.
...So a hundred and forty a week is plenty to live on.
That left ten cucumbers to spare.
If they're going to be left over anyway... better to sell them, right?
The conclusion dropped neatly into place. And besides, this was the right to summon a merchant.
Which means...
Onto this deserted island, packed with nothing but terrifying magical beasts, a being with actual, proper intelligence would plant itself squarely in front of him.
This is a chance...!
What floor of the Tower this was. Why it was a vast open field instead of a stage. How he was supposed to escape the island at all. A golden opportunity to wring out even the smallest hint.
No matter how I look at it, summoning is the right call.
Minhyuk nodded to himself in silence and glanced at Kkureung, seated beside him.
"Kkureung."
"Kkureung!"
"Yeah. Just hearing you answer, I'd say that's a yes. I won't ask again."
"Kkureung...?"
Kkureung, chief of public safety on the deserted island: in favor.
"Wilson, if you object to summoning a merchant, raise your hand."
"Okay. Noted. I understand your opinion perfectly."
Wilson, head of seed production and smiles: also in favor.
With that, every figure in this rigorously separated three-branch government had given approval. All that remained was to carry it out.
Click.
Minhyuk pressed the merchant summon button.
Contacting merchant......
Determining location......
Audience established!
A merchant is being summoned!
Message windows tumbled up one after another, and in the next instant light clotted together into the shape of a silhouette. Then, when that shape had fully revealed itself—
"...?"
Minhyuk was, for a moment, simply struck dumb.
This... is a merchant...?
Whatever had appeared before his eyes, it was certainly not the solid, respectable businessman he had so naturally expected.
A small, compact frame. Pointed ears. Shimmering blonde hair, and a young face with plump, round cheeks.
What had arrived along with the merchant-summon alert was a little girl who looked about six.
What in the...
Not a merchant's look at all. More like someone who belonged in kindergarten.
"Wh-who...?"
"Uh-uh! That's wude!"
The girl scolded him in a clumsy, tripping voice.
"...?"
Minhyuk's brow crumpled all at once.
The Dimensional Tower, risen in the world of every race. And at the very front of the race to climb it, three peoples: humans, demons, and elves.
Humanity had broken through the 135th floor and set a record of its own. The demons had cleared the 131st floor—the one known as the Tower's Trial—in a mere two months. But the 137th floor was another matter. Catching the elves, who ran at the head of the race, was more than either of them could manage.
From the 100th floor upward, the difficulty was vicious enough that clearing a single floor could take months. Put simply, the gap between the elves in first and humanity in second was, in practice, a year. Against the demons in third, the elves had opened a lead of several years at the least. In the race up the Tower, the elves held an overwhelming advantage.
Even so, those same elves had one troublesome problem of their own.
"Your Highness, today we shall study the etiquette and history of the imperial palace."
The sole bloodline of the imperial house that would one day inherit the Asterion Empire and its throne. The princess, Elia Lumines. She had only just turned six, and—
"Don't wanna! Put it away!"
"Heavens! The H-Holy Grail, passed down through the imperial house for hundreds of years...!"
"It's boring! Everybody out!"
She was a precious little disaster.
Emperors of generations past had been born already possessed of a noble character befitting the imperial house. They prized form and dignity, carried the breadth and the capacity to embrace all people, and always set reading and study first—the so-called elite course, followed step by meticulous step.
But somehow Elia was different. Far too different.
Not so much as a speck of an emperor's dignity to be felt in her—
"Elia, why such reckless, outrageous—"
"Hmph! I hate Daddy too!"
A six-year-old, hateful through and through. No different from a child of any ordinary house: full of curiosity, sick of tedious ceremony, perfectly normal.
The imperial household threw everything it had into correcting her. They tried scolding. They tried coaxing. They tried a careful blend of carrot and stick. The more they did, the worse her tantrums became.
And as for that Elia's dream for the future—
"A merchant! Make me a merchant! I wanna go all over the Tower!"
"I beg your pardon? A m-merchant? That is absurd. Princess Elia is a noble personage destined to inherit the crown..."
"Don't wanna! I'm not gonna be emperor! I'm going outside!"
A Tower merchant: work for lowly street rabble, utterly unsuited to the dignity of the imperial house. The times had changed, of course, and a merchant could now win great wealth and fame, but Asterion was a monarchy founded on royal rule. Prejudice about station, and about the nobility of one's trade, still lay underneath it all. They might bend on other things. This, they could never accept.
