“Please keep the small talk to a minimum.”
“S-Sorry...” she mumbled sheepishly, averting her gaze. She seemed down for a split second, but quickly regained her composure and flashed us a bright smile. “Sorry for the tangent. Just let me know if you ever want to register for the B-rank exam, all right? I’ll handle your application personally!”
“Thanks. Well, since you don’t have any quests for us, we’ll take today off.”
“Tell us when you’re done calculating the money for the dungeon loot!”
Teto and I went to sit down, and a few minutes later, the receptionist called us back.
“We’re all done here!” she said, handing us our money.
“Thanks. Let’s go on a little shopping spree with these, then, shall we?” I asked Teto, holding up the coins before stuffing them into my magic bag.
“Let’s go!”
We bid the receptionist and the other guild employees goodbye and left the guild hall. We first stopped to buy ingredients, then started looking at all of the street stalls to see if any of them sold rare items. We made a quick stop at a food stall to get some snacks when a carriage ran past us.
“That carriage...”
“There are spirits on it!”
It looked like a normal carriage, but we both detected the presence of spirits on it. I followed it with my eyes and saw it stop in front of a shop. Seconds later, a group of elves hopped down. The spirits we had felt must have been bound to them by some sort of contract.
“That shop is run by an elf, right? Then these elves must be from the great forest.”
They had probably come to trade with one of their brethren.
“Lady Witch, do you think that they sell World Tree- and mythical-beast-related items there?”
I hummed. “I don’t know... Probably not?”
Liriel had told me that, before I started growing World Trees, there had only been one left on the entire continent, located in the great forest of the southeastern reaches, where the elves lived. It was a well-known fact that, just like us, the elves also sold World Tree branches and mythical beast materials to the outside world, but it was highly unlikely that a little general store like that one would stock such valuable goods, let alone sell them. It was far more likely such valuables entered the market through an affiliated noble family. That little store in Liefe mostly carried ingredients collected in the great forest, as well as elven tools and folk crafts.
“Should we go take a look, Lady Witch?”
“Sure, why not?”
I was curious to see what they were restocking. When we stepped into the general store, the shopkeeper was in the process of stocking the shelves with the new goods.
“Welcome. What are you looking for?” He asked us.
“We saw that you just received a delivery, and we’d like to see what’s new. Mind if we take a look?”
“Teto wants to buy yummy snacks!”
“Sure, you can look around as much as you’d like,” the shopkeeper told me before turning to Teto. “Snacks, hm? We’ve just received some dried fruits from the great forest.”
Teto headed to the ingredients corner, while I browsed the shelves in front of me and found something that caught my eye.
“Are these monster and mythical beast figurines?” I asked, looking at little wooden sculptures of some very familiar creatures. They were intricately carved and looked very dynamic. I could tell with a single glance that they were fine pieces of craftsmanship.
“Oh, I see you’re a connoisseur,” the shopkeeper said with a smile. “My brethren from the great forest handcrafted these.”
Just like the kibori kuma figurines from Hokkaido—a famous rural craft from my previous world—no two of these sculptures were quite the same. Even the ones depicting the same types of mythical beast carried subtle differences, be it the pose or the overall atmosphere of the figurine. You could really tell the personality of the artisan just by looking at their work.
“There must be quite a lot of people who like these sorts of things, hm?” I commented.
The figurines of the monsters and mythical beasts must’ve been especially popular, since they were so rare.
“Yup. Most people can’t afford mythical beast or monster materials, but they can get figurines of them instead. The mythical beast ones are especially popular with kids.”
I nodded. “There are a lot of children’s tales about mythical beasts in this country, aren’t there?”
Such stories were older than the Sunfield Empire itself, and they were particularly popular in the eastern part of the continent, given its proximity to the elves’ great forest.
“Would you like one? They make nice conversation pieces.”
I hummed. “That sounds great, but I’d rather buy direct from the source; I figure they’ve got to offer a broader selection.”
I didn’t like compromising when it came to things I wanted for myself.
The shopkeeper smiled awkwardly. “My brethren are a bit, ah, reclusive, I guess you could say. Even the elves who live in human towns or settlements are very rarely allowed in. I’ve never even been there myself, but I really wish they’d let me visit one day.”
“Then I suppose I have to buy them from you,” I replied with a small smile, examining the mythical beast figurines on the shelves.
I decided to go with a cutesy one—the kind that you could see in a children’s picture book—rather than one of the ultrarealistic ones. It was a bit more childish than the others, but I could tell that the artisan had put a lot of care and attention into its creation, as it was tinged with mana. The name of the artisan was written on the back of the figurine; I decided that if I ever found another figurine from this creator, I’d most likely buy it too.
“Lady Witch, Teto bought a lot of super yummy-looking stuff!”
“Let’s head on home, then, shall we?”
We paid for our purchases and left. As we were walking home, Teto handed me a piece of dried fruit from the mountain she had bought. It was much sweeter than regular fruit. As I munched away, I ruminated on the shopkeeper’s wares.
“I hope I’ll get to visit the elves’ forest one day,” I muttered as we returned to the empty lot where we’d parked our carriage.
I should mention that wooden carving had been considered a folkcraft for the common people for the longest time. However, as time went by, a number of pressures—not least the perishable nature of the material—had meant that fewer and fewer of such pieces got made every year. A few centuries after our first trip to Liefe, barely any had survived the passing of time, and the ones made by famous artisans went for exorbitant prices.
As it turned out, the artisan who had made the figurine I bought became quite well-known down the line, and the figurine that had cost me five silver coins was now deemed to be worth over a hundred times that price.
Of course, at that time I had no way of knowing; to me, this little figurine was nothing more than a fun little souvenir from my time in Liefe.