The Dungeon Merchant (2)
Cracks always began with a trivial sound.
Knock knock knock.
The evening of the day the beggar had introduced him to a new source of income, it was a light rapping against his eardrum that split Lian's life open at the seam.
The black window.
A window so black it might have been carved out of shadow. Its frame was made of rotten, charred wood, and mounted on the top rail was a blade as keen as a guillotine's. A black curtain hung over the glass, swaying with an eerie, funereal grace even though there wasn't a breath of wind inside the shop.
At the very least, it did not look like an ordinary window. Perhaps it was the ill omen brushing against his cheek, but even as the knocking continued, Lian could not bring himself to approach it.
"...So what am I supposed to do with... oh. She's gone."
In the end, like a child who needed help, he turned to look for the Beggar Woman.
But there was no one behind him. Only the cheerful chime of the doorbell and the slow, fading tak-tak of retreating footsteps lingered in the quiet shop.
Did she really hang a window in my store and just walk away?
Lian crushed the surge of irritation with practiced ease and swallowed it down. It's fine. Free interior renovation. Technically I'm ahead.
He thought about it for a long while, which is to say he stared at the empty shop, and then finally approached the window. Since he wasn't built for careful deliberation anyway, he decided to simply throw himself at the problem.
Shwaak—!
"Who's there?!"
He smothered a nameless dread, seized the swaying curtain, and wrenched it open.
Beyond the glass stretched a darkness like the inside of a cavern—and
BANG BANG BANG!!
A blood-soaked woman was pressed right up against the window, pounding the glass like a madwoman.
"Uaaaagh..."
"Whoa. Please don't scratch the window."
Is she a monster? Startled, Lian scrambled backward away from the glass.
The curtain had opened. The flood of light made the bloodied woman squint, and after a moment of peering into the peaceful interior of the shop, she pressed herself flat against the window, her bloodshot eyes wide.
"It's a real house... Ah! Please, save me!"
"...It's not a house, it's a shop."
The important distinctions had to be made. Maybe I should hang a sign.
Heart still pounding, Lian collected himself and examined the woman's condition. She was smeared head to toe in blood, but there were no visible wounds. Someone else's blood, then. Her voice, however, was as sharp as a dying person's last gasp, and her skin was parched and withered like that of someone who had starved for days.
Violet eyes. Slightly pointed ears. A single sword in its scabbard. Otherwise, she seemed ordinary. A starving person worn down to the bone.
Someone about to die.
(On the other side of that, there will be people who need something.)
(People who will pay the highest price for your goods.)
The Beggar Woman's words surfaced in his mind.
...Sell? To that person?
Lian rubbed the corner of his stiff mouth.
He didn't know who this customer was. He had no idea what the "window" actually did, either. But one thing he did understand: whatever 'merchandise' passed through that window was not a simple matter of goods and money. Life-price — was that what you would call it? That beggar fully intended to place human lives on the counter.
Creak.
And why, exactly, was he gritting his teeth?
Lian set his misgivings aside and opened the window.
(There's a guidebook on the shelf, dear. Read it carefully~)
The guidebook could wait. He'd wasted time on useless thoughts, after all. And knowing the slipshod beggar who'd prepared it, there was probably nothing special in it anyway.
Clack!
The moment the window opened, a fishy reek of blood and rot came pouring through. A smell brushed up against death. For a heartbeat his stomach heaved, but with a starving customer right in front of him, he hurriedly clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Hhk... Hello the—"
"Sorry, I'm just going to come in for a second! That's allowed, right?!"
Right then, ignoring Lian's greeting entirely, the woman began to wedge her body through the open window.
Tap.
Did the bright interior of the shop look that safe to her? Clutching the rotten wooden frame with a face that had found hope, she—
Creeeak...
The instant the woman, pushing off with her skeletal legs, began to tilt herself through the window—
KWAANG!!!
The blade on the top rail dropped like a guillotine.
"Wait, don—...!"
"Heeek!"
The blade fell, the way an eyelid snaps shut when a speck of dust flies into the eye. Slicing through the air, it sank deep into the bottom frame and stopped.
Lian and the customer, who had instinctively torn her fingers from the frame, froze together in perfect unison, gooseflesh racing up their spines.
Geeeek...
