The Merchant Princess

"Well... all right, Miss Elia."

"Ahem! Show some respect!"

"...Yes, Your Highness."

Elia had popped up out of nowhere and opened by flaunting a brazen little air.

What... is even going on here.

The sudden appearance of his precious little elf, entirely unplanned, left his head faintly spinning, but Minhyuk drew a long breath and gathered his composure back into place.

She does seem to be a merchant, at least...

A message window had definitely appeared, announcing that the merchant "Elia" had been summoned. This didn't seem to be a system error that had yanked some innocent kid from next door out of thin air.

But if she's a merchant, why is she lording it over me and calling herself a princess?

That, he couldn't figure out. Maybe they'd raised her at home like a little princess, cooing over her until her manners went bad. Or maybe she really was a noble princess of the elves.

Either way, it didn't matter.

Princess or whatever else, he had not the slightest intention of cringing like a sucker and handing the reins to a six-year-old.

Minhyuk put on a good-natured smile and asked.

"Your Highness came here as a merchant, right? To sell my goods for me."

"Indeed!"

"Then that makes us business partners?"

"Bizniss...? What's that?"

Elia tilted her head at the unfamiliar word.

"Every organized profit-seeking activity in which goods or services are provided to customers in exchange for revenue—a business model that grows its scale through the mechanisms of value creation, marketing and sales, securing profit, and reinvestment."

"Uhhh...? I dunno..."

The moment he ran his mouth with six years of office life behind it, Elia complained of a sudden, violent dizziness. With that, the groundwork was laid.

"In plain terms, business partners are friends who help each other."

"Friends?"

"That's right. Regardless of status. No formalities at all. Coworkers who cooperate. You might call it a must for any cool merchant."

"Ooh... cool...?"

At the words cool merchant, Elia's eyes sparkled.

"So our princess wants to become a cool merchant?"

"Yeah! I wanna!"

Minhyuk seized the moment and held out his hand.

"Then let's form a business partnership. Like a proper cool merchant."

"'Kay!"

Elia took his hand.

"All right, let me show you around. This is my place of business, and from now on you can call me Boss."

"Boss?"

"Yep. I'm the boss, you're the employee. I'm the prime contractor, you're the subcontractor. Easy, right?"

"Yeah! Easy!"

There. Pecking order established.

"Say hello. This is Wilson, in charge of seed production here. And this is Kkureung, in charge of security."

"Hi, Wilson! Hi, Kkureung!"

"Kkurung!"

Once he had formally introduced the members of his so-called cucumber enterprise, Minhyuk ran through the list of questions he'd prepared in advance, his voice bright with expectation.

"Hey, Elia."

"Yeah?"

"Do you happen to know what floor of the Tower this is?"

"Dunno."

Shake, shake.

Elia wagged her head with perfect innocence.

"Then... a way out of here?"

"Dunno that either."

"..."

Minhyuk dragged a bleak hand down his face. Her expression ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said she didn't know so much as a speck. He'd felt a twinge of unease the moment a six-year-old showed up, and sure enough, he'd drawn a rank amateur who didn't know the first thing about the world.

At this rate, the reason I summoned a merchant is... no. It isn't a total loss.

Selling the cucumbers he'd grown himself, and living a more plentiful life on this deserted island, had been one of his main goals to begin with.

"Here, see these cucumbers? Sell them for me."

"Yeah! I got it."

There was, however, one problem.

"Elia, what would be a fair price for these cucumbers?"

"Dunno."

"You mean you don't know what a fair price is, or you don't know what to set it at?"

"Both."

Minhyuk and Elia. Neither of them knew a thing about the Tower. Naturally, neither had the faintest sense of the going market rate.

This is a real problem... and there's nowhere to get information...

He was stroking his chin, turning it over, when it happened.

A message window rose over Elia's head.

The cucumber's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠price, measured in an instant.

"Oh..."

Minhyuk let out a small breath of admiration. Honestly, his expectations for Elia had hit rock bottom. He'd written her off as little more than a launchpad for his goods. To think she had a skill that good.

Young or not, a merchant is still a merchant?

He'd worried they were nothing but a pair of fools who didn't know the world, so this was a relief. At least he wouldn't get fleeced wherever he went.

"Hmm. Two coins apiece should do it."

