Merchant Payper

Translated by NotBlueYet
Edited by Kingavent

When I got back to the house, I found Ma-chan looking for me.

“Where the hell did you go, Leopin-kun? You didn’t come back for a long time, so I was running around looking for you!

“Oh, I was just setting up some stuff, are you done with that?”

“Yeah, look at that!”

In the field were piles and piles of wheat sheaves.

“All right, then, let’s load this wheat on the cart …… and get on with it.”

As soon as I say it, the merchant who is about to run out is called out as if she was stupid.

“Puh-lease?”

As I looked, I saw a group of three people walking towards me from the entrance of the forest, including a male student wearing a nobleman’s jacket, the headmaster and the vice principal.

Ma-chan asks in a mixture of surprise and disgust.

“Oh, Master Payper, how did you get here?”

Then the boy called Payper thrust a paper bag at me, giving me a look.

“Here, I’ll give you some of this, it’s flour we carry in the store.”

The more I ignore him, the more obnoxious Peyper’s attitude becomes.

“Pay, I mean you, there, trash.

I’m offering you a special gift of the finest flour you’ll ever eat.

Why don’t you get your ass over here and get it, or are you so pathetic that you can’t even understand a word I’m saying?”

Still, I ignore him, and Payper approaches, mumbling.

He clenched his fist around the paper bag and thrust it at me, right under my nose.

“I think we have a deal.

I’ll trade one kilo of this flour, which is sold at the purchasing department for 10,000 Yen, for some wheat grass here.”

Ma-chan is giddy.

“Wait, Mr. Payper!

There’s enough wheatgrass here to fill a whole field!

I can’t believe you traded that for a measly kilo of flour. ……!”

“‘Oh, I know, Ma-chan, I know.

You’re trying to tell me that the top-quality flour that our wealthy merchant association deals in is completely out of proportion to the low-quality wheatgrass that the garbage grows?

Don’t get me wrong,  I am paying it forward, including the wheatgrass that will be growing in the fields.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

I listened to the exchange between the payer and the merchant as if it were someone else’s business, and somehow tried to “appraise” the contents of the paper bag in front of me.

==========

Low quality flour

Quantity 1000 pieces

Quality Level – 9｜ (Material Penalty 2 + Occupation Penalty 3 + Failure Penalty 4)

Powder made from ground wheatgrass seeds, edible.

The flour is rough and unpalatable, and the husks are mixed in.

No matter how you cook it, you won’t get the bonus, and it gets dry when you bake it.

==========

“I don’t know which is lower quality …….

And selling something like this for 10,000, it’s a scam beyond a rip-off. ……”

It was a soliloquy, but Peyper gave a sigh like he finally understood.

“Your low-quality wheatgrass would be called a fraud if it were distributed by a common merchant.

But with the wealthy merchants’ union, even this trash can be turned into gold.

How they do it is a secret, but Pay and his friends have more power to create gold than any alchemist.”

He looked up suddenly and continued looking up at the wall of my house next to the field.

On the wall, birds are resting their wings in a row.

“Look, look, the birds have come to sniff out the real gold in Pay’s hand.”

Payper shakes the paper bag he’s holding up to my nose provocatively.

“‘Come on, come on, come on, take it or I’ll give this gold to those birds.

Then the deal’s off.

You’re a trashy little peasant, and your last chance to get involved with the noble merchant Pay is gone.”

“Those birds didn’t come for your flour, they came for me.

They’ve come for my wheatgrass.”

The Payper made a cupping gesture with the hand that wasn’t holding the paper bag.

“You’re no better than a bird, aren’t you?

There’s no way any creature would want to eat that trashy wheatgrass instead of the top-quality flour I handle.”

Then Kakeru-kun, who had been eerily silent until then, intervened as if he had been waiting for us.

“Let’s play a game! The game is called “Which Wheat Game?

Let’s see who can attract more birds, Payper’s flour or Leopin’s wheatgrass!

The losing side is, um, let’s see. ……”

Kakerukun makes a thinking gesture with his hand on his chin and his tongue flicking out.

He pretended that he thought it was very cute.

But the only one who was smiling was the vice principal.

The vice principal pulls out a stack of cards from the inside pocket of her ginormous, fancy jacket.

“Principal, you can even draw one of these ‘Punishment Cards’.”

“Oh, that’s the way to do it! You’re the head teacher! You’re my trusty dealer!”

The card that the principal drew said ‘slap’.

It’s a very simple punishment.

“The loser gets a slap on the wrist from the winner!

Oh, and just so you know, this game has been approved by the school board and is proper educational instruction!

Then let the games begin!”

I hadn’t said I would or wouldn’t do it, but Peyper threw down the paper bag with a “PAY!”

It had fallen into position opposite a pile of harvested wheatgrass, splattering its contents grandly on the ground.

“Come on, birds!

Even humans can’t eat the finest food that only a select few can eat, but only today!

Devour and devour!

And I’m going to teach this trash with only 1 ‘intelligence’ a lesson!

That all living things are enchanted with gold and do not look at rubbish!”

As if the declaration was a signal, the birds on the wall took off at once.

…… blah blah blah blah blah blah blah!!!!

When they realized that humans would not blame them for stealing and eating, they flew so fast that they scattered their feathers.

To the wheatgrass pile ……!

“Pah…… pahhhh!”

The birds of the forest were not interested in the ‘finest flour’.

They are pecking at the pile of wheatgrass in a big flock.

I called out.

“Hey, take it in moderation.”

As the owner, I knew I had to share some of it.

But Peyper was out of his mind.

“That’s Pei’s wheatgrass!

Peay! Peay! Shh, shh, shh, shh, go away!”

“When did it become your wheatgrass?”

The payer didn’t listen and jumped on the pile of wheatgrass with a strange voice.

As soon as he tries to shake off the birds, they strike back and peck at him all over.

“‘Pah! Pah! Pah!

Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!”

Peyper is chased by a huge number of birds and runs away from them.

Eventually, when he realized he couldn’t escape, he ran toward me.

I give him a counter slap on the cheek as he challenges me.

Supa!

The cheeks are beaten soundly, and the birds take flight at once.

“Kamikireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”

With a strange scream, the payper buzzed away like a piece of paper.

He slid across the ground and stuck his head into the pile of flour he had thrown away.