Having severed nothing, the blade seemed almost disappointed; it gave a sinister, grating shriek of steel, then rose with leisurely patience back into place.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Had she not pulled away, the fingers gripping the frame and her neck both would have gone flying in a single stroke.
The woman, cradling her own fingers, blinked her violet eyes piteously. Realizing the shop before her was not, in fact, a safe haven, she gathered her breath with careful composure.
An uncomfortable silence.
"...Hello. I'm a merchant."
"H-hello there..."
"Shall we start with the potions?"
"Yes. Please."
At this point he had no idea what any of this was. Might as well keep selling.
Lian caught the customer, who was edging backward by slow degrees, and steadied her in place, delivering his greeting in the gentlest voice he could manage.
...
...
"Whew...... Thank you, merchant. I was completely out of my mind. I ran out of food ages ago..."
Thanks to the shock therapy prescribed by the window frame, the customer recovered her composure quickly. She had no visible injuries, just a body worn hollow by long starvation. Lian passed the three potions from the display case through the window. She took them in both hands and gulped them down, and whether her damaged organs had mended somewhat, she exhaled a long, easy breath.
They were bargain-bin potions that would never sell anyway, and she would need real food before she could truly rest easy—but as basic first aid, it seemed to have done the job.
"I thought I was going to die... Do you do business in an oubliette? How is this even possible?"
"No idea. A window appeared in my shop, I opened it, and here we are."
"Magic connecting spaces, then... Well, that makes me your first customer! You saved my life! Thank you, truly!"
Having wet her lips with the potion, the customer turned out to be quite the chatterbox. Even as she shook the crusted blood from her body, she calmly surveyed her surroundings, then pointed behind her and fed Lian exactly the kind of information he was curious about.
Her profession was Scavenger — one who explored the underground spaces called oubliettes. Her livelihood, apparently, was hunting down the artifacts slumbering down there, the magic stones from monster cores, and the belongings of Scavengers who had come before, and selling them off.
Oubliette... Because the name was long and difficult, Scavengers apparently just called them dungeons.
As he listened, Lian looked her over. She explores a place like that alone? When he asked, she said her companions had already been taken by the monsters, and she was the only one left alive.
"Then I should call you the Dungeon Merchant! What do you think?"
"......"
"By the way... those three potions I just drank — how much do they cost? It's a dungeon, so I don't have any money..."
The questions kept coming. When she asked about the price, Lian lifted his head slowly. On the top rail of the window, the blade glinted with a cold, patient light, as if waiting for an answer.
(The rules are simple, dear. Sell something to a customer, then bring back something even more 'valuable.' That's your profit.)
Something worth more than three bargain potions from a shop with no customers...
It seemed like he could take just about anything, really. Maybe he'd ask her to kick off a shoe or something. After a brief deliberation over how much value to assign the potions he'd handed over, Lian decided to ask for the customer's opinion too.
"How much were you prepared to spend?"
"Ah... I didn't exactly shop around, but... how about this? It's an artifact I got in the dungeon."
The woman rummaged through the leather pouch at her hip. The bloodstained pouch swayed back and forth, and before long she drew out a necklace set with a crimson gem.
Cha-lang...
A fist-sized, many-faceted jewel that glittered blood-red. It was bound in a golden chain — not merely strung through it, but wrapped over and over as though sealing it, the chain itself serving as the necklace. Strange magical circuits had been worked into the links at intervals. One glance was enough to tell it was in a different league entirely from a cheap potion.
"I got it in the Queen's Tomb dungeon. I'll need to have the guild appraise it to know exactly what it does, but look at it — you can tell it's worth a fortune, right? It's yours, merchant!"
"...Didn't you work hard to get it?"
"Is anything worth more than your life? Besides, it's heavier than it looks. It's a pain to carry around."
The customer shook the necklace with theatrical flair. She'd said escaping the dungeon came first right now — and yet she offered up, without a flicker of hesitation, the thing she had claimed at the cost of her companions' deaths, the thing she had carried against her breast right up to the edge of starvation.
"......"
Lian looked at the blood-soaked woman. Perhaps because she had died and come back to life, she truly seemed to have no attachment whatsoever to handing it over. Which meant the necklace simply wasn't valuable to her anymore.
"Don't worry. I'm going to survive. I don't give up."
"......"
