A smiling man in his thirties pointed to an old store at the end of the alley. “That bookstore has the best goods in all of Tibar.”
“Thank you very much. Sorry for having you lead me all the way here,” I earnestly expressed my gratitude, forever indebted to this man for politely offering to guide me here.
“Ah ha ha, don’t worry about it. I hope you find the book you’re looking for. Please enjoy yourself in Tibar, Mr. Golem Wielder.”
The man smiled and waved as he left. What a nice guy.
Gol and I headed down the street toward the bookstore. Today, my partner was walking a half-step behind me. Compared to our usual formation, she was closer than she’d ever been. It almost felt like she was walking right next to me. Unusual indeed.
We were carrying bags stuffed with briefs and other articles of clothing. For a guy less competent than a kindergartener, I’d managed shopping just fine.
In fact, the briefs had been wonderfully cheap. I had been ready to spend those fifty coins, but they were actually being sold for twenty. Moreover, the owner of the clothing shop smiled as he handed me socks and a bunch of other freebies. Furthermore, he was the very man who had guided me to the bookstore.
“I’m really glad he was such a friendly person…”
Gol looked particularly elated to heft these bags of underwear. Her ears were continually fluttering. Maybe she just enjoyed shopping? When we were selecting my briefs, she was fairly picky. I thought they were all the same, but it seemed she had strong opinions—maybe even a fixation. Although, since I’d be the one wearing the briefs, I wasn’t sure why she cared so much.
The bookstore’s age was palpable. The building had to be quite old. It was slightly smaller than Chotos’s Mana Tool Shop, but then again, I thought that shop was needlessly large.
I opened the bookstore’s wooden door with a creak and stepped inside. As I did, I caught a whiff of ink: the signature smell of my beloved bookstores. The interior was surprisingly clean and free of dust. Though the exterior showed its age, the interior was properly maintained.
Various books lined the bookshelves, ranging from encyclopedic collections to picture books to technical manuals. It was just like the clothing shop owner had said—this place definitely felt like it had a wonderful variety of goods. Although, as I expected, it was a bit less well-stocked than the bookstores I was used to.
I perused the fairy tale titles on the shelves. Big Cats in the Dark Forest. The Woodcutter and the Spellcaster. The Adventures of the Hero Tepaolé…
“Oh, there’s the reference section.”
Various reference books lined a shelf to my right. However, my beloved Introduction to Spellcrafting—my copy of which had been blown away by the ancient Earth Dragon—was unfortunately not in evidence.
“If only I could’ve bought a replacement.” I picked up another reference book instead, but it was sealed in transparent film, so I couldn’t actually read it. In fact, it seemed practically every book in the place was sealed in the same way.
I guess browsing culture isn’t a thing in this world.
Because of my problematic translation ability with its unfortunate gorillafication glitch, purchasing a reference book without being able to confirm I could read it was risky.
“It sucks, but I guess I’ll have to buy another one…” I forlornly returned the book to the shelf.
Further inside the store, I saw the old lady who seemed to be tending it. No matter where else I checked, the only person I could find was her. Alas, it didn’t seem like I would get to encounter the proprietor’s granddaughter and fall into sweet young love.
Of course, I knew that had never really been an option. I wasn’t sad or anything. I’d come here with the sole purpose of buying books!
In any case, let’s find a good book about golems or something.
I thought I might as well buy another book, too. Maybe a hobby book about something I personally might enjoy. I was a die-hard bookworm, after all.
After debating with myself, I settled on two books: Illustrated Guide to Golems and Edible Wild Grass.
Illustrated Guide to Golems was, as the title suggested, an illustrated guidebook about golems. I chose it because, according to the grandma in the store, its illustrations made it easy to understand.
The other, Edible Wild Grass, seemed useful in survival situations, and I was moreover interested in the flora of this world. A book most intriguing and beneficial.
It came out to one silver and ten copper coins for the book on golems and two silver for the one on grass. Books were rather expensive.
Then again, I received a considerable discount on both. The initial prices were six and eight silver coins respectively, effectively taking me from a total expenditure of fourteen to three silver coins. Talk about a bargain.
For some reason I couldn’t discern, the people of Tibar treated Gol and me with extreme favor. Just as with the clothing shop owner, everyone smiled and competed to give me directions, and if I debated over whether I should buy something, they lowered the price for me. The uncle at the food cart had even given me baked sweets for free. I’d decided to bring them to Teru as a present.
Everyone was so kind. I didn’t think they had been this friendly on my first day in the town… How peculiar.
This trend became especially obvious with the bookstore grandma. As she calculated my bill, she was overcome with emotion and gripped my hand tightly, tears in her eyes. Once this strange phenomenon reached the point of her weeping, it was beyond my comprehension. They say everyone is popular about three times in their life; perhaps my turn for popularity with old ladies had arrived.
In any case, because of this, I managed to finish my shopping with a heavy purse, even though I’d still bought plenty of stuff. Clothes inclusive, I had spent approximately twenty to twenty-one silver coins. As one silver coin could buy a night in a decent inn, I might accidentally have spent over twenty thousand yen.
I worried at this thought and checked the contents of my wallet: five gold coins and fourteen silver, and a too-annoying-to-count number of jingling coppers. Those last were all change from the silvers I’d spent.
I still had plenty of sorcery cores left, too, but since I had no way of exchanging them, I realized I should probably cut down on spending sprees for a bit.
All right, let’s work hard to start saving up tomorrow.
With that, Gol and I went our merry way back home, Gol holding her bag of briefs with great excitement.
In retrospect, I treated my gains and losses with terrifying complacency.