"A-a merchant, you say?"
"Why? I wanna be a merchant."
"How could the princess of a nation stoop to the work of some lowly peddler! Not even if dirt fills these eyes—this sovereign will never allow it!"
"Hmph! Then I won't look at Daddy either!"
"H-how could you—!"
The cold war between father and daughter went on for quite some time. But nowhere in the world has a parent ever beaten their child.
"...Very well. I shall permit the princess's choice."
"Wow! Really?"
"Yes, Elia. Go and roam the world to your heart's content."
In the end, the emperor had no choice but to allow Elia to become a merchant.
A little trick, however, had been mixed into the permission.
"Is the matter proceeding well?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. As commanded, we have purchased a merchant license of the highest grade."
There were two ways for a Tower merchant to raise their rank. Amass countless achievements and sales, then undergo an official review and be promoted to a higher grade. Or buy a higher-grade merchant license with money.
As for the grade the imperial house had purchased—
"Huh? EX-rank? What's this?"
"A grade one step above S-rank. It means a merchant's token of the very highest grade, befitting Your Highness's station."
"Wow! Ledos is the best!"
An EX-rank merchant license worth one billion gold, permitting one to operate on the 500th floor of the Tower and above. Had she become an EX-rank merchant through an official review, she could have been summoned as a merchant not only above the 500th floor, but on the floors below it as well. But when a license was simply purchased with money, it was impossible to receive a summons from anyone outside the privileged class of that zone.
In other words, the only range in which Elia could be summoned as a merchant was the 500th floor and above. And yet even the elves, leading the race up the Tower, remained stuck on the 137th floor. The sky would have to turn over before anyone summoned Elia as a merchant.
"She will most likely wear herself out waiting for a summons and give up on her own. Her longing to be a merchant will break of its own accord, and she will turn her attention to succeeding the throne."
"Even so, she is the princess of our empire... It does not sit easily with Us."
"When Her Highness comes of age, she will understand it all."
Every bit of it was the imperial house's scheme. They had spent the vast sum of one billion gold, yes, but it was a chance to correct a clueless little princess, and so it was difficult to call the expense so very great. Let time pass, and the problem would solve itself.
It should have.
"...Huh?"
The empire's grand conference hall. A place where the emperor and every power in the empire had gathered. And there—
Ding—!
Notification received!
A player requests a visit from an EX-rank merchant!
Awaiting acceptance......
A message window bloomed above Princess Elia's head.
"Wow! My first summons, finally!"
Elia threw both arms into the air with delight. The faces around her were another story entirely.
"...H-huh?"
"N-no... that can't..."
"Wh-wh-what in the—!"
They were freezing, one by one, into the horror of people who had seen a ghost at midnight. Elia paid them no mind at all.
"Hi, everybody!"
With a bright, innocent smile, Elia vanished into light in a flash of brilliance. Where she had been, only an empty breath of wind went circling.
The grand conference hall had gone so still it felt like a lie. Every one of them stared blankly at the place Elia had left, faces unable to believe it.
That a player even existed above the 500th floor was shocking enough in itself. Far more serious than that—
"Th-the princess has..."
The empire's only princess, its sole heir, had been summoned to that perilous place.
After that, there was no telling who moved first.
"Wh-what are you all doing! Why aren't you moving!"
"A-assemble the Imperial Guard at once!"
"We must find the princess!"
"A-aigoo! Priiiincess!"
The imperial house was turned upside down.
...Meanwhile.
Minhyuk stared blankly at the merchant (?) who had been summoned to the deserted island.
No matter how I look, that doesn't seem human...
He didn't need anyone to spell it out. The little kid was an elf. Pointed ears. Golden blonde hair and vivid blue eyes. Features small and neat, and yet refined. There was no doubt about it. Anyone could see that was one of the elfkin.
Only one thing puzzled him.
How is something that tiny so brazen?
Watching her, you'd think she was some kind of noble.
He cleared his throat with a careful ahem and asked, cautiously.
"Um... who exactly are you...?"
"Ahem! This one is Elia, Pwincess of Asterion!"
"...?"
Minhyuk's face grew even blanker than before.
...A p-princess?
Day eighteen of being stranded. He had summoned a merchant. A sovereign had come instead.