"I have a sister, you see. I stole this weapon without her knowing, too... so I have to bring it back to her alive."
The customer looked down at the longsword at her waist. Unlike the careless ease with which she'd offered up the necklace, the look in her eyes as she gazed at the sword was soft — the way one looks at a treasured thing.
Her sister... is that family?
So a blade stolen from her sister meant more to her than treasure bought with her comrades' lives. Lian toyed with the corner of his mouth, finding it hard to understand.
His hesitation was brief. Watching the blade on the top rail the whole time, he stretched his hand carefully through the window. The customer, who had been observing him like a child watching a cute squirrel, placed the crimson gem necklace in his palm.
Clink—
Just as she'd said, the necklace was heavier than it looked. Like laying a fist-sized stone on your hand. Through sheer accident, a thing worth more than his entire shop now sat in his grasp.
"Hm...?"
And yet — why?
It was clearly heavy, and yet impossibly light at the same time. Was it hollow inside? No, that wasn't it...
Lian floundered in the contradiction, thrown off balance.
Tik.
That moment — the blade on the top rail swayed with sinister purpose, and shwap—
Behind the customer, whose hand was still toying with her sister's longsword, from within a darkness black as ink—
came the sound of damp footsteps.
『......』
Lian saw it.
Over the customer's shoulder — something with absurdly long limbs crawling along the wall like a lizard, something wearing a dark crimson dress.
Roll-roll—
Eyes red as blood pierced through the darkness and fixed on him.
Flinch!
His shoulders hunched on their own. His whole body shuddered as though he'd caught a chill, and his teeth clacked together so loudly he had to clench his jaw shut.
What is that?
Lian blinked.
"......?"
Beyond the eyelids that closed and opened again, the darkness held... nothing at all.
"What the..."
"Hm?"
"...The monsters in this dungeon — do any of them take human form?"
"No. They're all insect-shaped."
It was too dark. He must have seen something that wasn't there. The customer hadn't sensed anything unusual either...
I don't know. It was probably just my imagination.
Lian shook his head and let the thought die. Doing his best to ignore the goosebumps crawling up his arms, he tucked the gem necklace into the drawer beneath the counter.
With that, the transaction was complete.
He closed the drawer with a trembling hand.
"......"
But whatever that 'something' had been, it was still gnawing at him. So Lian took two more potions from the display case, unhooked a Luminous Lamp — a magical tool that burned back the darkness — from the shop's ceiling, and passed them through the window as well.
She needed light, after all. If the customer he'd gone to all this trouble for ended up dead anyway, his dreams would be troubled.
"This is..."
"It's your change. The light won't draw the monsters, will it?"
"...Merchant, you'll run your shop into the ground like that."
The customer laughed and tossed out the joke. Then she bowed her head in thanks, stowed the potions and the lamp in her pouch, and — at last — a woman who had been sealed in darkness was carrying light of her own.
At this rate, I'm turning a profit.
It was, all told, a successful transaction. He'd obtained an expensive gem and saved a dying person...
Thump. Thump.
Lian toyed with the corner of his mouth at the strange fluttering in his chest. ...Was he feeling proud because the trade had gone off without a hitch? Probably that.
"See you later, merchant! Next time, I'll come find you!"
It was time to part. The customer, touching the longsword she'd stolen from her sister like a talisman, waved her round Luminous Lamp and turned away.
Lian watched her go with a smile on his face, until at last her figure vanished around a corner. Only after even the lamp's shrinking glow had slipped out of sight did he close the Back Window with a deep sigh.
Shwaak—
Curtain drawn, Lian slumped into a chair as though the strength had left his legs.
"Whew... That wasn't so bad, actually?"
It had gone better than he'd expected. A pricey necklace in hand, a life saved... He was glad he'd stopped overthinking and just charged in.
Who needs a guidebook? Life is hands-on training.
He'd have to brag shamelessly when the Beggar Woman came back around. Lian wore a smile as clear as a child's, and rose from his seat feeling lighter than before. Maybe he'd step out and grab something for lunch...
Knock knock knock—
That instant.
The knocking came from the curtain-drawn Back Window.
Knock knock knock—
Lian, who had been on his way out from behind the counter, stopped.
Had the customer come back?
What now? Something else she wants to buy?... Even better. I'll ask her name while I'm at it.
