The Sparkle
"Look at this."
"What."
What Levan held out was a piece of jewelry, jewels dangling from it in heavy clusters.
"Looks expensive, doesn't it? Can't believe he was carrying something like this."
He wasn't wrong. Whatever it was, if it sparkled, it would cover repairs and medicine at the very least.
Levan lifted it higher and cocked his head, unconvinced.
"Why would this thing be hauling something like that around?"
"Stole it off somebody, probably. You can tell just by looking."
"So if you get snatched the way you almost did earlier, your stuff just keeps wandering around without you. I'd better watch myself."
My brow twitched at that, but he wasn't wrong. In the end, most of the decent things these creatures carried had been taken off people.
"Not like I've got anything worth coveting."
"Mm. Fair enough. Ha ha."
With that, Levan filled an empty bottle with the ogre's blood, pulled out a leather pouch, and carved the heart free to pack it away. It wasn't a pleasant thing to watch, but he was doing all the work, so I kept my mouth shut.
"Done. Think this'll sell?"
He held the pouch up for me to see.
"If it doesn't, we boil it and eat it."
"Ogre-heart stew? That's disgusting."
It raised your Strength stat, so it wouldn't be all bad.
"Let's just get out of here."
We turned to go, and somewhere along the way a small, round stone had found its way into my fist.
"This is..."
A Goddess's Trace—the thing this world handed you whenever you accomplished something for it. Put simply, the reward for a quest, or an achievement.
I knew it at a glance. It was identical to what I'd seen in the game.
"What are you doing, standing there spacing out?"
"Huh? Nothing. Let's go."
I squeezed a little harder, and it crumbled and vanished at once. The kind that raised your stats. Would it even show?
Anyway, now that I was here, I finally felt as if I'd done one real thing. What came next still worried me a little... but if I meant to survive, hunting these down would only help.
And so we came back to Belmor Castle.
"That ogre was more popular than I thought."
The moment we arrived, we managed to sell the heart and the blood to the guild mage.
The sum was large enough that we ended up splitting drinks at the inn's tavern.
"If I'd known, I would've drunk every potion I had and drawn more blood. What a waste."
Levan kept rapping the table, still sore over the call he'd made out there.
In the moment, though, there hadn't been a choice. The few times we'd brought things back—kobold ears, goblin palms—we hadn't been able to sell them before they rotted. Rare as it was, the ogre had more buyers than I'd expected.
That was where this place parted ways with the Darkland I'd played. Ogre byproducts, scarce and with almost no real demand in the game, were more sought after here than goblin palms, which sold steadily. I had to admit it: to some degree, the rules I knew were being applied differently.
"You want money, you keep going where it's dangerous."
"Yeah. Figures."
Levan drained his beer and looked at me with a strange glint in his eye.
"You gonna be all right, though?"
"All right how."
"We go somewhere dangerous again, you're not gonna start crying, are you?"
"That was—"
I bristled, and he snickered.
Unfair as it had been, I shouldn't have cried in front of him. I squeezed my eyes shut, and Levan patted my arm.
"Well, it was dangerous. We really almost got ourselves killed. Still, don't worry. I'll be right there looking after you, miss. Hahaha."
"Cut the crap."
After everything we'd been through, hearing that made my blood run backward. It hadn't been a fight where crying was strange. We'd nearly lost our lives and our money both.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Haha."
Levan speared a fat sausage on his fork, ate it, and went on.
"Anyway, it's true you pulled off something big. You take the sparkle that's left."
"We're not splitting it?"
"Not that I'm above wanting it. When friends ought to give way, they give way."
His eyes traveled over me, pitying.
"You got swindled on your weapon, your armor's a wreck—you're pitiful."
"Ha..."
If we actually split the coin, things would be a little tight.
"Thanks."
"Thanks for what. Drink more first."
Levan lifted his cup and laughed, and we kept drinking. It had been a long time since I'd been drunk. A long time since we'd come back with this much money.
The alcohol smoothed the edges off what we'd been through. An ogre... I wouldn't mind meeting another. Stay a little calmer, and it wasn't that hard a fight.
I passed out dead drunk. On the days we came back from an adventure, sleep wouldn't come unless I was. My body ached, and after scraping past death the tension refused to leave me—I'd suffer through the whole night.
"Ugh......"
Still, it was a little better once I'd slept and woken.
"Maybe I drank too much."
Haul a stiff body upright, and the headache came crashing in. This time was worse, probably because I'd been badly hurt.
I sat there blankly, then turned toward the window. Clear sky, and my own face caught in the glass.