Having confirmed the price, Minhyuk harvested the cucumbers he meant to sell.

Thuk—

Out of the hundred and fifty he'd grown himself, he set aside exactly ten for sale. The remaining hundred and forty were a week's worth of food.

"Here! You can sell these and come back, right? Like a cool merchant?"

"Yeah! Hehe, cool merchant."

The moment the ten cucumbers were stored in her merchant subspace, Elia gave a nod of her chestnut-sized head.

And with a flare of white light, she vanished.

With that, introductions, the pecking order, and the handover of goods were all finished. Now he only had to wait until Elia came back...

"Hmm..."

Minhyuk stared at the empty spot she'd left, eyes full of worry.

I don't have a choice if the cucumbers are going to sell, but...

Now that he'd actually sent the kid off alone, he felt uneasy for no good reason. She wouldn't go and get herself hurt somewhere, would she?

"Kkurung... kkurung-kkurung..."

Kkureung seemed worried too, rising onto his toes to clutch Minhyuk's knee and whimper.

"Tsk. She'll be fine. She's young, that's all. She doesn't seem powerless."

She was, by her own claim, an imperial princess of the elves. Surely she could handle herself, even alone.

"We should get to work too."

"Kkurung—!"

Folding his worries neatly away, Minhyuk looked over the cucumber field heavy with its crop and rolled up both sleeves.

All right, then. Time to harvest a few of the cucumbers he'd grown himself.

"The Eternal Knight Order?"

"Assigned from the highest floors—120 through 137."

"And between the 100th and the 120th? The Oblivion Knight Order still isn't here?"

"Well... they're rushing back to the homeland, but it looks like it will take some time."

"Damn it!"

Since the Great War, the elven imperial household had never been busier. The princess of the homeland had been summoned into the Tower, and so the army's full strength had been thrown into searching it.

"We don't have time! We'll take the search of the 100th floor! Move!"

"Yes, sir!"

The EX-rank Merchant Rights gifted to Elia. The Summon that could be called the start of every merchant transaction could only be received from a player on the 500th floor or above. But once a Summon had been received, floors below the 500th could be entered freely as well.

In other words, Elia—already fearless and overflowing with curiosity—could now wander at will through a Tower crawling with perilous magical beasts.

I-if she were to meet with some disaster...

The empire's sole bloodline, the only one who could carry on the line, vanishing overnight. That, at least, they had to prevent. By any means necessary.

"Y-Your Highness!"

"Where are you?!"

"Please, answer us!"

"Move! We have to find her!"

And so, while the elves scoured the whole of the Tower in a frenzy—

The Free Market, a resting place for players of every race. And within it, the Level 1 district, renowned as the most leisurely and peaceful of all.

"Why isn't anyone comin'..."

Elia kept her post, thoroughly crestfallen.

Nearly an hour now since she'd opened shop. And yet not a single customer so much as lingered at her stall—only the poor flies went buzzing about.

"Mister, you got any goblin hide?"

"Cheap, cheap! Special sale, today only!"

"Come on, now. We're all people who know the score—why be like this? Make it five coins. I can't go any higher."

Every other stall, meanwhile, was bustling with lively energy.

Hngh...

A feeling of being left out, the first she had ever known. Nothing like it had existed in the imperial palace, where they had always fussed and cooed over her.

"Looking for something? I'll give you a good price. Come have a look, come on."

Of course, if she touted for customers the way that slick auntie over there was doing, things would improve on the spot. But Elia was a rank novice, and today was her very first day. Raising her voice in a market alley packed with nothing but strangers was far too harsh a thing to ask of a six-year-old girl.

"..."

And so Elia was unintentionally preserving her dignity as a princess when—

Step. Step.

A man drew near her stall. Park Seonggu, a hunter of the Red Hawk Guild.

"Hmm-hmm-hmm~."

Having successfully finished a raid of the 40th floor with his guildmates, he meant to pick up a few small gifts. A proper father could not go home empty-handed. It didn't have to be anything grand—just a little something for the family.

What would be good?

Park Seonggu strolled the Free Market, looking over whatever seemed worth buying.

And then.

...Hm?

Caught in his sight was Elia, keeping a lonely stall all by herself.

Aigoo... a little thing like that, already...