Come to think of it, maybe she'd returned to ask for his in exchange. Turning on his heel, Lian hummed a light tune and drew back the curtain.
Shwaak—
And then — beyond the curtain spread the exact same darkness as before, and
Knock knock knock.
A bloodied hand tapping on the glass,
Knock knock knock—
and Lian found himself eye to eye with a woman in a dark crimson dress.
...
...
She was beautiful.
It was just that her limbs were far, far too long.
Would it help to say she resembled a daddy longlegs?
Knock knock knock—
Long, spindly fingers rapped against the window. The 'thing' — a body that looked well over two meters tall, forced into a cramped crouch, its neck bent at a crooked right angle — peered down into the window from above, upside down.
The Tall Woman in the dark crimson dress.
Lian had neither the will to move nor the presence of mind to scream. He could only stare, hollow-eyed, at the crescent curves of her eyes and the corners of her mouth as they stretched up toward her cheekbones.
An abomination.
What's with those proportions. Did she get pressed in a door somewhere?
Skrrtch...
The 'thing's' hand raked across the window. The knocking sounded different now. The sound of glass beginning to crack.
Not good.
"Please don't touch the glass. It leaves marks."
He coaxed it like a customer, playing at peace.
It didn't even pretend to listen.
I should have just quietly read the guidebook.
Swallowing his regret, Lian watched the thing's every move as he inched his hand toward the shelf beside the window. The Beggar Woman had definitely left the 'guidebook' around here somewhere—
CRAK!
But before his fingertips could even reach the shelf, the thing's palm pressed flat against the window.
Shatter—!
The window broke. A hand slid through the wreckage and seized Lian.
Long fingers coiled around his waist, and unbearable gooseflesh raced up his spine.
Crunch.
A sinister sound from somewhere in his vertebrae.
"Wait, st—"
And before Lian — who had just realized something had gone terribly, catastrophically wrong — could get a word out, the Tall Woman wrenched her grip free with brutal force.
Careless of everything.
KRAGARAGAK!!
The glass shards still clinging to the frame tore through him. Sharp fragments split his skin, both his legs snagged on the bottom rail and his waist bent wrong — and the thing paid none of it the slightest attention as it hauled him out.
RRRIP!
His vision went white. He didn't know why. His body lurched upward with a chorus of sounds like his arm and sundry other things being ripped away.
THWAP! THWAP!
Flung into the dark space, Lian rolled across the dirt floor for several full turns, and only came to a graceless stop after slamming his head against a jutting stone.
"Ggh... cough! Kehak!"
Like the customer who had left, like the Tall Woman herself — Lian was drenched in blood in the space of a heartbeat. He curled around the terrible pain, clamped down on his flickering consciousness, and forced his head up.
The window, painted over in blood. And beside it, the woman standing silently, looking down at him.
Drip, drip...
Blood poured from skin lacerated by the glass. His waist, bent backward by the thing's grip, creaked; his legs, battered against the frame, tingled as though pins and needles had locked them solid.
What... just... happened...
He had been thrown from a bright shop into a pitch-dark dungeon. Lian pieced the situation together with a blank face.
(The rules are simple, dear. Sell something to a customer, then bring back something even more 'valuable.' That's your profit.)
(...And if I can't make a profit?)
(There's a guidebook on the shelf, dear. Read it carefully~)
("Insufficient Value.")
What the Beggar Woman had said. What the Tall Woman before him had murmured. Lian understood now.
("Collection Time.")
It was a simple rule.
Bring back something worth more than the goods you sold. And if you couldn't — then, until a profit remained, you would have to come down into the dungeon and collect the difference yourself.
Why, though?
A necklace like that should have been more than enough. Could the customer have handed over a fake? After everything he'd done to save her.
SQUEEZE—
He balled his hand into a fist. At the customer, at the Beggar Woman, at his own carelessness — even he couldn't tell whom that clenched grip was meant for.
The guidebook... I should have just quietly read it.
Light spilled in through the broken window. Blood smeared across the glass turned it a deep, throbbing red, and the greasy glow reached out into the dungeon, stretching Lian's shadow long across the floor.
"......A window... I just had that one fitted, too..."
Skitter-skitter—
From somewhere in the darkness came the sound of insect legs.