The long black hair and yellow eyes I'd come back with yesterday. They still startled me a little, but it was my face.
"Guess I slept with the armor off."
Armor and gear lay strewn under the bed, and all I had on was loose underwear.
"Drop the armor off for repairs first... then maybe the clinic."
I fetched the pouch from beside the pillow and checked what was left. Twenty silver coins, for now. Repairs would eat about ten, and once I counted a weapon and potions for the next trip, it was tight.
......So why was this all I had? Ha. How much did we shovel down yesterday?
The headache that had been easing came roaring back. I couldn't remember clearly, but a hazy picture rose of me and Levan laughing while we ordered one thing after another.
"Right. We made real money for the first time in ages."
When you're celebrating, you spend. More than anything, I had a very precious sparkle now.
I dug deeper into the pouch I'd taken the silver from, and a bracelet strung with glittering jewels tumbled out.
However bleak the world of Darkland was, the demand for luxuries was still enormous. Jewels, besides, sometimes held a power of their own.
Looting something like this off an ogre—my luck hadn't been this good in a long time.
"Should I have it appraised?"
Once the Darkland scenario advanced a little, identification came free, but that was nowhere near happening now.
For the moment, I had to spend the coin and commission it.
"It's a gamble, in a way."
An appraisal cost five silver. Confirm that magic was bound into the jewels, and this sparkle's price could jump more than tenfold.
Decide it was a fake with no ability at all, and I might not recover a single coin.
"It does look rare, though..."
At first I'd thought a longtime player's knowledge would let me tell just from the shape. This world wasn't that easy.
Maybe because my class was Warrior, I couldn't read much of anything by looking. Whenever I suspected it was the high Strength and Stamina and the low Intelligence stat, my head started to ache.
"Why did I have to show up here in a body like this..."
A body that was useless at making money and spectacular only at spending it. Honestly.
Leave the armor for repairs, keep using the hobgoblin sword a while longer, and five silver of room was plenty.
"Let's go."
Even if I was sure, I'd need a guarantee to get a proper price.
I stopped by the smithy first, left the armor and weapon for repair, and went looking for Belmor Castle's appraiser.
"Oh, Miss Selen? It's been a while."
A blonde woman in round spectacles greeted me with a bright smile. Seriel, the appraiser here.
"I heard you were off to plunder goblin treasure. You found something, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
I took out the bracelet and showed it to her.
"This. It looked valuable."
"Oh? Where did you get a thing like this?"
"An ogre had it."
At that, Seriel blinked at me, eyes gone round.
"You brought it back from an ogre? Hmm......"
She asked as if it were strange, and I simply nodded.
"Judging by the cut of the jewels, it looks like a piece that was in fashion in the royal capital of Surdel about ten years ago. They're difficult to obtain, so an ogre carrying one is almost unthinkable, but..."
Just hearing that, my heart started to pound.
Seriel turned the bracelet this way and that, studied each jewel in detail, and checked them by resonating her mana.
"It seems to have belonged to a mage. I don't feel any power from the others, but you can see the mana resonating in this blue jewel, can't you?"
"So it raises mana."
"Yes, that's right. Things like this are expensive."
Good. This was a jackpot.
"If you don't mind, shall I arrange the sale for you? Rare as they are, pieces like this are hard to sell on your own."
"Yeah. I'm counting on you."
"Of course. Then I'll deduct the commission and the appraisal fee from the sale price."
If anyone could sell it for more than I would, carrying it around myself, it was Belmor's only appraiser.
"As it happens, there's someone looking for something very much like this. It should sell quickly. Would you care to wait here a moment?"
"That fast?"
Seriel nodded with a bright smile, left me in the office, and went off somewhere.
I sat there blankly in an appraisal office no one else entered, and after a long while someone came in.
"Oh. So this is where you were."
Levan.
"Came to get yesterday's sparkle appraised? Will wonders never cease—the penny-pincher actually paying the fee."
"I had a good feeling about it."
I hoarded anything spent for nothing, and put money in boldly wherever there was profit to be made. Survive here, and you couldn't chase safety alone.
"Hmm. That good, huh."
He said it just to get under my skin, but my certainty had already turned out to be right.
Before long Seriel, who had gone out, returned to the office with a man. He looked like a knight of the castle.
"So you're the one. A pleasure to meet you. My name is Elian."
"Ah—yes. I'm Selen."
Elian. A knight of this castle, and younger brother to its lord. He was seeing me for the first time, but I knew him.
He was tied into the main story, so the sight of his face alone set me on edge. I'd only just met the Goddess and come back, and already I was running into someone like this....