It dug straight into the heart of a man with three daughters and no sons. She didn't look more than a few years apart from his youngest, and she was working a market at that age. What kind of pitiful circumstances could have led to this...

Tsk... I ought to buy at least one thing off her.

Park Seonggu stepped up to Elia's stall.

Mm. So she was selling cucumbers? But two coins for a single cucumber. That was far too expen—

"Gaaah?!"

Park Seonggu took one look at the cucumber sitting alone atop the stall and nearly fainted.

Strange enough that a cucumber had been assigned a grade, like an item. What shocked him even more was this.

I-it raises Agility? And permanently?

The effect attached to this Desert Island Cucumber. It raised the Agility stat, of all things.

Good heavens! A cucumber that raised your stats just from eating it!

Of course, there were plenty of tricks for raising stats. Drinking a specially made potion, eating one of those legendary elixirs everyone called so rare, receiving a stat-boosting blessing from mages, and so on.

But every one of them was only a temporary rise. The moment the effect vanished, the inflated stats snapped right back to what they had been. No trick in the world existed that permanently increased a stat. He was certain of that—and yet.

A cucumber this special exists...?

Even if 0.01 was a regrettably small figure, what an incredible effect—permanently raising a stat simply by eating it! And that was not all.

The special effect added beneath it.

S-skin wound recovery...

Reading it, Park Seonggu thought, before he knew it, of Seo-ah—his youngest daughter, and the child who ached in his heart.

Eight this year, Seo-ah refused to go to elementary school and would not come out of her room.

A year ago, boiling oil had overturned and covered her entire face in mottled burn scars. After that, Seo-ah lost her smile.

That was why Park Seonggu risked his life on raids day after day. To give his daughter a state-of-the-art magitech skin treatment costing close to two million dollars.

And now, not only Skin Regeneration +30%, but Skin Wound Recovery ++Boost as well?

I-I have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to buy this...!

He didn't know how strong the effect really was. But a reason to hesitate? There wasn't one.

"E-excuse me!"

"Mm?"

Park Seonggu asked in a rush.

"These cucumbers—how many do you have?"

"There's ten."

"I'll take them all. I'm buying every one."

Ten meant twenty coins. Hardly a cheap price. But for his beloved daughter, it was money he could pay without a second thought.

"Weally?"

"Yes, I'll pay first. Here, please take it quickly."

Afraid someone else might snatch them, he handed over the coins without another word of haggling. Ten cucumbers came into his arms at once.

"Th-thank you. I'll put them to good use. Really, thank you!"

Bowing again and again, Park Seonggu hurried out of the Free Market, his heart trembling.

"Wow! Sold out!"

Elia broke into a bright smile, delighted at her first complete sellout.

Just as she'd thought. She had a talent for being a merchant.

"Hmm-hmm-hmm~."

Minhyuk hummed under his breath as he harvested the cucumbers he'd grown himself. He couldn't help being in high spirits.

A moment ago.

Thuk— thuk—

He had barely picked more than a few.

Another newly acquired skill. Its name: Harvest (LV.1).

If I didn't have Versatile... oof, I don't even want to think about it.

At first, seeing only the name, he'd wondered what kind of trait that was supposed to be. A few days of living on the deserted island had proved there was no better provider. Do anything at all, and it handed him a skill. It wasn't S-rank for nothing.

"Easy. So easy."

Thanks to that, Minhyuk was harvesting the cucumbers with far less trouble. The skill's assistance had raised his efficiency. And that was not all. Was it paying him back for the trouble of growing them himself?

Nearly twice the experience he'd gotten from Gathering. The experience was being duplicated.

Ding—!

And thanks to that, the Safe Zone rose to level 5.

"Hnnnngh—!"

Before long he had harvested all hundred and forty cucumbers. When Minhyuk stretched in triumph, Kkureung brought him a simple cup made from a small leaf, as if to say well done.

"Kkurung-kkurung!"

"Thanks. I was just getting thirsty."

"Kkuruung~"

"Kaaah—!"

After a long, refreshing drink, he cleared away every last remaining vine, and the cucumber field looked neat and clean.

Because the Safe Zone expanded?

It felt much wider than before. Minhyuk smiled with satisfaction at his cucumber field, grown by another three pyeong—a little over a hundred square feet.

"Good. Now let's get serious about increasing the yield."